Slashdot Mirror
More on Media Consolidation
A few more links on the important FCC decision coming up in a few weeks (see our previous story for more). Common Cause has a good set of background information and advocacy. The Washington Post has a story about the decision, focusing on how independent television stations will be squeezed even harder. This article about ClearChannel is a useful primer about the future of mass media.
From any perspective, Clear Channel is an entirely commercial endeavor. Whenever the corporation isn't promoting "sponsors," Clear Channel attempts to promote labels sponsored by the RIAA. Modern radio is a commercial medium, not an exhibition of artistry. "Corporate America" regards you as a "consumer," not a "customer."
Do you like German cars?
good cartoon on the topic
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
Anyone else think whenever 'ClearChannel' is mentioned the Imperial March should play in the background?
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
Media Fight Focuses on Local TV Stations
By Frank Ahrens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 14, 2003; Page E01
If broadcast networks such as ABC and Fox are prevented from buying more local television stations, viewers may soon have to watch NFL games on cable or satellite, meaning football fans who depend on free, over-the-air television would be out of luck.
Or if they are allowed to buy more stations, they would use their increased muscle to force network programming onto independently owned affiliate stations, even when they would rather show local programs or preempt network programs that may offend community standards.
Either and both arguments may be true. Local television station autonomy is at the heart of one of the media ownership rules set to be changed soon by the Federal Communications Commission. It was also Topic A yesterday at a Senate hearing chaired by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) but starring Viacom Inc. President Mel Karmazin.
"Costs are going up, audience is going down, competition is increasing," Karmazin told the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. Viacom owns CBS, 35 television stations and cable channels such as MTV and Nickelodeon. "The only way to help is to relax the ownership rules," allowing networks to buy more stations and increase revenue, he said.
On June 2, the FCC is scheduled to vote -- and likely pass -- several rules that will make it easier for media giants to buy more newspapers and radio and television stations. Several lawmakers and public interest groups oppose relaxing the rules. The FCC "is putting us on a glide path for big media conglomerates to gobble up independent stations," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said yesterday.
(Yesterday afternoon, Democratic FCC commissioners Michael J. Copps and Jonathan S. Adelstein asked Michael K. Powell, the agency's Republican chairman, to postpone the vote, a request typically honored under FCC tradition. Usually, such votes are rescheduled for the commission's next open meeting, about one month later. Powell said he will respond promptly. Republican commissioners Kathleen Q. Abernathy and Kevin J. Martin want the vote to proceed as scheduled.)
Perhaps the most controversial of the six major media ownership rules teed up for review is the "35-percent cap" on station ownership. Networks are not allowed to own a number of stations that combine to reach more than 35 percent of the national audience. Thanks to waivers and shifting market shares, all of the major networks hover around the 35 percent figure, with some actually above the limit, anticipating its lifting.
The FCC's media bureau has recommended raising that number to about 45 percent. Powell is sympathetic to Karmazin. The chairman has said that broadcast television needs regulatory help to continue providing free public-interest programming. ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox are steadily losing audience to cable channels. For the first time last year, the aggregate cable audience surpassed that of the combined networks. About 85 percent of viewers have cable or satellite service.
Further, cable channels have two revenue streams -- advertising and subscription -- where broadcast has one. The smallest major network, however, still has an audience larger than the biggest cable channel, meaning networks can charge advertisers more for commercials.
The rising cost of programming, especially rights fees that networks pay sports leagues to broadcast games, means that networks lose money by putting their shows on broadcast stations instead of cable, the networks say. "Sports content will be the first to go to cable," Karmazin warned, noting that CBS paid $6 billion to broadcast the NCAA men's basketball tournament for 11 years. "Then other [programming] will follow."
The surest way to save free television, the networks argue, is to let them to buy more stations, which routinely log profit margins of 20 percent to 50 percent.
Not everyone agrees. Last week, Rep. Richard Burr
Relaxation of media ownership is something that is happening over here in the UK at the moment and many are worried that Murdoch in particular could expand into terrestrial television. Our network television is now owned by two companies who are planning to merge once the Communications Bill is passed.
johnBe like Jayson Blair and make up your own news at the Not True Times
All I Want For Christmas Is My Constitutional Rights
Every major station in New York has either a top 40 format or rock format. And both formats consist of about 10 songs played over and over. If it wasn't for talk radio, I'd have nothing to listen to on the drive to work.
but they have bought every radio station station in the Houston area that didn't suck, and even a few that did. So I drive cross country, I find another radio station. I listen to it, sounds kinda cool, then you hear "Thank you for listend to KXYZ, the ONLY station that doesn't suck, a Clear Channel Communications station." So they admit that all their other stations suck?
