FCC Funding Application Notes Paramount Will Be 49.5% Foreign-Owned Post-Merger
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Cable news is basically dead, but I think most of us missed the funeral. It used to be a relatively big deal decades ago, but those times are long since passed.
[1] - https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/20...
The internet has killed institutions of journalism that have a reputation to protect. Billionaires did the rest of the job (RIP Washington Post). Pretty bad outcome. We are left random YouTubers, people with a Substack or podcast, etc. No fact-checking standards / departments. Will Propublica and PBS Newshour/Frontline be around in 10 years. Federal funding cuts already killed Weekend Newshour.
https://www.kff.org/state-health-policy-data/state-indicator...
Tucker Carlson is another great example. There was a segment of people who were loudly rejoicing after he was fired from Fox. But it predictably had a less than zero effect on his visibility, as he now gets vastly more viewers than he did on Fox by running his segments independently. People weren't watching Tucker because of Fox, they were watching Fox because of Tucker. And, in turn, the people watching Tucker aren't just adopting his views - but rather tend to watch him because they have comparable worldviews themselves. If his worldview suddenly turned into that of Rachel Maddow overnight, all that'd happen is his viewership would also trend to zero.
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Just think about yourself. Do you honestly think you're going to go start supporting the current administration if you just freebased a few thousand hours of Fox, OANN, or whatever else? Our fundamental views are shaped very slowly and more from things like life experience than headlines, which is a big part of the reason that age is such a large factor in typical ideology.
Fox News doesn't just give a conservative opinion on events, but constantly asserts that every other information source is wrong. Not just wrong, in fact, but a deliberate attempt to con them.
You're correct that eliminating Fox News would not, in itself, end that process. They've had decades to reinforce their views. It may well be inescapable at this point.
But OANN isn't as slick as Fox News. It doesn't attract people with a predisposition; it's more likely to turn them off. If Fox News were to disappear, and OANN expand to fill its space, it might eventually reduce the number of people drawn into that self-reinforcing mechanism.
But they do call the election results, in live broadcast. Authoritative election result. This is the target of this acquisition. CBS is done already.
By "mid-tier YouTuber", I suppose you mean a top 0.00001% youtuber or thereabouts? Only the top 100ish with 50m+ subscribers translate to an actual audience per video of 1m+ (outliers notwithstanding), and you're comparing a US news network against an entertainment platform with a global audience of billions. I'm going to guess that CNN is still more influential to US politics than a gaming channel in India or Indonesia, even if a few of the latter get more views. Not to say that cable news influence hasn't waned from its peak, obviously, but I don't think the comparison to "mid-tier Youtubers" really holds up at all.
Beyond that it's a power law distribution. Some guy who uploaded 1 video for a friend counts as a 'YouTuber', but obviously they do not matter in terms of overall competition. We're only talking about the channels that are regularly uploading content of some reasonable standard. And amongst that group - CNN level is very much in the mid-tier range, and I think that's being generous. There are currently about 70k channels with at least a million subs.
As for influence, I don't think news has much of any influence at all in US politics anymore. They blew it all by going hyper-partisan for the sake of views - moderate short to mid-term gains for catastrophic long-term consequences. Pretty much the standard of most US businesses now a days. In terms of confidence in institutions, television news now ranks lower than every measured institution, except Congress. [2] They scored 11%, Congress scored 10%. And that's with piggy-backing off the phrasing of simply "television news" from the poll, instead of just cable news. Broadcast news is going to score significantly higher in confidence than cable news.
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/@andreabotezmusic/videos
[2] - https://news.gallup.com/poll/1597/confidence-institutions.as...
Seems to me like they say one thing, do another, and all of us hold the bag at the end of it all.
On the other hand they kept their promises of deporting and killing immigrants, and of getting rid of woke ideas like science and education.
Past talking points are not indicative of future behavior.
https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/59403/1/Thomson_etal_AJPS_... for one quick to find example of the literature on this.
