Comcast-Owned MSNBC Compares Comcast’s Amazingness to Nelson Mandela

(FAIR) After the justified uproar over pro-Trump Sinclair Broadcast Group forcing its scores of affiliates to humiliate themselves by reading an on-air script condemning “misleading” news, one would think other media outlets would be a little more careful not to mimic such behavior. Nonetheless, MSNBC—which rightfully tore into Sinclair Broadcast (4/2/18) for having its news reporters read off a corporate script—did a toned-down […]

Visualizing The Global Rush To Build Skyscrapers

As the creator of today’s visualization, Alberto Lucas López, points out, “the world’s tallest buildings have acted as barometers”.

Another way of putting it? Our biggest architectural accomplishments are highly visible symbols of what society values most, and those values have changed over time.

Today, the paramount belief system in many parts of the world is in capitalism, and there is no more potent marker of the economic might than fantastically tall commercial skyscrapers.

Today’s visualization is an effective way to take in the mind-bending scale of the newest generation of megatall buildings. It’s headlined by Jeddah Tower, a skyscraper currently under construction in Saudi Arabia that will smash the one kilometer mark when it’s completed in 2019.

Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist

CITIES ARE GROWING UP

In general, only very large cities have the resources to build and support extremely tall buildings.

With the explosion of urbanization around the world and developing economies asserting themselves in high profile ways, the stage is set for a global skyscraper boom.

In the last two years, 39 skyscrapers taller than 300m have been constructed, with five of the them eclipsing the height of the Empire State Building.

Global skyscraper construction has increased a whopping 402% since 2000.

HIGH-RISE HOT SPOTS

China

Nearly every sizeable Chinese city has skyscrapers under construction, and the numbers are staggering. Since 2012, China has added 38 skyscrapers over 300m (~1,000 ft) in height, and there are another 16 skyscrapers on the way in 2018.

In particular, the Pearl River Delta megaregion, which is anchored by Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou, has seen an astonishing commercial construction boom. Today, 20 of the 100 tallest buildings on earth are located in just this one urban megaregion of China.

China’s Top 10 Tallest Buildings

In total, 46 of the world’s 100 tallest skyscrapers are now located in China, and that number is sure to increase in coming years.

United Arab Emirates

Construction has been relentless in UAE for decades, and much of that development has been vertically-oriented. Today, Dubai is home to nearly 1,000 high-rise buildings, and there are 13 projects currently under construction that will hit or exceed the 300m mark.

UAE’s Top 10 Tallest Buildings

Russia

While the skylines of many European cities are conspicuously low-rise, an exception to that rule is in Moscow’s International Business Centre, where four 300m+ towers have been completed since 2012.

Russia’s Top 10 Tallest Buildings

WHAT ABOUT THE UNITED STATES?

In the early 20th century, the United States was the undisputed champion of skyscraper construction, but that has tapered off dramatically. In fact, only six commercial towers over 300m have been constructed in the last 20 years.

The exception may be the city that started it all: New York. There are currently 30 skyscrapers under construction in NYC, fueled in part by a red-hot luxury real estate market.

America’s Top 10 Tallest Buildings (Under Construction)

Philadelphia and San Francisco will soon have new additions to their skylines as Comcast and Saleforce complete their flagship construction projects. If current construction numbers are any indication, America’s love affair with the skyscraper may be reignited in urban centers across the country.

American Purchases Of "Stuff They Don"t Need" Hits 17 Year High

Anyone who has been paying attention to the New York Fed’s Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit is probably aware that Americans are drowning in debt...

...Aggregate household debt climbed $116 billion during the third quarter to $12.96 trillion, edging past its previous peak from Q3 2008. But even as millennials struggle to pay down an insurmountable pile of student debt...

...CNBC is reporting that holiday spending this season is on track to hit a 12-year high, according to an annual survey of consumer spending habits. Keep in mind, that survey was taken before Comcast, Boeing, Fifth-Third Bank and AT&T announced they would be handing out last-minute holiday bonuses to rank-and-file employees...

But as both debt and holiday-related spending rise in tandem (suggesting that the former is being utilized to finance the latter), one Bloomberg columnist has estimated that, instead of paying down debt, one-fifth of consumer spending in Q3 went to items that people don’t really need...

Back in the 1950s, the economist John Kenneth Galbraith made a bleak argument about modern capitalism: Advertising can create artificial wants -- say, for the latest gadget or skin cream -- that spur ever-greater consumption without actually making people better off. As a result, economies can grow without improving the lot of humanity.

 

Whether or not he’s right -- it remains a matter of debate -- the idea raises an interesting empirical question: How much of what we consume is related to wants rather than needs?

 

This isn’t easy to answer using even the most detailed data on consumer spending, because many categories could go either way. A car, for example, could be pure transportation or a Ferrari. That said, a number of categories -- such as gambling, hairdressers and recreational vehicles -- are pretty clearly nonessential. Following them consistently over time can give at least a sense of trend.

 

So how are we doing? In the third quarter of this year, nonessential items (of my own subjective selection 1) accounted for almost 18.5 percent of total U.S. consumer spending. That’s the highest share since June 2000.

According to the column’s author, Mark Whitehouse, this nonessential spending has reached its highest level in 17 years...

Whitehouse does list one interesting caveat: Because he calculates the value of nonessential goods in nominal dollars, the overall spending on nonessential items may have been constant in real terms...

...Of course, anyone who has sat through one of the Federal Reserve’s press conferences this year understands that inflation has been receding - not advancing - this year. Which means, if anything, 17% is a lowball figure.

To be sure, spending on life’s little luxuries is still far below its post-WWII peak (according to Whitehouse, conspircuous consumption in the US peaked in 1959)...

...But the fact that this subset of discretionary household spending is still growing, even as household debt rockets to all-time highs, is indicative of how consumers are burning the fiscal candle at both ends...
 

Net Neutrality – The End Of Google"s Biggest Subsidy

Authored by Tom Luongo,

Net Neutrality is gone.  Good riddance.

Lost in all of the theoretical debate about how evil ISPs will create a have/have-not divide in Internet access, is the reality that it already exists along with massive subsidies to the biggest bandwidth pigs on the planet – Facebook, Google, Twitter, Netflix and the porn industry.

Under Net Neutrality these platforms flourished along with the rise of the mobile internet, which is now arguably more important than the ‘desktop’ one in your home and office. 

Google and Apple control the on-ramps to the mobile web in a way that Net Neutrality proponents can only dream the bandwidth providers like Comcast and AT&T could.

Because, in truth, they can’t.  Consumers are ultimately the ones who decide how much bandwidth costs, not the ISPs.  We decide how much we can afford these creature comforts like streaming Netflix while riding the bus or doing self-indulgent Instagram videos of our standing in line at the movies (if that’s even a thing anymore).

