There's not enough competition in the media

omnicorp

You've got two choices left in TV,
Government owned TV
Rich Media Tycoon TV(eg, Ricky Murdoch)

In Newspapers:
Rich Media Tycoon owned Newspaper
That's it

In Radio
Government owned Radio
Rich Media Tycoon owned Radio


It's all biased.
Can you trust the Government to deliver the truth on politics?
Can you trust the Rich Media tycoons to give accurate information ehan their interests might be with lies?

There's no competion left.
Gone are the days when you'd have hundreds of newspaper compaies.
When someone tries to open a pirate station, they're shut down, fined and thrown in jail.

This, in a free market economy?

i recall something Michael Moore said:
"you from The Sinday Times?"
"Yes"
"F*ck off Murdoch"

He was condemmed... by the Sunday Times
But he was right... rich people aren't going to deliver the truth on politics, poverty and war when they can tell lies and get richer and more powerful.

Is anyone else p!ssed off by the lack of competion in the media?
I am, are you?

flogen

you do know what competition is, dont you?

Anyway, while RTE is a part of the government It's not run by them. The only reason I wouldnt trust them to be honest with FF is because they want a licence fee hike, but that's soon to change as the body in charge of the licence fee price is becoming more and more independant.
Print media is not totally owned by big business. The Irish Times isn't anyway.

Who exactly do you want to see own stations and papers? If a company owns it they're going to want to make profit, if the government ran it they'd be bias... so what's the solution.

I feel that excusing the red tops (that are really English) and TV3 we have some decent media outlets. Radio is good too.. when you look at the factual stuff, anyway.

flogen

zenith

Flogen,

You'd be right about the Irish Times Trust except that the beneficial owners of the trust have come out and admitted that they're only in it for the money recently. The 'Trust' stands for 'In Trust for Me and Him'.

But the Guardian and the BBC are good examples of independent newspapers and state broadcasters . The IT and RTE should be good examples here, and we'll leave it at that.

Omnicorp: not all media owners are the same. There may be fewer proprietors in general now (in fact there are) but they're locked in cut-throat competition in general. So your point does not make sense.

Factoid - Ireland, per capita, is the most competitive newspaper market in the world. Not only do we have our own media, but we have a considerable (15+) other English-language titles on sale here daily. I make that pretty hard ball.

omnicorp

wow, 15(!)
couldn't we have more?

And why is getting a license for radio so expensive?
That means that if you want to use the radio for broadcasting, you have to make money, which means ads, not great if you want to question the gov.

flogen

omnicorp wrote:

wow, 15(!)
couldn't we have more?

And why is getting a license for radio so expensive?
That means that if you want to use the radio for broadcasting, you have to make money, which means ads, not great if you want to question the gov.

Well The Village is no in its 4th or 5th issue... how's that? Of course we could have more, but I'm trying to figure out how. The Dublin Daily crashes (but that was a rag) there are also rumours that the Daily Mail is going to launch a daily to rival the Indo (they have been floating for a while, and they need the Ireland on Sunday to sort itself out first). I mean we could have more, but do we need more, and what would a new paper have to offer that no one else does already (and do it well)?

I don't know why they're so expensive, ask The BCI and ComReg they might be able to help, and how do you figure that questioning the government will lose you revenue? Newstalk do it all the time and they have plenty of people advertising, at a growing rate too. I don't listen to radio 1 enough to say what they're like, mind you.

flogen

omnicorp

well... how about a daily newspaper that was full of political satire cartoons? Every one likes them.
Or maybe the Sunday (Irish) Times?
Not the Sunday (English) Times.
Alright, I get it, Tony's not Catholic, fine, great, I don't care...

Capt'n Midnight

With the rise in Intenet access broadcast media matter less.
Many foreign state radio and statellite TV stations do news broadcasts in english, and they aren't owned by our government or the same Moguls. All can be received for less than the cost of a newspaper per day with a FTA satellite system or you could buy a shorwave radio.