Most of the research on this was done before Trump entered office. Trump is a wildly unusual political leader, who is significantly more corrupt than other politicians, promises random things and then fails to deliver them, and generally breaks all of the rules that politicians follow- this is what his supporters describe as his "authenticity", that he "tells it like it is". The more people believe, incorrectly, that "all politicians are corrupt" and "no politicians deliver on their promises" the more likely they are to accept Trump- who again is an extreme outlier among American politicians.
Your cynicism actually ends up ruining the country and makes it more likely that we have bad government.
want real change? vote third party. the problem is the same as that red/blue button thought experiment recently posted to HN. one of the hardest things to do is to get 50% of people to agree with you, so everyone keeps hitting the red button (voting D or R) and nothing changes
when will we make it illegal for a politician to lie
Yup.
It's the same lie that the GOP cares about deficits and debt… except when they're in power and want to do tax cuts for the rich.
They're in power for themselves and their disregard for us is by design.
Who not only fights tooth and nail against healthcare improvements but actively took money from existing programs to fund a national police and detainment apparatus?
Which party produced the most meaningful (albeit not far enough) healthcare reform of the 21st century in the US?
Those examples in particular are quite rough to try and both sides.
So to all the partisans out there who are sure things would be better if "their side" had total control, I ask: what the hell is going on with California then?? We should be modeling the best governance in the country and even the world, but yet, our government is basically dysfunctional and our state is great despite it.
1. People are disincentivized to move - the longer you've lived in a home, the larger the effective subsidy (vs average property tax payer) becomes.
2. New homes are on the other end of that - you pay much more in taxes than the average. So the cost of new homes is higher.
3. The average home pays less than it costs the local government. This is largely true everywhere because of the cost of public schools, but Prop 13 makes it more pronounced in CA. So local governments have a huge disincentive to approve any housing, especially larger apartments or condos where school aged children could live.
4. Govs make up for the lower tax per home by charging very high development fees for new construction, which raises prices and lowers rates.
Prop 13 is no different from rent control. It distorts the market and limits supply.
If a property owner can't afford the tax on their land, it means the land is under-utilized. SFHs should be replaced by townhomes which should be replaced by multi-family buildings and so on. That doesn't happen because people who bought a house 50 years ago for a few beads and pieces of gum don't have this market signal in the form of a higher property tax bill.
Not exactly the hell hole red staters make it out to be.
But the governance is not great. That was actually the whole point I was making. And getting back to that: The getting things done is abysmal. Taxes are high. Spending is loose. No progress is made on things the state takes on as priorities (housing costs, high speed rail, homelessness). It's just not well managed. But from the "one side good, other side bad" POV it should be great, no pesky republicans to get in the way. I don't know if there's a lesson there but it's an intersting question to ask.
Baltimore however, yes. Hoping this latest mayor can finish his term without getting arrested for corruption, as is tradition. The city council is worse.
Democrats, for example, have loved to stoke the class war for the last 10+ years. Every week you hear a new take on how billionaires could solve homelessness or cancer or something if only they were taxed more. The left wing radicals are just as bad for America. Partisans hate it but the only true path out of this mess is centrism.
Because of the massive historical defense, tech and entertainment industries all under one roof for decades, bringing in crazy money. The blue politicians that built California as the defense, tech and movie powerhowse decades ago, have nothing in common with those running California today, so California staid successful despite it's current blue leadership not because of it.
It would be amazing for things to be as simple as "vote blue and become rich like California", but that's not how it works. It's more like rich people tend to vote blue, rather than voting blue makes you rich.
When the private sector brings trillions in revenue and local taxes, then the current political competence decline, corruption and mismanagement, inflicts a much smaller splash damage than in places that have less money so there's no one size fits all magic solution.
Look, I don't mind paying a lot of taxes. If there's service you get for it. And I'm deeply in the blue camp. But CA leadership (state/county/city) is still an utter disaster and needs to be tossed out on its ear.
Also, low key, visit eastern Kentucky. Gorgeous countryside, Red River Gorge. Genuine people, I once stayed in someone’s cabin over Thanksgiving and they insisted on bringing me a fresh Thanksgiving meal, a gesture I’ll never forget.