Non-Neutrality Pricing

Net Neutrality took pricing of bandwidth out of the hands of consumers.  It handed the profits from it to Google, Facebook and all the crappy advertisers spamming video ads, malware, scams, and the like everywhere.

By mandating ‘equal access’ and equal fee structures the advertisers behind Google and Facebook would spend their budgets without much thought or care.  Google and Facebook ad revenue soared under Net Neutrality because advertisers’ needs are not aligned with Google’s bottom line, but with consumers’.

And, because of that, the price paid to deliver the ad, i.e. Google’s cost of goods sold (COGS), thanks to Net Neutrality, was held artificially low.  And Google, Facebook and the Porn Industry pocketed the difference.

They grew uncontrollably.  In the case of Google and Facebook, uncontrollably powerful.

That difference was never passed onto the ISP who could then, in turn, pass it on to the consumer.

All thanks to Net Neutrality.

Undercapitalized Growth

With the rise of the mobile web bandwidth should have been getting cheaper and easier to acquire at a much faster rate than it has.  But, it couldn’t because of Net Neutrality.  It kept rates of return on new bandwidth projects and new technology suppressed.

Money the ISP’s should have been spending laying more fiber, putting up more cell towers, building better radios went to Google to fritter away on endless projects that never see the light of day.

The ISP’s actually suffered under Net Neutrality and so did the consumers.

And therefore, Net Neutrality guaranteed that the infrastructure for new high-speed bandwidth would grow at the slowest possible rate, still governed by the maximum the consumer was willing to pay for bandwidth, rather than what the consumer actually demanded.

And, once obtained that power was then used to punish anyone who held different opinions from the leadership in Silicon Valley.

Think it through, Net Neutrality not only subsidized intrusive advertising, phishing scams and on-demand porn but also the very censorship these powerful companies now feel is their sacred duty to enforce because the government is now controlled by the bad guys.

Getting rid of Net Neutrality will put the costs of delivering all of this worthless content back onto the people serving it.  YouTube will become more expensive for Google and all of the other content delivery networks.  Facebook video will eat into its bottom line.

The ISP’s can and should throttle them until they ‘pay their fair share,’ which they plainly have not been.

The Net effect of Net Neutrality is that your ISP may charge you more in the short run for Netflix or Hulu.  Or, more appropriately, Netflix and Hulu will have to charge you more and we’ll find out what the real cost of delivering 4k streaming content to your iPhone actually costs.

But, those costs will then go to the ISP’s such that they can respond to demand for more bandwidth.  Will they try and overcharge us?  Of course.  AT&T is just as bad as Google and/or Facebook.

But, we have the right to say no.  To stop using the services the way Net Neutrality encouraged us to through mispricing of service.  If the ISP’s want more customers then they’ll have to bring wire out to the hinterlands.

Inflated Costs, Poor Service

Net Neutrality proponents kept telling us this was the way to help keep the internet available to the poor and the rural.  Nonsense.  It kept the internet from expanding properly into the hinterlands.

I live just over the county line in rural North Florida.  To the south is a town with cable and DSL.   Between cable franchise monopolies retarding expansion across county lines and Net Neutrality keeping margins thin, my home was 10 years behind everyone else getting decent bandwidth to keep up with the needs of the modern Internet.

Bandwidth needs artificially inflated, I might add, by the misaligned cost structure engendered by Net Neutrality in the first place.

It took forever for my phone provider to upgrade the bandwidth across the county line.  I begged them for a second line for internet service, they wouldn’t even talk to me.  Why?  The return on that new line wasn’t high enough for them.

If Google was passing some of the profits from Adwords onto the ISPs I’d have multiple choices for high-speed internet versus just one DSL provider.

As always, whenever the political left tries to protect the poor they wind up making things worse for them.

The Ways Forward

The news is good for a variety of reasons. With Net Neutrality gone a major barrier to entry for content delivery networks is gone.

Blockchain companies are building systems which cut the middle man out completely, allowing content creators to be directly tipped for their work versus being supported by advertising no one watches, wants or is swayed by.

Services like Steemit and the distributed application already built and to be built on it point the way to social media cost models which are sustainable and align the incentives properly between producers of content and consumers.

Steem internalizes the bandwidth costs of using the network and pays itself a part of its token reward pool to cover those costs.  So, all that’s left is content producer and their fans.  Advertisers are simply not needed to maintain the network.

Net Neutrality was a trojan horse designed to replicate the old shout-based advertising model of the golden age of print and TV advertising.  It was a way to control the megaphone and promote a particular point of view.

Look no further than the main proponents of it.  George Soros and the Ford Foundation are two of the biggest lobbyists for Net Neutrality.  Only the political left and its Marxian fantasies of evil middle men creating monopolies fell for the lies, as they were supposed to.

The rest of us were like, “Really?  This is not a problem.”  And it wasn’t until you looked under the hood and realized all they stood to gain by it.

Now, with Net Neutrality gone the underlying problem can be addressed; franchise monopolies of cable and phone companies in geographic areas.  These laws are still in effect.  They still hang like a spectre over the entire industry.  Like Net Neutrality, these laws concentrate capital into the hands of the few providers big enough to keep out the competition.

So, instead of championing the end of franchise monopolies, which county governments love because they get a sizable cut of the revenue to fund non-essential programs, the Left made things worse by championing Net Neutrality.

That also needs to end.  Even if you believe that franchise monopolies were, at one point, necessary.  They are not now.  IP-based communication is now fundamentally different than copper wire for discrete services like phone and cable.  Let people run all the copper and fiber they want.  There’s plenty of room in the conduit running under our sidewalks and streets.

Let a thousand flowers bloom, as the great Lew Rockwell once told me.

Then and only then will the Internet be free.

New Study Says 40% Of American Households Will "Cut The Cord" By 2030

Cord cutting is a topic which we discuss on a fairly regular basis, particularly over the last several quarters as the subscriber losses for cable companies have seemingly accelerated (see: Cord-Cutting Accelerates, Sends Shock Wave Across Traditional TV).  Not surprisingly, one of the biggest losers of the cord cutting phenomenon has been ESPN, a media giant that ironically was one of the largest, if not the largest, beneficiaries of the cable TV bundle since it made its debut in 1979 (see: ESPN Lost 15,000 Subscribers A Day In October).

Of course, as TDG Research notes this morning, the wave of Americans electing to forego the massively overpriced cable TV bundle is only getting started and will see some 40% of American households ditch their service by 2030.

Generally, TDG expects that the penetration of live multi-channel pay-TV services will decline from 85% of US households in 2017 to 79% in 2030. While statistically a loss of only 7%, it nonetheless illustrates the ongoing secular decline of a once healthy market space. TDG predicts that, by 2030, roughly 30 million US households will live without an MVPD service of any kind, be it virtual or legacy.

 

During this time, legacy MVPDs will experience considerable subscriber losses, due not only to long-term industry trends but also growing competition from virtual pay-TV providers. Consequently, legacy pay-TV penetration will fall from 81% of US households in 2017 to 60% in 2030, down 26%. At the same time, virtual pay-TV penetration will grow from roughly 4% of US households to 14%, up 350% but from a very small base.

