Ever had those days in school when you feel so bad you wish you hadn't gone? When you're actually sick and all you want to do is bundle up in a cozy bed and breathe! Well today I had one of those days. Class in the morning was an hour long attempt to keep my nose from running and my head from hurting. The rest of the day was really just a day to sleep and stay within my hotel room. Who knows what (prescription) drugs I tried and how long I slept, but I stayed in. Being sick on vacation really, as we say in America, SUCKS! It takes away the excitement from being in Brazil!
For this post I am supposed to answer what a local thinks of media ownership, that's gonna be hard- I couldn't get a straight answer.
First, I should explain what is meant by media ownership. You see in the US we have several stakeholders which run an infinite amount of businesses. Time Warner for one takes control over a multitude of our communications, then Viacom and Disney overpower their broadcasting and marketing industries. A bit more down the rich list we do have Garnett, who owns 85 daily newspapers and over 1,000 non-daily publications. Aside from the US the British BBC and French Vivendi channels take over any competition in their countries. But what about Brazil?
Out by the local market I did ask a random local. She was sitting, waiting for a friend and didn't have much to say about media ownership. She said she works six days a week at a local beauty saloon and works long hours, which means she hardly watches television. She said she didn't think media ownership was too important and mentioned that the media doesn't affect her life too much anyway.
Of course this was the response of one random person who willingly said she didn't know much about media. But, should we care about who owns the media and who is affected by it? Say one company is behind all our information, should we know of it?
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Pedro, I do some consulting with the NAB on media issues and wanted to chime in on the ownership debate.
The debate is about "the media" but about broadcasters and their ability to compete and survive in today's media marketplace. There have been drastic changes sine the FCC last reviewed the ownership rules, particularly in the past few years with the explosion of online content and large online sites that compete with local broadcasters as an option for news, information, weather, etc. These online sites aren't burdened with outdated ownership rules and individual broadcasters cannot compete with them for advertising revenue.
We are merely seeking for the FCC to recognize these changes and update the rules accordingly.
As for the perception of concentration, you may find this article interesting.
Thanks and I trust you're feeling better by now.
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