50 years seems like plenty to justify "a long time now"
Only being the 4th or 5th largest economy in the world.
California's own voters did the housing crisis to themselves by passing Prop 13. You can't pin that on any political party.
I don't know who's responsible for the clusterfuck that is PG&E.
Water supply and farmer water rights are another contentious issue. The seeds for that were sown in the late 19th and early 20th century. It's got nothing to do with Democratic domination of state politics today.
Other than expensive housing and electricity, and a sometimes precarious water supply, the state is basically fine. What's this political dysfunction you speak of?
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-or...
I had Claude dig through the orders to pick out substantive examples where the courts ultimately allowed the order to go through USAID's dismantlement is the top instance which has an affirmative legal ruling. However unilateral grant freezes, tariffs, and other issues are still progressing in the courts.
While I'd certainly like to return to the world where congress handled the democratic duties of law making, budget, and war declarations. I must acknowledge that we no longer appear to have separation of powers.
From what I've seen, Republicans don't bother trying. Democrats try and get blocked by the GOP; not sure if they can 'try harder' or find ways around the blocking. Biden certainly tried on student loans and got shot down:
* https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/white-house-press-...
After trying to be bi-partisan with the ACA/Obamacare the Democrats just went forward with it
Obama got Obamacare done in the single 6-month window in this century when Democrats could pass legislation without Republicans blocking them. Biden tried to cancel student loans and was blocked in court because surprise, surprise, Republicans wouldn't allow it to go through Congress.
> The Democrats held the House, Senate, and Presidency in 2021 for two years
Read up on the Senate filibuster to understand why Republicans could block student loan cancellation (and anything else Democrats wanted) despite this.
In theory both parties are part of the same system and complicit and corrupt. In actual practice one party is much worse than the other. By a lot.
Republicans win elections by blocking anything that's good for ordinary Americans, and blaming Democrats for their lives getting worse as a result. Voters are too dumb and distracted to see the con.
This. Mitch McConnell literally was on camera, and said, quote, that Republicans would block any bill Obama or the Democrats tried to pass, even if it was good for America and Americans, because the Republican's priority was to make Obama's term ineffectual.
Not to govern the country. But to actively prevent governance of the country. Even at a cost to its people. They didn't care. And they were open enough about it to say it on the record.
You're blaming Democrats for things they try to do and are blocked by Republicans...
It doesn’t matter that federal Democrats enabled the largest wealth transfer in the last 3 decades with ACA, by the smallest of margins. Or that a Democrat president increased the overtime exempt wage from $30k per year to $50k per year. Or that Biden tried to get paid parental leave and paid sick leave, but was thwarted at every turn by a Republican Congress.
The important thing is for the voter to not take accountability for their actions, so “both sides”.
I write this not as a “Democrat” (I despise them on the state and local level), just as someone who has seen Republicans literally only pass tax cuts and reduce women’s access to healthcare in the last 3 decades. Oh, and try to overturn an election and then pardon traitors.
Anytime you have two markets, one will dominate the other. In our case, the subsidized market was forced to pay to play.
Have you told Australia? They seem to think they've been able to do this for a while now.
Just like how Republicans will go on and on about protecting gun rights, and supporting farms and farmers, but the second those things seriously approach the legislative block and would effect them all or help the average person instead of them or their wealthy donors, all of a sudden there are tons of cold feet and whispers and votes shifting around within both parties so it still doesn't pass in a meaningful form or get diluted down to nothing. That doesn't work if a large portion of the democratic party isn't playing along.
Hell both parties have had a lay-up score on legalizing marijuana for what, 30 years now? The average voter supports it, the average voter of both parties support it, there are multiple ways for it to be addressed by the government by either party, it is sold openly in multiple states in defiance of federal law, we have presidents that openly admit to smoking marijuana. And yet only now are the wheels barely squeaking to maybe reduce its scheduling to a best a highly restricted prescription drug, maybe. Which to me is extremely clear evidence that neither party has an internal majority to support the people over benefiting themselves more exclusively and being corrupt.
Oh, I see. You’re a “single issue voter.”