I wanted to boycott them for taking off my morning show, and using the trained monkeys that borderline politicaly correct (the previous guys would never be mistaken for anywhere near politicaly correct) from New Orleans to broadcast to the entire Gulf Coast. Sounds like cost savings to me, but it really ruined the mornings for me.
So I swallowed my pride and listened anyways. Before Clear Channel bought everything I stopped listening to one of our local stations because I couldn't stand hearing "Did somebody say McDonalds" 13 times in a 30 second period. Now nearly half the commercials ClearChannel plays assume I can't get my dick up and I need to hear the phone number of the fixer 12 times because I can't dial a damned phone. I assure you neaither is a concern in my case. The quality of radio sure took a dive when they came in.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
Saw my first ClearChannel signed billboard near my home in London :-(. Begun this advertising war has.
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
Immature, lowest common denomiator, but damn they make me laugh.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
at the disgraced Not True Times. Another example of how the PC crowd is destroying themselves through diversity and affirmative action
Maybe I'm wrong, given that there's no pay-to-listen alternative to MuchMusic (Canadian MTV) up here, and they still insist on showing the same Avril Lavigne and Nelly videos on a loop for 24 hours a day.
Think yourselves lucky your president doesn't own most of your commercial media.
Over the past few decades or so the U.S. Government has learned many lessons about media coverage and international dealings. The whole dynamic has changed radically from the times of journalism in say Vietnam vs the "inbedded" reporters of this recent action. General Franks and Colin Powell, whos son is pushing he deal, "Cut their teeth" commanding forces in vietnam and they relaize that tight media control is the answer to help the people accept the actions of the government.
This plan is another step in narrowing and refining the information that the public sees. With top political officers havving ties to large corporations, it's hard to tell the lines in which corporate money, goverment money are drawn.
Be afraid.
I just type my sig in the reply form...
That's why I thank the gods for NPR. My CD player has been broken for a few weeks, and I'll die before I'll listen to Top 40.
GeekNights!
Late Night Radio for Geeks!
All sources of news and culture have their biases. Unfortunately, consolidation means that diversity decreases over time. This is why we don't hear about major international events, and most of our news sources look the same. Thus, even if we have "freedom of the press", the de facto freedom is constrained by commercial interests. The recording industry is getting so cozy with the radio stations that there is little variation in content there as well. I hope that we can fix this, however the economy of scale which drives this process may be very hard to overcome.
Clearchannel has singlehandedly destroyed radio in the US. Five years ago, I had quite a nice variety of stations to pick from, with all twelve of my presets going to something that, depending on my mood, I would enjoy.
Now, I have two stations I listen to... A local college station, and NPR. And I don't even like NPR, but angry lesbians amuse me more than the same top-10 pop songs played over and over.
Clearchannel, as an "experiment" in media conglomeration, should end. Revoke its corporate charter, dissolve it, return control and ownership to each individual station. And more importantly, we need to IMMEDIATELY stop further Borg-like activity on the part of media megacorps.
I want decent independant radio back.
Why are they losing audiences to cable channels?
Can it be because the programming they offer flat out sucks?
Can it be that people aren't as stupid as they've assumed since the 50s?
That they dont want to see another sitcom about a family with a precocious little kid that runs the house, or 5 20-something hipsters drinking coffee and making dumb wisecracks?
Can it be that they've reached the puking threshhold with this reality TV crap? That people dont care which of the 40 masked guys that some whore chooses?
Can it be that the old standbys of Leno and Letterman kissing hollywood ass is frankly BORING?
I mean there's a reason I'd rather watch some longwinded documentary about the treasures of King Razamatooten from the 3rd dynasty; as dry and uninteresting as it is, it's better than anything NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX and the DUBBYA-BEE have to offer.
Perhaps just getting "known star" to do a sitcom for 2 million an episode doesn't guarantee ratings anymore.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
...the media companies are working hard at making themselves irrelevant.
News is an important issue, and I get my news from multiple unrelated companies, ideally from different countries. As for entertainment on commercial TV and radio, there ain't none!!!
