New Power Seen for Mexico's Media Giant

NEW POWER SEEN FOR MEXICO'S MEDIA GIANT
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Elisabeth Malkin]
Mexico's largest media company, Grupo Televisa, is at the center of a bitter debate over proposed laws that critics say strengthen the company's dominant position. The Mexican Senate is scheduled to vote Thursday on the legislation, which was passed unanimously by the lower house in December. Despite opposition that has since emerged, it is expected to clear the Senate and be signed into law by President Vicente Fox. Televisa has lobbied heavily for the new law — something that critics say explains the speed with which the legislation moved through a divided Congress that has failed in the last few years to pass many major bills. "In my opinion, it shows an example of subordination to Televisa's power," said Raúl Trejo, a professor at the Institute of Social Research at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and a longtime media critic. The furor has created a test case over how willing the government is to rein in the powerful monopolies or duopolies that control many of the country's most important industries. That business elite has remained untouched over the last decade even as the political party that nurtured it, the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, lost control of Congress and the presidency.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/30/business/worldbusiness/30tele.html?pag...
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