Keep in mind that the Senate de facto requires 60 votes to pass almost anything these days. In this millennium, Democrats held enough seats to overcome that for about two months, and there was no margin at all. Hence the lack of a public option: Joe Lieberman didn't want it, and without him the whole thing didn't pass.
For all of the actual criticisms that can be levied at them, Democrats aren't the ones throwing our institutions onto the scrap heap, alienating our allies, or cheering on autocracy.
That's a lie.
> Republicans advocate for fiscal responsibility -- never happens.
Happened under a Democrat.
> As a former staunch Republican, if there's one thing I've learned, it's that both parties have sold us out.
Ahhh, it makes sense now.
I could go on but I'm sure you know all this. Dems aren't perfect. Nobody ever is and it's unreasonable to expect that. They have pushed legitimate progress. Republicans almost exclusively cause harm to protect the upper class. Retreating into cynicism is just a way to absolve yourself of any civic responsibility.
The “advocate” only during election cycle and then add more debt and spend more than 10 Democratic Parties combined. Democrats are not great either but they try to push through what they preach
Democrats passed the ACA under Obama. Republicans have been trying to get it repealed with only moderate success ever since.
Biden announced student loan forgiveness in 2023. The Supreme Court struck it down in 2023.
Democrats have been able to get done at least some of the things they said they would.
So basically, elites have to necessarily balance (and exploit) the biases of over-represented minorities with their own largely metropolitan beliefs.
All of this is made more ironic in that the moral structures of the Abrahamic religions, including Islam, are all influences on and in line with, traditional American values, which American elites don't follow (see Epstein) but Americans who don't live in cities largely do.
Most Islamophobic people I know live in cities. Is there really that much of a change related to urbanism for Islamophobia, one you adjust for political alignment and religiousness?
For reference, this is the America I see every day:
https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/epic-citys-vision-sp...
Collin County is >90% "urban", as much as what counts for urbanism in the US.
I'm not selecting these houses to be convenient to the Mosque- I've never been in any of those Mosques. It's just an artifact of living in the sort of neighborhoods that I like. I tend to agree that it isn't urban/rural per se, as much as it's Openness of the Big Five personality traits. Which, at least in the US, tends to be correlated with a lot of other things (college education, density of living, etc.).
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/collincountytex...
Many people I've heard say extremely Islamophobic things have masters degrees and higher. I'd be interested in seeing real statistics on it.
My brother, in Sunni Islam practicing countries, they can kill you for drawing a stick figure.
Traditional American values include freedom of speech.
And I don't think de-prioritizing foreign investments is part of that policy.
People voted for him anyway because the manosphere told them too.
They simply lie.
The same is true of "fiscal responsibility." The GOP runs on this, but when they get into power they spend like drunks and run the deficit up. This has been true since Reagan, though Trump represents a huge escalation.
The same has been true with the whole "we're going to get rid of these DEI hires and be purely meritocratic." Okay, then why does the head of the FBI need to blow in a tube to start his car and why are a bunch of unqualified former pundits and podcasters in positions of high authority? Why is the head of the CDC a crackpot who can barely talk?
"A thing is what it does." Ignore rhetoric, look at results. BTW the same rule applies to rhetoric from the other side.
US uses dollars to buy oil from UAE.
UAE sends dollars back to Paramount shareholders in the US to "own" a piece Paramount.
Is it "foreign owned"? Do they really own anything? What are they really going to do with it? I don't know. I inhabit a world of nuance, I don't take rhetoric at face value, that's a waste of time.
> What are they really going to do with it?
The obvious thing would be to shift content away from "American" values and more towards whatever values the UAE leadership wants. Maybe the Baywatch reboot gets canned because they don't want to see bouncing boobies. Maybe stories critical of the UAE aren't aired on 60 minutes.
It's all talk, it's almost guaranteed to be the opposite of what he says. It seems to be more about deflection than anything else.
Do you think he means anything he says? Or that anything is about anything more than self-indulgence?
