Interesting Interview by Bill Moyers

excerpted by Alternet, with an unlikely opponent of media deregulation, Barry Diller.

Snip:

"Well, if you have companies that produce, that finance, that air on their channel and then distribute worldwide everything that goes through their controlled distribution system, then what you get is fewer and fewer actual voices participating in the process. Used to have dozens and dozens of thriving independent production companies producing television programs. Now you have less than a handful. What's caused that is the forces of consolidation.

"There should be some restraints. Broadcasting really used to have a very clear public service quotient and it's been lost. Other things have been lost too. This perfect balance which was created by fear (is gone). Fear that your license would get taken away from you plus a real sense of public service responsibility. That those airwaves actually belonged to the public. You used them. You profited from them. But you had to keep it in balance. That was a healthy environment. And in that environment, of course, mistakes get made, excesses happen. But they rebalance themselves."