 

"TDG said early on that the future of TV was an app. Unfortunately, most incumbent MVPDs weren"t taking notes," notes Joel Espelien, TDG Senior Analyst. "The question is no longer if the future of TV is an app, but how quickly and economically incumbents can adapt to this truth and transition to an all-broadband app-based live multi-channel system."

As the Pew Research Center noted over the summer, while part of the cord cutting story is attributable to the growing availability of quality streaming content, another component is a simple demographic transition with only 30% of millennials aged 18-29 saying they subscribe to cable versus 61% with a streaming subscription.

About six-in-ten of those ages 18 to 29 (61%) say the primary way they watch television now is with streaming services on the internet, compared with 31% who say they mostly watch via a cable or satellite subscription and 5% who mainly watch with a digital antenna, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in August. Other age groups are less likely to use internet streaming services and are much more likely to cite cable TV as the primary way they watch television.

 

• Women are more likely than men to say their primary way of watching TV is via cable subscription (63% vs. 55%).

 

• Men are more likely than women to say their primary pathway is online streaming (31% vs. 25%).

 

• Those with a college education or more are more likely than those with less education to say their primary way to watch TV is online streaming. Roughly a third of college-educated Americans (35%) say they mainly watch via streaming, compared with 22% of those who have a high school diploma or less.

 

• Those in households earning less than $30,000 are more likely than others to say they rely on a digital antenna for TV viewing. Some 14% say this, compared with just 5% who live in households earning $75,000 or more.

Of course, many people wrongfully interpret the death of the cable TV bundle as a precursor the imminent demise of cable companies overall...but, as we pointed out in a post entitled "Streaming Killed The Cable Bundle: Record 941,000 Pay-TV Customers Ditch Cable In Q2," nothing could be further from the truth as the real losers will be the weaker content providers who won"t have enough of a draw to sell their content direct to consumers when the channel bundle goes away.  Meanwhile, the cable companies will make out just fine as they will still control the fastest internet connections into the home which will become even more valuable to data-hungry consumers.

We"ve long held the opinion that the content creation and media distribution businesses are on the precipice of a major transformation.  Since the birth of cable TV, content creators (think Disney, Discovery, Scripps, AMC, etc.) have been locked in a perpetual tug-of-war with distribution companies (Comcast, Charter, Verizon, AT&T, etc.).  Up until now, content creators have been the clear winners as they"ve continued to force cable companies to carry their growing lineup of channels, many of which are awful, by effectively holding their good content hostage until distributors agree to pay for channels that they (and their customers) likely don"t want.  As an example, a company like Scripps may refuse to sign a distribution agreement with Charter for HGTV or the Food Network, unless they also agree to pay for their less popular channels like TVN, Fine Living or the Asian Food Channel.

 

All of which is precisely why cable customers have ended up paying for 1,000 channels when they really only watch about 5 of them.

 

But, that is all changing with the onset of direct-to-customer streaming.  HBO was the first to blink, then came ShowTime and now Disney has just announced that ESPN will also go direct.  What this means, of course, is that increasingly people will be able to make a la carte purchases of the media they actually value and ditch all the "crap" that clever content creators have forced down our throats for years by holding their desired content hostage.

In summary, just like "Video killed the Radio Star," streaming has just killed the cable bundle.

Nationwide Net Neutrality Protests Planned For Thursday

Last Wednesday, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released its plan to reverse net neutrality regulations that were put in place under the Obama administration in 2015. Net neutrality is the concept that all internet traffic should be treated equally by internet service providers (ISPs), regardless of the content that is delivered or who it was created by.

Statista"s Felix Richter explains that the new proposal, named the Restoring Internet Freedom order, would no longer classify ISPs as public utilities but rather as information services, meaning that telecommunication companies such as Comcast or Verizon would be legally allowed to create so-called fast lanes for content by providers that either pay for preferential treatment or that the ISP itself has a financial stake in, such as Comcast has in NBC Universal. While the FCC argues that scrapping net neutrality rules would boost investments and innovation by limiting government regulation, advocates of net neutrality argue that the concept creates a level playing field for content providers and fear that getting rid of net neutrality would stifle competition and further increase concentration in the online media landscape.

As Statista"s chart below, based on a Consumer Reports survey, shows, the majority of Americans support the current net neutrality rules and don’t think that ISPs should be allowed to regulate what content their customers can access.

You will find more statistics at Statista

Considering the Republican majority in the commission, it is expected to pass regardless of the vocal opposition from companies and consumers alike.

More than 600 demonstrations are planned at Verizon stores across the United States on Thursday amid the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) plan to kill net neutrality.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai made it clear last month that the FCC will vote on the fate of net neutrality on December 14. The rules currently prohibit internet service providers from charging extra fees, censorship and throttling website speeds.

The rollback is expected to pass the FCC vote next week. However, that is not stopping Demand Progress, Fight for the Future and the Freepress Action Fund who have formed the coalition called “Battle for the Net”.

Evan Greer, campaign director of Fight for the Future said in a statement: “This is the free speech fight of our generation and internet users are pissed off and paying attention. Ajit Pai may be owned by Verizon, but he has to answer to Congress, and lawmakers have to answer to us, their constituents.”

Common Dreams, a non-profit news-oriented website claims, since Pai revealed his plan to kill net neutrality rules back in mid-November, public outrage has continued to expand– despite the lack of coverage from major media outlets. Since the phone lines opened on November 21, more than 774,325 calls have flooded congressional phone lines.

On Thursday, Americans will take to the streets outside their local Verizon stores and congressional offices to protest against rolling back net neutrality, exactly one week ahead of the FCC’s planned vote.

Mark Stanley, director of communications for Demand Progress said, “With what would be a catastrophic vote by the FCC to repeal net neutrality looming, people are ready to take to the streets in protest and to offer Congress one last chance to answer the question: ‘Do you stand for your constituents’ ability to communicate and connect, or do you stand for Verizon’s bottom line?”

Verizon stores were chosen as the premiere site for the demonstrations because  FCC Chairman Ajit Pai previously was the company’s associate general counsel from 2001 to 2003.

The FCC has gone rogue. Congress: do your job and stop @AjitPaiFCC from killing #NetNeutrality on Dec 14. https://t.co/xSJHbLq2Wn

— Fight for the Future (@fightfortheftr) December 4, 2017

Do you think Facebook, Google, and Twitter have too much power? Killing #NetNeutrality would give them even more by squashing startups and competition. Let"s save it: https://t.co/S8d0OxZQe0 pic.twitter.com/p1iVxtVx5p

— Fight for the Future (@fightfortheftr) December 5, 2017

Do you think Facebook, Google, and Twitter have too much power? Killing #NetNeutrality would give them even more by squashing startups and competition. Let"s save it: https://t.co/S8d0OxZQe0 pic.twitter.com/p1iVxtVx5p

— Fight for the Future (@fightfortheftr) December 5, 2017

 

Below is a list of websites, companies, and organizations who are defending net neutrality:

Here are the companies who want to end net neutrality:

Common Dreams said 27 senators including Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have sent Pai a letter on Monday demanding the FCC to delay the vote. Also, 40 consumer protection groups have sent a letter to Pai asking for a delay as well.

