Big Media Steals
5,100 Digital TV Channels
by BAR executive editor
Glen Ford
"Acting as agents of the broadcasting industry, Congress awarded the
already filthy rich a digital TV bonanza valued at $80 billion."
On February 17 of next year, 5,100 new digital TV channels are scheduled to become operational. Every single one of them is stolen.
The biggest theft of the public airwaves in U.S. history is
nearly complete, a crime perpetrated in semi-secret, that transfers a brand new
universe of the digital broadcast spectrum into the possession of wholly
undeserving corporations. As a result Blacks, other minorities, unions,
community organizations and all other non-rich societal stakeholders may be
shut out of the main streams of television for the foreseeable future.
The Congressional Black Caucus and most of what passes for
African American "leadership" have done virtually nothing to thwart the scheme
to gift corporate media four high-quality digital TV channels for every single
full-power channel license they currently hold. Where science has made possible
a new age of programming possibilities - a chance, finally, to create islands
and archipelagos of meaningful news, information and cultural TV programming
that serves and reaches all the people - corporate-bought politicians have snatched away the prize. Acting
as agents of the broadcasting industry, rather than representatives of the
people, Congress awarded the already filthy rich a digital TV bonanza valued at
$80 billion. It is an unearned gift of a priceless resource made possible by
digital technology's capacity to deliver far more information than analog
technology. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is overseeing the
mega-theft.
"The digital changeover will multiply the number of
broadcast channels four-fold."
Ironically, corporate media, already in possession of 1,700
highly profitable, full-power TV channels, doesn't know what to do with its
5,100-channel windfall. But the industry is united in its determination to keep
the channels out of anyone else's hands. Such is the nature of monopolies.
This historically unprecedented heist of the airwaves has
been hidden in plain sight. By now, everyone that owns a television set knows
that something big will happen early next year, that viewers who are not hooked
up to cable or already own a digital converter box might find themselves
without a TV signal when stations shut down their analog broadcasts and switch
to digital, on February 17. Far fewer people are aware that the digital
changeover will multiply the number of broadcast channels four-fold. And most
Americans will be totally shocked to learn that these thousands of additional
channels have already been given away - stolen, really - further enriching the
corporations that have turned American commercial TV into a "vast wasteland."
Daylight Robbery
The women of the Harlem Consumer Education Council,
gathered last week in a meeting room of the massive Church of the Intercession,
at 155th Street and Broadway, certainly had no idea they were being
robbed of the possibility of seeing their lives and organizing activities
reflected through a vastly expanded array of digital New York City TV
channels. They were vaguely aware of the (inadequately funded) campaign to
inform consumers about coupons available for digital conversion. But only the
council leadership, veteran organizers Florence Rice and Marjorie Moore, knew
anything about the broader outlines of the digital transition - possibly the
biggest public rip-off since the Congress conspired to grant millions of acres
to the railroad barons. And Rice and Moore had only learned about the scheme
through Bruce Dixon's June 11 article in BAR, "Grand
Theft Digital: How Corporate Broadcasters are Hijacking Digital TV."
"For more than a decade
they have kept the public misinformed about the most important development in
TV since the first commercial broadcast, in 1941."
The broadcasting industry and its servile accomplice, the
FCC, are committing daylight robbery. In the public arena, the conspirators
educate consumers on the technical aspects of the digital changeover. At the
same time, they are engaged in a conspiracy of silence about the ownership and
obligations of the new digital TV regime.
The thieves have been spectacularly successful. For more
than a decade they have kept the public out of the loop - purposely misinformed
- about the most important development in TV since the first commercial
broadcast, in 1941. The official FCC website on the digital transition, DTV.gov, claims to contain "What
you need to know about DTV." Yet there is not a word to explain how and why the
same corporations that controlled the airwaves before the transition are to be
enriched with 5,100 new channels. Nor is there any discussion of the corporate
license holders' obligations to the public. The FCC and the station owners
think the public doesn't "need to know" about such matters, which might lead to
questions like, "Why wasn't the citizenry given an opportunity to decide how
they would like to use the new channels?"
