Posted on 08/16/2009 10:24:32 AM PDT by Ooh-Ah
FCC’s Chief Diversity Officer Wants Private Broadcasters to Pay a Sum Equal to Their Total Operating Costs to Fund Public Broadcasting
(CNSNews.com) - Mark Lloyd, newly appointed Chief Diversity Officer of the Federal Communications Commission, has called for making private broadcasting companies pay licensing fees equal to their total operating costs to allow public broadcasting outlets to spend the same on their operations as the private companies do.
Lloyd presented the idea in his 2006 book, Prologue to a Farce: Communications and Democracy in America, published by the University of Illinois Press.
Lloyd’s hope is to dramatically upgrade and revamp the Corporation for Public Broadcasting through new funding drawn from private broadcasters.
The CPB is a non-profit entity that was created by Congress and that currently receives hundreds of millions of dollars in federal subsidies each year. In fiscal 2009, it is receiving an appropriation of $400 million.
“The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) must be reformed along democratic lines and funded on a substantial level,” Lloyd wrote in his book.
“Federal and regional broadcast operations and local stations should be funded at levels commensurate with or above those spending levels at which commercial operations are funded,” Lloyd wrote. “This funding should come from license fees charged to commercial broadcasters. Funding should not come from congressional appropriations. Sponsorship should be prohibited at all public broadcasters.”
Along with this money, Lloyd would regulate much of the programming on these stations to make sure they focused on “diverse views” and government activities.
“Local public broadcasters and regional and national communications operations should be required to encourage and broadcast diverse views and programs,” wrote Lloyd. “These programs should include coverage of all local, state and federal government meetings, as well as daily news and public issues programming.
“In addition, educational programs for children and adults, and diverse, independent personal and cultural expression should be encouraged,” he wrote.
Dennis Wharton, Executive Vice President of Media Relations at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) told CNSNews.com that his organization, which represents radio and television broadcasters, supports public broadcasting, but that that support should come from the public in general not broadcasters alone.
“NAB supports federal funding for public broadcasting,” said Wharton. “However, we would oppose efforts to fund public broadcasting through fees assessed against free and local broadcasters who are experiencing the worst advertising recession in 50 years.”
Lloyd wrote Prologue to a Farce while a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress. In that capacity, he co-authored the 2007 report The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio, which concluded that 91% of talk radio programming is conservative and 9% is “progressive.”
The report argued that large corporate broadcasting networks had driven liberals off the radio, and that diversity of ownership would increase diversity of broadcasting voices.
Pull the Plug on PBS!
Pray for America
I understand we have 44 Czars now. Maybe they are trying to get more numbers than Congress.
That’s just insane. Laughably insane, at that.
I didn’t know we had that many cracks in the woodwork for these idiots to come out of.
Time to scream bloody murder. Now we’re going to have a Ministry of Truth, with a monopoly on all communication. That’ll stop Rush Limbaugh from spreading “misinformation”.
You can take “Public” out of broadcasting if having liberals in broadcasting is the objective. Private corporations have already accomplished that.
Who says Mr. Lloyd knows anything? He wrote a book, big deal.
Thank god someone will regulate the truth /s
WTF is a chief diversity officer other than someone in charge of persecuting straight white males? This stuff will definately end in violence.
All those “diverse views” will be decidedly uniform.
So if every private station pays 100% tax equal to its operating expense and all of that money goes to public stations doesn’t that mean there will be an equal number of public and private stations? Of course if private stations are taxed at that level they’ll all go out of business so the dial will be blank. Private = public = 0
I don’t remember having the opportunity to vote for this guy..or any of these “czars” for that matter. If obama the magnificent wants these decisions, then he owns them, he is responsible for them, not some petty political flunky. Doesn’t congress realize that the use of these “czars” is a massive transfer of power from the legislative to the executive?
They want to get rid of conservative talk shows. This is ridiculous!
Response: Who wrote the book for him?
We already have a local public access channel that features Farrakhan, the ACLU, 9/11 “truthers,” local music, Hispanic shows, Hawaiian shows, gay shows, “Democracy Now!”, religious shows, Islamic shows, etc. And we have stations run by local government showing public hearings, etc. The University of Washington has a station. There are one or two Hispanic channels on cable. There’s plenty of diversity. What this guy wants to do is target conserative views. So, once again, Obama is lyign when he says he opposes the fairness doctrine. He wants to re-introduce it by subterfuge, under the Orwellian principle of “diversity.”
This demented man has a twisted and warped mind. The administration already has a government outlet for their propaganda via the MSM. They want more?
**NO! .. we want PBS shut down, permanently.**
I’d rather see PBS DIE of its OWN WEIGHT...after it gets WORSE RATINGS than MSNBC or (MSLSD).
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