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."

Comments

But, gosh...

[Anonymous Coward]

I like hearing the same 12 songs on 10 different stations.

HEAD radio...

[Exiler]

Making sure every station, every where, sounds exactly the same!

Re:HEAD radio...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, at least we know what's causing the people of Liberty City to be so violent. Britney on repeat is enough to drive anyone to violence and insanity.

I like Senator Feingold.

[Anonymous Coward]

There are others in Congress with integrity, but he's the only one that comes to mind that stands up time and time again for what he believes in rather than what is politically convenient. Not only that, but he'll also give a question a straightforward and honest answer, rather than all the creative elusiveness that has become the hallmark of modern politics.

So I guess I'm not surprised to see him take the lead on something like this. I also won't be surprised to see the bill totally tank after all sorts of unrelated legislation and water-downs are tacked on by his fellow employees.

Feingold steps up to the plate...

[Carrierwave]

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.

ClearChannel ruined radio

[Amsterdam Vallon]

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.

*nix.org -- Just when you thought unbiased opinion pieces and news articles no longer existed...

Re:ClearChannel ruined radio

[Brendan Byrd]

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.

Re:ClearChannel ruined radio

[Tony-A]

In the end, if you're not happy with what you hear on the radio, change the channel! Or just turn it off!
If they are not serving the public interest, you don't turn off the radio, you turn off the transmitter. They do not have any fundamental right to the radio frequencies they are transmitting on.

Re:ClearChannel ruined radio

[afidel]

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)

Go Russ!

[feldsteins]

I really do think this Feingold guy is pretty decent. He, as I recall, was the one guy who stood up and voted against the horrific Patriot Act, which for those who are unaware, was about taking away some of our everyday freedoms, etc. Nobody in the senate seemed to give a rats ass but there he was on C-SPAN basically saying "are you guys crazy? This isn't right!" Now look at him taking yet another potentialy unpopular (to moneyd interests like Clearchannel, anyway) stand for what's right.

I'm proud to say he's from my home, Wisconsin.

Re:Go Russ!

[Tony-A]

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.

Good to See The Law Catching Up

[drmofe]

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

Wow. A good deed(tm).

[bobetov]

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.

tune it out

[mbredden]

i generally don't listen to broadcast radio, or for that matter watch much TV.

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.

Russ Feingold kicks ass!

[MillionthMonkey]

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.

Can't say I agree.

[squarooticus]

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?

Re:Can't say I agree.

[Anonymous Coward]

I see this argument as fitting well within the thrust of Libertarian ideals, which I don't ascribe to, but I understand your point.

I disagree, to be certain, but understand that I'm not going to try to change your mind. I recognize this as one of the fundamental differences people have in politics and I still don't believe there's one right way to do things.

My perspective is that the Constitution, as with the rest of law, is not immutable, and that utmost respect must be given to both the wishes of the founders as well as to the world we're trying to live in today and the wishes of the people living in the country. The Constitution was a good start, but we've amended it in the past to fit better the ideals of the nation while stripping away parts that did not (examples of both aren't hard to think of).

Campaign finance reform, in my opinion, is more about restoring the speech of the people than it is about silencing them. The majority are heard on very little anymore because money speaks louder than words, and while this has made pretty good business sense it's made attention to non-profit-bearing issues pretty minimal over the last fifty years, not to mention creating (or continuing in some peoples' opinion) a government that largely favors the moneyed. Sen. Feingold sticks out not because he is a maverick but because the system itself has forgotten its duty to serve citizens instead of stockholders and CEOs.

Re:Can't say I agree.

[An Ominous Coward]

Corporations.

Aren't.

Really.

People.

Re:Can't say I agree.

[Guppy06]

"What part of "Congress shall make no law..." are they having trouble with?"

Probably the part where money is considered speech. Note we're talking about campaign finance reform legislation.

Re:Can't say I agree.

[bm_luethke]

yes, they call it finance reform, but, as I say, "If I call myself the king of england does it make it so?". Well, no, thier idea of "finance" is purchasing time on the media to talk and ban everyone from doing so. This has the affect of giving all the sources of information to the news media, who of course are bastions of integrity and never allow any bias to show through and as such, it is unconstitutional.