"Costs are going up, audience is going down, competition is increasing"
Competition increasing is a good thing, and the proposed bills seem to be destroying that aspect. As for the high costs/low audience problem, do you think that spending ONE MILLION DOLLARS PER LEAD CAST MEMBER PER EPISODE on a show as tired and utterly rehashed-to-death as "Friends" might have something to do with that?
Maybe if the media companies started paying their stars less money per weekly episode than most people gross in a decade their costs would go down. Maybe if they spent a TINY amount of money on writers with creative and new ideas, their audience would go up.
But no, it's easier to make money through legislation and monopolies than to actually do your job.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
I suggest that most slashdot types are libertarian in their political thought. Not Libertarian(tm), but libertarian in thought.
At least that's what I seem to get from reading at +1 or -1.
It seems hip to call yourself liberal, but then go home and secretly watch Fox News.
The vast majority of Americans (sorry foreigners) have very mixed political views, and fewer and fewer can strongly identify with one of the two major parties.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
MoveOn has a page where you can send a letter to your members of Congress and add your name to a petition to stop the June 2nd decision.
This story about conglomeration brought to you by Slashdot.org, sibling to the Open Source Developers Network. Proud members of the VA Software family of companies.
Trolling is a art,
How could a radio boycott actually work? It doesn't cost them anything for you to listen, and they have no way of knowing of you're listening or not.
The ratings are determined by a system that ignores most of the radio-listening population, and only exists so that advertisers will think that they're getting their money's worth. The advertiser, the only person in the world who cares if you're listening, has no way of knowing if you do so.
Just thinking, that's all..
GeekNights!
Late Night Radio for Geeks!
I might be over-dramatising it a little, but it is like I blinked, then when I opened my eyes they are *everywhere*. I've been travelling around the UK recenetly and everywhere I go there have been ClearChannel billboards - and with the new communications bill on it's way I am somewhat concerned about where they are going next...
as I have pointed out in the past There's a petition to the FCC about this issue that is worth reading. It has been signed by many prominent musicians, and they are looking for as many listeners as possible to listen.
"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi
I think that goes for OS's too
I hate people who post "MOD PARENT UP," but, for the first time, I -really- wish I had mod points right at this moment.
Well said.
GeekNights!
Late Night Radio for Geeks!
"Lowry Mays is the Big Daddy of radio. The founder and CEO of Clear Channel, Mays oversees 1,233 radio stations with some 100 million listeners across all 50 states, and runs a company with $8 billion in revenues and a $23 billion market cap. But ask Mays about what he does for a living and you won't hear much about musicians or how to bring up ratings or who's the best DJ. Those things don't interest him much. Truth is, Mays isn't that passionate about what goes out over the airwaves. As long as his broadcasts sell ads, he's happy. "If anyone said we were in the radio business, it wouldn't be someone from our company," says Mays, 67. "We're not in the business of providing news and information. We're not in the business of providing well-researched music. We're simply in the business of selling our customers products.""
On a different topic but related to Corporate consolidation, I think we should just do away with our current government and let the country be run by mega coporations. You see the way it would work is whoever paid the most money gets the most power and favor with government. So if you wanted to expand your company so that it owned every media outlet in a particular area you could just dump money until your able to do what you want. You'd be able to set up monopolies in whatever industry you wanted, be it Cable, Telecom, or hell even the software industry if you wanted. The "President" and "Vice President" really wouldn't be politicians, they would businessmen with strong ties to big corporations and they would give favor to their former companies once they got in power. You konw sort of like a bonus for "making it to the top".
I know my ideas are little crazy, but maybe its worth a shot.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
They can't count how many radios are tuned in, you're absolutely right. The boycott would work by making them look less appealing to advertisers.
Having a bumper sticker/T-Shirt with the name of your favorite radio station is one way to make the station look valuable. If people who are prospective advertisers to a radio station happen accross people displaying a radion stations logo during their daily routine it shows that station as a good place to spend their advertising dollars because the person who's wearing that shirt and many more will hear their ad.
Calling in to be the 13th or whatever caller. If you help in making every line to the radio station busy in record time it proves you were listening to the radio. Giving away $1,000 is a good way to get people to listen for the word go, and right before the word go is given is an excelent time to play an ad.
Music is just a good way to get people to stick around long enough to listen to the ads and controlling what the target audiance is. The rest is to make money.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
where are all the libertarians crying out in joy? isn't this great - capitalism in action! more and more of those pesky government regulations being whisked out of the way!
and now you guys all have your free-market radio stations where you - yes, i mean YOU! - can make choices about which radio station will be #1! yes-siree-bob, all those companies are entirely dependant on your happiness with their programming decisions.
isn't it just GREAT!
