Instead Air America has bought programming time on stations with moderately strong signals, but previously low ratings: WLIB-AM in New York, WNTD-AM in Chicago, KBLA-AM in Los Angeles, KCAA-AM in Riverside and San Bernadino, Calif., and KPOJ-AM in Portland, Ore. A San Francisco station is expected to be announced in early April.
By contrast Rush Limbaugh, whom Air America has identified as a chief competitor, is heard on more than 600 stations, including WABC in New York. Sean Hannity, another conservative talk-show host, has a similar reach.
Air America, which has raised more than $20 million, has grand plans for buying stations, or at least all of the broadcast time on stations, in more than a dozen cities by year's end. Many are in Ohio, Florida and other states considered battlegrounds in the presidential election. But since the media ownership rules were eased in the mid-1990's, much of the broadcast spectrum is owned by a handful of companies. Few stations are for sale, and few station owners will give over all of their broadcast day to untested programming.
(Jacques Steinberg, "Liberal Voices Get New Home on Radio Dial," <http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/31/arts/31AIR.html>) *****
***** Greens note the damage that has already been done by the 1996 Telecommunications Act, signed by Clinton, which weakened rules prohibiting a community's lone local newspaper to be owned by the same corporation that owns local TV and radio stations.
"Imagine a town in which the only opinions one could find on TV, radio, or in the newspaper might be those of Rush Limbaugh," said Jo Chamberlain, a California Green and member of the party's national Steering Committee.
("Greens Oppose FCC Deregulation." January 10, 2003, <http://www.gp.org/press/pr_01_10_03b.html>) *****
The 1996 Telecommunications Act: <http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d104:SN00652:>.
***** DIGITAL HIGHWAY ROBBERY Where is the "competition" the Telecommunications Act was supposed to provide? By Robert W. McChesney
The 1996 Telecommunications Act has just marked its first year of existence. From Bill Clinton to Newt Gingrich, the bipartisan proponents of the legislation promised it would unleash a "digital revolution," combining fantastic technologies with the genius of the unregulated market. At the very least, competition would improve products and services and lower cable and telephone charges for consumers. In the long run, the Telecommunications Act would usher in the Information Age, an era of unprecedented human freedom and economic prosperity. None of the above promises have materialized, nor is there any reason to believe they will. Here's what has happened:
In early February, the Federal Communications Commission began allocating the digital spectrum to the existing commercial broadcasters. Without any public debate or competitive arrangement, the largest media companies in the world are being handed what could become the equivalent of at least five new channels in every market where they currently own one. This near-secret process virtually guarantees that Disney/Cap Cities, Time Warner, General Electric, Westinghouse, Viacom, the Tribune Company and the News Corporation, among others, can maintain their rule over U.S. media for another generation or two. It is worth noting that The Washington Post estimated the value of this digital spectrum to run as high as $70 billion. The stench of corruption is so thick that The Wall Street Journal even ran a front-page article on March 17 deploring the giveaway, and Bob Dole followed suit in a New York Times Op-Ed two weeks later. As Senator John McCain puts it, broadcasters "are about to pull off one of the great scams in American history." . . .
(_The Nation_, April 21, 1997, <http://www.radiodiversity.com/hiwayrobbery.html>) *****
***** Published in the March 2001 issue of the Silicon Alley Reporter Farewell to Radio by Robert W. McChesney
. . . There are only a few dozen radio channels in a given community. In 1996 the Telecommunications Act greatly revised the rules for radio station ownership. Back in the 70s and 80s, firms could only own around a dozen stations nationwide and no more than two in a single market. The 1996 law, rammed though by the powerful corporate radio lobby without a shred of debate or media coverage, eliminated any restriction on the number of stations a firm could own nationally, and raised the limit in a single market to eight, in the largest communities.
Since the law passed, there has been a complete reformation of U.S radio, with well over half the 11,000 commercial station changing hands. Small station groups can not compete with the giant chains so they sell out. Radio is now dominated by a small handful of firms that own hundreds of stations each. Every market is now dominated by two or three firms that are "maxed out" with eight stations each. The quality of radio has plummeted. With little competition, the amount of advertising is up to 18 minutes per hour, according to one industry trade publication, well over the figure for a decade ago. Also, localized news and production has been dropped for vastly less expensive standardized fare. You could be blindfolded and airdropped into Louisiana, Oregon or Vermont and probably hear the same oldies song or Rush Limbaugh show on the local radio.
Clear Channel, which owns around 800 stations, has shined the light on the new world order of corporate radio. It usually houses all eight stations it owns in a given community on one floor of a building. Each "station" gets one room about the size of a closet where it can transmit standardized fare. The remaining office space is mostly for the ad salespeople. . . .
<http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0307-04.htm> ***** -- Yoshie
* Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>