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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."
With the loss of Paul Wellstone, Russ Feingold is one of the strongest supporters of liberal ideals and causes left in the Senate. It's good to see him getting support from the Republicans in the form of McCain. Democrats certainly can't afford to go it alone in their current minority status, so to get any decent laws passed, we're going to need to have Republicans crossing party lines to support bills whose bottom line is not aimed at increasing the wealth of the wealthy for once.
Why use the goverment to quiet those with whom you do not agree?
Every now and again, after the cynicism and the corruption and the payola and the lobbying... our government comes through.
I get so depressed, reading about DMCA suits & SLAPPs, reading about corporate (*cough* Coble) whores. You get to thinking that the government is just trying to screw us all.
And yet, there are good guys. There are champions of the common man.
I feel pretty good.
Looking for a Rails developer in Chapel Hill?
The only guy in the Senate with the balls to vote against the PATRIOT Act. Thanks, Russ. When the rest of them panicked and stampeded to trade our liberty for security, you were the one true patriot.
All you nerds in Wisconsin better vote for this guy when he comes up for reelection. A good Senator is a rare thing indeed.
Good question, but how are we (or anyone for that matter) going to fight that much money any other way?
"The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."
It's unfortunate that what he stands up for is often unconstitutional. Think restrictions on political speech in the campaign finance reform legislation. What part of "Congress shall make no law..." are they having trouble with?
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What about the problem with BREAKING UP radio stations? Many might go under or have severe financial problems due to restructuring and cutting off from their main backup cash source (companies like ClearChannel). I'd hate to see a single station go down or be forced to let a bunch of staff go just because they are essentially forced to by a bill...
Don't get me wrong, I hate ClearChannel just as much as anyone; I'm just wondering about the individual stations in the event that this passes...
Try providing a product that millions of people will listen to. If you provide the numbers the ad dollars will follow.
CC and the others put on that type of radio BECAUSE IT MAKES THEM MONEY.
It's been attempted before, and while that works here and there, ever paid attention to Microsoft's tactics or (back in the day) Standard Oil's? If it looks good try to starve it's business by dropping prices temporarily (since you've got enough money in reserve to do this sort of thing), and if it still pulls through, buy it then hole it off in a corner somewhere.
"The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."
So, radio stations must pay copyright holders to broadcast their songs, but in order to charge for the otherwise free advertising they're giving these songs, they need to say "paid for by Warner bros."? What happened to freedom in this country. Why does the govt. feel they need to regulate everything? If a radio station wants to play unknown stuff from independent artists, let them. If they want to take cash to play stuff from artists with deep pockets, why shouldn't they be able to? Radio station have the right to free speech, not the obligation to play music without compensation.
Vote for Pedro
http://www.house.gov/paul
I wonder if the real motive isn't a return to the Fairness Doctrine of a decade or two ago, requiring radio stations to give equal time to a variety of viewpoints? Democrats have tried and tried again to get their own talk show going, and it fell flat on it's face every time. But, if they can do it through legislation, I bet they would.
I hope this is not the case, but with Feinstein, one of the most liberal in Congress, behind this, I'm all but positive this is a huge part of this whole thing.
Along with the same 80 commercials ?
That's what Clear Channel has done. They've taken control of most of the more popular radio stations. Only people with enough money to hold them off or a small enough market share that they're not worth it can stay independant. Of course, someone with enough money would be hard pressed to turn down a price that only makes sense to a monopolist. As Clear Channel controls more of the market, they'll alswo find it more worthwhile to go after smaller, and smaller stations.
Once a company has gotten a stranglehold on a market, FCC rules make it very hard for a competetor to start up. At that point the monoply holder has an effective stranglehold on radio speech in that market, with the government quieting any nascent dissent.
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
Have you ever in your life heard of a market externality? Or a monopoly? Do you have any idea how bad these things can be? Obviously not.
As for your argument that this is a war against freedom, you need to understand that radio has always been regulated, from the content available to who owns can broadcast on what frequency. To say that what exists now is based on market forces, but that laws passed to change how it is are anti-market is totally wrong. Maybe it would be nice to just blow it all up and start over and see where "free market" takes us, but it sure as hell isn't going to happen.
Oh, and how in the world is a "free market" the purest form of democracy in existence? Voting with your wallet means people with larger wallets...get more votes. Not democracy my friend. Not at all. Anyway, in a democracy, the power comes from the people, not the corporations. I think you're thinking of a different political system.
And with the fact that Sen. Feingold's name was attached to the story, I thought that was certainly the case. I have to say that I don't usually like the Senetor's ideas at all (I'm a very strong conservative) but I LOVE like this idea. The fact that McCain (a strong conservative who's ideas I almost always like) is expect to co-sponser says alot about how good this bill really is. Whichever party your alegiance lies with, you've got to admid this is a pretty good idea.
You'd think that on a techie blog like slashdot people would accept ideas based on merit as opposed to, say, a religious level like Linux vs. Windows... Oh.
There are 2 people in government right now that deserve not to be labeled as "liberal" or "conservative" or any of that other bullocks. Russ Feingold and John McCain both defy those catagories with their common sense positions.
