Quote:
Today’s decision (December 18, 2003) by the Federal Communications Commission to approve the mega-merger between Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp/FOX and DirecTV not only has the potential to drive up consumers’ cable and satellite TV bills, it also could expand Murdoch’s ability to expand his influence over local media markets under the FCC’s new ownership rules, consumer advocates say.
“This merger illustrates everything that is wrong with the FCC’s new media ownership rules, which take a bulldozer to the pillars that support our democracy by destroying competition, checks and balances between media outlets, and diversity of views presented in the media, said Gene Kimmleman, senior policy director for Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports...
“There is the potential that prices would go up throughout the market and consumers would end up getting soaked,” said Kimmelman. “We support arbitration to limit NewsCorp's excess power in these transactions, but that doesn't prevent sweetheart deals between DirecTV and cable, where the end result is higher prices to satellite and cable customers.”
I don’t like Rupert Murdoch’s empire and this gives me more fuel for the fire. When I heard that he wanted to control DirecTV so badly that he entertained the idea of buying General Motors outright and than spinning off the car company. I was personally hoping that someone else would step up to the plate and outbid him for DirecTV because he already owns too much media. Dish Network ended up being the only other company interested so News Corp ended up buying it.
I bought DirecTV for my parent’s (really for my dad because of football) back around 1997 or so. General Motors owned this company and only raised prices twice up until News Corp took over. Both increases were two dollars with the last one coming in March 2003. So based on history we should be set for a few more years.
News Corp took over in December of 2003 and by the following March, DirecTV had yet another price increase of two or three dollars depending on witch package you get. So now it’s one year later and what happens? Well they did it again beginning on the March 2005 bill everyone saw yet another rate increase of two or three dollars.
I’m not surprised at all but fucking pissed off. If cable wasn’t such a rip off I would go back in a heart beat, should anyways because I hate giving money to that jerk every month.
np: The Radio Dept. – This Past Week EP
