Mike Pouraryan
SP Week-end II (2/6/2010): Al Franken's Duel w/Brian Roberts
I spent Friday afternoon listening to the hearing held by a US Senate Committee on the merger between Comcast and NBC Universal. I find this merger to be of profound concern. I first wrote on this in SP's sister site, Kitten Politics when it was first announced back in November 2009. Al Franken laid it on the line with both his opening statement and his subsequent questioning of the witnesses. I commend him for speaking for those of us who have railed against this consolidation which is set to continue.
The hearing itself was quite technical at times. There were discussions about horizontal vs. vertical merges, about pipes/etc. and also about access and transmission lines and so on. Unfortunately, I am not an expert in that area. I have, however, been quite leery of the increased consolidation of the media industry. Any company that controls both the means of production and the delivery is bound to have an undue influence on what people see. This is where I see the problem.
Although a lot of the questions were quite of the softball type, I found Al Franken's give and take with Brian Roberts and Jeff Zucker to be quite refreshing. He basically called them liars. Although I am sure that Brian Roberts is an honorable man, he is also a very powerful man by virtue of the control he exerts through the delivery of content to households. What I do agree is that people are increasingly moving away from traditional television and are basically pulling the plug. As I write this, I am listening to my nightly interent live feed from Al Jazeera.
Those of us who are new media practitioners must not be discouraged as this sense of change goes on. We must continue to embrace it, monitor it, be engaging and speak up. I see no other way. As I always like to say, that is why I am here!!!!
