Fearing the Threatof a Monolithic Media

In regard to “FCC Leaves Independents in the Cold” (Brian Lowry’s On TV column, about an address to high-ranking television executives, Oct. 24): Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell believes that the increasing consolidation of media ownership to a handful of major entities is not necessarily a negative thing from “the perspective of the eyes and ears of the consumer.” He obviously hasn’t been listening to radio for the last couple of years as the creative process has been greatly diminished by consolidation.

With Clear Channel now owning more than 1,200 radio stations nationwide at the expense of independents, radio formats from sea to shining sea have turned into McMusic. You’ve got your Big Mac Hip-Hop, your Quarterpounder Pop 40, your Chicken Nugget Alt Rock, your Filet O’Soft Pop and your Ultimate Cheesetalk (can these jocks get any more annoying and uncultivated?).

Now Powell wants to do the same thing to TV. Sony Corp. Chief Executive Howard Stringer nailed it back in ’93 when he warned that “we stand in danger of creating an information underclass in society.” Well, here it is, the dumbing down of America picking up steam on the tube.

I’ve already tuned out and will soon be forced to turn off. My donations to public broadcasters KCRW-FM (89.9) and KCET-TV just increased.

JEFF FOSTER

Hermosa Beach

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Thank you, thank you for your column on the dire circumstances in the broadcast world. I have been watching similar events unfold in the radio industry for the past decade and, as with the TV world you so skillfully illuminate, anxiously await the overdue outrage.

Perhaps what is not being addressed anywhere is the question of why the American public (the same people sitting stupidly by as Pentagon officials brazenly lock out media coverage of this “war”) seems incapable of understanding how grave the problems are in a monolithic, monopolized, monotonous media, and how frighteningly close these corporate media circumstances come to the nascent beginnings of fascism.

SARAH SHANKLAND

Palmdale