Let's Talk About Buses

Garrett Wollman wollman@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu
Sun Jul 18 15:49:12 EDT 2004


<<On Sat, 17 Jul 2004 15:27:43 -0400, Larry Weil <kc1ih@mac.com> said:

> C-Span is owned by a consortium of cable companies, so what does that tell 
> you? As long as they are not being partisan, and doing the same for the RNC 
> in New York, I see no problem with this.

Not entirely true.  C-SPAN is owned by National Cable Satellite
Corporation, which as a non-profit cannot be said to be "owned" by
anyone.[1]  However, its board consists primarily of cable-industry
executives and all of its funding comes from license fees paid by
participating cable systems.

-GAWollman

[1] The definition of a non-profit enterprise is one in which no
person is entitled (either theoretically or as a matter of law) to
receive any share of the earnings.  (Even for-profit companies which
don't pay dividends have "shareholders' equity", which represents the
original investment which would be returned to shareholders on
dissolution of the company; a non-profit by law cannot.)  There are
also other necessary conditions.



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