Senator Rockefeller - FCC Should Take MSNBC and FOX Off The Air

Democrat Senator Jay Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, believes that there is too much garbage out there when it comes to news - in particular, the programming put out by FOX and MSNBC.

During a Senate hearing on television retransmission consent Wednesday, Rockefeller lit up the panel. Here's what he had to say:

"I hunger for quality media. I'm tired of the right and left. There is a little bug inside of me which wants to get the FCC to say to FOX and to MSNBC - Out. Off. End. Goodbye.

It will be a big favor to political discourse our ability to do our work here in Congress, and, to the American people to be able to talk to each other and have some faith in their government and more importantly in their future.

We need slimmed down channel packages that better respect what we really want to watch. And we need to find ways to provide greater value for television viewers at lower cost, because people are tired of always escalating rates."

I agree on his position that cable television rates are too high and just keep going up.

Here in Silicon Valley, a digital cable tv and hi speed Internet package from Comcast costs around $114. Personally, I don't even watch much television other than sports and a few favorite comedy shows. Flipping to the programming guide, there is just way too many channels of useless content - mostly low IQ crap. Why should I pay for that?

Why not charge us by actual usage like the electricity bill, not per some beefed up 1000 channel guide?

In regards to MSNBC and Fox, although I rarely watch either because of the bickering and spinning, I don't believe the government can shut them down because its First Amendment, free speech.

Maybe Senator Rockefeller, the solution to the problem is to get Americans to watch less television by creating a Pay Per Use plan or some metering plan say at $20 per every 100 hours of television use? Just imagine how families can actually spend more time together in different ways and create a better quality of life focusing on other more meaningful things.

About Kerry Kobashi

Kerry is the founder of KerryOnWorld. He lives in Silicon Valley and has worked as an engineer and project manager. He owns Kobashi Computing a consulting company.