Russ and John are both such straightforward politicians that it besmirches both of them to write such things. Either one is worthy of a republican's or democrat's vote. In case you hadn't noticed (are you old enough to vote?) McCain and Feingold have been partnering on quite a bit of legislation. Campaign reform bill - what was the name? That fact that you like the idea because it McCain backs it indicates that you are a bigot. The idea is the same whether Diane Feinstien or William Buckley spouts it out. You're the one attaching your bias and predjudice to it.
Thank God I have the chance to vote for Russ as long as he chooses to run. I only wish I had a chance to vote for McCain. They both rock!
But why should government have the authority to tell a company (large or small) how to do business?
And to answer that, lemme quote what was said in an above post:
Corporations.
Aren't.
Really.
People.
They have no rights. They can't claim that we're "stepping on their Constitutional rights" because they don't have any. Otherwise, corporations could sue the government for trying to enforce monopoly laws. We limit corporations from becoming monopolies (or rather abusing as a monopoly), because they have no rights as a corporation. A corporation is merely a entity to hold money. THAT'S! IT! No rights. Not a person. No rights. Therefore, we have EVERY right to limit the way they do business.
Zodiac Survey
No, this is government undoing a wrongfull artificial monopoly that they put into place. Radio spectrum is a scarce resource and the government gives out the liscense, in exchange for those liscenses we the people expect something in return, if the fact that Clearchannel is a monopoly is hurting our interests we are perfectly within our rights to try to get something back for those liscenses by reappropriating them in a way that we expect will bring back the things we want (like an end to the sucky same playlist heavy rotation crap that clearchannel broadcasts on their vast array of stations so that we can never escape it)
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
misguided attempts at fixing corruption by introducing even more _government_ regulations which are the very reason corruption even exists.
Sorry, without government regulations, corruption is *ALL* that exists.
I need to check this out further, but a read over the press release shows no mention of Internet Radio.
I certainly support the bill * can I get an amen? * and I suppose you have to pick your battles, but doesn't Internet radio need a little fairness also?
I would like to see parity between Internet broadcasters and FM broadcasters regarding what is required of them by the RIAA. The RIAA doesn't want independent Internet radio stations to succeed and is imposing stifling reporting requirements (i.e. song, title, time played, listener's IP address, listener's blood type etc.) and exorbitant copyright compensation fees. As it stands now, independent Internet radio stations are dying.
I believe that radio will eventually be "broadcast" almost exclusively over IP networks with the wireless component being handled by ubiquitous, low-power, ultra-wide band radio in the city and satellite radio in the country. I think an explosion of music could happen if the RIAA would just get out of the way. Instead, they seek to hinder this explosion because it is not something they understand or feel that they can control.
I urge you to consider that "small and independent" radio is increasingly going to be an Internet phenomenon and we future station owners need your help.
Thank You
"The world is a construct of forceful imagination. Those who don't know walk around in the reailties of those who do"
Sure, but they are groups of people.
Everything a corporation does is done by people. And everything they say is said by people, who have the right to free speech. So I don't understand how the people/corporation distiction would change anything.
They say that ClearChannel has no real competition but it's not true -- check out CheapChannel Radio, a satiric competitor with a voice tracking program to rival even the big boys. Voice tracking is the system ClearChannel stations use to have a DJ in Houston pretend he's from cities all around the country to give canned stations a little "local" flavor. CheapChannel is a project of the Prometheus Radio Project, which was recently featured on the PBS's McNeil News Hour for their work promoting Low Power FM stations. The first site is fun, and the second is interesting, if you're concerned about media consolidation.
Long story short, after 6 days of strong ad-time and experiencing a jump in concert atttendance and merch sales, our ads were pulled (while still having 8 days left on the current ad contract). It turns out that the Indie was receiving complaints from a higher-up and threatened to drop that particular station from his list (which would make the station lose access to the latest hits. Remember that hits=ears=money). We were outraged. We couldn't even bypass the payola system in place, even though we were still paying to get heard on the radio.
And if that's not a poster-child illustration of what's wrong with having large concentration of ownership/influence/control under a single entity, I don't know what is. These guys had something to get out there, and they couldn't pay -- at market values for airtime -- to get it on the air, because it upset those who had an interest in the status quo.
What makes anyone think it couldn't be the same for political speech?
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
It strikes me funny that lawmakers are concerned about anti-competetive practices among corperations (Clear Channel, Salem, Cumulus, et al), and not look at the environs that are creating such large entities...
For example: K-localstation with a potential audience of 100,000 is humming along fine playing POP/AC along with web simulcast.
Firstly, the RIAA managed to get legislation passed to receieve royalties, RETROACTIVELY - I might add, and therefore has to shut down the webcast and figure out how to pay for the previous casting...an expense no one could have reasonably foretold.
Secondly, HugeRadio Corperation decides to entire the market, first by trying to purchase the local station for a mere pittance of actual value, then muscling in by sheer force, offering advertisers lower advertising, greater transmitting, etc....
K-localradiostation cannot, already finacially strapped due to the RIAA, bad economy, etc, cannot possibly compete and eventually sells out, not to the first corperation, but to a compteting one.
I don't see who breaking up these corperations are going to save the local stations without removing some of the legislation and "fees" that are killing them in the first place...smells like relection legislation to me.