Page 21 - Convergent Journalism an Introduction Writing and Producing Across Media

“Easy” versus “Difficult” Convergence

programs. A battle for audiences soon took place between Singapore’s
two major media groups, as each ventured in different directions down
the multiple-platform path.
Early in June 2003 America’s Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) approved controversial changes to the rules governing media
ownership. These changes have the potential to influence the spread
of convergence. Rules on newspaper and television ownership have not
been updated since the mid-1970s, when cable television was still an
infant and the Internet almost unknown. Chairman Michael Powell
and his two Republican allies won the vote 3–2 and proposed new
rules, yet to be implemented, that permit media companies to own
more outlets within a market. Multiple groups appealed the decision
in various federal courts. These cases were consolidated and assigned
by lottery to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
In terms of convergence, the proposed FCC changes ease limits on
owning a newspaper and a television station in the same market in the
majority of large markets, and ease restrictions on cross-ownership of
radio and TV stations in the same market. Most analysts agree that if
the laws change many media companies will swap properties to enable 11
them to own a newspaper and a television station in one city, and
convergence will become more common. Media General owns 26 daily
newspapers and 27 television channels, mostly in the southeast of the
country. Chairman and CEO J. Stewart Bryan announced his plans
just before the June 2003 changes: “Any of the places where we have
a newspaper, we’d like to have a TV station ... . Any of the places
we have a TV station, we’d like to have a newspaper” (Steinberg and
Sorkin, 2003, C6).

“Easy” versus “Difficult” Convergence

Professor James Gentry, former dean of the William Allen White
School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of
Kansas, has proposed a continuum between the “easy” and “difficult”
introduction of convergence. He inserted the quote marks around the
words because “there really is no such thing as easy convergence,” he
said. Table 1.1 lists the two extremes of the continuum (Gentry, 2004).
Most of the items on this continuum are self-explanatory. Take a look at
the factors listed in Table 1.1 and see where the media you are familiar
with sit on this continuum.