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
It worries me that it is getting harder and harder for small artists, musicians, television writers etc to get on the first rung due to the lack of competition. And this stifling of culture will be something that once done will be increasingly hard to undo... where are we going...?
I just wish that people cared about new culture and cutting edge performance and writing but it seems they are content to buy re-issued, committee-written comedy, music, drama and film.
Adorno was precient in his forecasts...
---- The Open Source Record Label : : LOCARECORDS.COM
I was watching this channel last night and in the business talk section there was the CEO of Sinclair (who own lots of local cable stations) saying how terrible it is that theyre not alowed to own more things than theyre currently alowed, his justification was that there are so many more channels now... bah just another company like clear channel trying to crush all competition. (Final thaught-Maybe that should have been like M$ - no beacuse MS has already done so :-( )
Slashdot - The one stop shop for procrastination
1. PBS and FOX: This would be something like a collision of matter and anti-matter. New shows: "Firing Line meets Celebrity Boxing"; "When Barney Attacks!"; and "Bill Moyers investigates Monica's Thong"
2. ABC and WB: The dead eating the dead. Is that cannibalism or Night of the Living Dead or neither?
3. New York Times and E!: Oh, the possibilities: "Jayson Blair Investigative Reports: Anna Nicole Smith -- What's real and what's fake?"; "E! Hollywood True Story: All the President's Men -- the Post was really just making up Deep Throat...we should know!"; and "Talk Soup for the Lazy Reporter"
4. CNN and Playboy: All T&A, all the time. Show your tits, Judy Woodruff!
GF.
Lots of petrified grits
opie and anonthoy, if that is the radio show you are talking about, was taken off by more than clear channel. After they had someone have sex in a church live, there radio life was over, not only did they "jump the shark" they also ticked off a lit of suits, and the religous right. I belive (don't hold me to be correct on this) the FCC or some other governmental agency over radio had them taken off the air.
Nope, KLOL, I was talking about the "Real Man Show", previously the "Stevens and Pruit" show before they fired Mark Stevens. Now it's "Ronson and Johnson", they aren't exactly PC, but they tiptoe around the edges of it.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
To be 100% honest, I don't see the big deal over the issue of media consolidation. Newspapers? Hah. Newspapers are a dead format. It's common knowledge that the current newspapers out there are not gaining any new subscribers to replace the ones that are dying off. Soon enough it won't be worth the printing costs for newspapers to be in the paper business without going completely digital.
:)
Radio? Again, another dead format, save for talk radio. The only time I and others I know listen to the radio is to either catch the local news, traffic and weather while on the way to work and on the way home, and/or to listen to talk radio such as good 'ol Rush Limbaugh. Music stations just aren't worth listening to, both for the low variety of music (rap and hip-hop aren't my forte, but soundtracks are), and because of the low quality of the music they do play. I get better sounding music out of my computer than I do my radio.
Television? For the free airwaves, it's another dead format. The only future of television is in cable and satellite dishes. I remember reading an article a few years ago stating that no television will be free by 2010. Whether that's still the case, I don't know, but it's only a question of when, not "will it happen?" Honestly, who cares who owns two or three local stations when there are 200+ channels to watch? If I want to find out what's happening locally, I can either go to a local news-oriented website, or *gasp* - actually go outside and find out for myself.
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde
Back when I was a DJ at WVBR (briefly) I spent most of my time calculating which songs to play in order to fill the 20-minute space between weather and station identification, and between news and the ad break. Given that I had exactly 20 minutes, if I started with a 5:13, a 3:17, and a 4:39, I then had to find a song or two to fill the remaining 7 or so minutes.
Before holidays, we would prerecord our shifts on reel-to-reel tape, and the engineer would simply swap reels every 3 hours.
It occured to me that if we had every song in our cd library as an mp3 in a database, we could automate the entire process. We could have the software rotate through the songs to fill the air-time exactly, we could load all the ad spots and PAs in a separate table, and not even have to be in the room.
I wonder if anyone is doing this now. If not, I'm sure it will.
every stain tells a story
of the article.
Take a look at who owns all those stations.
Yes, this will cause interference on Grandma's old Philco. So?
would be a coverage map of US of each of the companies. Numbers mean little, it is coverage that matters. Anyone know of anything like it? Wanna create it?
