Posted on 08/16/2009 10:24:32 AM PDT by Ooh-Ah
FCCs 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.
Lloyds 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.
We need to get Our Sarah involved on this one.
She smacked down the death panels, she can smack this one down, too!
SCREW THE CZARS !!
I WANT THEM OUT OF THERE NOW!!!!
GET THOSE FREAKS OUT OF OUR WHITE HOUSE NOW!!!!!
Our GOVERNMENT , our CONGRESS is the one that REGULATES PBS and NPR and THAT IS THE WAY IT SHOULD STAY.
WE ELECTED our CONGRESS
We did NOT elect these CREEPY CZARS!
GET THEM OUT OF THERE NOW.....THE TOWN HALLS SHOULD BE FEATURING THIS TAKEOVER BY UHBAMA JUST AS THEY ARE COVERING THE DEATH CARE DEBACLE.
In 2006 he wrote the book on the Obama Presidential Campaign?? He must be Nostradamus.
Does anyone know how widespread so-called “public access” television stations are? These are publicly-funded stations where communities. Seattle has such a channel, which I mentioned in an earlier post. Do most areas have such a channel, or are they limited to a few large urban arear? If they want to expand diversity, they could expand that program, not create onerous and coercive requirements for existing commercial stations.
Republicans should go after this one like pit bulls chasing a cat with a T-bone steak tied to its tail.
When they pull the plug on the 1st Amendment, we’ll see why the 2nd Amendment was put into place.
I used to think that members of congress would be the first targets when the armed revolution begins. Now I think they should probably take a back seat to the czars.
Funny thing is that when the whole Public Broadcasting thing was created in 1948, one of the basic requirements was that any programing broadcast had to be politically neutral. Somewhere along the way, the Left hijacked “public” broadcasting and used it as their own propaganda vehicle, instead of the universally accessible medium it was intended to be.
And now, that’s no longer good enough. Now they want to shut down opposing perspectives through a new Czar! Man, they’re really spoiling for an uprising...
More accurately - civil war.
It is not aimed at every private station but at every private corporation - this is aimed squarely at Clear Channel - the largest syndicator of AM Talk - and they will dump all hosts to stay in business - sic paaseth the Fairness Doctrine by other means.
And make no mistake, this is only the opening shot - Fox News will go down, then followed by the US Internet - for the DUs reading this that means Free Republic et al will be gone.
“Private = public = 0”
Private Corporations = 0. Public = Only what the Communists want us to know..
They do no mean that sort of diversity - the whole diversity thing is a ruse any way. They want to make it impossible to have any discussions on radio beyond approved ones - every side in every arguement will have to be represented on every show - how many sides are there to any arguement?
Right - more Hussein’s weasel words. He isn’t lying that way. There is no subterfuge here - you know about the appointment and what the guy stands for, so where’s the beef? It all in the open.
He can’t help what some regulator decides is in your best interest, now can he?
“Such a fee would be impossible; it would push everyone out of business.”
Why do you suppose it was included? That’s the point - make radio go back to what it used to be - farm reports, sports, music, weather, news readers, etc.
No it is EQUAL.
Do not give these people the benefit of the doubt - take them at their word. They are counting on you to fudge their words into something you find acceptable, while they go ahead and do exactly what they say they are going to do - go back and read Hussein’s words on the campaign trail.
And do what? They have no power, remember?
Mass suprise attack on them all - give them no quarter.
That’s not what the article says. It says “equal to”. IF this is a typo, then the text of the book or the proposal will say “based on”. But I don’t think this is a typo, anymore than his plan to supervise the content of the programming is a typo.
The 2nd Amendment was put into place in order to deter tampering with the 1st Amendment. Like all deterrents, they’re better at deterring than preventing.
Face it. Shot guns and semi-auto rifles will not work that well against full auto M-16’s, let alone tanks and helicopters. If it comes down to the 2nd Amendment, things will get real bad real fast, and the sunshine patriot and the summer soldiers will not long be with you guys (I’m over here in Israel, and damn glad of it), and will likely turn informant on you. If it comes down to the 2nd Amendment to preserve the 1st, I feel for you all.
They’d have to make the Internet fall under FCC jurisdiction, which will take an act of Congress, out in the open where it can be talked about—on the Internet even if the new “diversity” czar manages to shut down radio and TV.
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