Former News Corp Boss Admits "The Media Isn't Going To Change... In Fact It Will Get Worse"

[link to www.zerohedge.com]


Marty Pompadur is a reference in the global media industry, where he is involved as an investor, advisor and board member. Until recently he was global vice chairman of media and entertainment for Macquarie Capital based in New York City.

In June 1998, Mr. Pompadur became Executive Vice President of News Corporation, President of News Corporation Eastern and Central Europe and a member of News Corporation’s Executive Management Committee. In January 2000, Mr. Pompadur was appointed Chairman of News Corporation Europe. In his decade with News Corporation, he was instrumental in negotiating the merger of Stream and Telepiu to create Sky Italia in Italy, now one of the world’s most successful Pay-TV businesses and in creating and managing several successful businesses across Europe.

He started his media career at ABC, where he eventually became the youngest person ever to be appointed to the board of directors. He then left to pursue senior career opportunities with other media companies. Mr. Pompadur graduated from Williams College with a BA Degree and from the University of Michigan Law School with a LLB Degree.

E Tavares: Thank you very much for being with us today. You are a seasoned veteran of the media industry and as such we very much appreciate your views on something that is very important to citizens in free societies, and that is having access to reliable and trustworthy news and information. Based on your decades’ long experience, what have been the major changes regarding how news media operates and is disseminated? Not just in terms of technology but the actual business model and content strategies.

M Pompadur: I started in the industry in 1960. Back then we had newspapers, magazines, television and radio. Let’s concentrate on the latter two. If you were a television or radio station, distinguished from a network, you were subject to the rules and regulations of the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”). Some of those rules stipulated that your news had to be fair and balanced, and you had to give equal time to different views. If there was a political race or some kind of a referendum going on you couldn’t just put out one side of the argument. You had to offer equal time to both sides and if you didn’t people would complain to the FCC.

Now, if you were a network – ABC, CBS and NBC in those days – you were not licensed but you were still required to be fair and balanced because their news programming went out on the stations, which insisted that they complied with their own regulations. In the case of ABC, and I think also in the case of CBS and NBC, when I got involved with them and eventually became general manager of the television network the news department did not report to us. They reported to the Board of Directors because they did not want the news department to be influenced by anything – by advertisers and so forth. That’s how it was in the “old days”.