Building on the outrage expressed by the American public, a group of 27 senators including Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) delivered a letter to Pai on Monday demanding that the FCC vote be delayed in the face of evidence that the public “record may be replete with fake or fraudulent comments, suggesting that your proposal is fundamentally flawed.”

 

A coalition of over 40 consumer protection groups also called on the FCC to postpone its vote on repealing net neutrality in a letter to Pai on Monday, citing a pending court case that could ultimately “leave consumers at the mercy of internet service providers.”

The attempt seemed promising on Monday, but earlier on Tuesday the FCC rejected all calls to delay the net neutrality vote, according to The Hill.

The FCC said in a statement Monday that “the vote will proceed as scheduled on December 14.” In a separate statement provided to Ars Technica, the FCC hit back at those seeking a delay:

This is just evidence that supporters of heavy-handed Internet regulations are becoming more desperate by the day as their effort to defeat Chairman Pai’s plan to restore Internet freedom has stalled. 

With the delay thwarted by the FCC, and over 600 demonstration sites planned at Verizon locations across the nation on Thursday, and with the US already in a state of constant and belligerent outrage, one wonders what else could possibly go wrong on the day the US government itself at risk of being shut down.

Bitcoin Hits New All Time High After Burst Of Asian Buying: Market Cap Nears $200 Billion

Whether it was the previously discussed unexpectedly bullish JPM report (which calculated that a mere $6bn in net capital inflows has pushed the crypto market cap to $330 billion), or just the latest unexplained burst of buying out of Asia with another weekend surge in volumes out of Japan and Korea, but last week"s bitcoin mini meltdown and bear market are now long forgotten, and overnight the world"s most popular cryptocurrency has soared again, up $750, or 7%, in the past 24 hours, last trading at a new all time high of $11,795, just $200 away from $12,000.

That means it is up nearly 40% from last week"s $8,500 flash crash. To those who bought at the lows, congratulations.

As a result of the latest burst higher, the market cap of bitcoin is now $196.5 Billion, and with Ethereum and the rest of the cryptocoin sector moving higher in sympathy, the market cap of all cryptocurrencies has hit a new all time high $350 billion.

Following Sunday"s move, Bitcoin"s YTD return has risen to a staggering 12x, while ethereum is up nearly 50-fold.

Bitcoin"s market cap is now the same as HSBC at $196 billion, and greater than that of Coca Cola, Cisco, Toyota, Comcast, Pepsi, Bank of China, and Boeing as it is fast approaching Citigroup at $200 billion.

While every push higher prompts renewed bubble warnings from skeptics, others such as the head of the Russian Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Association and Cryptocurrency Yury Pripachkin, have prdicted the cryptocurrency could hit $20,000 by the start of 2018. Compared to pioneering Bitcoin investor, Michael Novogratz, the Russian"s forecast seems tame: last week "Novo" said bitcoin will continue its relentless rally, hitting $40,000 by the end of next year, while ethereum will triple to $1,500 or more.

NBC Fires Matt Lauer For "Inappropriate Sexual Behavior", Trump Gloats

The latest - and biggest - casualty from the Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment scandal was revealed moments ago, when NBC announced it fired its leading morning news anchor Matt Lauer over sexual harassment allegations, the network’s president for news said in a memo to staff on Wednesday.

"Today" star Matt Lauer, the highest paid personality in TV news, was fired following "a detailed complaint from a colleague about inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace," NBC News Chairman Andy Lack said in an email to NBC News staff. Lauer, 59, was named a co-anchor of "Today" in January 1997 after three years as the newsreader.

The full email is below:

Dear Colleagues,

 

On Monday night, we received a detailed complaint from a colleague about inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace by Matt Lauer. It represented, after serious review, a clear violation of our company"s standards. As a result, we"ve decided to terminate his employment. While it is the first complaint about his behavior in the over twenty years he"s been at NBC News, we were also presented with reason to believe this may not have been an isolated incident.

 

Our highest priority is to create a workplace environment where everyone feels safe and protected, and to ensure that any actions that run counter to our core values are met with consequences, no matter who the offender.

 

We are deeply saddened by this turn of events. But we will face it together as a news organization – and do it in as transparent a manner as we can. To that end, Noah and I will be meeting with as many of you as possible throughout the day today to answer your questions.

CNN said that reporters for The New York Times had been investigating Lauer for several weeks, according to sources who had been contacted by the Times. The firing removes one of the most recognizable personalities on television, and at aa time when morning news programs are increasingly important to network news divisions.

The NY Post reports that Lauer allegedly sexually assaulted a female NBC staffer during the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014.

An NBC insider said Lauer’s alleged victim complained to HR on Monday: “This happened so quickly. She didn’t go to the media, she made a complaint to NBC’s human resources, and her evidence was so compelling that Matt was fired on Tuesday night. The victim says she has evidence that this has also happened to other women, but so far we don’t have evidence of that.”

Another source told Page Six that the decision to fire Lauer was made late Tuesday night by NBC News chairman Andy Lack.

* * *

The memo announcing the termination of Lauer was read on air during the Today show this morning. Lauer’s co-host, Savannah Guthrie, announced the news on live TV. Appearing on the verge of tears, Guthrie said,

"This is a sad morning at "Today" and NBC News," she said. "As I"m sure you can understand, we are devastated. All we can say is we are heartbroken; I’m heartbroken for Matt. He is my dear, dear colleague."

She described Lauer as “a dear, dear friend,” and said she was “heartbroken for the brave colleague who came forward to tell her story." Calling Lauer’s termination part of a national reckoning, she asked  “How do you reconcile your love for someone with the revelation that they have behaved badly?”

Hoda Kotb, on the set with Guthrie, said she has known Lauer for years and "loved him as a friend and a colleague." "It"s hard to reconcile the man who walks in every day" with the person who was identified in the complaint, she said.

Matt Lauer has been terminated from NBC News. On Monday night, we received a detailed complaint from a colleague about inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace by Matt Lauer. As a result, we’ve decided to terminate his employment. pic.twitter.com/1A3UAZpvPb

— TODAY (@TODAYshow) November 29, 2017

Ironically, it was none other than Matt Lauer grilling Bill O"Reilly over sexual harassment:

This didn"t age well. Matt Lauer grills Bill O"reilly over sexual harassment pic.twitter.com/jWMHt2LORe

— The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) November 29, 2017

Moments after the news, a gloating President Trump seized on Lauer"s termination, going on to ask in a tweet when executives at NBC and Comcast, the network’s parent company, would “be fired for putting out so much fake news.”

