All the fits that’s news

Corporations, it is often said, do not have consciences. Some, however, do have emotions. As the recent blackout of ABC by Time Warner Cable demonstrates, a few can even throw a good hissy fit.

In this prime-time example of how two wrongs usually just make two wrongs, the Federal Communications Commission has ruled that Time Warner was the more wrong. Not wrong to delete ABC from its cable line-up in 11 major markets as retaliation for a business deal gone sour, just wrong to pull the plug during sweeps week.

This must come as a most unpleasant surprise to the 3 million-plus cable customers who tuned in Monday to catch the second half of a miniseries only to find that, for them, there would be only 500.5 Arabian Nights, celebrity “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” was an intellectual challenge denied. Silly viewers — they thought this was about serving the public interest when it really was about not messing with the ratings numbers that determine ad rates.

Instead of those fine programs, Time Warner customers in New York City, Los Angeles, Houston and eight other markets where the Nielsens add up got a blue screen and a message that Disney (ABC’s parent) had stolen their shows (recap — Sheherazade keeps her head, celebrities sure know their trivia). The next day, those customers got Disney’s full page ads in their local papers telling them that Time Warner was bad people. Mature corporations negotiate; these two spoiled toddlers stick out their tongues, stamp their feet and tattle.

Shareholders, for whose benefit this infantile spectacle theoretically was performed, should be alarmed. So should the general public. Communications mega-mergers — such as those that created these two mean and clumsy conglomerates — are pitched as being good for the public. Size equals efficiency which equals lower costs and better service. The accumulation of all information services under one roof — news, entertainment and other content production, transmission, Internet, telecommunications — will lead to fewer competitors, but they will compete more vigorously.

Congress, which indulges every whim of the communications industry, believes it. The FCC, which spanked Time Warner and then went ahead and approved the CBS-Viacom merger on the same day, believes it. The public, which gets higher bills, none of the competition promised in the 1996 Telecommunications Act, and now blue screens and hissy fits, has reason for doubt.