"If you are on fire you can just stop, drop, and roll. If you fall into Lava you are just dead." - my 5yr old daughter
Please, do not worry about all this Clearchannel nonsense. As time goes on, people will tire of this type of programming. This happened with television in the 60s and 70s, and broadcast has all but died, due to competition from pay TV. When the networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) just did the same old programming and copy off each other, they lost marketshare and created an opening for alternatives. The same thing will happen again. The free market system works, it just takes time.
The old adage is still true...
===
Mass media takes in money for its goods and services. That makes it the supplier.
Advertising agencies, marketing departments, and other corporations pay money to the mass media for its goods and services. That makes it the customer.
Where does that leave you, gentle TV watcher or radio listener or newspaper reader? You are the product.
===
I am even insulted that cable TV, satellite TV, et al propose to take *my* money and yet run commercials and programming that *I* don't get to dictate. Essentially, I am paying them for the privelege of selling me (as the product) to others. Gah!
The best "other industry relationship" to compare the relationship of the TV/radio station and the viewer/listener to? Uh, that would be "prostitute and pimp." The mass media is the pimp. YOU are the prostitute. Does anyone wonder now why we're constantly getting bent over and screwed in ways we don't even want?
Come to think of it, replace "mass media" with "government" and replace "advertising agencies and marketing departments" with "well-funded lobbyists" and you pretty much have the only other use of the pimp/prostitute analogy you need.
--AC101
that's right, an infinite # of channels, ALL spewing forth Godless greed/fear based payper liesense hostage ransom stock markup felon ?pr? crapolah execrable.
this is what you wanted? lookout bullow.
Can you say 91.7 KTRU (Rice University), 90.1 KPFT (Pacifica), or 88.7 KUHF (NPR, classical)? All good noncommercial Houston radio.
Interesting idea....basically the system in place now, but more honest about it...
Don an Mike are about as funny as dirt.
:-(
Opie and Anthony, now they were funny! Too bad they got fired
This won't solve a thing. If you open up the channels, then a bidding process occurs... and in the bidding process, without limits, the same company will buy all of the channels.
The point is that radio can serve public needs (getting local issues, various viewpoints, various local signers, etc.) rather than purely corporate desires.
San Fransisco and LA have KPFA and perhaps one or two other radio outlets that are operated similarly to the way KBOO is. But nationwide our options for true community controlled media has become very very limited.
There are several reasons why corporate control of our airwaves remains an issue that is important to understand:
It amazes me how little the citizens of this country care about being controlled or manipulated. Perhaps it has come down to the power that can be purchased by a few people who have large sums of money and big desires that remain unfulfilled.
If you are a terror to many, then beware of many. --Ausonius
Just look at clearchannel. They own almost every radio station in the US now and they have been a failure in all respects.
They were not succesfull in making money. Radio revenues went way down after their takeovers.
They were not succesfull in making interesting radio. My favourite hard rock station has become quite awfull after the takeover. Now i prefer playing any crappy CD over and over again instead of listening to radio.
They were not succesful in allowing different political views, informing the public, etc. Many controversial DJs were just fired. Of course Limbaugh reins supreme.
So, yes clearchannel proves consolidation is just bad news.
SOme people may say that the internet makes it ok... but consider this - many people do not have internet (about 50% of the us, i believe) and also the internet cannot fully replace TV as it could not fully replace my fave hard rock radio station. They are just different media.
I don't like pop, classical is great, but not all the time when I have a case of road rage I want to blair the OffSpring, Mötley Crüe or something, not Mozart. FEED THE RAGE, starving it just makes your rage hungry, their's nothing worse than rage on an empty stomache.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
In addition, the consolidation should be viewed as the number of potential listeners rather than the number of stations. For example, if 250 000 listen for 1 hour per week, that's 28.6 man-years of the same agenda, ideology or political message being pedaled, intentionally or unintentionally. That can have severe repercussions for the future of democratic process in the U.S.
Even if you don't subscribe to the agenda thing, there's still the issue of the underlying emotional tactic used by commercials wearing down the population.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
welcome to the grassroots fight of your life, if you're a media democracy activist. we've been working on this for a year, trying to build a coalition of peace and justice groups against the issue. during the war in iraq, many national peace activists would turn on the nightly news and say, 'what the hell? where are the bodies? why are retired generals and embedded reporters giving me my news?'
so they embraced the issue. it's a lot harder to ignore the group of people on the steps of the fcc whining 'FREE AND INDEPENDENT MEDIA' if those people are anti-war citizens from all across the country with money, clout, and celebrity spokesmen (michael moore).
the smallish team media democracy activists has ballooned into a huge group of peace and justice activists, hackers, consumer rights activists, kids, parents, people of all stripes. now groups like moveon.org are planning national call-in days. now code pink is pink-slipping fcc chairman michael powell alongside his much-more-famous father, colin powell.
so we have the people. what do we do? what's our power?