"Wow, Matt Lauer was just fired from NBC for “inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace.” But when will the top executives at NBC & Comcast be fired for putting out so much Fake News. Check out Andy Lack’s past!"

Wow, Matt Lauer was just fired from NBC for “inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace.” But when will the top executives at NBC & Comcast be fired for putting out so much Fake News. Check out Andy Lack’s past!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 29, 2017

He then followed up with the following: "So now that Matt Lauer is gone when will the Fake News practitioners at NBC be terminating the contract of Phil Griffin? And will they terminate low ratings Joe Scarborough based on the “unsolved mystery” that took place in Florida years ago? Investigate!"

So now that Matt Lauer is gone when will the Fake News practitioners at NBC be terminating the contract of Phil Griffin? And will they terminate low ratings Joe Scarborough based on the “unsolved mystery” that took place in Florida years ago? Investigate!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 29, 2017

Did The DOJ Just Kill All Future Hope For Mega Media Mergers?

There is no doubt that AT&T needs the Time Warner deal...badly. Their land-based distribution network, which is dependent on old copper telephone lines, is far inferior to their cable competitors which have since installed coaxial or fiber lines that supply far faster internet speeds to data-hungry homes and businesses. 

Of course, just a few years ago, AT&T attempted to "solve" their copper network problem by ignoring the value of land-based networks altogether and instead buying a satellite TV business, DirecTV, for $67 billion.  Predictably, that decision has been a total disaster as DirecTV has done nothing but shed hundreds of thousands of subscribers ever since...something AT&T management should have been able to predict if they didn"t discredit the growing value of streaming services...a necessary oversight for a company with an inferior network.

Now, rather than ignore the value of distribution, AT&T has apparently decided to pursue mergers that allow them to control content...content which the DOJ feels could be held hostage to make their inferior network somewhat more attractive to customers thus stemming the tide of subscriber losses for AT&T.

Of course, as we noted yesterday, an incredulous AT&T vowed that it"s not possible for a vertical merger to put customers at a disadvantage, as the DOJ has alleged with their anti-trust lawsuit.  Per Axios:

"Vertical" mergers that combine companies in two different industries (AT&T is considered a telecom company and Time Warner is a content provider) are seen as less of an antitrust threat than "horizontal" mergers that combine two competing companies (such as AT&T"s unsuccessful attempt to purchase T-Mobile).

 

Before joining the administration, DoJ Antitrust chief Makan Delrahim had said he didn"t see problems with the proposed merger. He also said at his confirmation hearing that he would not allow political interference in merger reviews.

 

In a similarly structured deal, Comcast was allowed to buy NBCUniversal in 2011, albeit with conditions designed to prevent Comcast from using its market leverage to hamstring competitors.

That said, AT&T"s own distribution plans illustrate precisely how the company might use its newly acquired content to disadvantage other distribution companies and/or their customers.  Using the model below, one could easily envision AT&T offering popular content, like HBO, to their customers at a discount and then hiking up their carriage fees to customers of other cable providers to subsidize their own.

All of which begs the question of whether the DOJ is about to set a precedent that will effectively kill any and all hopes of future mega media deals between distribution companies and content providers...

A number of telecom providers want to deploy their own streaming services with original programming to keep up with the likes of Netflix and Amazon. To do that, many are exploring entertainment acquisitions to keep up in the cutthroat race for content. AT&T"s bid for Time Warner was a litmus test for others who are also eyeing deals.

 

For example, Verizon and Comcast have both expressed interest in 21st Century Fox"s entertainment business. This mirrors AT&T"s bid, because it would involve the acquisition of studio businesses as well as cable channels.

...and what that precedent might mean for companies like Facebook and Google.

The legal fight may also bring a new focus on the question of media competition and the size of the most powerful players — notably Google and Facebook.

 

AT&T and Time Warner execs originally pitched the deal as a way to build a stronger rival to the major platforms companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon, which are gobbling up a growing share of programming and have drastically altered distribution models.

 

Stephenson noted that these companies, in addition to Netflix, are also creating original content yet have so far been unchallenged by antitrust cops.

 

Mark Cuban, who testified in favor of the deal at a congressional hearing last year, tweeted that Facebook and Google will be the big losers of DoJ"s suit to block the deal. "Their media advertising, content and distribution dominance will be a defense at trial. That could create bigger issues for them."

Then again, maybe AT&T is right and this will all be exposed as a sham that goes back to Trump"s feud with CNN...

Watch Live: AT&T, Time Warner Respond To DOJ Anti-Trust Lawsuit

Update (5:40 pm ET): In a statement, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson vowed to fight the DOJ"s lawsuit. He said AT&T"s challenge is about preserving the rule of law against an overreaching DOJ anti-trust division. He also said that, while he doesn"t know for sure if the opposition is political in nature, he"s not surprised that the question of whether this is a political vendetta keep coming up.

He also vowed that AT&T wouldn"t divest Turner Broadcasting and CNN, calling that "a nonstarter."

"When the government suddenly discards decades of legal precedent, businesses large and small are left with no legal guidepost."

"We have no intention of proposing a solution outside of the bounds of what the rule of law would require."

"There"s been a lot of reporting and speculation whether this is all about CNN. But frankly I dont know. But nobody should be surprise that the question keeps coming up because we"ve witnessed such an abrupt change in the application of anti-trust law here."

"Any agreement that results in us forfeiting control of CNN, whether directly or indirectly, is a nonstarter. We have no intention of backing down from the government"s lawsuit."

A lawyer for AT&T also noted that Trump has been "critical" of CNN. The president of course has repeatedly accused the network of being "fake news."

In response to a reporter"s question, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes said he would push for the earliest possible court date, adding that the first hearings could begin in 60 days or less.

Watch the news conference live below:

* * *

Update (5:20 pm ET): According to Bloomberg, a Justice Dept official says the govt’s lawsuit to block AT&T’s planned $85.4b purchase of Time Warner wasn’t influenced by President Trump or anyone else in the White House.

Several media outlets, including Buzzfeed, have noted that some executives at the companies are viewing the stipulation as a political barb aimed directly at CNN, which President Donald Trump has frequently demonized as “fake news.”

“The pro-business, pro-commerce Republican administration objects to a vertical integration with 40 years of legal precedent,” said one executive familiar with the negotiations.

* * *

Update (4:50 pm ET): Court documents have confirmed that the DOJ is suing to block the AT&T-Time Warner deal, according to several US media organizations...

 

Looks like the AT&T antitrust lawsuit was just filed by DOJ, but the complaint isn"t available yet. Story: https://t.co/jNp1mOytnf pic.twitter.com/5PgTK6LiMP

— Zoe Tillman (@ZoeTillman) November 20, 2017

 

The DOJ has released a brief statement: “This merger would greatly harm American consumers. It would mean higher monthly television bills and fewer of the new, emerging innovative options that consumers are beginning to enjoy,” said Makan Delrahim the head of the department’s antitrust division.