The general consensus at the time was the bill was unconstitutional and would be struck down, but they would either be viewed as doing something but not really changing anything or if they voted against it said to be pandering to special interest (more than several congressmen said this explcitly).

Re:Can't say I agree.

[Guppy06]

"This has the affect of giving all the sources of information to the news media, who of course are bastions of integrity and never allow any bias to show through and as such, it is unconstitutional."

Vague bias on the part of news reporters has little (if anything) to do with what the main issue is. The main issue is the ability of lobbying groups to spend money to support their chosen candidates well above and beyond what is allowed by current federal law. The organizations that would be harmed by such legislation are the ones that operate as little more than money laundering operations for people attempting to buy their own candidates.

When I ran for Congress last year, one of the lobbying groups that mailed me an "opinion survey" (a "survey" where they ram their opinions down my throat) was the National Right to Life Committee, Inc. Among the fanfare one would expect in a mailing from a group with a name like that were questions like these:

In its 1976 ruling in Buckley v. Valeo and in recent cases, the Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendment protects the right of citizen groups (like NRLC) to comment freely on the positions of politicians on issues (called issue advocacy), reguardless of proximity to elections, without rationing or restrictions, and without disclosing the names of citizens who donate to support such commentary. The Supreme Court has held that this immunity from regulation extends to "voter guides," TV and radio ads, "scorecards" of votes in Congress, and any other commentary on specific politicians, except communications containing "express advocacy" (e. g, explicit urgings to "vote for" or "oppose" a candidate.) NRLC is strongly opposed to any legislation that would infringe on our right to disseminate printed or broadcast issue advocacy communications that comment on candidates' positions and voting records, including restrictions on the timeing, amount, or funding sources for such speech, or any requirement that the names of donors be reported to the government.

Will you oppose any legislation (such as the McCain-Feingold bill or Shays-Meehan bill) that would restrict, regulate, or ration the right of nonprofit corporations (which are not PACs) such as NRLC to engage in unrestricted commentary (issue advocacy) on the positions and voting records of specific officeholders and officeseekers, or require that names of citizens who fund such communications be reported to the government?

Essentially, they want to maintain the right to publish all but the most blatent forms political advertising without, for example, being as restricted as the candidates and parties themselves are, all the while acting as a money laundering racket (note they don't want to admit who their sources are).

Something else I found amusing is how they claim that they are a "nonprofit corporation" and not a PAC (a PAC essentially a buffer that corporations and unions can donate money to, as they are specifically barred from donating to a candidate directly). I asked them how they can possibly have the abbreviation "Inc." in their name yet still not be a PAC. (No, I didn't get a response.)

Further on:

The First Amendment guarantees the right of PACs and other speakers to engage in express advocacy without a dollar limit if this activity is not coordinated with a candidate (called independent expenditures). NRLC opposes any bill that would redefine "coordination" in a manner that would require groups who conduct independent expenditures to forfeit their rights to communicate with lawmakers or other candidates on public policy matters, or to forfeit other constitutional rights of assocation (e.g, with pollsters or venders).

Would you oppose legislation that would redefine "coordination" to mean anything other than an actual prior communication about a specific expenditure for a specific project which places the expenditure at the direction of or under the control of a candidate, or which causes the expenditure to be made based upon information about the candidate's plans or needs provided by the candidate?

Note the recurring "money laundering" theme here. They want to spend more on campaigning than the candidates themselves are allowed to spend, while still being able to maintain some sort of contact with the candidate in question.

And the last little tidbit:

The term "soft money " is used to refer to political party funds that are not rationed or controlled by the Federal Election Commission Act (FECA). Such money can be raised and expended by political parties to lobby on issues, to build their grassroots network, or to report on congressional action or politicians' positions on issues. Under rulings of the U. S. Supreme Court, the First Amendment protects the right of groups and parties to sponsor such communications, which discuss issues or the positions of officeholders or officeseekers on those issues, without being subjected to the rationing laws that teh FECA applies to communications that contain explicit endorsement of candidates (i.e, "express advocacy"). NRLC opposes encroacthment upon this constitutional right of free speecx and believes that freedom of speech and participation in government and issues by a broad range of groups, including political parties--not just the news media--is essential to democracy.