Unearned Resource
Everyone in the broadcast business has known since the
mid-Nineties that the digital transition was inevitable. Big Media was,
however, anything but eager to take on the responsibility of additional channels: Channel 2.1, Channel
2.2, Channel 2.3, Channel 2.4. Back then - and now - commercial TV owners viewed
the prospect of quadrupling their channels as more of an imposition than an
opportunity. From an advertising standpoint, the industry felt it had nothing
to gain from taking control of so many new channels. Audiences don't grow when
new channels are added; they fracture. Corporate broadcasters would much prefer
to preserve the "general audience" approach to television - bland content aimed
at huge numbers of people - than be compelled to create program content targeting much
slimmer demographic slices. Additional channels were extraneous and potentially
costly, according to their business model.
But the digital future could not be avoided. What would
be circumvented was public interference in the disposition of the new stations.
As far as Big Media were concerned, the only thing worse than being burdened
with thousands of new channels, each of them begging for programming dollars,
was the prospect of others getting possession of the resource. The industry's
strategy, slavishly implemented by the FCC, illuminates how monopoly
capitalists actively frustrate scientific advances that threaten existing
business models. Corporate media compelled the Congress and FCC to structure
the transition so that current owners would inherit three additional channels
for each license they held, with no obligations to the public as to the
channels' content. Home shopping network clones, outsourced weather maps -
whatever the licensee chooses to splash on the screen is his business. The
great channel expansion made possible by science - humanity's common patrimony
- would be contained and rendered useless.
The Dream Derailed
As various U.S. media and technical organizations
gradually reached agreement on standards for digital television in the late
Nineties (the Americans lagged behind Europe and, especially, Japan in this
regard), it became apparent that the multiplication of channels could usher in
a brand new day for ethnic (and political) minorities in television. Corporate
television had always defended the "general market" - a euphemism for "white" -
character of its programming, including its news orientation, as necessitated
by the limited number of television frequencies. Minority-oriented programming
was better suited for radio, we were told, where there were plenty of places on
the dial.
Suddenly, with digital transmission, the television
spectrum promised to become as accommodating to minorities as the radio
spectrum. Cities with six or seven full-power stations would be transformed
into 24- or 28-channel markets. Surely, at least a few of these new channels in
scores of markets would, based on local market forces, cater to Blacks! It
seemed that the digital television business model could one day soon resemble
the radio model, with multiple Black-oriented stations in markets with
significant African American populations. The demand for informational and
cultural content for these outlets could fuel a renaissance in Black creative
and political expression.
For once, the "free market" might work in African
Americans' favor, since the same logic that led to ethnic segmenting of radio
markets should also apply to an expanded television channel universe -
especially with the rapid fall in equipment costs. One could easily envision at
least a hundred Black-oriented TV channels throughout the nation.
But of course, monopolies abhor "free" markets; their
entire purpose is to cage and destroy them. The FCC is a captive of
broadcasting monopolists, who instructed their federal minions to deliver the
new channels to the old masters - as if all products of science and technology
belong to them, as a right.
"Cities with six or
seven full-power stations would be transformed into 24- or 28-channel markets."
By 1999, a coalition of civil rights and public interest
groups were demanding hearings to establish a "digital public interest
standard" to govern the new channels. These groups included People for Better TV, Consumer Federation of
America, American Academy of Pediatrics, U.S. Catholic Conference, NAACP, Civil
Rights Forum on Communications Policy, National Organization for Women,
National Association of the Deaf, Project on Media Ownership, and League of
United Latin American Citizens. However, nothing resembling full hearings on
the obligations to the public of digital channel license holders ever occurred - much less a
national conversation on who should receive those licenses.
The corporate
media were too powerful, the FCC too devious, and civil rights groups too weak
and beholden to corporations. Only supporters of children's programming
succeeded in winning concessions on advertising and a requirement of three
hours per week of children's shows on each of the new channels. Blacks and
other minorities got nothing.
In 2005, 15
members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) sent a letter
to powerful committee chairmen, requesting the setting aside of portions of the
outgoing analog TV spectrum for bids by minority entrepreneurs. The CBC members
made no requests regarding the public obligations of the new digital television
spectrum - thus revealing that they cared more about making a couple of Black
businessmen into millionaires than for putting some democracy into the
operations of the television system that the entire nation would soon be watching.
Why was the CBC so
reluctance to demand elementary fairness in the disposition of 5,100 new
channels? The next year, 2006, told the tale. Two-thirds of the Black Caucus
sided with the telecom companies to vote for the infamous
COPE Act, which would have rolled back Black gains in cable TV access and
endangered Internet neutrality. The CBC's support for the telecom giants was
proportionately greater than among Democrats as a whole. The Black Caucus
showed itself to be largely in Big Telecom's pocket.
