How to starve coporate media

[KurtNYC]

1. If you are ever polled, say you have TIVO even if you don't. Say you zip past the commercials
2. When asked on reply cards how "you heard about us" - never answer TV or newspaper ads
3. Ask your local cable provider to unbundle their offerings and include foreign stations like BBC, CBC and other news sources
4. While it is fun to "DU polls" on biased media sites, each one of those visits counts as a page view in their advertising coffers. Some media doesn't block you from voting multiple times (eg. NY Daily News) and there are easy ways to do so. They benefit from polls which get a lot of clicks. Like I say though, DUing polls is fun - your call on this one.
5. Turn it off. If you don't watch, it has less effect. You won't even have to lie in #1 and 2 above. Just say you don't watch. Even if you aren't polled, you won't be buying the advertised stuff because you really DONT see the ads.
6. Support national turn off your TV week. The next is April 25 - May 1, 2005. You and your neighbors might like it. http://www.tvturnoff.org/week.htm
7. Shop on the internet. The internet is based on a whole different model -- the customer is active, hunting. TV was created as a way to deliver audiences to advertisers. You aren't the consumer of NBC products -- YOU ARE the product! They sell your attention to advertisers. It is called 'interruption advertising' and it is dying a noisy death. The idea is that you turn on something you want to watch and they keep interrupting it to sell you junk. Another form of advertising is permission based and TV can't do that kind. If TV advertising doesn't pay, they will stop doing it.

Any others?

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Before going to the Net

go to LOCAL busineses

Buy AMERICAN, yes there are still things made, and if this is not made in this country, you don't need it

CANCEL your MBNA cards

LIVE within your means

GET OUT OF DEBT

DO NOT get in debt

Oh and take Norquist at his word, and recall your gov'ment debt if you own it.

[Guaranteed]

2. What's MBNA?

I just got one of their cards with a really low interest rate. What's their deal?

[CheshireCat]

14. more info on MBNA, please.

I got a Visa from them from Working Assets (or so I thought)

[wiggs]

3. All good, but...

Good ideas, all. I think the media is THE place to focus economic pressure. With a more balanced media, distortions would be called what they are and journalistic investigation would mean more than calling up the RNC for information.

But I'm thinking that a diffused, general, shallow pull back on the above items would not significantly register in the guarterly reports of these huge companies. I support doing them, and will do them, but I don't think they will change media behavior.

I am hoping for a focused, intense, all-out, advertised, scare-the-pants-off-the-CEO boycott of a media network for a defined period of time. 55 million people in the US voted for Kerry. Many more than that in other countries think Bush is unworthy. If a good fraction of them all decided not to watch NBC (or another global corporation that is a propaganda tool for one party, is a top 25 RNC contributor, and who's parent company is a defense/military contractor) for a period of two months, a significant statement would be made and it would be clear.

The statement is that, while we don't have any branch of government right now, there is tremendous power in our numbers and in our roles as consumers. The RW and WH need us to be good consumers. We won't be, if that's all we have. We'll take our ball and go home.

But the boycott needs to be focused and intense and for a specific period of time so that the statement can be strong. An indefinite boycott will fade out, giving hope to the boycotted. A boycott that is called to end at a certain time is still a threat because it could return if behavior isn't changed.

The changes desired would need to be defined and monitored over time.

Advertise the boycott ahead of time. Paid advertisers would avoid the boycott months. Quarterly returns would plunge. Shareholders would object. Behavior would change. Even if on-air bias doesn't change, there would be significant hesitation in being a known top-25 donor to the RNC the next time around.

[cheqia]

5. boycott media

ever since nov 2, i have not watched any of the major tv stations except for lost and csi. i cannot stand it how everyone keeps saying bush won when he didn't - he stole it - or rather cheney did! anyway i am now a loyal fan of wb and upn because they don't give me a clue to the real world and any one who knows me knows i used to bury myself in the news. i truly believe all democrats should do the same. first inundate them with letters and then ignore them completely. if democrats don't fight then we really lost.

[newyawker99]

13. Hi cheqia!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[AndyTiedye]

4. Tell Them You Watch CSPAN and The Daily Show

> 1. If you are ever polled, say you have TIVO even if you don't.

I run MythTV, which is sort of an open-source, subscription-free TIVO on steroids.
It does not track and report on your viewing habits as TIVO does, either.
http://www.mythtv.org

> Say you zip past the commercials

It's true!

I'd still give CSPAN and Jon Stewart credit where credit is due.

[KurtNYC]

7. good point re: CSPAN and TDS

will look at your site.

[AndyTiedye]

15. It Isn't My Site

When I said I run mythtv, I mean that I run it on my computer.
It isn't my project.
It is a fairly large open-source project with many contributors.
It has many capabilities TIVO doesn't, like being able to hook
everything up to one server and access it from as all over the
house and no restrictions on copying or recording.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[BeFree]

8. Tuesdays

I say we begin to use Tuesdays - the slowest day in most markets - as the day to not buy anything. That would give us 52 days a year to practice starving the beast.

Tune out Tuesday

Tuesday: the day of non-cooperation

[AP]

9. Jeff Bezos said that the internet is reversing the rule of advertising.

It used to be that you'd spend 30% of your resources coming up with new products and services, and 70% shouting about it in magazines and on TV.

Amazon said they found that TV advertising was a waste of money. They found that any time they started a new service or feature or promotion, word spread very quickly on the internet and paid advertising was a waste of money.

He said that being freed up to spend more money innovating and less money shouting about it meant that they could do a great deal more innovating.

So, yes, buy from places like Amazon and you're buying from companies that don't make money for cable media.

[lil-petunia]

10. Corpulations and their ads will turn people off over time

Too much ad overload will break the camel's back.

[AP]

11. Cancel cable, get Netflix.

[FlaGranny]

12. Can satellite and cable companies

determine which channels you are watching? I only watch non-news channels, mostly educational, movies, and home type shows. I get my news right here at DU.

[Eloriel]

16. Also see these links

not specifically media related, but still good:

Economic Activism Forum at DU
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=255

The Campaign to Starve the Beast
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=2600099