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!
That's why I suggested a dessert of durian fruit and Limberger cheese. It reminds me of Obama's policies.
The OFF switch on my TV works flawlessly. It is in factory new condition with little wear.
You got it exactly right!
And, with the rolling 7 years, no more 15% of stations licenses were renewed every year, which all added up to a calming effect.
When the networks that have carried the Boy-King’s water finally turn on him, it will be a thing of beauty...It WILL happen, mark it down...
What did you think of Obama's prime-time speech and press conference?
Thumbs down 42%
Thumbs up 36%
I didn't watch 22%
Do you want Congress to pass the economic stimulus bill?
No 56%
Yes 44%
Do you think Congress will pass the stimulus bill?
Yes 80%
No 20%
Has your opinion of Obama changed since he took office?
Yes, it's worsened 48%
No 27%
Yes, it's improved 25%
I see AOL finally caught their “Mistake”.. I wasn’t able to get a screen save.. Glad most of you saw it with your own eyes.
Hmmm, so my concern—on the one hand, MSM gets what they deserve—dwindling viewership, etc.; but, on other, the uneducated masses stay uneducated—what can be done to stop this?
Date Set For Obama’s First Address To Congress (what’s your schedule for then)
See BS ^ | 2/10/2009 | Michelle Levi
Posted on Tuesday, February 10, 2009 8:22:53 PM by markomalley
President Obama has been formally invited by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to address a joint session of Congress for the first time on February 24, 2009.
The date was confirmed by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs while en route with the president to a town hall meeting in Fort Myers, FL this morning. The president plans to continue to push his Economic Reinvestment and Recovery Package at the meeting.
THERE WILL BE MORE
Good reporting!
Just sent the link to a a friend who is a Bama-voting Upper East Side ad exec, asking him to “add” up how much this will cost him.
- Nic
The march goes on, I have expected something like this. It’s also a matter of time before they go after the internet as well. People who have power share one quality with those who are super rich, they never have enough of it and at some point they decide to play god. When they do, people get hurt or killed. Obama seems to be one with megalomaniac tendencies. I would not want to be a member of his administration, like those around Stalin, life expectancy could be short.
Many Red Necks still chew Red Man. ;0)
Bishop Schimaldski Manual Training Junior High School for Exceptional Boys.
The thought that comes immediately to mind is that, this will formulate the basis for a Counter-Revolution.
You can be sure that the playbook for this Silent Coup was written before the election.
WHAT ARE THE CHANCES THAT ANY IN THE BROADCAST MEDIA WILL STAND UP TO THIS, and see themselves as heroic (in their own minds ala Woodward and Bernstein)?
An anonymous reader writes
“According to the Register, Senator Diane Feinstein is attempting to put language into the stimulus bill that would kill net neutrality.
http://news.slashdot.org/news/09/02/11/1454246.shtml
Thanks to the reference to slashdot, a site of which I had no knowledge.
What over the air?
Don't know Woodward. Bernstein was the typical Nixon-hating journalist of his generation. They were NOT heavy hitters at all at the Post. Watergate began as a police blotter story, included to fill some column inches.
To understand Woodstein, watch the James Reston character in the movie Frost/Nixon. Young reporters of that generation were required to HATE Nixon in order to keep their union card. (Bob Zelnick being an exception.) To more fully understand Reston and his ilk, remember that under the Reston byline, the New York Times article on Chappaquiddick began "Tragedy Has Struck The Kennedy Family Again." Mary Jo Kopekne's name was not even mentioned until the 4th paragraph!
Bernstein is a very good, very dogged reporter. But he was looking for a story to de-throne Nixon... and Nixon gave him one.
That aside, remember that The Suits are not Woodsteins. They are not Ben Bradley, Lou Grant or Mrs. Pinchon either.
They are much more akin to the Rick Moranis character in GhostBusters, or Jabba The Hut, but without his charm, good looks or warmth.
Once you get past the fact that The Suits are lying, cheating, immoral, thieving weasels who would sell their mothers, their souls, their children's birthrights, in fact they would sell everything but their Mercedes for another $20,000 below the line, they are not bad guys.
Well, actually, they are.
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