We probably have better access to news than most countries - cf. the recent freedom of the press - we came 3rd world wide, and we have easy access to all of the main UK media. So we are ahead of the UK there since they don't get as much of our media.

Yes all media is biased, but thank your lucky stars you aren't in the US where having a constitutional right to free speach hasn't really helped since foreign news is a little harder to get.

omnicorp

yeah, the net is great... but how do you know what your getting is the truth?

billy the squid

I have a bad feeling that omnicorp is about to launch a new website here but then thats just me

You've got two choices left in TV,
Government owned TV
Rich Media Tycoon TV(eg, Ricky Murdoch)

You also have community stations and college stations like Anna Livia, Radio Na Life and Wired FM in Limerick

Oh and the man's name is Rupert, not Ricky.

In Newspapers:
Rich Media Tycoon owned Newspaper
That's it

Rich newspaper tycoons become rich newspaper tycoons because they provide people with what they want. If they did not want to see some topless bimbo on page three they wouldn't buy the sun, then Mr. Rich Tycoon wouldnt be rich anymore would he.

Welcome to free enterprise.

It's all biased.
Can you trust the Government to deliver the truth on politics?
Can you trust the Rich Media tycoons to give accurate information ehan their interests might be with lies?

This might be true in the likes of the UK and the United States, but it is my belief that the likes of the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland and The Broadcasting Complaints Commission keep radio and television in line when it comes to fairness. If you find an instance of bias in the broadcast media i suggest you contact the Broadcasting complaints commission.

There's no competion left.
Gone are the days when you'd have hundreds of newspaper compaies.
When someone tries to open a pirate station, they're shut down, fined and thrown in jail.

No one as yet, to the best of my knowledge has been thrown in jail for running a pirate station. Eamon Cooke was the owner of Radio Dublin, he went to jail for pedafelia, not radio piracy. Chris Carey went to jail for copying Sky subscription cards, not for radio piracy.

The fines for radio piracy are neglegable. One instance I can think of is when the owner of land where transmitter equipment belonging to Galtee Radio was fined €20. although the land owner where another stations gear was located was fined several thousand euros, both sites were within a mile of each other.

omnicorp, although i agree with alot of your posts, and I dont mean to be rude or insulting, so i will apologise in advance if I am, but you should really lshould research your points a little better.

Maybe when the Irish Times has enough resources there will be an Irish Sunday Times. but for now you will just have to settle for the Sunday independent, sunday world and the sunday star.

flogen

omnicorp wrote:

well... how about a daily newspaper that was full of political satire cartoons? Every one likes them.
Or maybe the Sunday (Irish) Times?
Not the Sunday (English) Times.

A newspaper full of cartoons? Thats a contradiction in terms.

I'd like to see an Irish Sunday Times, but if thats about the only gripe you have with the Irish media then your post was pointless. Write someone a letter in the Irish Times asking them why they don't have their own Sunday paper, because I don't know the answer.

As for knowing what media to believe and what not to believe, well that can be tough, but if you look enough you'll find all the outlets online that have a good reputation. The best way to avoid sucumming to a bias in any format is to get as many sources of news as you can. everywhere has a slant of some angle, some extreme some hardly noticable. If you read the same story in 3 papers you'll soon see who has what leanings and what the facts are.

flogen

omnicorp

fine, I get it, I'm wrong.
woopdeedoo, It's not as if this hasn't happened before.

But I have this sneaking suspicion, maybe someone could correct me here, that The Tmes (England) owns the Irish Times so no Sunday Irish Times.
Maybe I'm wrong, I don't know...

Ste.phen

no, the Irish Times is run by a trust, IIRC?
i.e its JUST the irish times they make (and the irish field i think?)

omnicorp

Thank you, mystery solved.

we need a left wing paper.
any donators out there?

flogen

omnicorp wrote:

Thank you, mystery solved.

we need a left wing paper.
any donators out there?

