The FCC is having a new round of talks on whether to allow single corporations to own more media companies in the same markets. It's great for the bottom line (hey, who needs original music programming when you can force-feed every cit the same thing via satellite?) but, not such a great thing for the artists.

A new report from the Future of Music coalition explains in a report released today, "Just fifteen formats make up three-quarters of all commercial programming. Moreover, radio formats with different names can overlap up to 80% in terms of the songs played on them."

Yesterday the FCC got an earful from musicians in Nashville, including country legend Porter Wagoner who testified, "The days of an artist receiving regional airplay or breaking as a new act on radio are gone, and you are now considering making the situation even worse by letting some broadcast dynasties become even bigger broadcasting dynasties."

The paper that spent the better part of my teen years telling me what was cool sums it up quite nicely, "If big media has its way, the Federal Communications Commission will relax limitations on media ownership, effectively allowing a single company to dominate local media in any given market."