Posted on 02/09/2009 8:44:21 PM PST by MindBender26
The Suits Are Scared: Obama's Plan To Take Over Broadcast Television.
I'm in New York tonight, and just back in my hotel room after watching Obama's news conference performance. I had a front row seat in my old network's main conference room. Us old retired TV newsie types are normally relegated to the back row of the bus, but due to my Elder Statesman / retired Crusading Reporter status, (and the fact that I bought two rounds at dinner) I was granted special dispensation to sit up front with "The Suits."
"The Suits" is network parlance for the bosses from the business side of the network. Many have come from the Sales Department, where the overriding qualification for promotion is to sell as many commercials as possible to non-creditworthy customers who never pay us. Others come from the Programming Department. They're the ones who are in charge of driving away as many viewers as possible, particularly those from that narrow demographic band of viewers that actually, occasionally, ever so rarely, buy something that one of our deadbeat advertisers features on the air. This is the group that has given us "Mister Ed," "My Mother the Car," and other ratings grabbers while they canceled the original Star Trek as soon as they could and told everyone who would listen that they expected M*A*S*H might eek out a 13-week run.
Others are your basic long-necked pencil geek accountants, administrative zombies and the like (and others you definitely do not like, such as any attorneys within 500 yards.)
Cumulatively, they couldn't win $20 on "are you smarter than a 5th grader. As far as news sense is concerned, none of them can spell Gern-a-liz-zum.
Tonight The Suits were in Full Panic Mode. Someone finally got around to sending them a memo that reminded everyone that the new FCC Chairman-designate and radical leftist Michael Copps has publicly stated that he wants to remove 95% of the value of many television stations (their government license to broadcast and make money by selling commercials for hemorrhoid creams and the like.)
He has made speeches stating that he wants to give those licenses to "community groups". Two of his favorite "community groups" are ACORN-type organizations and labor unions. Copps is also demanding that all broadcast stations be re-licensed every two years, instead of the current seven. That will ensure that every, I repeat, every, broadcast station in the United States will have to apply for (go begging for) the renewal of its broadcast license (and the accompanying 95% of the station's value) before the 2012 general election.
Now, everyone in the class who believes that broadcast station owners will move their programming and news coverage even further left so as not to offend the Obama administration and therefore watch their billion dollar investments be given away to, that's right class, can we all say "Community Organizers," that's right, there billion-dollar investments be given away, please raise your right hand.
Your right hand, please Mr. Rather, not your left.
That seems to be unanimous. You may all put your hands down.
Now all the very smart FReepers certainly now realize the underlying foundation for their Full Panic Mode.
But wait! (As we used to say in the early days of radio)… there is more!
Tonight there is a well-founded rumor floating around Black Rock, West 57th in the hallowed halls of Rockefeller Center. Insiders claim that Obama's media dweebs in Washington want to force the broadcast networks to give up either a full hour, or perhaps a half-hour, of prime time every month so The Great Obama can conduct his televised version of fireside chats.
That's right, Mr. Obama wants to demand free prime time coverage of his version of "Crazy Uncle Elmo Explains It All to Us." The idea would be that all four major networks would be required to simultaneously carry Obama in his Big Brother role, continuing to try to convince us that he alone has all the answers, that we can tax our way to prosperity, and that we should ignore all those felony records and charges of his Cabinet officials.
The cost of this? Even more billions of lost advertising revenue. (The new watchword of the Obama administration seems to be, "Why screw people out of just a few million, when with a little forethought and effort, you can screw the public out of billions of dollars?")
This new, forced programming would not be a press conference or any other environment that would allow questions, differing opinions, or just simple straight-up exposure of Obama's, Reid's, and Pelosi's lies. This would just be The Great One beaming down his magnificence upon us, reminding us all, that he and the Big Brother both love us.
This is not a sure thing yet, but Obama's people in Washington are working very hard to sledgehammer the networks into it. Imagine the power of your own, free 30 or 60 minute network political television program every month! Imagine how much horse sense you could convert into horse s**t in that time
Think about it. This will be enforced by the people who have the ability to take away tens of billions of dollars of broadcast station owners' equity with a simple stroke of the pen. It wouldn't even have to be a presidential executive order, let alone the bothersome details of getting a law passed in Congress. All it would take would be a simple 4-3 vote of a Democrat-dominated FCC.
Poof! Guess what Mr. Broadcast Station Owner? 95% of your wealth just disappeared because you wouldn't drink the Kool-Aid.
For those who think it couldn't, or wouldn't happen; think what has happened in the last 18 days that you wouldn't have thought would happen in, or to, our America in the next 18 centuries.
