I was reminded of how awful the Telecomm Act has been for our local culture in the USA
Here in the Bay Area, we had a great big show for the 75th birthday of the Golden Gate Bridge, including awesome fireworks and a day's worth of activities.
So here is this great big local event and it wasn't on local TV. There was some blurry livestreaming on the internet, without narration, with poor sound quality, etc.
We've come so far in 25 years...AND YET...
25 years ago, for the Golden Gate's 50th birthday, the fireworks and party that night were all over TV, on multiple channels, with each channel vying for viewers by sending multiple reporters, stationing cameras for the best production of the fireworks display, etc.
And now, despite more capability to cover it bigger, yet cheaper than ever before --our local channels didn't really cover it at all.
So this one shared experience for the local culture, simply doesn't exist because people couldn't watch it, or couldn't appreciate it, from home.
Now it is true that we have a lot of programming that we didn't have before and lots of choices that we didn't have before --but under the old rules, we still would have gotten that --they were already developing. The difference is that with some responsibility to be fair and local among broadcasters, we would have more locally originated new programming and more investment in it. Instead, all the money is in giving us choices that are mass marketed to the entire country, and that's fine for some things, but at some point, our regional or local culture suffers because there's no place in our major media for it to be displayed.
And that sucks. And it's completely fixable. But instead, like everything else, all that matters is money, even though, at some point, if you make enough money, you realize it doesn't get you far, when the only thing you can find to buy is the same crap.
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