gaforces
United We Stand, Divided We Fall
join:2002-04-07
Santa Cruz, CA
 ·Cruzio Internet
| reply to UofMiamiGrad
Re: Comcast hates competition!
said by UofMiamiGrad  :Do any of the bells offer TV service to 30% of the US market? I doubt it, excluding bundled satellite service. FIOS TV only passed the 1 million mark recently. U-Verse TV is nowhere near that, only 231,000 subs. So why is Comcast crying foul over the Bells? Afraid of competition? How do they control more than 30% of the market solely as a pay TV provider, which is the issue? I hope Comcast loses in court.  They should apply the 30% rule to all information services. Then it would be fair. Clearchannel anyone? 
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RadioDoc
Sortofadog
Premium,ExMod 2000-03
join:2000-05-11
Chicago, IL
·AT&T Midwest
| Clear Channel owns far less than 30% of all US radio stations. More like 13% at their peak and considerably less today. You might want to refine your arguments to reflect the reality of the numbers.
The CATV 30% cap is mostly related to video programming delivery and not the Internets. If Comcast operated as a common carrier this would not be an issue, but they do things that are anti-competitive within their own systems and are justifiably spanked for it.
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gaforces
United We Stand, Divided We Fall
join:2002-04-07
Santa Cruz, CA
·Cruzio Internet
| I'm not going to refine my statement. They have, or had way too much control over media in the US and ruined a lot of stations I "used" to listen to.
"Market share
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the company became an object of persistent criticism. Critics claim that it has abused its market position and has operated in an unethical manner. FCC regulations were relaxed following the Telecommunications Act of 1996, allowing companies to own far more radio signals than before. After spending about $30 billion, Clear Channel owned over 1,200 stations nationwide, including as many as seven stations in certain markets. Competitors and listeners complained, but so far the company has been able to hold on to all of its stations after divesting a few following the acquisition of AMFM, although over 500 stations have since been sold or are in the process of being sold since the company announced plans to become privately held."
»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clear_Chan···et_share
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RadioDoc
Sortofadog
Premium,ExMod 2000-03
join:2000-05-11
Chicago, IL
·AT&T Midwest
| The owners who sold out to Clear Channel are the ones who "ruined" those stations. Format changes are a way of life. Seek them out and complain that they ruined your station. I'm sure they'll apologize while rolling in the hundreds of million dollars Clear Channel pumped out to acquire these smaller groups.
Your Wikipedia article is flawed, implying that Clear Channel along exhibits the bad traits the author(s) attribute to them. While CC certainly deserves criticism for certain operating policies they never managed to control much of the media and in fact failed in their growth experiment. They may have had way too much control in certain local markets but overall they never managed to gain an advertising stranglehold. And, as I noted above, they never managed to acquire more than about 13% of the total commercial radio stations before the organization became too large to manage profitably. But this has nothing to do with the cable ownership cap.
When it comes to local strangleholds, nobody beats the cable monopoly. In many smaller markets if you want to advertise locally on TV you have one option--cable. There are excellent public policy arguments made to support a limit on how much of the cable TV market one company should be allowed to control. At some point the industry should be turned into a common carrier and regulated as such.
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Toolmaster of La Grange. |
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gaforces
United We Stand, Divided We Fall
join:2002-04-07
Santa Cruz, CA
·Cruzio Internet
| LOL, we mostly agree. I havent found that 13% number and I'm not really looking. I think you just enjoy arguing with me 
Only one thing more to say on this subject for me, the format change on one station went from Rock to Mexican RAP, ughh its aweful.
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