This week, Hubbard Broadcasting’s Joel Oxley and other news execs painted an alarming picture regarding the fate of local journalism in an affidavit before the Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee.
The proposed Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (H.R. 1735) is at issue. The act would give news media outlets, including TV and radio stations and newspapers, an “antitrust exemption” to bargain more suitable financial terms with online distributors such as Google and Facebook.
“Local journalists and the communities we serve face an existential threat whose fate increasingly rests in the hands of a few dominant digital platforms,” said Oxley, the Senior VP/GM of all news giant WTOP-FM Washington, DC.
Oxley clarified that quality journalism is provided via free broadcasting is only feasible by ad revenue.
However, Oxley stated revenues throughout conventional media outlets have been in “free-fall in recent years, due almost exclusively to the rapid, often anticompetitive, expansion of the dominant online platforms who have upended the advertising marketplace.”
Testifying on behalf of the National Association of Broadcasters, Oxley said tech behemoths act as “content gatekeepers” that stifle WTOP’s ability to generate user traffic.
Captured in a “catch-22,” Oxley presented how WTOP must be attainable through the prominent platforms to draw online traffic however isn’t reimbursed by Facebook and Google for its content.
Instead, it has to spend to ensure its content is accessible on Facebook, Google, etc. “The dominant online platforms have flourished, siphoning off huge amounts of advertising revenues that are the lifeblood of free, local journalism,” Oxley testified.
Eduardo Razo is the Assistant Content Editor for BNM, which includes writing daily news stories on the news media industry. He can be found on Twitter @eddierazo_ or you can reach him by email at eddie1991razo@gmail.com.
