This scientific poll confirms what AFTRA has asserted - and has long been hearing from working media professionals ever since the excessive deregulation ignited by the 1996 Telecommunications Act and subsequent FCC actions - that media ownership consolidation is doing irreparable harm to local and national news coverage, and thus to a key fabric of democracy in our country.  Even as the literal number of entertainment, news and information outlets increases, actual decision-making - including news judgment - is falling into fewer and fewer hands. 

Driven by implacable bottom line considerations - clearly in part due to the huge financing costs of station acquisition permitted by radically increased ownership caps - raw business criteria substitutes

for news and artistic judgment and stifles diversity.  In desperate search of secure audience share to maximize revenue, programmers substitute bad taste and sensationalism for richness in content. Thus, while the volume increases, actual depth and diversity of voices diminish