1) call your senator. like, now. right now. the senate, after the second commerce committee hearing on this issue, is rattling some sabers and could definitely use some encouragement that this issue isn't just one for the lobbyists.
2) comment to the fcc. you can do so here and the comments you make will also go to the senate commerce committee, and to the president.
3) tell someone who isn't tech savvy about this. you're reading slashdot. you have a choice about where you get your media. most people don't. newspaper, radio, and television matter more than we can say in most parts of this country. just ask the good people of minot.
and visit us at prometheus. we're here all the time. and we will be until june 2nd and after.
hannah sassaman
prometheusradioproject
So what. Maybe they should think about not paying people $5 million per year to play a kid's game or $1 million per episode to act in a sitcom. Get to the root of the "rising cost of programming" problem rather than begging the government to let them consolidate programming into even more homogenized crap than it already is.
This is how it's supposed to work. If overpaid actors, sports players and coke-sniffing media executives are making the industry unprofitable, then companies go out of business, supply of overpaid job openings dwindle, and costs fall back into line. We don't need to put all of a scarce public resource in control of a single private party just to prop up a bad business model.
Here in GR, MI we had a couple decent stations. Then, CC arrived and bought this one station. One of the best DJ's (who also owns a couple CD shops in town) left that station for another. CC bought that station, again he leaves for another. CC buys that one. Finally I hear him currently on another station. But this one I think he either owns or something, I doubt we'll be seeing this on bought up by CC.
On a decent note, I think one of the stations is now freed from CC's grasps. Atleast I don't hear, "a ClearChannel station" after everything the DJ's say.
Norris/Palin 2012
Fact: We deserve leaders who can kick your ass and field dress your carcass.
Combine this topic with the topic about the coast to coast wireless LAN.
Put streaming audio on the Wireless LAN and then create some kind of in-car media pc with a wireless card.
If you put the LAN AP's in the middle of no-where (like along route 66) the cars can pick up good streaming radio from college stations or Internet Radio stations.
One way or another, we all work for Donald Love anyway. What difference does it make if he owns a few more radio/tv stations?
Now if I could only find him... he owes me money from my last job...
As you may know, one of the advantages of cable is that it has so many channels that there is the opportunity for niche markets.
Digital Television provides 19.4 Mbps of data per channel. This could either be a single high-definition stream, or a multiplex set of standard-definition streams (or even a mixture of both).
So you could have 4 times as many digital video streams on the air as you have analog video channels today, if they all do a 4 way multiplex (they call it "multicast", but that confuses us IT folks) at SD bitrates equivalent to those of SD digital cable.
It remains to be seen what might be made of those multiplexed digital television channels.
PBS, for example, provides a pre-multiplexed DTV feed to public television stations broadcasting a digital channel, including a children's feed, and an adult learning feed, and many are running with this 4 channel "multicast" during non-prime hours.
So it might be that broadcast DTV becomes more "cable-ized" through the addition of multiplexed channels.
Wrong. I'm finding a definite left wing Marxists leaning on Slashdot. At least, those in control.
Me? I'll come right out and admit where I am. I am a Big R Republican. I was a little l libertarian, and was actually about to make the leap into big L Libertarian party politics. Then, I decided that Big R is closer to "l" than Big D. A vote for a big "L" was a vote for a big "D". Just as a vote for Nader was a vote for Bush. I decided, I have to choose a side.
You won't find me trying to spin things. I'll call them as I see 'em. And you'll know where I am up-front. I conservative, like it or not.
Just a bunch of Highschool punks, makeing radio worth listening to. They play basically dance, but it's an ecclectic mix of a fairly large number of songs.
I listen to them as much as I make use of my mp3 stereo. Which is pretty significant because until I accidently found them I hadn't used the radio for radio in months.
Thanks clear channel for taking the public's spectrum and filling it with useless garbage. Fortunately, we've got the government and highschool kids makeing some use out of it. MTV's right, kids can make a difference.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
They have a license to use the public's airwaves for the public good. They are in gross violation of that license. Someone needs to organize a campaign to protest the re-newal of a stations liscense, they need to be re-newed every 8 years
Free cell phone tracking
It's not so much a bad thing that CC can consoladate radio stations, the problem is the FCC limits frequencies to a very select few.
