An interesting thing happened today here in Canada. Bell purchased Astral Media. Astral owns a number of television stations/channels and over 400 radio stations. Now most of you probably don't know why this is such a big deal, but I'll try to explain a few of the apprehensions I have about this.
First of all, I work for one of the small independant radio/tv combos still left. Even though we're owned by the Pattison Broadcast group, we're still a small family and still run like an independant. And the first issue I have with the Bell purchase is that another small media group has been swallowed by the corporate whale of Bell. The independant stations are slowing going under like the ma and pa stores when the Big Box wave hit every community like a plague of locusts... and like the Borg on Star Trek, Resistance is futile.
Second of all, and to me this is also a frightening aspect, Bell now owns a major chunk of what you hear and see everyday.... they own phone, internet, radio and television... almost every form of communication to the masses. Rogers communications also owns a huge chunk of these four as well. I know this sounds a little conspiracy theory-esque, but whether you want to admit it not, they control what you see, when you see it and how you see it.
Ever so slowly, day by day, bit by bit, we are giving up control of our lives to the corporations. Our Governments are allowing this as well, by giving them discounted taxation to buy their loyalties and political support. Complete Power corrupts Completely. and I, for one, don't like where this is heading.
No comments:
Post a Comment