Wednesday, May 7, 2008

FCC's Strategic Goals: Media

I thought this was interesting. I'm not sure how much of this is actually being accomplished. How much diversity can there be with such high concentration of media ownership? There is no real competition, either. If the FCC claims that their objectives are the things listed below, I can't say they're doing a good job at reaching their goals right now. From the Federal Communications Commission's website, strategic goals for media ownership:

"The FCC is responsible for developing and modifying broadcasting and other media rules and policies in order to address changing technologies and changing competition and ownership patterns. The challenges in this area arise from:
  • Changing ownership patterns,
  • Legal challenges to FCC rules and policies,
  • Converging markets and industries, and
  • Increasingly rapid changes in technologies employed by service providers.
Consistent with statutory directives, these factors have led the FCC to make rebuilding the factual and analytical foundation of its media ownership regulations and competition policies a top priority. The FCC will examine whether current forms of media regulation are achieving statutory policy objectives and determine how changes in regulations may affect the policy goals of competition, diversity, and localism. A critical aspect of the FCC’s responsibility to ensure that the public is served by an efficient and competitive set of media services is the full facilitation of the transition to digital broadcast television.

Objectives:
  • Enforce compliance with rules that foster competition and diversity.
  • Build and continually update a solid factual and analytic foundation for media ownership regulation.
  • Encourage the timely development and deployment of digital services."

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