So while there is a demand for music alternative to CCs choices, it's too small to aquire such frequencies. The FCC really needs to relax it's frequency licensing requirments.
The niche is there, it just can't be filled due to extrainous regulations.
The company lost money every quarter last year, piling up an annual loss of $1.1 billion. Clear Channel also is shouldering $8 billion in debt -- the legacy of its deal-a-minute expansion spree. With a long advertising slump afoot, the company's stock is selling at about half its peak price of two years ago.
The other day, Clear Channel reported that it lost $16.9 billion during the first three months of 2002, mostly as a result of writing off devalued assets.
Despite all their blandness, it doesn't seem to pay off.
Now it's "Ronson and Johnson"
It's "Walton and Johnson," and while they might not be PC, they most certainly ARE CC (type "Houston" in the search box) their lame-ass script won't return the URL of the search result).
Clear Channel owns 8 stations in Houston, every one of which is either the market leader in it's format or the ONLY example of it's format in the city.
utter rubbish
Most Big R Republicans and Big D Democrats consider libertarian-style thinkers to be the opposition.
All my Big R friends think I'm a flaming liberal... "What, you satanic baby killer? You think abortion is a right? Hippy freak!"
All my Big D friends think I'm a child-hating, white supremicist, Limbaugh-lover.
I must be doing something right to piss off all the not-so-moderates. I think that you are too big of a Big R to know where either the middle or libertarians might be. They are all the opposition to you. And yikes. If you ran across a moderate liberal, you'd probably call him a Marxist, or something horrible like that.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
First of all, let me make myself clear (no pun intended). Clear Channel sucks. They produce a lousy product, and are profitable only because they are so lowest common denominator that they don't have much costs at all.
But they are a monopoly you say? Or at least someone gobbling up a limited resource? True. But why is the resource (in this case, air waves) so limited? Its the FCCs fault.
FM radio was a huge technological improvement over AM radio. The AM band occupies 540-1700 KHz and FM is only 88-108 MHz. The technological leaps that have happened over the years that made wireless ethernet, mobile phones (which occupy comparitively razor thin slivers in the spectrum when compared with radio) and other technology has the potential to allow thousands of radio stations sharing the same area. If the FCC would get off its ass and get the new band allocated, Clear Channel could set up all the top-40 stations that it wished and there would be plenty of room for public radio, non-profit independant broadcasters and any joe that would normally set up a pirate radio station.
One should not attack entities consuming scarce resources when it is possible to attack scarcity itself.
Why do you think there's no variety in music radio? Consolidation! Hello!? Could it be that the same company owns most of the radio stations? Could this be why all the music sounds the same? Try listening to a college radio station sometime, and not a make-believe college station that isn't run by the students (we have a few of these in Maryland, and it's really annoying; that is NOT "college radio").
Newspapers are still more comfortable to read than Web sites, and the iLoo notwithstanding, there are many situations where they still just work better. The Retriever at UMBC, a medium-sized research university (mostly commuters, mostly disinterested in anything but academics, many CS majors) has a circulation of 15,000, and NO subscribers. That's just from people picking up the paper. It's all online too, at trw.umbc.edu, but we sure don't get 15,000 hits a week.
To be 100% honest, I'm half-convinced you're a troll. But if not, please consider my statements.
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
take a guess. Hint: Not GWB.
By putting the safe and tested material on the radio, they are driving people seeking new music to other distribution channels. This is only going to bring on the day that record labels and radio are completely irrelevant to music that much sooner. I stopped listening to mainstream radio a decade ago. Today, I get my music live or off of an alternative station.
There is a place for safe, predictable radio. But it can be filled just as easily with a CD changer. The thing that is driving this right now is that advertisers are willing to pay well to air their ads to a specific market niche all across the country. When those listeners wander away out of boredom, either the programming will change or the company will go bankrupt.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
I've heard that the US senate seat for NJ costs $65 million. It helps if it's mostly your own money though...
That may seem like a lot, but I think it's a great bargain.
You'd control 1/100th of 1/2 of 1/3 of the entire federal government: or 0.167%. (1 seat of 100 Senators; Legislative branch divided into two houses; FederalGov=Executive+Legislative+Judicial)
The GDP of the US is about $10 trillion, so 0.167% of that is: $16.7 billion. Almost 260 times the investment! The return is even greater considering that Senators don't have to worry about re-elections for six years.
