Craig Birkmaier wrote: > As I indicated above, the better talk stations have a strong local > component. And many of the syndicated talk shows also go local with > special events. Neil Bortz is typically in Gainesville about once a > year for golf tournaments or a book signing. It's still just one or at most two stations per market, with that *partially* local content, isn't it? Not what I'd call "thriving." Yes, some amount of local content is in demand. And yet, even today the FCC is maiking a big deal about localism. I can't even begin to rebut these points by Commissioner Copps. It's very weird to have one of the FCC commissioners with such a strange world view. http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-301019A1.pdf His view is, TV was always supposed to be local. And then you see what happened. It went national. Horrors. Then came cable. It would fill in the local content. Horrors, that went national too. All of this is because we, poor hapless victims, are at the mercy of the big evil corporations. Were it not for the big evil corporations, for sure we would be enjoying the local chanmber of commerce and PTA meetings, and the local "celebrating diversity" town fair, instead of shows like CSI and House. And not only that, but the few struggling heroic stations that try to survive on local content are only struggling because of the impediments the FCC placed on them in the past. Here, take a look: "Then, to further advance the interests of a powerful few over the interests of consumers, innovators and entrepreneurs, the Commission moved away from any real oversight of our media infrastructure by wiping the slate clean of the public interest guidelines that generations of consumers and advocates had managed to put into place against powerful industry opposition. I'm talking about things like providing real local news, reflecting the ethnic and cultural diversity of the individual markets broadcasters serve, limiting commercials and talking with listeners about the kinds of programs people really want." Unbelievable. That's what I think of when I hear calls for "localism." Motherhood and apple pie. Aaargh! Bert ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways: - Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at FreeLists.org - By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line.