Why is this Issue Important?
Anyone can tell you that broadcasting of mass media has evolved from mere novelty to entrenched part of our daily lives during the 20th century. At the same time, corporate form of ownership has become the dominant economic force within our capitalist system. The specific form of ownership is important due to the legal responsibilities corporations must maintain to their stockholders. The first and overriding responsibility is to generate profit and / or return to those stockholders. Thus, when a corporation owns a broadcasting system, it must place this responsibility as priority above all others - especially those responsibilities inherent within a broadcast system operating as a public communications system within a community. Broadcasting systems and the public they serve may at times require pursuing projects or activities that are not profit friendly. The conflict arises at times between the priority to profit and priority to the public.
The speed at which these corporations must do business has increased dramatically with the onset of microchip based technology. While the ways the microchip have influenced our daily lives is immeasurable; it is the augmentation and acceleration of global capitalism that must be looked upon as its most important. So while corporations' decisions to change a broadcaster's news division from loss leader to profit center was certainly the first step; the necessity to constantly compete in a 500 channel, 24 hour, global market can further dilute the content of broadcasting and blurs the line between useful news and simply feeding an increasingly hungrier news/entertainment hole.
In response to an ever strengthening global market and increased competition, the federal government began to approve and seemingly encourage a wave of merger and monopoly in hopes of combating foreign economic competition with increased size or to promote competition by eliminating regulation. Within this environment, the FCC has increasingly allowed legislative changes that favor monopolistic control of broadcasting across television, radio and internet. When virtual broadcast monopolies exist within markets, it is not simply customers who lose, but democracy as a whole who suffers.