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Do you realize broadcast TV is free, and it is profit oriented. In Britain, bbc is funded by direct tv taxes from people who own television sets and for years n

Do you realize broadcast TV is free, and it is profit oriented. In Britain, bbc is funded by direct tv taxes from people who own television sets and for years no private broadcast company was allowed because they wished to prevent the spread of commercial propaganda through the airwaves. The American model of advertisement funded broadcast proved them wrong and American broadcast industry grew by bounds and leaps while the British were stunted despite the television set being invented in Britain.

lefrenchy 6y ago
It can't be directly compared to social media since it is not a social network, but a broadcasting platform. Not everyone can get on cable TV, there is a barrier to entry. Now they have YouTube, their own websites, and plenty of other revenue streams to generate money for them. Also, I never implied that broadcast TV doesn't have it's own subset of issues. I actually think broadcast TV has a few big problems. It moves from manufactured panic to panic, limits the acceptable discourse in order to be subservient to its donors and funding sources (people with certain political opinions never get a platform), and it benefits in a similar way to social media from social division and disfunction. Media manufactures moral panic and plays in a similar way on human emotion in order to keep viewers watching so that they can make more money. > The American model of advertisement funded broadcast proved them wrong and American broadcast industry grew by bounds and leaps while the British were stunted despite the television set being invented in Britain. I mean maybe we should be asking ourselves "at what cost?" and "who benefited from that?". A bunch of media execs got rich, but did broader society really benefit? It's easy to always defer to "growth" as good and completely ignore the costs.

lefrenchy 6y ago

It can't be directly compared to social media since it is not a social network, but a broadcasting platform. Not everyone can get on cable TV, there is a barrier to entry. Now they have YouTube, their own websites, and plenty of other revenue streams to generate money for them. Also, I never implied that broadcast TV doesn't have it's own subset of issues. I actually think broadcast TV has a few big problems. It moves from manufactured panic to panic, limits the acceptable discourse in order to be subservient to its donors and funding sources (people with certain political opinions never get a platform), and it benefits in a similar way to social media from social division and disfunction. Media manufactures moral panic and plays in a similar way on human emotion in order to keep viewers watching so that they can make more money. > The American model of advertisement funded broadcast proved them wrong and American broadcast industry grew by bounds and leaps while the British were stunted despite the television set being invented in Britain. I mean maybe we should be asking ourselves "at what cost?" and "who benefited from that?". A bunch of media execs got rich, but did broader society really benefit? It's easy to always defer to "growth" as good and completely ignore the costs.