Oxygen Founder Gerry Laybourne: Kevin Martin "Would Like To Go Back To The 1950s"

Portfolio.com:

For the first time in her life, Geraldine Laybourne is unemployed. Last month, she left Oxygen Media, the women-centric cable television and internet operation she co-founded nine years ago with Oprah Winfrey and Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen, the major investor who forced Oxygen's sale last fall to NBC Universal for $925 million. At the moment, Laybourne and her husband, Kit, are traveling abroad, recharging their batteries, and figuring out the future.

Laybourne--who started her career teaching at a progressive private school and eventually reinvented the Nickelodeon TV network--gave Portfolio.com a guided tour of the changing media landscape in an exclusive interview. The new world of media, it turns out, is a very scary place.

L.G.: And the regulatory environment? You have [chairman] Kevin Martin over there at the F.C.C.

G.L.: I've spent a good deal of time with Kevin Martin and the F.C.C. Kevin Martin just plain does not like cable. I don't know what it is exactly. He came in, and he had this idea to have a family tier. And we basically told him, "A family tier won't work. We've been offering families the ability to lock out objectionable programming. We make it available for free. We make it available easily. And we don't think a family tier will work." "That doesn't matter. We still want you to do the family tier." Okay, we did the family tier. And guess what? It didn't work. Then he was annoyed. In some ways, he would like to go back to the 1950s. He would like to have three networks that have Leave It to Beaver on it, but that's not where our country is. That's not what people want to watch. I don't know how much I want to say here.

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Comments

[Eric8869]

Only a straight white man could want to go back to the 50's.

Minorities don't have the luxury of nostalgia.

[MajorKong]

Would that be the same 1950s where the top marginal tax rate was 90 percent?

[MrFiskar]

So would I !!!!

[waitng]

Go back to the 50s? Let us go even further back to a time when someone treated you unjustly, lied to you, stole from you or just plain did you dirty then you could beat the crap out of them if not just kill them. Everyone should have a right to defend themselves but now adays you still have to get a lawyer and go to court for your actions no matter how legitimate, just to get approval for defending yourself.

[totalliberal]

Why do all the Republican appointees look like sucky little mommies boys?

Guess it comes from having everything handed too them. (The character of a marshmallow.)

[Ginzaman]

First of all, I'm sure she got a very healthy severence package in this $925 million dollar deal. So that will help to ease her agony as she recovers abroad going first class all the way.

Second, she's right about Martin. It's the typical little kid neocon approach of talking really fast so nobody else in get in a word edge wise. Then when you try to say something it's like he puts his hands over his ears and says, I CAN'T HEAR YOU! It worked for psycho Elizabeth Dole on Meet the Press. So why shouldn't he (another neocon) do the same?

[SouthJerseySteve]

Funny...I got the impression Kevin Martin wanted to go back to the 1850's...

[mrdontplay]

...its hillarious when European-Americans make comments about the 50's.

I wonder if they thought how the decade affected the lives of so many americans?

Remember that Civil Rights thing?

That was the 60's.

...And he wants to go back to the 50s