Ted Turner – My Beef with Big Media

Captain Courageous, or Outrageous, depending on your POV, Ted Turner takes some shots at media consolidation in this Washington Monthly article:

Today, media companies are more concentrated than at any time over the past 40 years, thanks to a continual loosening of ownership rules by Washington. The media giants now own not only broadcast networks and local stations; they also own the cable companies that pipe in the signals of their competitors and the studios that produce most of the programming. To get a flavor of how consolidated the industry has become, consider this: In 1990, the major broadcast networks–ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox–fully or partially owned just 12.5 percent of the new series they aired. By 2000, it was 56.3 percent. Just two years later, it had surged to 77.5 percent.

Ironically, on the day I read this, Gannett announced that they purchased a rival Green Bay, WI newspaper, the News-Chronicle (along with a number of regional and weekly publications). Frank Wood owned the News Chronicle, which in 1989 published a long series of articles critical of Gannett and its business practices. Richard McCord, the writer of these articles went on to publish a book – the Chain Gang.
Jon Lauck references this book in his disection of the newspaper monopoly situation in South Dakota.

History of the ATM

Ellen Florian wrote an interesting article on the history of ATM’s: The Money Machines:

The line was long and slow, and he became increasingly irritated as his lunch hour dribbled away. All at once, he had a flash of inspiration. ‘Golly, all the teller does is cash checks, take deposits, answer questions like “What’s my balance?” and transfer money between accounts,’ recalls Wetzel, now 75 and still living in Dallas with his wife. ‘Wow, I think we could build a machine that could do that!’ And with a $4 million go-ahead from Docutel’s parent company, that’s exactly what he and his engineers did. Read more about the story of the ATM.”

Via Slashdot.