Would you vote to uphold the rights of political parties to raise and expend funds to discuss issues or the positions of officeholders or officeseekers on those issues, or to build grassroots networks?

Once again, they want their soft money and their ability to spend it in practically any fashion their lawyers think they can get away with. And once again, it reeks of money laundering.

NRLC and the organizations like it aren't interested in "free speech," they're interested in free money. They want the ability to launch smear campaigns without even having to declare that they were the ones that paid for it in the first place.

Remember "Daisy" commercial that aired close to the 2000 elections? The one where the producer refused to disclose who paid for it (leaving everybody accusing everybody else)? That's exactly the kind of advertising this corporation wants to continue using. Saying NRLC and their ilk want to defend free speech is like saying Enron executives wanted to defend free markets: They both want all the benefits while absolving themselves of any responsibilities.

At any rate, I personally find it rather two-faced (and humorous) the way this corporation exists in order to try to overturn a Supreme Court decision and yet has no problem with hiding behind the Supreme Court when it suits them.

Finally..

[Derg]

Finally a reason to be proud of a) being A Wisconsinite and b) having voted for Feingold.

I hope that this movement goes through, everything around here (Milwaukee) seems to be Clearchannel. The radio, atleast 3-4 stations, 2 of the TV, and a large majority of the billboards and the such are all clearchannel.

Go Feingold Go

Full Text of Bill

[obsidianpreacher]

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.

Fight Back

[the_mad_poster]

XM is going under - investment is futile.

I sometimes think that the attention span of the average radio listener must be on a half life of a year or so. Eventually we'll get to the point where the radio will literally play the same rotation of songs, restarting at the top of the hour. We're already at the point where the rotations repeats every 4 or 5 hours on some stations (with the more popular songs peppered in a few extra times for good measure). It drives us nuts, but it must be making money, and for it to be making money, people must be buying into it.

This is another one of those fights where we're going to lose because we don't understand our enemy. Clearchannel is not the enemy. Congresspeople are not the enemy. OUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY who don't understand what's happening are the enemy! The majority of consumers probably don't know who clearchannel is. We must EDUCATE them so they know that each time they put in a dollar vote to the latest pop sensation, they're helping to kill free market capitalism and create free market socialism.

Get out there and tell EVERYONE you can at every opportunity that we need to stop supporting the big record companies. Introduce them to indies and older music! A lot of kids who listen to modern rock (translation: the reconstituted garbage of yesterday) probably never heard of bands like Lynard Skynard or Pink Floyd. They'd probably like it if they did though. The wider a selection of music you introduce to these people-sheep the more choices they'll realize they have. The whole effect will snowball, and they'll start experimenting with new things. This can only lead to good things... personally, I'm not going to lose any sleep if I'm responsible for the owners of Clearchannel having to move out into the street.

Cool - someone to vote for

[HeelToe]

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.

Re:How about

[tx_mgm]

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

Senator John McCain

[JMPrice]

I am increasingly growing fond of McCain.

Of late he's introduced some risky legislation (think of his recent proposals on carbon dioxide emissions) that has set him apart from his party but make him stand out for his clear-thinking and integrity.

I want this guy for President in 2004.

Re:Senator John McCain

[MillionthMonkey]

I want this guy for President in 2004.

I agree completely. While lesser men were defending the skies of Texas (except when AWOL, that is), McCain spent years chained up in a tiny rat infested cell being starved, dehydrated, poked at with sticks, and having bamboo shoots shoved under his fingernails. He knows what it means to suffer. That's the kind of guy who should be in the White House.

Re:How about

[Black Copter Control]

Why use the goverment to quiet those with whom you do not agree?

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.

Re:what's wrong with pay-for-play?

[PetWolverine]

Radio station have the right to free speech, not the obligation to play music without compensation.

This bill doesn't ask them to play music without compensation if they don't want to. It asks them to be honest with us, the listeners, when they do so, to encourage them to choose to play music that's good, rather than music that's being promoted in expensive ways.

What happened to freedom in this country.

As far as I can tell, companies like CCC bought it.