Because that rhetoric has ended, replaced with H1B-love, Israel-first, "immigration needs to rise actually, because a lot of toilets need to be cleaned" and "we don't have enough money to worry about the population, we need to make war" and the administration spends a large amount of time attacking the people who still use it?
Annoying that people don't keep up with this. "Same side" is some really simple thinking for a complex political environment.
Trump is just another neocon accumulating cash. In the 90s-00s, he worshiped Hillary Clinton; now he governs almost indistinguishably from a Clinton, a Blair or a Bush. With the only difference being that there's been a complete end to any restraints on Executive power through a bipartisan effort that still continues (see FISA renewal.) He can sell everything. Democrats were used to selling everything the old way, and pretending to be powerless. Turns out there's no reason to pretend to be powerless anymore.
The ideological MAGA types haven't changed at all. The only part of the electorate still on the Trump train are the same people who would have been Trump University students. With the addition of a bunch of newly silent lib Iran/Israel-first hawks. They also don't care about the foreign ownership of the media, or the media concentration that made it dangerous. They in fact actively support media concentration because it makes it easier to censor political opinions that they object to. The sex pest who is still ideological father of the Democratic Party was literally the person who repealed the laws that made it possible.
Academics like Zinn and Chomsky, popular music, movies, TV have been calling out the lies for decades.
Americans are that fucking dumb, I guess.
Just look at all the nonsense around tariffs. This was a huge thing with this admin, and people generally don't know what they are!
It's not like we got the Truth Party versus the Liar Party, Its more like "Lies a bit more often party" and "Lies a bit less party" because both sides know propaganda works and uses it. And when you add in social biases there are enough lies to go around for either starting position to point at their perceived opposition party and proclaim them untrustworthy. Only a fraction of people are going to put in more effort to discern what is truth and keep track of who lies more and what lies are bigger or not, the rest decided to bandwagon along with their aligned "friends" as soon as they started getting confused by deception on both sides.
Also I don't think US political parties and politicians align well with the US population to start with. If someone disagrees with what 80% of what one party does, and 70% of what the other part does, their only choices are to pick a party they inherently disagree with slightly less or not vote. People who say out loud they think both parties are garbage are often shut down by people on both sides like they are planted opposition and shuns anyone who dares not give full support and backing all the time.
I further believe that future historians will look back on the past 300 or so years as being occupied by two very different Americas: a true America, founded in 1776, and some kind of oligarchic scam that still called itself America for the brand recognition but was in reality a completely different entity.
This wild and outrageous statement needs a serious source to backup the gigantic claim.
Haha sarcasm too!
"Live Nation and Ticketmaster are monopolies!"
(Most musicians: I know I can't sell music online anyways, and need a villain collecting money for me so my fans don't make me the bad guy)
"Larry Ellison: look over here, my son and I are totally corrupt and friendly with the Trump administration, and by the way, Trump hates DEI!"
(Saudi sovereign fund: you think we will only censor Kimmel and Colbert because they're making jokes about Trump. Sure, go ahead and think that...)
I'm definitely not saying the public facing villains are not villains. I'm saying it often feels like the bigger villains are the ones hiding behind the curtains.
May 20th can't come fast enough....
I presume the difference is that the foreigner has different incentives than the non-foreigner. Let me know if you had something else in mind.
For the foreigner, it may be acceptable to harm the interests of the non-foreigners if it helps the interests of the foreigner, because the interests of the foreigner are not tied to the interests of the non-foreigner. The foreigner lives somewhere else, and so if the conditions in the non-foreigner’s territory worsen, the foreigner is not necessarily harmed by the worsened conditions like the non-foreigner is. And, the foreigner may even be helped by the harm to the non-foreigner, i.e. they may not just be indifferent to harm, they may actually benefit from it (if for example the non-foreigner’s country is a competitive threat to the foreigner’s country).
In the case of dual citizens, they may be harmed like the non-foreigner, but unlike the non-foreigner non-dual citizen, the dual citizens can much more easily leave if the conditions worsen sufficiently. So the incentive structure for dual citizen vs non-dual citizens is of a lower intensity but a similar quality to the incentive structure for foreigner vs non-foreigner, I think. What do you think?