As Reuters pointed out, the legal challenge was expected after AT&T rejected a demand by the Justice Department earlier this month to divest its DirecTV unit or Turner Broadcasting.

AT&T and Time Warner are expected to make a joint statement around 5:30 pm ET...

* * *

Update (4:20 pm ET): David R. McAtee II, Senior Executive Vice President and General Counsel at AT&T, has released a statement responding to reports DOJ plans to sue to block its purchase of Time Warner.

In the statement, McAtee says he"s "confident" the courts will side with AT&T..

"Today"s DOJ lawsuit is a radical and inexplicable departure from decades of antitrust precedent.  Vertical mergers like this one are routinely approved because they benefit consumers without removing any competitor from the market. We see no legitimate reason for our merger to be treated differently.  

"Our merger combines Time Warner"s content and talent with AT&T"s TV, wireless and broadband distribution platforms.  The result will help make television more affordable, innovative, interactive and mobile.  Fortunately, the Department of Justice doesn"t have the final say in this matter.  Rather, it bears the burden of proving to the U.S. District Court that the transaction violates the law.  We are confident that the Court will reject the Government"s claims and permit this merger under longstanding legal precedent."

The DOJ Is expected to make a "major statement" about an anti-trust action within the hour. It"s been widely reported that the AT&T-Time Warner merger will be the subject of the statement.

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson recently said he was never told that selling CNN would be a condition of getting the deal done. But he said that the company was prepared to fight in court to save the deal, if necessary, according to the Financial Times.

“Since the day we announced this we’ve been preparing to litigate this deal,” he said. “We are prepared to litigate now," Stephenson said earlier this month at the NYT"s Dealbook conference.

* * *

Just minutes after the DOJ announced that it would be unveiling a major anti-trust action late Monday, Bloomberg reported that AT&T will be the target of said action (as Amazon sneaks by one more day). Late last year, AT&T announced that it had agreed to buy Time Warner in another controversial merger of content creators and distributors.

The news hammered shares of Time Warner, which dropped nearly 2% as investors realized that the White House is preparing to act on President Donald Trump’s campaign-season threat to block the $85.4 billion merger. Meanwhile, shares of AT&T climbed.

The reports are the culmination of more than a week of sparring over the deal and dealing a major blow to the carrier’s bid to create a media and telecommunications empire, Bloomberg reported. NBC also confirmed the news.

The challenge would derail a deal that had appeared to be sailing toward approval as recently as a month ago. That was before the new US antitrust chief Makan Delrahim took up his position and took over the investigation. During negotiations he pushed for the companies to sell the Turner broadcasting unit or DirecTV, a request that AT&T rejected. Last week, reports emerged that the DOJ had asked Time Warner to sell its Turner Broadcasting unit, which includes cable news network CNN. Later, the DOJ said AT&T and Time Warner had offered to sell CNN if that would cause DOJ to drop its opposition to the deal.

How The Elite Dominate The World – Part 3: 90% Of What You Watch On TV Is Controlled By Just 6 Giant Corporations

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

How much is your view of the world shaped by what you see on television? 

On average, Americans spend more than 150 hours watching television every month, and it is called “programming” for a reason.  If you allow anyone to pour ideas and information into your mind for five hours a day, it is going to change how you look at reality.  Everyone has an agenda, and every single news program, television show and movie is trying to alter your views.  Sadly, our society has become absolutely addicted to media, and the mainstream media is completely dominated by the elite. 

In fact, about 90 percent of the programming that comes through your television is controlled by just 6 gigantic media corporations.  Most of us are willingly plugging ourselves into this “propaganda matrix” that is completely dominated by the elite for several hours each day, and that gives them an enormous amount of power over the rest of us.

In Part I and Part II of this series, I discussed how the elite use money as a tool to dominate the planet.  Today, we are going to talk about how they use information.  If you control what people think, then you control a society.  And through their vast media empires, the elite are able to shape how we all think to a frightening degree.

Just think about it.  What do we talk about with our family, our friends and our co-workers?  To a large extent, those conversations are about movies, television shows, something that we just saw on the news or a sporting event that just took place.  The reason why we talk about certain things is because the mainstream media gives those things attention, and other things we ignore because the mainstream media does not make them seem to be important.

The mainstream media literally sets the agenda for our society, and it would be difficult to overstate the power that is in their hands.  And as I mentioned above, the mainstream media is almost entirely controlled by just 6 colossal corporations.  The following list of these 6 corporate giants comes from one of my previous articles, and this is just a sampling of the media properties that they each own…

Comcast

• NBC


• Telemundo


• Universal Pictures


• Focus Features


• USA Network


• Bravo


• CNBC


• The Weather Channel


• MSNBC


• Syfy


• NBCSN


• Golf Channel


• Esquire Network


• E!


• Cloo


• Chiller


• Universal HD


• Comcast SportsNet


• Universal Parks & Resorts


• Universal Studio Home Video

The Walt Disney Company

• ABC Television Network


• ESPN


• The Disney Channel


• A&E


• Lifetime


• Marvel Entertainment


• Lucasfilm


• Walt Disney Pictures


• Pixar Animation Studios


• Disney Mobile


• Disney Consumer Products


• Interactive Media


• Disney Theme Parks


• Disney Records


• Hollywood Records


• Miramax Films


• Touchstone Pictures

News Corporation

• Fox Broadcasting Company


• Fox News Channel


• Fox Business Network


• Fox Sports 1


• Fox Sports 2


• National Geographic


• Nat Geo Wild


• FX


• FXX


• FX Movie Channel


• Fox Sports Networks


• The Wall Street Journal


• The New York Post


• Barron’s


• SmartMoney


• HarperCollins


• 20th Century Fox


• Fox Searchlight Pictures


• Blue Sky Studios


• Beliefnet


• Zondervan

Time Warner

• CNN


• The CW


• HBO


• Cinemax


• Cartoon Network


• HLN


• NBA TV


• TBS


• TNT


• TruTV


• Turner Classic Movies


• Warner Bros.


• Castle Rock


• DC Comics


• Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment


• New Line Cinema


• Sports Illustrated


• Fortune


• Marie Claire


• People Magazine

Viacom

• MTV


• Nickelodeon


• VH1


• BET


• Comedy Central


• Paramount Pictures


• Paramount Home Entertainment


• Country Music Television (CMT)


• Spike TV


• The Movie Channel


• TV Land

CBS Corporation

• CBS Television Network


• The CW (along with Time Warner)


• CBS Sports Network


• Showtime


• TVGN


• CBS Radio, Inc.


• CBS Television Studios


• Simon & Schuster


• Infinity Broadcasting


• Westwood One Radio Network

If nobody tuned in to their “programming”, they would not have any power over us.

