BBC North American Service – I wonder how many people realize that BBC news they’re hearing on NPR is the “North American” service that is crafted to influence public opinion in the United States and Canada, not the broadcast that people hear on the domestic service in the U.K or other parts of the world…..
The FCC rules are pretty clear that US radio stations are not permitted to be owned by foreign governments or their agencies, and cannot carry government produced content from other countries. The BBC World Service is funded almost completely by the U.K. Government’s Foreign Office (the equivalent of the U.S. State Department), and anyone who has listened to Short Wave radio and pays any attention can see it is U.K. government propoganda, not “journalism”.
Why has this been allowed to continue? Given President Obama’s obvious disdain for English government rule, maybe this will finally be questioned.
Unfortunately their propaganda fits with Obama’s agenda. I doubt it will be questioned.
I’m pointing out an internal contradiction so we can use dialectic thesis and antithesis to implement change :)
The NAACP at one point challenged Rupert Murdoch’s ownership and control of Fox TX – he was a US citizen by that point and had voting control, but Fox is “owned” by Australian based News Corp. The FCC looks at voting control, not equity or proxy equity through debt – hence Clear Channel can be “owned” by foreign interests debt holders, as long as a U.S. based Private Equity firm controls the voting rights and the non-voting foreign ownership does not involve itself in programming and hiring decisions.
The provisions of the Telecom Reform Act of 1996 substantially weakened the notion of protecting US broadcast outlets from foreign influence in the spirit of international cooperation, and the FCC looks more now at reciprocity. I wonder if the Voice of America could pay to have its programming carried on the BBC at night…. hmmm….. Or perhaps in Canada on the CBC
It could. Canada might be problematic because it’s right next door and it could be seen as border blasting… besides, Canada is very protectionist when it comes to its media.
Or… better yet… put Rush Limbaugh on morning drive in Australia… Glenn Beck on PM drive in Europe. Give the world a taste of America’s top private broadcasters, and see what happens.
There are a couple US Broadcasters who were silly enough to buy radio stations in other countries. Emmis just got told to get their butts out of Hungary…. Another (Saga?) bought a radio station in Iceland… the actual valuable assets of Clear Channel are its outdoor advertising signs in Europe
Back when I worked at Nasdaq, I would periodically remind people that the “N” in NASD[aq] stood for National, and Nasdaq was the creation of a law passed by the US Government, not the U.N….
I’m not working there any more and now NASDAQ is basically owned / operated by the OMX – the stock exchange in Sweden developed with funding from Dubai which came from (?)… most of the people I worked with are no longer there…. NYSE is now a joint venture (and rapidly being absorbed by) Euronext…
The U.S. is pretty much gone now…. it’s just that people haven’t totally woken up to it yet.