Rhetorical questions like that are not an effective way to convince people. Keep in mind that since not everyone agrees with you, the answer someone else gives to such a question may be different from what you expected. For instance:

Why does the govt. feel they need to regulate everything?

You're expecting an answer along the lines of "Because we're control freaks, because we want to institute a totalitarian regime, muahahaha!" But the fact is that for many people, the answer is "Because we do have to regulate everything." The way to convince people--or better yet, mutually arrive at a truth that may be different from anyone's initial views--is to ask, without sarcasm, why we would be better off this way.

In case you care, my answer to that question is that the government should regulate cases such as this because it benefits the consumer, whose rights should always outweigh the rights of corporations. This is because, simply, people are people, and real, whereas corporations are simply groups of people. Situations that benefit corporations benefit the individuals who are members of those corporations, whereas situations that benefit individuals in general benefit all the same people, and many more.

Now somebody will respond saying that I've oversimplified this, and my preemptive response to that is that to do this subject justice would be to write volumes on it. I think what I've said above captures the essence of the liberal view.

We own the medium, we make the rules!

[stomv]

Radio station have the right to free speech, not the obligation to play music without compensation.

Not exactly -- not while they are using my airwaves.

In America, the airwaves are owned not by radio stations but by the American people. *If* the act of accepting money to play particular songs is bad for the people, than the people have the right -- as owners of the airwaves -- to change the rules that the radio stations have to play by.

When the people own the medium (television, radio), than the people have the right to determine how that medium is used.

For a good time, check out Free Air Time to find out about a similar regarding the television frequency range.

Total Information Awareness

[jagapen]

Don't forget that Russ Feingold is the same Senator who introduced a bill to halt research on data-mining technology by the Dept. of Homeland Security until Congress can investigate it.

I'm proud to have voted for him.

Story here.

Payola only works for the big guys

[gurutechanimal]

A couple of years ago, I was in a band with commercial promise. We found a group of investors, comprised of money men, attorneys and others with industry contacts, to back us financially. We understood from the beginning that playing in a garage until discovered only worked in "That Thing You Do". We understood that incessant touring with no radio play only works for a very minimal amount of bands. We understood that marketing and promotion were more important than the songs themselves (at least in the are of financial success).

We took their money and our purposely catchy "written for radio" songs to the Hit Factory in Miami (an uber-studio, with clients like Creed, Michael Jackson, Lenny Kravitz, etc) and recorded alternative rock Radio Hits (tm) with the best producer we could afford. We came out with a CD that sounded so good, I'm still glad to have myname associated with it.

Since we were not signed to a label, we had no "in" with the local "independent promoter", who "owned" the rock radio market in our area. Clear Channel is the monopoly in our market, and will play the songs that the "Indie" pays them to promote, at a price that is unfair to non-megacorps. The "Locals Only" show was on only on Sunday nights at midnight (how typical). There was no way for us to get on the radio.

Then, we had the brilliant idea of buying Advertising time (as in commercials) on the station and playing our songs. One of the investors on our team had an "in" with the marketing company that booked most of the time for ads on the 3 rock stations in the market. We recieved very favorable rates per thirty seconds, and it actually would turn out cheaper than paying the "indie", if we had access to him.

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.

The moral of this story is that Russ Feingold and anyone else with the balls to stand against corporate radio money needs all the support he can get. Even when you have the backing to do it yourself, you're still not a Label-Slave(tm). You are not to be considered for airplay.

What about Internet Radio?

[Mr Bubble]

I sent this to the senator:

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

Wish I had some mod points.

[Max Threshold]

The Constitution was a good start, but we've amended it in the past to fit better the ideals of the nation while stripping away parts that did not (examples of both aren't hard to think of).

I've heard the United States referred to as the "Great Experiment". I believe the experiment has been successful, but the test of time has shown some weaknesses in our Constitution and in democracy in general. We need to patch a few serious exploits...

Our rights do not come from the Constitution. Our Constitution is an acknowledgement by the government of certain rights which we posess simply by virtue of being human. Among those rights is the right of self-government. We would not be outside our rights to abolish the existing Constitution and reaffirm our belief in democracy with a new one. I think the Founding Fathers would quite approve.

But of course, there are not enough honest politicians in Washington to entrust our government with that task today!