But according to a report put out by Nielsen, Americans are plugging into “the matrix” more than ever before.  The following is how our daily use of media breaks down by device…

• Live TV: 4 hours, 31 minutes


• Time-Shifted TV: 33 minutes


• Radio: 1 hour, 52 minutes


• DVDs: 8 minutes


• Video Game Consoles: 14 minutes


• Multimedia Devices (Apple TV, Roku, etc.): 13 minutes


• Internet on PC: 58 minutes


• Smartphone: 1 hour, 39 minutes


• Tablet: 31 minutes

When you total those numbers up, it comes to 10 hours and 39 minutes.

In essence, Americans are spending most of their waking hours plugged in to something.

And if you only add together “live television” and “time-shifted television”, Americans are spending an average of more than five hours each day just watching television.

Of course many of us spend countless hours on the Internet as well.  It has been estimated that 54,907 Google searches are conducted, 7,252 tweets are posted, 125,406 YouTube videos are viewed, and 2,501,018 emails are sent out every single second.

You may have guessed this already, but most of the news and information that we consume on the Internet is also controlled by the elite…

Overall, the top 10 publishers — together owning around 60 news sites — account for 47% of total online traffic to news content last year, with the next-biggest 140 publishers accounting for most of the other half, SimilarWeb found.

The biggest online news publisher for the U.S. audience was MSN, owner of MSN.com, with just over 27 billion combined page views across mobile and desktop, followed by Disney Media Networks, owner of ESPN and ABC News, with 25.9 billion.

This is why the “alternative media” is so important.  All over America and all over the world, people are waking up and realizing that they aren’t getting the truth from the mainstream media, and they are hungry for truly independent sources of information.

The only way that we are ever going to be able to throw off the insidious system of control that the elite have established is by winning the information war.  We are literally in a constant battle for hearts and minds, and the good news is that we have made a lot of progress.  Over the past decade we have “red pilled” millions upon millions of people, but we still have a long way to go.

Faith in the corporate media is dwindling, and the elite are deeply concerned about this. 

The Internet has allowed ordinary people like us to communicate on a mass scale, and this has never been the case before in human history.  We have a window of opportunity to fight back against the elite, and we must not let this opportunity pass us by.

We are literally engaged in a battle for the future of this planet, and let us never waver in our pursuit of victory.

*  *  *

Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

Pay-TV Companies Tank As Subscriber Losses Surge To Record Highs In 2017

As the broader markets casually melt-up to new record highs with each passing day, one small corner of the equity market is in full on meltdown mode: cable and satellite pay-tv providers.  Down anywhere from 3-10% on the week, investors in this space seem to be finally admitting that record subscriber losses, quarter after quarter, just may end up being a bad thing.

As Bloomberg points out this morning, pay-tv subscriber losses are expected to set a new record in 2017, surpassing the 1.7mm homes that "cut the cord" in 2016, as industry analyst Craig Moffet warns "it is becoming increasingly clear that the wheels are falling off..."

Barring a major fourth-quarter comeback, 2017 is on course to be the worst year for conventional pay-TV subscriber losses in history, surpassing last year’s 1.7 million, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. That figure doesn’t include online services like DirecTV Now. Even including those digital plans, the five biggest TV providers are projected to have lost 469,000 customers in the third quarter.

AT&T sank 6.1 percent, the biggest one-day loss since November 2008. Dish, which also provides satellite service, declined 5.1 percent. Viacom dropped 2.5 percent while AMC Networks Inc. fell 6.8 percent after Guggenheim Securities LLC downgraded the two stocks to neutral from buy.

Dallas-based AT&T is pushing headlong into TV programming by acquiring HBO and CNN owner Time Warner Inc. in an $85.4 billion deal. Chief Executive Officer Randall Stephenson has argued that the acquisition will let AT&T create compelling video packages for mobile subscribers and provide valuable targeting information for advertisers.

“It is becoming increasingly clear that the wheels are falling off of satellite TV,” said Craig Moffett, an analyst at MoffettNathanson LLC, in a research note.

AT&T set off the selling panic earlier this week when they announced they would lose 390,000 pay-tv customers in 3Q 2017 alone.  As a reminder, AT&T purchased DirectTV for $48.5 billion just 3 years ago...something tells us shareholders might like a "do-over" on that colossal misallocation of capital.

AT&T, whose ownership of the DirecTV satellite service makes it the biggest U.S. pay-television provider, said late Wednesday it will report a third-quarter loss of 390,000 satellite and cable customers, echoing a similar warning weeks earlier from Comcast Corp. The same night, Viacom cautioned that its distribution deal with Charter Communications Inc., the second-biggest cable U.S. company, may lead to a blackout, potentially testing whether millions of viewers are willing to go without MTV and Nickelodeon.

Shares of both companies retreated Thursday, contributing to a broader selloff in the sector. The S&P 500 Media Index, which includes Comcast and ESPN owner Walt Disney Co., slid 2.3 percent to the lowest level since December.

Meanwhile, the bigger question that remains to be answered is whether cable providers will finally use this customer backlash to push back on content providers who have managed to force ridiculous annual price increases down the throats of American consumers for decades...Citi analyst Jason Bazinet seems to think so...

After decades of steadily increasing bills and ever-bigger packages of channels, the pay-TV ecosystem is in full-blown crisis mode. AT&T, Dish Network Inc. and others are offering cheaper, online-only versions of cable to lure customers back, but that means having to accept thinner profit margins.

“Those salad days of fat bundles, automatic carriage renewals and customary affiliate steps ups are long gone,” Citigroup Inc. analyst Jason Bazinet wrote in a note this week. “Today, every media and cable firm is jockeying for self-preservation. And we suspect the next chapter in this new era means Charter will drop -- or significantly curtail -- distribution of Viacom’s content.”

Of course, some of these content owners are making the decision to drop the cable bundle much easier all on their own...

McMaken: Stop Wrapping The Flag Around Pro Sports

Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

Desperate to fill hours and hours of air time on 24-hour news channels, media corporations have made sure the discussion of the correct posture of National Football League players has been front and center. 

Apparently, before grown men can chase a little toy around a grassy field for a few hours, it"s absolutely essential that they take part in a variety of pro-government rituals. This was not always the case, though, and prior to the twentieth century, it was hardly expected that a ballgame be preceded by a recitation of the national anthem or any other song of national allegiance.

Indeed, the current pantomime in which NFL players are expected to stand at attention for the national anthem is of extremely recent origin. As Tom Curran pointed out on Comcast Sportsnet, prior to 2009, football players "weren"t on the field for the national anthem and instead generally remained in the locker room." 

And why did players start making a display of their "patriotism" in 2009? It turns out the government gave them taxpayer money to do so: 

In 2009, Barack Obama"s Department of Defense began paying hundreds of thousands towards teams in a marketing strategy designed to show support for the troops and increase recruitments. The NFL then required all players and personnel to be on the sidelines during the national anthem, in exchange for taxpayers dollars. Prior, the national anthem was played in the stadium but players had the option of staying in the locker room before heading out to the field.

