Ten Years Ago... Ownership Concerns and Powell Rumors

It was to hard to pick just one story from our posting January 27, 1997; here's what we were reading about that day: 1) The Wall Street Journal reported that electric and gas companies would soon be using their 600,000 miles of high-capacity fiber optic cable to deliver phone and cable TV service, 2) The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) was accepting applications for grants totaling $18.5 million under its Telecommunications and Information Infrastructure Assistance Program, 3) Broadcasting&Cable reported the latest hot rumor: the Justice Department's Michael Powell would be nominated for the vacant Republican seat on the FCC, and 4) the same magazine had a story on media ownership consolidation -- there were $10 billion in TV ownership transactions in 1996, compared to $4.7 billion in 1995. Smaller ownership groups, advertisers, watchdog groups, and the Clinton Administration feared that ownership would end up in too few hands.
See the full post (warts and all -- remember, we were younger then) at http://www.benton.org/index.php?q=node/4627