5 ms·

TV broadcasters

44 points by mozumder 9y ago

losteverything 9y ago
The Minot toxic spill and senator Dorgan's outrage is appropriate " When a train derailment in the middle of the night released a frightening cloud of anhydrous ammonia, Minot police sought to notify the citizenry of the crisis. They called KCJB, the station designated as the local emergency broadcaster, but no one was home; the station was being run by computer, automatically passing along Clear Channel programming from another city. Clear Channel argues that only a technical glitch prevented word from getting through. But glitches aside, the six stations now have only one news employee among them." Radio is key in disasters. Why do this? http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/press_box/2007/01/what_really_happened_in_minot_nd.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/press_box/20...
- adfm 9y ago
  I'm kind of curious about this myself. With the recent wildfires in Northern California, there was plenty of confusion on the ground as residents groped for a solid news source. The local radio stations (KSRO, in particular) were key communications infrastructure for citizens and first responders. As much as we like to think we've got the technology thing figured out, your smartphone becomes a useless brick when the cell towers start melting. Don't take your infrastructure for granted. One by one, with the exception of AT&T (salt water battery backups anyone?), the wireless networks and cable TV went down. When you've got your bags packed and you're ready to bug out, you tune in to the local radio station because the spotty overtaxed 4G and Satellite TV can deliver only so much relevant information.
mikestew 9y ago
So, in summary, your "local" radio station can now become a broadcasting node for a centralized mass-market company, and the actual content can come from anywhere. Put another way, it's like calling the New York Times your "local" paper, when you live nowhere near New York City. Granted, the FCC does have a point in stating that this could allow small rural stations to stay on the air when they might otherwise go dark. But if you're just going to give me an ad-filled, OTA version of SomaFM (only with crappy, "one-size-fits-all" generic pop), maybe it's best to just let them go dark as an artifact of an earlier time. Some day kids can go on field trips to look at the equipment, which will be right next to the telegraph exhibit.
- mankash666 9y ago
  I think you're only focusing on the drawbacks. PBS/NPR can benefit greatly from this too - two sides to every coin
  - joezydeco 9y ago
    The vote was 3:2 on party lines with a Republican majority. Something tells me they didn't do it to benefit NPR and PBS.
    - comex 9y ago
      That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t benefit them.
  - DrScump 9y ago
    But the public doesn't benefit. KQED took over two other local PBS broadcasters and now has 4 general-purpose TV channels (KQED, KQED+, KQED Life, KQED World), plus kids-only and Spanish channels. Instead of adding diversity to programming, their programming is now less diverse. At times, they will have the same program on three of the four channels at once. KRCB (Cotati) is the only remaining independent PBS station included in the local Comcast basics.
  - tobylane 9y ago
    I'm not American. I haven't seen any coverage of this issue at all. How does PBS/NPR benefit?
gumby 9y ago
I consider Pai a malign and ignorant mouthpiece of Big Media but I have a hard time seeing the big problem with this. I mean, what are the alternatives? If the station can't afford to keep staff around the clock then should they shut down the transmission at those times like in the old days? These days most TV and radio stations are simply remote retransmission sites for Big Radio anyway, simulcasting a computer-selected assortment of anodyne crap into every market where they have a franchisee. Whether there's some poor sap at the reception desk or not doesn't change that. Now if Pai really believed that FM radio is a public safety resource (cf his fatuous posturing about FM radios and mobile phones) then this order could have had a requirement that public safety officials be able to add warnings or even recruit a volunteer to take over the station temporarily. But failing that, broadcast radio and TV are basically zombie media primarily aimed at a literally declining audience of old folks. There's nothing the FCC can do about that (except pander, when there's still profit and/or votes for the string-pullers).
- freedomben 9y ago
  This is a good comment other than the first sentence which feels unnecessary (I didn't downvote it for)
  - gumby 9y ago
    Thanks for your note. > other than the first sentence which feels unnecessary That comment is there for two reasons. First, in our hyper-polarized environment its easy for someone to assume that if I support something this FCC chair says I must be a hyper-partisan "alt-rightist" (and if I oppose I must be a "libtard"). I wanted to point out that regardless of what I might think about the current FCC's attitude to regulation and regulatory capture, we shouldn't assume from a knee-jerk point of view that everything suggested is wrong. Second, I do think that about Pai. My comment about him is relatively sympathetic; I have worse to say about other members of the administration.
freedomben 9y ago
As a resident of Alaska, it is frustrating when there is huge and important news happening locally that is difficult to find coverage for, but a snow storm in New York (where the media mostly live and work) gets wall-to-wall coverage even on "local" stations.
Chardok 9y ago
Anyone who has been actively listening to the radio or watching local TV broadcasts for the past 10-20 years can probably already attest to the bland homogenization and conspicuous corporate take overs (I immediately think of this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM8L7bdwVaA); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM8L7bdwVaA); it seems like this is the next logical direction for them. Personally I detest this and miss the flavor each city brought to its local media, instead of the same stations playing the same 30 songs repeatedly, but with phone music streaming becoming so popular I cannot see a lot of people being outraged by this.

