(September 19, 2025 at 8:20 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: This, on the other hand, appears quite clearly to be a quid pro quo in order to get a merger/buyout approved by an FCC that has already been weaponized against other critics, something you neglected to mention for some reason or other.
On the "Damned Trump" thread I wrote this two days ago:
Quote:ABC isn't public, though. It isn't in "the public sphere."
It's a private for-profit company owned by Nexstar. The directors of Nexstar are obligated to turn a profit for their shareholders.
Nexstar has agreed to buy a rival conglomerate, Tegna, for billions of dollars. The deal requires FCC approval, because it would violate current regulations on how many TV stations one company can own in any given market. If Brendan Carr is mad at Nexstar it could endanger the deal.
Trump's FCC has generally been in favor of loosening regulations on media companies like this. Not for free speech reasons, obviously, but to help rich people get richer.
Legacy media is losing viewers fast. A lot of people voted for Trump. If a significant number of those people decide to stop watching Nexstar stations or going to Disney attractions, some rich people won't make as much money as they could.
For-profit media can't be trusted to censor itself. It doesn't exist to tell the truth.
So I had already mentioned it.
As for hiring someone to tell jokes on TV, the boss gets to decide what kind of joke he wants to hear. That's how capitalism works.
