Now, comes news that Comcast, one of the largest and richest cable television and broadband providers in the US is a player to purchase and contol NBC Universal.  This is quite disturbing to the 7 year old inside of me.

I grew up without pay tv, until my father got DirecTV 3 months before I left for college.  My media influence centered on free, over the air, ad-supported TV and Radio.  Both are businesses destroyed by options from paid pipelines like cable, as well as legal and pirated content available online.  Where is TV?  Where is the spirit displayed by Weird Al Yancovic in UHF?

NBC made a bold move this year by programming Jay Leno at 10PM.  This is the beginning of the end of the diverse, 60 year history of broadcast network television.  The dual revenue streams of subscriptions and advertising are something that broadcast TV can’t compete with.  ESPN has become the self proclaimed “worldwide leader in sports” for this reason.  Their most recent acquisition was the college football Bowl Championship Series, which is moving from Fox and ABC to ESPN.  Broadcast can’t compete.

Currently, the FCC prohibits one company from owning broadcast TV stations AND cable systems.  Expect a potential Comcast deal to have General Electric be the sole owner of the NBC stations, with GE’s majority stake in NBCU turned into a minority ownership, with Comcast in charge.  Would the FCC even allow this?  It is quite a dangerous precedent.  NBC made a bold move a few years ago acquiring the #2 US Spanish language broadcaster Telemundo.  Will that momentum fall apart?  Is Telemundo more valuable than My Network TV?

The digital transition has come and gone.  It has left a lot of unprofitable TV stations with fancy new technology.  A merger between NBCU and Comcast essentially concedes that broadcast TV is dead.

What do you think?  Am I being too hard?  Is this just Comcast’s way of keeping that cash machine known as Joel McHale in the family?  Discuss.

The closure of libraries deny people of all levels of income access to books, magazines, periodicals and other educational media they might not otherwise have access to.  This brought us to probably the most contentious area of free library offers.

Internet access.

Many printed elements, such as encyclopedias, newspapers, and accurate, scholarly material once only available in libraries has moved to the internet, accessible by anyone in the (free) world with a computer, iPhone or other internet surfing device.

Just as long as you have access to one.

The library of 2009 has been divided into two elements: computers with internet access and everything else.  Are these computers, which let people access all these library-esque tasks, practical for libraries to have.  What percentage of a library’s budget should go to them?  50%?  More?  Less?

Remember, these computers could be open to recreational use as well.  Email, Facebook and other social media, online games, watching last night’s episode of Family Guy on Hulu.  They could also be used to search for, and apply to jobs.  But does this all belong in the same publicly funded building where one can find materials to help study for an exam?  Public internet access can be subject to abuse.  Look at the Apple Store, especially in large cities like New York.  The public uses them for many educational and recreational activities, even though they clearly have no desire (or money) to purchase the computers.  It does probably instill the Apple brand in these freeloaders, so when they can afford a computer, they get a Mac.  But is this the best way for people who can’t afford a PC and internet access to get it?

There are internet-enabled computers in other public walks of life.  How about opening up computer labs at public schools and universities when they are not being used for school use?  Or how about the creation of public computer labs, with money used for them separate from libraries?

I would like to hear your feedback.  Does public internet access NEED to be an element of public libraries?  Discuss.