"Only
supporters of children's programming succeeded in winning concessions. Blacks
and other minorities got nothing."
In 2007, the
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR)
took the lead in pressing for some semblance of public accountability in
digital TV. Mark Lloyd, writing for the Center
for American Progress, noted that the FCC and the Bush administration
constantly spoke of the "benefits" that would accrue from the corporate-owned
digital regime that was being established:
"Yet the biggest problem with the transition to digital television
in the United States...is that the Federal Communications Commission under the
Bush administration has locked the public out of the process of determining
what those benefits might be. What's more, yesteryear's Republican-controlled
Congress set the rules regarding this transition. Thus the public interest
obligations of digital broadcasters remain undefined and insufficient money has
been set aside for the digital conversion. Both problems need to be addressed
by Congress this year."
"The FCC," said Lloyd, "has yet to reopen the proceeding
begun in 1999 to define the public interest obligations of digital
broadcasters."
The FCC is determined to keep the new channels in the old
corporate family. The single "concession" granted by FCC Chairman Kevin Martin,
last year, was to "encourage" broadcasters to lease
time on stations' digital channels to "new entrants in the broadcast area"
- meaning, those who have been shut out of the digital cornucopia by Chairman
Martin and his corporate friends. The Gannett Company and Media General Inc.,
corporations that own TV stations and newspapers, promptly responded to
Martin's "trial balloon" by offering to support leasing time to minorities and
women if restrictions were lifted on their ability to buy more TV stations.
Imagine the gall of these corporate blackmailers. Having used their political
and economic power to take possession of digital channels they have done
absolutely nothing to earn, they demand more privileges in return for allowing
minorities and women the honor of paying them rent!
However, GOP malice, FCC deviousness and corporate media
greed do not excuse Black capitulation to Big Media. There has been no
sustained African American resistance to corporate Grand Theft Digital.
Instead, a Who's Who of Black and Latino organizations have joined with the
Titans of monopoly broadcasting to shift all attention to making sure that
everyone is equipped to consume the digital television experience, on February
17, 2009. This consumer project is, of course, a matter of simple justice and
of great importance to the 20 percent of the public that is in danger of losing
TV reception, entirely. But there is no reason to treat the digital TV
transition as a simple consumer issue while abjectly abandoning the arena of media democracy. Much of
so-called Black leadership is collaborating with the same corporations that are
busy stealing 5,100 of the people's channels.
Don't Steal Anything Small
Two weeks ago, the FCC held hearings in Rep. Edolphus
Towns' district, in Brooklyn. The Black Congressman expressed no irritation at
corporate theft of the digital TV spectrum. Instead, his greatest fear was
petty criminals. "There is no shortage of swindlers willing to capitalize on
the confusion and fears that could surround the DTV transition," said Towns. "With
vulnerable populations as their main prey, people are already scheming to dupe
people into the purchase of unneeded televisions or converter boxes or scheming
to siphon coupons from the limited supply that is supposed to be for people who
really need it."
All this is , of course, quite true, and requires vigorous
government and community attention. But Rep. Towns would rather rail against
ghetto converter box swindlers than offend the corporate criminals who are
stealing $80 billion worth of TV spectrum. Unfortunately, Towns's behavior is
the norm in the CBC, which as a body is utterly incapable of confronting Power.
"They have no business
plan to exploit their plundered booty."
Almost as an afterthought, the FCC decided to do a "test"
roll-out of the new digital regime in one city, on September 8. They chose
Wilmington, North Carolina, a town with a population of about 100,000, one-quarter
Black. Wilmington has no Black-oriented radio station, and no Black college.
The head of the local NAACP knew nothing about the FCC's "test" when telephoned
by BAR in June. The state NAACP chief was only slightly better informed.
Clearly, FCC Chairman Martin knows how to pick his test locations - to avoid
concentrations of organized minorities and other stakeholders who might demand
media democracy.
But then, New York City these days seems no better organized
than Wilmington.
There is one bright spot on the horizon. Corporate TV
still has no idea what to do with the thousands of channels it has stolen. They
have no business plan to exploit their plundered booty. Program-wise, the
transition should be a disaster, a bleak digital expanse of uselessness and
waste. The shock may finally bring home the enormity of the crime, and cause
the public to awaken to the challenge - to take possession of the pilfered
spaces and fill them with programming that means something.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at [email protected].