Mickey's Wake-Up Call

摘要

You can thank Mickey Mouse for a wake-up call. Until Mickey's master, Walt Disney Corp., set its sights on ABC television, the fine points of the Communications Act of 1995 had passed the public by. But suddenly, the prospect of a few giant companies' owning huge tracts of the media landscape was enough to engage even the most apolitical couch potato. By the time the House of Representatives signed off Friday, high-flying talk about the Information Society had given way to mutterings about monopoly. Bill Clinton, all but ignored in the drafting, sensed the Disney effect first. Thundered the president, threatening veto, "It would be an error to set up a situation in the United States where one person could own half the television stations in the country."