SubscribeWhen did the word ‘midget’ become a slur?
From the USA Today:
Little people are calling on the Federal Communications Commission to ban the use of the word “midget” on broadcast TV.
The group Little People of America said Sunday the word is just as offensive as racial slurs.
Does the FCC ban racial slurs on broadcast TV? I don’t think they do, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to watch the Washington Redskins on the TV.
I don’t see what’s so bad about the word midget. I don’t understand the negative connotation some people have with the word. If I was a midget, I’d be more upset that I couldn’t buy a pair of pants unless I wanted to shop in the boys department. I don’t think I would get upset about the word society has used for generations to describe people like me.
It’s just a word.
The word midget is precise and succinct. Use the word and people know exactly what you mean. On the other hand, the term little people is much more ambiguous. I’m six feet, six inches tall. To me, most people are little people.
Opie and Anthony lose their terrestrial radio gig
Morning radio shock-jocks Opie and Anthony have been let go by CBS radio. The company is doing a complete overhaul to New York City’s K-Rock which as of today, became a Top-40 station.
The two still have their job at Sirius XM. They were doing their K-Rock show from 6am to 9am and they would then trudge over to the XM studios and do a satellite only show till around 11am. Sirius XM was also simulcasting the K-Rock show on satellite.
Though this sucks for Opie and Anthony on a personal financial level, it will make for a better radio show on Sirius XM. Not only will they not have to worry about the FCC, they wont have to adhere to a strict schedule for commercial breaks. That got to be very annoying.
Opie and Anthony were getting good ratings on K-Rock. They weren’t getting Howard Stern ratings, but I doubt Howard Stern would be getting the numbers he got only five years ago on terrestrial radio. It’s a different world today. People buy iPods and they download music online. They buy satellite radios. The people left listening to terrestrial radio are the ones that are too cheap to buy either an iPod or a satellite radio.
I can’t imagine that this demographic is real desirable with advertisers.
Will we ever transition to digital TV?
The U.S. Senate approved a bill that would push back the date in which broadcast TV would change from analog signals to digital.
From the Washington Post:
The transition date would move to June 12 from February 17 under the bill that was fueled by worries that viewers are not technically ready for the Congressionally mandated switch-over. It would also allow consumers with expired coupons, available from the government to offset the cost of a $40 converter box, to request new coupons. The government ran out of coupons earlier this month, and about 2.5 million Americans are on a waiting list for them.
Who knew people with 20 year old TVs had so much power? And to think all they would need is a $40 converter box. This is starting to remind me of when we were supposed to go over to the metric system.
Sirius XM satellite working hard finding new ways to rip off their customers
Starting March 11, Sirius XM will be charging customers an extra $2.99 a month to listen to it’s Internet streaming service. When Sirius and XM struck a deal with the FCC to merge, a rate-freeze was one of the conditions mandated by the FCC.
One of the things not covered by the FCC rate-freeze was the free Internet streaming service. Not that it was every really free. It was part of the basic $12.99 a month subscription.
Not only does Sirius XM want customers to now pay for their Internet streaming service, they want customers to purchase a $200 mono wireless Internet radio from them to do it.
From Sirius:
This stylish tabletop wireless Internet radio makes it easy to enjoy SIRIUS Internet Radio at home. SIRIUS offers the ideal premium Internet radio service, with loads of programming choices and no files, ripping or playlists required. Just turn on, subscribe, tune in and enjoy SIRIUS programming in your home.
View artist and song title on the large display. Easily scroll through SIRIUS Internet Radio channels to discover new music. Set your five favorite stations for easy access.
What Sirius fails to mention is that you can also very easily listen to their streaming service in stereo on any computer with Internet access. In fact, you don’t even need a wireless router to do it. With their $200 mono wireless Internet radio, you do.
Sirius and XM never should have been allowed to merge.
Your tax dollars at work: The FCC’s war on boobies
The Federal Communications Commission along with the Justice Department is taking the Janet Jackson Superbowl boobie incident to the U.S. Supreme Court. In case you have somehow forgotten, during the 2004 Superbowl halftime show, Janet Jackson’s right breast was momentarily exposed in what was later described as a wardrobe malfunction.