Furthermore, teams that showed "Veteran"s Salutes" during games were paid upwards of $5.1 million dollars.

In total, 6.8 million in taxpayer money was doled out to sports teams - mostly NFL teams - for so-called "paid patriotism." 

When the Pittsburgh Steelers elected to stay in the locker room during the anthem this past Sunday, this was denounced by many as "boycotting" the national song, although this would have just been standard practice a decade ago. 

Playing the Anthem: A "Tradition" Promoted by War

Not surprisingly, if we look into the history of playing the national anthem at sporting events, we find war was an important factor. 

Before the First World War, playing the national anthem or sporting events was quite rare. No one expected it to be done, and hiring a band was expensive. 

According to mlb.com, the most conspicuous early use of the national anthem was at game 1 of the 1918 World Series during World War I. Unexpectedly, during the seventh-inning stretch, a military band played the national anthem in an effort to liven up a reportedly surly and war-wearied group of spectators.  

Use of the anthem spread from there. The anthem"s use expanded even more during the Second World War, as Matt Soniak notes: 

During World War II, baseball games again became venues for large-scale displays of patriotism, and technological advances in public address systems allowed songs to be played without a band.

"The Star-Spangled Banner" was played before games throughout the course of the war, and by the time the war was over, the pregame singing of the national anthem had become cemented as a baseball ritual, after which it spread to other sports.

But even after the war, the habit of playing the anthem at every game was not firmly in place until the Vietnam war. 

In most cases, the use of the anthem was not directly subsidized as it was with the taxpayer-funded paid-patriotism scam. Usually, team owners quite voluntarily employed the anthem as a marketing gimmick. In times of war, team owners were happy to use the anthem as a type of advertising to make an emotional connection between the customers — i.e., the spectators — and the team"s product. Wrapping a commercial product in the flag and apple pie to increase sales is hardly unique to pro sports. But pro sports may have used this tactic more successfully than any other industry. 

Unfortunately for the NFL, this tried-and-true marketing strategy may be backfiring as the teams" employees — and surely many spectators as well — see no problem with using the anthem ritual as an opportunity to make a political statement. The result has been a marketing nightmare for the league. 

Although this has been taken up by politicians such as Donald Trump as a matter of critical importance, it really should be viewed as just a private business matter. Tho Bishop has noted that, as private firms, each team should be free to discipline or fire any employee who might cause customer displeasure or a loss of revenue for the team. The question of course, is whether it might be even worse — in terms of earnings — for a team to eliminate its most talented athletes. That"s a business decision the owners will have to make. 

Everything Is Political

To a certain extent, though, the pro sports industry has called down the current controversy on itself. Having wrapped their product in the political garb of Old Glory and the national anthem for decades, team owners are now having to pay the piper. Since many of their customers now expect pro sports to be political — but only political in a way that matches their particular ideology — team owners now face a headache that could have been totally avoidable. 

It didn"t have to be this way. In recent years, many reasonable observers have complained that society is becoming increasingly politicized. Today, it"s easy to find ways in which once apolitical activities have been ruined by ideological posturing. Late night talk shows are now essentially hard-left propaganda. Selling tacos is denounced as "cultural appropriation," and every Hollywood awards show is now a series of political speeches. In the case of professional sports, however, there"s nothing recent about this sort of politicization.

For nearly a century, pro sports have been politicized through their habitual use of the American state"s symbols and songs. The Pentagon knows this, which is why it so enthusiastically shoveled millions of dollars of taxpayer money at the NFL as part of an advertising blitz. But even back in 1918, the US government knew the potential of politicizing sporting events. This is why, during the 1918 World Series, the Navy made sure it had a recruiting station at Wrigley Field. 

Are We Witnessing the Death Spiral of Cable Television?

Via The Daily Bell

Cable television has long been the coveted propaganda arm used to program American sentiments. But because of the internet, viewer choice for news, sports, and entertainment has proliferated. Content is becoming decentralized, and that makes it harder to control the attitudes of the masses.

Since 2013, pay tv subscriptions have been declining, losing more customers than they gain. Over one million people per year are fleeing from paying for cable TV from companies like Verizon, Time Warner, and Comcast.

For three straight years, the viewership of the Emmy’s has declined. Yet while cable networks broadcast the award show, original Hulu and HBO shows were winning the awards.

You don’t need a cable subscription to watch shows on Netflix, HBO Now, or Hulu. While Netflix and Hulu run some cable shows, they also produce their own content. This doesn’t automatically mean the content won’t be akin to the typical propaganda on cable. But it does mean that control over programming is more decentralized. This includes the FCC’s slipping grip, as they have thus far failed to seriously regulate online programming.

Now consumers have a choice. Youtube offers even more choices which allow independent and much smaller content producers to disseminate their shows. Owned by Google, there is plenty to criticize when it comes to Youtube. They arbitrarily remove certain content that they don’t like. But this will just bolster alternatives like Vimeo and DailyMotion.

Amazon also offers subscription programming that goes along with their Prime program. Like Netflix, they are investing in making their own TV shows and movies to better compete with all the alternatives. An Amazon Prime 30-Day Free Trial lets you see what they got before committing.

And whatever issues you may have with companies like Youtube and Amazon, there are now plenty other options available, with more coming.

An exciting new startup called BadMirror.tv will soon go live. The company aims to tackle programming from a community perspective. They offer “hyperlocal broadcasting” that is boosted based on popularity but always starts locally. BadMirror.tvseeks to reconnect people to their community so that a handful of big executives–and whoever is influencing them–can’t centralize control over content, and decide what will be popular.

Pride comes before the fall.

A user base can vanish quickly when customers no longer get what they want from a business, and have plenty of alternatives.

And we should expect viewers to go elsewhere as their favorite content starts leaving a bad taste in their mouth. For years, football has enjoyed tremendous ratings, insulated from the decline of other cable programming. But viewers have recently been turned off by excessive political correctness from the NFL, as well as protest displays from pro-football players which many view as unpatriotic and disrespectful to law enforcement.

Overall viewership for the 2016 NFL season was down 8% per game, an average of 1.4 million fewer viewers per game compared to 2015. So far in the 2017 season just beginning, there has been a 14% decline in viewership.

The kicker is that football has been counted on by Cable networks to save television. Sports games are still better watched live since hearing the score for a recorded game is a major spoiler. When you watch live, it is harder to get around the commercials. But people aren’t watching football as much, not even on alternative providers. The NFL has overplayed its hand in delving into politics.

The good news is, as an individual, you don’t have to be affected by Cable TV one way or the other. You have the power to simply choose alternatives that don’t play into the machine of manipulation, fear, and drivel.

Of course, another great alternative is to read books for entertainment. Go full Farenheight 451, reject the screens which take up whole walls of the living room, and become a literary outlaw.