Cry, My Beloved Country! …. but make sure you wipe away the tears so your TV makeup doesn't run. Faking sincerity is SO important!
Interesting. Thanks for posting. (replys scanned quickly)
Mindbender is the writer. His name is unknown to us, but at least he has a bio on his profile page and a long posting history.
Obama wants to be our Chavez with his own television show.
Chavez takes over television every Sunday in Venezuela for his weekly BS session.
The MSM has been in the tank to one degree or another since Walter Cronkite. If Obama took them over, it would serve them right.
I don’t like the idea of it. The nation would be gone, but what can I do about it?
The left thought this was a lark. They played this off as the beginning of a new era. They played it off as chance to dis Whitey and back the Black man. Well, okay, it is a new era. The Black man is about to destroy what Whitey created in 232 years. And the MSM, is s—t out of luck.
We tried to tell them to be honest, wake up and be critical so the plans of this guy could be known in advance. All they could do is give him a donkey to ride in on, and palm fronds to ease his path.
Long may the MSM be screwed in what used to be the home of the free.
Obama is going to need that civilian military on the ground in the U.S. sooner rather than later, at this pace.
Hey! The Texans went 8-8, defeated the Titans, beat the Packers in Green Bay and knocked the Bears out of the playoffs.
I'm sure there's a better example for a low-ratings Lions opponent. ;-)
Hmmm. When did I completely stop watching television...maybe about 6 years ago? ...wasn’t anything on but chirping “news” chicks convicting suspects by “feel” and other pathological material for the minds of marching morons.
I vividly remember a few weeks after 9-11 when President Bush had a prime time address to the nation and CBS decided to air "Survivor" instead.
I remember it so clearly because we had a discussion about CBS's decision the next day at work (should they or should they not have aired the President). This was just weeks after 9-11 and programs were just getting back to normal schedules.
But, lots of fruits and nuts.
I really enjoy watching (Bubble headed, bobble necked) propaganda readers when they tell me what I should think, feel, or do. I wish the one eyed idiot box wasn’t unidirectional. ;0)
Just a point of order. The companies currently licensed are also the OWNERS of the hardware that constitutes the radio or TV station. Just because ACORN or a labor union garners the license doesn't convey the right to use the hardware of the previous licensee. They would have to either purchase it or set up their own hardware. That's millions per station. A wise owner could simply wait out the little game. A license without hardware is worthless. It also takes skilled personnel to operate the gear.
Unfortunately, that is non-operative.
The actual license constitutes about 93 to 96% of value of a TV station.
Example, in let's say, in San Diego or any other larger middle-size city, the building housing the station, with all the electronics, is worth somewhere between 6 and 15 million, depending where it is located, how new, etc. The electronics are about 3 million of that.
But to buy that station today, with the license intact, you would have to spend somewhere between 450 and 800 million. The cost is predicated, not on the building, but on the stations ability to make money. A station in San Diego should be dropping somewhere between 45 and 75 million to the bottom line, and revenue producers such as this sell at about 10 times earnings.
$450,000,000 to $750,000,000 with the license intact, $6,000,000 to $15,000,000 without that license.
Suppose you are just given something worth $435,000,000 minimum (the license.) Think you can get someone to lend you $6,000,000 to $15,000,000 to let that free gift of the license begin to make $50,000,000 +/- a year?
Look at in reverse. You are the current owner of an asset you paid $500,000,000. With a stroke of pen, the government can make your asset drop in value to $6,000,000 / $15,000,000. How hard are you going to kiss up to that government, especially when you still owe that $300,000,000 loan you took out to buy the station?!?!?!?
We win.
Thanks MindBender26.You always have great insights.
Thanks.
It’s good to be able to tell the truth to a group of involved Americans such as FReepers, who can grasp it; rather than sugar-coating it for the great unwashed masses of sheeple who cannot.
Well, at least it didn't say:
What did you think of Obama’s prime-time speech and press conference?
Vote
At least not yet...
A link to the poll? I am too dumb to find it on aol.
:(
The more I think about it, the more I believe that all that went before was just Socialist farmers, preparing their fields for the planting and harvest.
They never stopped, not for one minute. I got tired of the inevitability of it all last year, until Palin.
We owe a lot to Sarah, for literally forcing the media to declare for Obama in such a compressed time frame (the months of September and October).
No thinking person can deny that the media donated tens or hundreds of millions of dollars worth of free advertising to Obama. It may have even gotten to ten figures.
I'm hoping that the forces that the Socialists set in motion may be too difficult for them to control. They're arrogant enough to be fooled by their own apparent "mastery".
So was the original 7-year licensing period originally established to insulate media from politics of an administration?
The People's Republic of Obamastan
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