The FCC fined each CBS station broadcasting the Superbowl a $550,000 fine for indecency. CBS understandably has been fighting the fines in court. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the fines this past July.
This is one of those things that makes me embarrassed to be an American. When did we as a people decide that a woman’s exposed breast was indecent? It’s just a boob. Half the people in the world have (or at one time had) two of them. They are no more indecent then an elbow or a knee.
So much for the Sirius-XM merger not requiring a new radio
To say I’m not happy with the reality of the Sirius-XM satellite radio merger is an understatement. I’ve already blogged about the fact that they removed one of my favorite music channels. I’ve now learned that my $150, 6-month old radio does not support the new A La Carte pricing packages.
Back when the two companies were attempting to get the federal government to change the law and allow the two competing satellite radio companies to merge, this was one of the things that would make the merger cheaper for the consumer. Instead of having to pay for channels you do not want, you could select 50 total channels that you wanted and pay less then the standard $13 bucks a month.
This past May I purchased a Sirius Sportster 5. It was (and still is) the most expensive radio sold by Sirius. It does not support A La Carte pricing.
Instead of paying less, I am now paying even more. The reason? To get some of the XM-only radio programing such as the NHL and NBA along with Ron and Fez, I had to cough up another four bucks a month for their “Best of XM package”.
You can’t tell me that they could have made the A La Carte pricing package available to everyone if they chose to. Instead they are using it to sell new radios.
FCC to rule against Comcast
It looks as though the FCC isn’t waiting around for Congress to pass specific net neutrality laws. From everyone’s favorite supermarket tabloid The Wallstreet Journal:
The Federal Communications Commission will rule that the cable giant violated federal policy by deliberately preventing some customers from sharing videos online via file-sharing services like BitTorrent, agency officials said. The company has acknowledged it slowed some traffic, but said it was necessary to prevent a few heavy users from overburdening its network.
I didn’t even know there was such a thing as violating federal policy. I thought something was either a federal law or it wasn’t. I do think it is a case of fraud when you sell someone something called unlimited broadband Internet and then proceed to limit it.
Sirius and XM allowed to merge
I’m not sure what took so long, but the FCC has finally agreed to allow Sirius and XM to merge into one satellite company.
I used to have XM, but I got rid of both my radios and switched to Sirius a few months ago. I decided that I would rather listen to Howard Stern in the mornings then Opie & Anthony. I felt like their show had gone down the tubes since they made the jump back to regular radio. When they weren’t going to commercial, they were complaining about other radio shows getting better ratings then them. It got boring.
Howard Stern on the other hand has been Howard Stern. He’s as great as he has ever been. In fact, he’s actually better then ever.
The music channels on Sirius are better then the music channels on XM. I find myself listening to a lot of channel 22 First Wave. They play a lot of classic alternative and new wave. I also enjoy channel 29 Punk Rock. They play nothing but new and vintage puck rock.
One of the things I don’t understand about this merger is one of the stipulations forced on Sirius and XM by the FCC. The two companies had to agree that after they merge, they will not raise prices for three years. If the government can do that with satellite radio, why can’t they do that with gas?
Ron Paul supporters turn to the FCC when Fox News excludes their canidate from a debate
Ron Paul claims that he’s been excluded from a New Hampshire January 6 Republican debate being organized by Fox News. This is the weekend before the New Hampshire Primary. Ron Paul says he is being excluded because Fox News is scared of him. Why is Doctor Paul constantly questioning everyone’s bravery? First a recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor and now a cable news network.
Ron Paul’s Internet fans aren’t taking this exclusion sitting down. They are organizing a boycott against any company that advertises on Fox News. They have a list. They are getting the word out to all followers of Ron Paul to not to buy products from these companies.
One of these companies is Gold Bond. That means if a Ron Paul fan were to get a rash in an embarrassing place, they would have to turn elsewhere to get some instant relief. Let’s just hope that they go rash-free.
What’s even funnier is that some Ron Paul supporters are also advising fellow Ron Paul supporters to contact the FCC and complain. This is from a post on a Ron Paul message board:
I’m actually surprised that I haven’t seen this tactic posted yet. Along with advertisers, this is the other major weakness of broadcasters/networks.
