This afternoon, 3 independent media houses held a joint press conference to make a stand against the proposed Telemedia monopoly. For these media house owners, they say that they've been up against a monopoly before and they have the horror stories to prove why it's not a good idea.
And while BTL laid out their talking points on Friday, the media houses countered it today.
Evan "Mose" Hyde, XTV/Krem Radio
"We all in the media would admit that the market is not big enough to deal with the number of TV stations and radio stations that we have. Most of us are hand to mouth and some of us, the boat is full of water. But I would never advocate for us to say well then maybe the government should find the resources to bring back state owned radio and TV and buy all of us out. Now that would be fantastic and especially if I were to be able to set my price. And they would say we would be able to get rid of redundancies, get rid of complication and headache of media houses that are practically bankrupted but the question that the public has to deal with is whether or not they were better served having state controlled media as compared to having media houses that are struggling but are providing an atmosphere and an ecosystem that gives them choice and prevents the control of critical information and critical conversation."
"I have a Smart number. My telephone is a Smart number. The reason I have a Smart number is because the existence of Smart for me is a beautiful thing when I have experienced what I have experienced in the past, when we've had the kind of monopoly control whether it was private or government or both. The trauma stays with me."
