There's a movement among some of my blogbuddies to line up in the outrage column in the wake of this week's FCC decision on broadcast licensing, which drops a longtime general ban on assignment of new licenses to owners of daily newspapers in the same market.
I just can't get excited about it. It may feel good to carry a lance against big corporate media ownerships, but it seems to me a case of fighting the last war.
Local television franchises are rapidly losing their luster, and today are little more than a "must carry" opening to cable distribution. Audiences are fractured. The sun is setting on both broadcast networks and local affiliates.
Newspaper companies that might have gone on a rapacious acquisition binge a decade ago are now just trying to keep the wolf from getting through their own doors.
And, of course, the Internet makes anyone and everyone a publisher.
If you want to worry about something, worry about Comcast, which the FCC has only begun to deal with (a vote Tuesday caps any cable company at 30% of nationwide subscribers) and, more importantly, net neutrality. If the owners of the pipes that carry the Internet are allowed to start strangling content creators and demanding tribute, we're all in trouble.