The other critical items we can influence directly are the FCC broadcast license for each affiliate, AND FCC approval for station purchases/mergers/trades. By specifically targeting FCC approvals, your comments will have a LOT more long-term weight. Endangering the local affiliate’s license with enough negative comments in the right way will change their attitude from “It’s the network, nothing we can do” and largely ignoring you to actually calling the NewsCorp on your behalf saying “OMG, fix this NOW!”
Remember, the FCC threatened to hit EACH broadcast station with a 6-figure fine for the half-second “wardrobe malfunction” at the SuperBowl*.
This is funny for two different reasons. First, Ron Paul represents a political philosophy that believes a big federal government is bad. If he had his way, not only would the FCC cease to exist, so would the IRS, the Department of Education, the CIA, the FBI, and a whole host of other federal agencies. What do Ron Paul supporters do when they think their man has been slighted? They whine about it to a government agency.
It makes you wonder why they are Ron Paul supporters in the first place.
Secondly, the FCC doesn’t have any jurisdiction over Fox News. It’s a cable network, not a broadcast network. Whining to the FCC about something a cable network is a waste of time. Then again, why should that stop a Ron Paul supporter?
And why is Fox News excluding Ron Paul from the debate? Because there is no debate. It was canceled three weeks ago because of it’s close proximity with another similar event. Ron Paul had been invited to attend, but reportedly his staff never got back with the event organizers to confirm that he would attend.
Why would Fox News exclude someone like Ron Paul from the debate? Including Ron Paul ensures more people will watch. Not only his rabid die hard fan base, but people like me that think he’s a loon. I would watch just for the entertainment value. Who knows what he would say.
Todd Cochrane is at it again
I strolled over to Geek News Central the other day to see what Todd was railing against these days. Big surprise, he is upset about how the FCC will handle the auction for the 700 MHz frequency spectrum. That’s the area of the frequency spectrum currently used by old fashioned analog broadcast TV. Starting in 2009, TV stations wont be broadcasting analog signals on the 700 MHz spectrum and will instead be forced (kicking and screaming) to switch to broadcasting a digital signal on frequencies other then the 700 MHz range.
This leaves the 700 MHz spectrum open for other things such as cell phones or wireless Internet. Signals in the 700 MHz spectrum can travel up to four times farther then signals transmitted on the current wireless frequencies. They are also better at going through walls and they don’t kill bees like microwave cell phone frequencies do.
Some have been advocating that the entire spectrum should be completely open-access. The FCC announced that only a third of the 700 MHz spectrum will be open-access.
I am severely pissed off. Sure, the rules state that the spectrum must have Open Devices and Open Applications but the FCC threw out the baby with the bath water when they reversed course on what could have been the most positive wireless spectrum development since the invention of the radio when they closed the door and are going to allow CLOSED SERVICES and CLOSED NETWORKS.
I am truly unhappy and I hope you are as well. I encourage you to pick up the phone and call anyone and everyone you know with influence and tell them how you really feel about this.
The problem is that the majority of Americans are quite content with these companies getting their way every time. It is beyond criminal to say the very least.
I don’t know who exactly Todd is accusing of criminal activity. Is it the FCC? Verizon? Sprint? Google? How about AOL? They don’t have a stake in this, but Todd often sets his sights on AOL, even going so far as to encouraging people to sell off all their shares in AOL. Never mind that AOL is part of Time-Warner and there is no such thing as AOL stock.
Who exactly then is the criminal here? I really don’t know. I left a comment on his blog yesterday asking just this very question, but it never appeared. Todd is one of those bloggers that runs a CLOSED SERVICE blog. He personally must approve each and every comment that appears. I can only assume that is why most of his blog posts have 0 comments. Maybe people are leaving comments, but their comments don’t pass muster.
I’ve never really understood why some bloggers feel the need to engage comment moderation on their blog. What are they afraid of? That someone will disagree with him?
The ironic thing about this is that he is all for openness when it comes to radio frequencies, but not when it comes to the comment section of his own blog. That’s kind of sad.
Does Todd know what throwing out the “baby with the bath water” means? I don’t see how the expression actually applies.
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