Beneath the Peak

Prof. Lawrence Lessig, who was in Hong Kong a couple of months ago for the launch of Creative Commons, has an interesting suggestion for the US Federal Communications Commission: Dismantle it.

Lessig notes that, like most bureaucracies, the FCC is inherently opposed to change and should be replaced with an organization, which he calls the Innovation Environment Protection Agency (iEPA), that would have a simple founding mission: “minimal intervention to maximize innovation.”

The iEPA would also, “protect innovation from its two historical enemies—excessive government favors, and excessive private monopoly power.”

Not being a resident of the US, I can’t speak to the applicability of Lessig’s ideas in that market. But they sure are needed here.

To understand why, consider our moribund electronic media market where:

• ATV, which is one half of Hong Kong’s terrestrial TV duopoly and  broadcasts into booming southern China, is reportedly losing HK$2 million a day.
• With 7 million people, Hong Kong has a stunted radio market, especially compared to comparably sized cities in other countries.
• Cable TV broadcasters like the Discovery Channel, BBC World Service and CNBC abandoned Hong Kong for Singapore, a city with half of Hong Kong’s population and a long track record of suing media outlets.

Instead of chasing the next fad — whether that’s wine trading, Islamic Finance or traditional Chinese medicine – our esteemed leaders should step out of the way and let some the the competition and variety that defines our print media find its way into the electronic media.

Hong Kong would be a better place for it.