On top of Sinclair news, there’s this to contend with:
The FCC just ended a decades-old rule designed to keep TV and radio under local control
www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/10/24/the-fcc-just-ended-a-decades-old-rule-designed-to-keep-tv-and-radio-under-local-control/?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_term=.b16faee52ebe
Federal regulators have voted to eliminate a longstanding rule covering radio and television stations, in a move that could ultimately reshape the nation's media landscape.
The regulation, which was first adopted almost 80 years ago, requires broadcasters to have a physical studio in or near the areas where they have a license to transmit TV or radio signals. Known as the "main studio rule," the regulation ensured that residents of a community could have a say in their local broadcast station's operations.
[...]But that same technological capability could prompt large media titans to take over small, local TV and radio stations, turning them into megaphones blasting content developed for a national audience rather than a local one, according to critics.
"At a time when broadcast conglomerates like Sinclair are gobbling up more stations," the consumer advocacy group Free Press said in a regulatory filing on the matter in July, "the Commission’s proposal would allow these conglomerates to move even more resources away from struggling communities and further centralize broadcasting facilities and staff in wealthier metropolitan areas."
Melissa McEwan
@Shakestweetz
🚨 This is so bad. Local news broadcasts are a critical safety resource, esp. in places w/o or w/ limited broadband.
Sarah Kendzior
@sarahkendzior
Yes. Best antidote to "fake news" is rigorous, independent local news. Instead, people are getting state-sanctioned conspiracy peddlers