Last Updated on: 17th February 2014, 03:09 pm
If you haven’t heard by now,
Bell Globemedia is buying CHUM Ltd.
This news may not mean much to a lot of you, but if you in any way care about having options when it comes to what you watch on TV, what you listen to on the radio or what you read in the newspaper or online every day, it definitely should.
Read the story at the link above and think about how many things these 2 companies own, and then consider that when, not if, this deal is approved, 1 group of people will own every single bit of it. One voice will dominate all of those airwaves. The creative vision of a select few people will dictate the kind of shows you have to watch and the types of music that make it to air on mainstream radio. And most frightening to me, one editorial voice will have even more control than it does now over the already slanted news coverage we rely on to stay informed about what’s going on around us. If you don’t think that the news is slanted, first of all where have you been, and secondly, consider that in order to find out that more than 200 people would be losing their jobs as a direct result of this sale, I had to rely on the CBC. Funny how the CTV news didn’t mention that little chestnut when they covered it, I wonder how something like that happened.
On a personal note, I want to take a moment to address anybody who has ever asked me why I haven’t gone ahead and snagged that big time radio job I’ve always dreamed of. Does it make sense yet? It’s things just like this that have soured me on the whole idea. The job security just isn’t there anymore, and the pool of available *decent* jobs is getting smaller and smaller as technology takes over and as the number of companies offering the positions that remain gets lower and lower. Knowing that, I’d be an idiot to willingly get myself into such a situation for the sake of fulfilling a dream that in no way resembles the one I grew up with. Sure I might have a good voice for radio, but I know damn well that there are better uses out there for it than standing outside repeatedly yelling “will work for food.”
In closing, let me state the obvious. the only people that media consolidation benefits in any way are media executives. Everyone else, from the people who do all of the actual work for these companys right on down to the lowly consumer [that’s us by the way] just ends up getting the shaft. And you know what the really sad part is? We’re getting to the point where we can’t even choose who gives it to us anymore.