Who Owns Me?

Television
My Name is Earl - NBC (GE)
The Office - NBC (GE)
Lost - ABC (Walt Disney)
The Dail Show - Comedy Central (Viacom)

Radio
NPR - NPR (NPR)
Drive 105 - 105.1 (Walt Disney)
Cities97 - 97.1 (Clear Channel)

Internet
Mediacom

I'm sure there's more to it than that, but those are the ones I really pay attention to. Ownership is a strange thing. I find it really odd that a corporation that sells ovens would own a TV station. I guess if it makes money then a corporation will buy it. This ownership is a large problem. First, censorship is an obvious problem. If a station is owned by GE, for example, then it's likely not going to air something that is negative to its owers, even if ovens are exploding all over the place. Worse, corporations, by their very nature, are more concerned with profit margin than anything else. That means that if something is bad for business, the customer won't have access to it. In fact, anti-trust suits are coming up all the time now with the fewer owners in today's political climate. My internet and cable provider is actually suing Sinclair for breach of anti-trust laws. The worst thing, however, is that this kind of influence is all very covert. You may think that you are getting a piece of information from a variety of sources but in fact it may all come from one source, a single corporation. For example, one may read in a magazine about how electrician unions are creating problems that are making the price of toasters go up. Now that may seem odd and at first you may simply pass it off. Then you see a similar story on NBC news. Then you hear it on the radio. Eventually you start believing that opinion because you think that it is coming from so many sources it must be true. In reality, the corporation may simply be telling its companies to run a certain story that will be good for the corporation's dealings with the electrician unions. I think the secrecy of it all is the worst part of all it.