44 points by mozumder 9y ago

The Minot toxic spill and senator Dorgan's outrage is appropriate " When a train derailment in the middle of the night released a frightening cloud of anhydrous ammonia, Minot police sought to notify the citizenry of the crisis. They called KCJB, the station designated as the local emergency broadcaster, but no one was home; the station was being run by computer, automatically passing along Clear Channel programming from another city. Clear Channel argues that only a technical glitch prevented word from getting through. But glitches aside, the six stations now have only one news employee among them." Radio is key in disasters. Why do this? http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/press_box/2007/01/what_really_happened_in_minot_nd.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/press_box/20...

adfm 9y ago
I'm kind of curious about this myself. With the recent wildfires in Northern California, there was plenty of confusion on the ground as residents groped for a solid news source. The local radio stations (KSRO, in particular) were key communications infrastructure for citizens and first responders. As much as we like to think we've got the technology thing figured out, your smartphone becomes a useless brick when the cell towers start melting. Don't take your infrastructure for granted. One by one, with the exception of AT&T (salt water battery backups anyone?), the wireless networks and cable TV went down. When you've got your bags packed and you're ready to bug out, you tune in to the local radio station because the spotty overtaxed 4G and Satellite TV can deliver only so much relevant information.

mikestew 9y ago

So, in summary, your "local" radio station can now become a broadcasting node for a centralized mass-market company, and the actual content can come from anywhere. Put another way, it's like calling the New York Times your "local" paper, when you live nowhere near New York City. Granted, the FCC does have a point in stating that this could allow small rural stations to stay on the air when they might otherwise go dark. But if you're just going to give me an ad-filled, OTA version of SomaFM (only with crappy, "one-size-fits-all" generic pop), maybe it's best to just let them go dark as an artifact of an earlier time. Some day kids can go on field trips to look at the equipment, which will be right next to the telegraph exhibit.

mankash666 9y ago
I think you're only focusing on the drawbacks. PBS/NPR can benefit greatly from this too - two sides to every coin
- joezydeco 9y ago
  The vote was 3:2 on party lines with a Republican majority. Something tells me they didn't do it to benefit NPR and PBS.
  - comex 9y ago
    That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t benefit them.
- DrScump 9y ago
  But the public doesn't benefit. KQED took over two other local PBS broadcasters and now has 4 general-purpose TV channels (KQED, KQED+, KQED Life, KQED World), plus kids-only and Spanish channels. Instead of adding diversity to programming, their programming is now less diverse. At times, they will have the same program on three of the four channels at once. KRCB (Cotati) is the only remaining independent PBS station included in the local Comcast basics.
- tobylane 9y ago
  I'm not American. I haven't seen any coverage of this issue at all. How does PBS/NPR benefit?

gumby 9y ago

I consider Pai a malign and ignorant mouthpiece of Big Media but I have a hard time seeing the big problem with this. I mean, what are the alternatives? If the station can't afford to keep staff around the clock then should they shut down the transmission at those times like in the old days? These days most TV and radio stations are simply remote retransmission sites for Big Radio anyway, simulcasting a computer-selected assortment of anodyne crap into every market where they have a franchisee. Whether there's some poor sap at the reception desk or not doesn't change that. Now if Pai really believed that FM radio is a public safety resource (cf his fatuous posturing about FM radios and mobile phones) then this order could have had a requirement that public safety officials be able to add warnings or even recruit a volunteer to take over the station temporarily. But failing that, broadcast radio and TV are basically zombie media primarily aimed at a literally declining audience of old folks. There's nothing the FCC can do about that (except pander, when there's still profit and/or votes for the string-pullers).

freedomben 9y ago
This is a good comment other than the first sentence which feels unnecessary (I didn't downvote it for)
- gumby 9y ago
  Thanks for your note. > other than the first sentence which feels unnecessary That comment is there for two reasons. First, in our hyper-polarized environment its easy for someone to assume that if I support something this FCC chair says I must be a hyper-partisan "alt-rightist" (and if I oppose I must be a "libtard"). I wanted to point out that regardless of what I might think about the current FCC's attitude to regulation and regulatory capture, we shouldn't assume from a knee-jerk point of view that everything suggested is wrong. Second, I do think that about Pai. My comment about him is relatively sympathetic; I have worse to say about other members of the administration.

freedomben 9y ago

As a resident of Alaska, it is frustrating when there is huge and important news happening locally that is difficult to find coverage for, but a snow storm in New York (where the media mostly live and work) gets wall-to-wall coverage even on "local" stations.

Chardok 9y ago

Anyone who has been actively listening to the radio or watching local TV broadcasts for the past 10-20 years can probably already attest to the bland homogenization and conspicuous corporate take overs (I immediately think of this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM8L7bdwVaA); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM8L7bdwVaA); it seems like this is the next logical direction for them. Personally I detest this and miss the flavor each city brought to its local media, instead of the same stations playing the same 30 songs repeatedly, but with phone music streaming becoming so popular I cannot see a lot of people being outraged by this.