ABSTRACT
In Washington, Congress has just enacted long overdue legislation that will rationalize an outmoded regulatory apparatus and free giant telecommunications and cable companies to battle each other. Around the country—particularly on the West Coast—smaller, fast-growing companies are fighting to dominate the Internet. Most Americans had access to only a newspaper or two, some magazines and three or four television stations to provide their information and entertainment. The cable television companies are busily rewiring to provide not 70 channels or 500 channels or even 1,400 channels but, in effect, an infinite number of channels through video-on-demand. The result will be a vast array of new services, including shopping, games, information retrieval, transactions and much more. All of these developments will give consumers of news and information more quantity and a greater degree of personal choice. Beyond not diminishing competition or quality, many of the media mergers have brought benefits.
