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If mothers ruled the world, and they were advised by Sally, I would happily engage in war, wussy old scaredy-cat that I am, though it cause my painful lingering death by traumatic evisceration, or something.
That woman just creeps me out.
Ah, yes, if only mothers ruled, there would be no war…
Cleopatra, Isabella I, Catherine de Medici, Mary Queen of Scots, Queen Victoria, Catherine the Great, Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher…
They’re all confirmed pacifists…not.
Thanks, Sally, for your selective social comments. Wierdo.
They do just fine until they depart from a script.
Well, to the extent Fox uses up a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum belonging to the commons, we should expect it to behave in accordance with the public principle of freedom of speech.
I know that’s not a legal obligation owed to the public. But not all obligations are legal. Some are, you know, moral.
Do they not pay for that access? I’m asking, actually – always presumed that there were licensing fees, etc.
As a publicly traded company, the broadcaster also has a moral obligation to its stockholders. Most of whom invest in the hope of earning a return, and many of whom would regret the network sponsoring speech that broad segments of the market (and thereby, revenue providing marketeers) found unnecessarily provocative.
You’d have thought from the reaction that she was bundled off to a re-education camp, when all Fox did was cut out a potentially troublesome bit of non-contributory cussing there at the end.
Anybody who doesn’t like their editorial choices could watch elsewhere I guess.
Isn’t it nice having choices?
> Do they not pay for that access?
> I’m asking, actually – always
> presumed that there were licensing
> fees, etc.
Is there a market for this public resource? If there is, is it rational? And, does the fees reflect the fair market value of the resource? I don’t think so.
Consider the last item only. One condition for the licensing fees to reflect the fair market value of the resource used by Fox is that the gov’t behaves as a perfect agent of the commons. If it doesn’t, then there’s a loss for the public. And, under Republican rule, that loss will be maximized, because Republicans think gov’ts cannot get these things right. So, their belief becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Heck of a job, Brownie!
On the other hand, the networks would have to exercise no influence on gov’t decisions other than through this market quid pro quo. If they do, given the zero-sum game of the exchange, the political influence of the networks would not be exercised to maximize the public gain, but to maximize their private gain at the expense of the public.
For this condition to hold, the gov’t, on behalf of the commons, would simply auction off the resource to the highest bidder, without any other consideration in play. No influence through the political process. Again, I don’t think that’s the case.
If one thinks that lobbying doesn’t work, then how do we explain that the networks spend so much money lobbying? Just to clarify, lobbying money is a private inflow of money to politicians. From a social point of view, it’s pretty much a deadweight loss.
You can easily infer the size of the annual loss for the public. Over the years, it’s a huge amount of wealth stolen. To get a ballpark figure, take all the lobbying money spent by the networks in — say — a year. Divide it by the return rate that a similarly risky business activity would fetch. That’s be the present value of an annual lobbying investment fixed at the current rate. Now consider that, over time, lobbying money actually grows. On top of the fees they pay, that’s how much they value the portion of the public resource that they currently exploit.
Hopefully, that was the the final Frances Elizabeth ‘Gidget’ Lawrence moment. Any female that has succumbed to the charms of Burt Reynolds need not advise us on national security and policy of war.
-SJBill
As I recall, Fox first sprung upon an amazed world sometime in the mid-90′s. I’ll have to double check, but I’m nearly certain that there was someone other than a Republican president in charge of the federal bureaucracy back then. Including, one would presume, the FCC.
But anyway, the substance of your point – so far as I can tease it out – is that the market has been artificially distorted. Because of lobbying?
But the alternative (and weren’t you the guy who was suspicious about markets?) would be to try the cost of the bandwidth on the market openly, without political involvement of any kind. Which – and I’ve no principled objection – wouldn’t that merely shift the moneys spent from lobbying to the lease agreement?
The net effect would be that the richest corporations would be able to stake out the best real estate, squeezing out marginal voices who otherwise might have had a shot in a more political process.
That would result in more money to the Treasury in all likelihood, but can that really be your favored outcome? All of those oligarchs, running around unrestrained through the public thoroughfare?
boo to everybody out there
http://youtube.com/watch?v=G2y8Sx4B2Sk&mode=related&search=
Emilio,
After parsing through your commentary I notice a consistent flaw in your argument. You think networks steal wealth from viewers. Don’t know where you went to school, but that ain’t necessarily so.
Broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBS, FOX) make money by providing content for viewers through their local affiliates. Each affiliate station is allocated a frequency and for such priviledge, affiliate stations must obtain a license from the local government. To pay for operations (including the license) they must charge a fee to broadcast (and pay for) network content. Those fees come from advertising NOT from the Network. It used to be that sponsors (say Peter Pan Peanut Butter) controlled the content of television and radio shows. Now, every show has a stable of sponsors that do not take such behavior lightly. It is the sponsor’s and the network’s reputation that is affected by inappropriate language broadcast over the public spectrum.
If you think the broadcast networks lobby Local, State and Federal politicians for the privilege to steal money from The Dear Peepul, please tell us of the planet you live on. There’s oxygen?
Wow. All this from the marginally thought provoking rants of an over the hill twit who achieved fame playing a nun with a hat that enabled her to fly? Maybe I need to watch more TV…
Lee,
I second that. Can’t we just laugh at a wierdo and be done with it?
On a separate note, I find it absolutely amazing that some can write a graduate thesis (see above) on the transfer of wealth by networks, all in the hopes of defending the undefendable. Yet, when asked about the complexities we face in Iraq, only expletives and “Bush lied” are uttered by those types.
Rather interesting…ethically bankrupt, but interesting.
I find it interesting that any sentient being would actually watch television. What a quaint idea.
“It is the sponsor’s and the network’s reputation that is affected by inappropriate language broadcast over the public spectrum.”
People seriously hold it against some mob that paid for an ad because someone used a mild epithet?
That’s pretty ridiculous IMO.
I think the main logic flaw was the assumption that the airwaves are “commons.” They are not. Being owned by the government doesn’t make them commons any more than the fishing grounds off of Alaska are. The govt. charges and limits access primarly as an arbiter of disputes over frequencies (wouldn’t want two stations to be pumping out watts over the same freq).
Second, assumption that this world, specifically wealth economics is a zero sum game is wrong, even Marx realized that (in his very limited scope). Wealth is created by television, else given the free market we participate in (especially since this market has a form of entropy), there would be no more of it.
Sim, et al,
Even when I wore my uniform, I rarely employed swearing, cursing, etc. I’ve found, over the course of many, many encounters, that one can make a serious point by using a mild vulgarism when such terms a part of one’s every day language.
I don’t care to watch ‘The Sopranos’ or any other television show that lowers the language level by using such tasteless claptrap. I care even less when a broadcast network (unlike cable) permits such language to get out.
It takes time and a concerted effort to refuse to lower oneself to the gutter. If I can work my way up and out, anyone can. Even if they’re running out of time and want to make some specious point on television.