The House of Represenatives should follow the Senate on the ownership issue, but that doesn''t go far enough. What should be considered is returning to antitrust laws that were tough on monopolies. The monopoly created by a company owning a network and an unlimited number of stations plus ownership control of all programs is unfair to the independent producer and has caused the entreprenurial distributor to become extinct. The viewers are deprived of creative programs and subjected to the lowest budget programs they can get away with airing. Television should be more than it is. In the famous words of Newton Minnow, former FCC Chairman, television is "a vast wasteland" and the road that led us there began when ownership rules were loosened to allow the rich to get richer and let quality and creativity be damned.

Competition benefits the media industry and the public -- more players, more choices. Oligopoly's a quicker way to riches... but at one time in this country, it was considered a violation of antitrust policy. Newspapers simply have to adapt to new technnologies; traditional print media shouldn't have to rely on regulatory largesse to ensure their survival. It may be easier to simply buy an existing broadcast property; but nothing's stopping print properties from using the 'net to create their own multimedia channels, and that's just what innovative publishers are doing.

In this case I believe Sen Obama is correct. As a producer I have over the years encountered the road blocks and impediments to the development financing and implementation of new product that the lack of diversity created by one place localized and often myopic thinking creates. The television medium is at it's best when it creates and presents a wide spectrum of views and opinions. The prospect of localized self interst impeding this by promoting only the views and opinions relative to their particular interest should be scary to mre than just me.