What's been missing from the debate over indecency is the connection between the increasing lack of quality programming and the rampant consolidation of the media industry. A 2005 report by the Center for Creative Voices and Fordham University offers compelling evidence of a link between media consolidation and broadcast indecency on the radio.
Among the report's findings:
The question is how to best protect children from inappropriate content while still upholding the First Amendment rights of artists, directors and producers. Fortunately, the answer is simple: Expand choice and media diversity.
Indecency is a symptom of a larger problem: the lack of consumer choice and control over what they see on television. The way to contend with indecency, then, is not less speech, but more speech.
The concentration of ownership in the media industry in the past few years has resulted in a decline in media diversity at the very moment the number of channels is increasing. Allowing further concentration just perpetuates the problem.
But FCC Chairman Kevin Martin and many others who bemoan sex and violence on television are the same ones enacting policies to make big media even bigger. You can't have it both ways.
To improve programming, the FCC should promote policies that expand the diversity of content, reflecting the reality that different households have different media preferences. Families should be able to choose from a wide variety of independent, alternative and noncommercial programs and channels.
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The marriage of Comcast and NBC is bad news for consumers. But Washington and Wall Street have already bought into the idea that it's a done deal. That's why Americans need to speak out now and stop the mega-merger!
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