Page 180 - Communication Commerce and Power The Political Economy of America and the Direct Broadcast Satellite
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170          Communication,  Commerce and Power

           behavioral regulation - has enabled established companies to consol-
           idate  their  holdings  and,  when  possible,  undermine  prospective
           competitors. As represented in the cable television industry's attempt
           to  block  DDS,  the  recent  history  of the  domestic  communications
           and  information  market  again  and  again  has  featured  such  anti-
           competitive  activities.  The  relative  efficiencies  of  DDS  systems
           impelled  established cable  operators  to conspire against  their  intro-
           duction in the domestic market.  In light of the transnational broad-
           casting  capabilities  of  DDS,  this  conspiracy  produced  quite  the
           opposite of what the cultural imperialism paradigm might anticipate:
           the cable companies actively worked  to prevent  the development  of
           expanding  North  American  markets  for  their  programing  and,  in
           effect, more general corporate promotions. While the long-term estab-
           lishment  of such  transnational  markets  mostly benefiting  US-based
           TNCs may well come about, the case of DDS again raises the need for
           more  precise  theorizations  and  detailed  research.  American  state
           structures took many years to redress these anti-competitive activities,
           and  FCC  efforts  to  encourage  DDS  developments  using  a  policy
           approach  almost  totally  absent  of behavioral  regulation  proved  to
           be an illusory remedy.



           7.2  DDS,  DIGITALIZATION AND HDTV

           The two  corporations  most  active  in  DDS  developments - General
           Motors (GM) (through its subsidiary Hughes Communications) and
           News  Corporation  International  - also  control  a  range  of related
           information-based commodity interests.  In  1984, General Motors, in
           pursuing  a  policy  of restructuring  and  corporate  'rationalization'
           involving wage-restraint packages,  worker lay-offs and plant reloca-
           tions,  purchased the  world's  largest  data-processing company,  Elec-
           tronic Data Systems, for $2.5 billion. One year later it bought Hughes
           Aircraft for  $5  billion.  GM's long-term  rationale for  this entry into
           communications and information-based activities involved the forma-
           tion  of a  fully  integrated  intra-corporate  computerized  information
           system with  the  capability of instantaneously linking internationally
           segmented  factory  floors  with  head  office.  Beyond  its  attempts  at
           setting a world standard for such technologies, GM, like many other
           TNCs, applied these resources in efforts to reduce day-to-day produc-
           tion costs  (including  labor costs  through  the  use  of computers  and
           factory robotics), to increase the efficiency and flexibility of  its diverse
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