I'd call the Indo left wing. Certainly more left than right. I know the Guardian is English but that's quite liberal too.

flogen

chewy

if we did one of those political compass things indo would be right of the centre im sure? buts that from a very old starting point i think...

i echo what the guy said above, when the world newspaper conference came to dublin that was all that was said about ireland was that with newspapers ireland markets has the most titles per capita...

how left is le monde in france, i hear its quite left, are there any popular national lefty papers in italy?

what is competition anyway, i don't understand it in business sense enough, i mean an increase numbers of outlets are owned by the same people... so they have to compete with each other but is that competition, is like the kerry and bush choice...

i think the internet and 24 digital tv has change what "news" means
think independent media, blogs, watching news about your country via another countries news...

omnicorp

theres not enough independant media.
Rupert Murdoch is hardly going to broadcast info or opposition on a tax-cut for the mega-wealthy?

flogen

omnicorp wrote:

theres not enough independant media.
Rupert Murdoch is hardly going to broadcast info or opposition on a tax-cut for the mega-wealthy?

Be thankful for The Irish Times so.

flogen

omnicorp

I am... sorto, it's a bit Fianna Fail-ey though and any visitor to the politcs forum will know my stance on them.

The Muppet

omnicorp wrote:

You've got two choices left in TV,
Government owned TV
Rich Media Tycoon TV(eg, Ricky Murdoch)

In Newspapers:
Rich Media Tycoon owned Newspaper
That's it

In Radio
Government owned Radio
Rich Media Tycoon owned Radio

Is anyone else p!ssed off by the lack of competion in the media?
I am, are you?

You are missing out a good chunk of The Media. There are plenty of Small newspapers that are not owned by rich media tycoons.
Radio is governed by the BCI which is an Independent body, There are lots of stations that are not owned by big business, I think we are lucky with the quality and impartiality of our media here in Ireland, The recent tribunals are testament to that.

omnicorp

okay, but what about somewhere like, oh I don't know, America?
I'd hate to be still living there.

flogen

omnicorp, stop looking for an argument.
America is known to have some bias media outlets, but you don't live there. Thats all there is to it.

Now, if your happy with the answers to the "points" of your original post then this topic can be left alone, if not respond by trying to engage in some form of a debate rather than some blind soap-boxing.

flogen

chewy

The Muppet wrote:

You are missing out a good chunk of The Media. There are plenty of Small newspapers that are not owned by rich media tycoons.
Radio is governed by the BCI which is an Independent body, There are lots of stations that are not owned by big business, I think we are lucky with the quality and impartiality of our media here in Ireland, The recent tribunals are testament to that.

well the most of the family owned newspapers are being sold off to scottish and english media groups... (alot of them or either in the associate news, indb or tcm, or scottish media group) along with the radio stations and sure haven't alot of local radio stations having difficulty keeping alive

and im not very familiar with them but they were all owned by local business families which were not exactly radical?

zenith

chewy wrote:

well the most of the family owned newspapers are being sold off to scottish and english media groups... (alot of them or either in the associate news, indb or tcm, or scottish media group) along with the radio stations and sure haven't alot of local radio stations having difficulty keeping alive

and im not very familiar with them but they were all owned by local business families which were not exactly radical?

Well, they're being sold off for super money, if you can get it, so it's not like they're poverty-stricken and they're being forced off their land by the media moguls, and frankly the radio stations are a licence to print money, so that's not the issue there also.

Good point about the local burghers actually owning the paper: is this perception that there wasn't a bias before actually a myth?

omnicorp

but how can someone set up a TV news station without being rich?

zenith

Well, look at this:

http://www.bci.ie/news_releases/news_197.html

And figure out how they did it. I'll look over your business plan when you're done to see if there are any holes.

The Muppet

omnicorp wrote:

but how can someone set up a TV news station without being rich?

You do not need to be rich to set up a radio station.
To do it legally there is a lot of red tape to get through to get a license but the actual cost of the equiptment would not be prohibitive.