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Sen. Feingold Reintroduces Radio Competition Bill
jonerik writes "Billboard is reporting that Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) has reintroduced his Competition in Radio and Concert Industries Act, which is aimed at limiting the concentration of radio stations and concert promoters in the hands of a few large companies, such as Clear Channel. In addition, the bill would close loopholes in payola laws which currently permit 'pay-for-play' deals between record companies and radio stations 'unless an appropriate sponsorship identification announcement is made.' The bill's introduction comes as the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation prepares to hold a hearing Thursday on the problems of radio consolidation, and the committee's chairman, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), is expected to sign on soon as the bill's co-sponsor."
Every radio station in every city that's making any money is probably 9 times out of 10 part of ClearChannel's vast network (dare I say monopoly) of radio stations across the United States.
The same Top 40 songs are heard day in and day out in every city. Nothing changes. Only artists with big media contracts (Sony, Columbia, etc.) can afford to buy air time.
I often wonder why there's been little innovation on the radio. Bands like Radiohead come along, but I've probably only heard one song of theirs on the radio, and that was once or twice even.
Let the little guys get some airtime. Fight this consolidation. I urge you to contact your representatives in government.
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Payola is one of the factors that made record companies the giants that they are today.
This is old news anyway. Read this article written in 1956.
STF
in the car, i've got a subscription to XM, which is diverse enough that no matter what format I want to listen to, its available. true, its 101 stations run by one corporation, but truly the best part about it is the fact that since its subscription based, most channels aren't advertising-revenue driven, so there's no incentive to play the latest hit single four times an hour.
i don't know, if XM goes to hell, back to CDs for me.
The full text of the bill, as proposed, is available here in PDF format.
Note that this is not the first time that he has done something like this before.
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The point is, 'complete and total freedom for the individual' is not in the best interests of the majority of individuals. The richest and most-powerful indivuduals tend to get richer and more powerful, taking wealth and power away from the little guy.
The laws we have in place now, and what is being proposed here, are designed to put a 'cap' on power and wealth so that the little guy does not get taken advantage of.
I just recently moved to WI. I will definitely be voting for Russ Feingold in the future.
For those of you in Southwest Virginia (where I used to hail from), there is someone equally worthy to vote for, though he's a representative rather than a senator. Support Rick Boucher as well. He's introduced the recent act to limit the DMCA.
CC and the others put on that type of radio BECAUSE IT MAKES THEM MONEY.
yes, EXACTLY! as an example, here in st. louis, there used to be two "alternative" radio stations about 6 years ago. one of them, the obvious sellout, would do the whole 5 song playlist (a few of them clearly NOT EVEN CLOSE TO ALTERNATIVE) and split it up with 40 minutes of commercials per hour. the other one was more of an "underground" station that did more of what it wanted. their playlist was huge and had lots of great music and few commercials. then one dark day a group (i think it was a mormon group out of utah...i think the same one that bought walgreens so they could stop it from selling alcohol) bought out the popular station to shut it down! all of the sudden the lesser station was the only one in town of its kind. can you guess what happened? you got it, that station has since become the sellout, bringing me such alternative hits as emminem's song from 5-mile, "because i got high", avril's new one and many more. and YES they claim to be alternative. "st. louis' new rock alternative" to be exact. as soon as they were able to pull in the big advertizers from the other station, they went straight to the money, forsaking their great station's integrity...its sad really
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