What made CBS turn evil anyway?

[thermodynamic]

1970: "All in the Family" garnered 50 million viewers and spun at least 3 shows off of it.

1999: "Survivor", 50 million viewers, is as utterly stupid as they come.

2004: Despite airing politically motivated ads in the past, CBS refused to air a rightfully anti-* ad.

Who owns CBS these days?

[Paulie]

1. Went from Westinghouse to VIACOM

just your average corrupt media comglomerate

[Paulie]

3. Viacom own CBS and UPN

And they need to be tight with the powers that be, since they have more TV stations that is allowed under deregulation.

[Eric J in MN]

2. Mel Karmazin is the CEO of Viacom. He told Congress that

Mel Karmazin is the CEO of Viacom. He told Congress that the ad "Same Medicare. More Benefits" paid for with $12 million of our tax-dollars ISN'T an advocacy ad, and therefore CBS would run it.

However, after Congressional Democrats opened an investigation into whether it was illegal to pay for a thinly-disguided campaign ad for Bush with taxpayer money, CBS decided not to run the ad for the time being.

[Alinsky]

4. Lawyers

Business managers and Lawyers took over the role of editor and news Reporter by dictating what is news. In other words news was not news unless the lawyers and the business managers said it was News even if it was not News or news. It goes on and on. The business managers told the script writers what to write and about what. Why? So the business managers and lawyers could make money not CBS.

Unions have been finished from the early 70s.

[Touchdown]

5. I checked VIACOM's campaign contributions once.

IIRC...during the 2002 election year...

Republicans was $415,000

Democrats was $791...That's it! (yes that's less than a thousand)

The media companies that spent more on Dems were AOL/TW and Disney. Even then, they spent only about $30,000 difference between Dems and Repubs. $340,000 Dem to $312,000 Repub from Disney, for example.

EDIT: Actually I still have my scrap paper here from 2 weeks ago, when the argument last came up, so no need for IIRC.

[kaitykaity]

6. Fear, pure and simple fear.

I saw that CEO on the news bowing and scraping before Congress and thought :wtf:. I couldn't believe the groveling.

With the Reagan movie and the Move-On ad, and the flak Dan Rather takes for being a 'liberal', maybe the reThugs have something bad on sombody high up in the network heirarchy.

[Eric J in MN]

7. What Bush has on Viacom is that it owns tv station which

What Bush has on Viacom is that it own tv station which cover 39% of the market, and Congress has gotten demands from the public to enforce a limit of 35%.

If a Democrat is elected, he would probably sign a bill for a 35% limit, which was the limit until the FCC changed it to 45% recently.

Years ago, the limit was 25%.

[Taeger]

8. Don't be so hard on them.

60 Minutes still does some good muck-raking. They DID still show the Reagan documentary on Showtime. PLUS Showtime has some pretty cool series. Among them is Penn & Tellers Bullshit, Family Business (reality TV on porn producer Seymour Butts), the L Word, Dead Like Me, Freshman Diaries and the grand daddy of gay TV ... "Queer like folk"!!!!!!

So don't be so hard on CBS. Of the three major networks, they are the one who hasn't COMPLETELY caved in to the GOP.