They weren't kidding: Corzine really IS a successful businessman!
This is not my sig.
Not so fast. The big L's in there platform recognise the merits of both sides of the debate. That is, a baby has rights.
Libertarians say, do as you please, as long as it doesn't harm another person.
Well, to me certainly, a child 7 1/2 months along in the womb is a person.
So, there's no conflict with my pro-life views there.
Oh no!
You advertised for them!
Mod down! Mod down!
Okay, so I forgot their names. I've listened to them and tried to give them a fair shake, it just didn't work. I've thought about calling them daily to remind them they suck, but there are others that do that for me, and besides it may count their rating is boosted.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
If Micheal and his flock don't like what they hear on the radio, they can choose another channel, or better yet, start their own. If what they say is true and there indeed is a large group of dissatisfied radio listeners out there, they will tune in and the station will be economically viable. If not, they can chip in to cover the operating costs and play whatever they want.
Like that'll happen. It's a lot easier to keep posting petulant bleatings on Slashdot than to put your money where your mouth is.
How about this? Why don't we ban publicly traded companies? If your privately owned company can't handle the changing economy, then they should die, rather than run to the government for some sort of protection for their shareholders and their CEOs. What ever happened to companies caring about their products and their customers? All these companies today can do is whine about profit margins, stockholders, etc. etc. ad nauseum. I say let them all die. They don't care about their products, they don't care about their customers, they only care about multi-million dollar bonuses, and shit like that. Also, while I'm on a rant, why don't all congressmen have to live in dorms, or quonset huts, or cheap government housing projects? They should be representative of the people, rather than trying to lord it over them. Last time they voted themselves a pay raise, one of the congress critters said they needed the raise because it was very hard for him to keep up payments on the three houses he owned! Hey, sell one or two, eh?!? Most Americans either can't afford just one house, or are going bankrupt trying to own one. All corporate leaders and government officials should get off their high horse and actually find out how the majority of people live.
For those who describe their systems as 'boxen', do you order multiple 'boxen' of corn flakes also?
Great. Then don't have an abortion. I would never want my spouse to have one and would argue very strongly against it.
But stay away from the laws. It is an issue that does not belong in the laws.
For you, 7 1/2 months. For the guy next door, 6 months. For the gal down the street, 7 1/2 microseconds. See the problem?
Before arguing for abortion laws, go and perform some duties in the inner city, or wherever for abstinence and better birth control. Heck, donate some money to Planned Parenthood if you want to lower the abortion rate. Do something besides moaning to your friendly, local government to help the problem. The shortcut is always to get gov't involved. "Solve it for us!!! I'm too busy!!". There is a ton that can be done to work on this problem before gov't needs to get involved.
Ditto with free market media. Go do something about it. Support your local alternatives, or national, or international alternatives.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
> To remedy this horrible situation, the Slashbots propose - wait for it - more government regulation!
No, maintaining existing FCC regulations of ownership. Regulations that have already been relaxed and which in turn allowed ClearChannel to spread like a plague.
> After all - the poor, huddled masses out there can't possibly be expected to make their own decisions on what to listen to, can they?
The poor, huddled masses have... radio. And broadcast TV. Without true programming diversity, no true choice is available to the average person.
If Conglomerate-1 buys out half a region's media outlets, and Conglomerate-2 buys out the other half, you now have to HOPE that one of those conglomerates has a soul. Otherwise what balance of coverage and entertainment are you likely to see from Big Business? "Negative" war coverage bad for business? Pipe up the patriotic tunes!
Control the media, control the minds. That's why we like to knock out an enemy's broadcasts during war and replace them with our own Commando Solo broadcasts.
I am not in the business and I really don't know what I am talking about (I know very little about business, marketing, music, media) so take what I have to say with a grain of salt.
It seems to me that media almost equals "entertainment." Even the news these days (except for maybe your local news) is in essence a form of entertainment. Sure we need to be aware of what is happening in the world but if it isn't selling ads or it doesn't have enough viewers, the format will be adjusted to gain market share. Almost nightly you can switch from NBC, ABC, and CBS and see almost exactly the same stories at almost exactly the same moment because that is how the formula works.
On radio, you can listen to too many sound alike songs on too many sound alike stations, because that is how the formula works - and the formula is what is proven to get the most listeners and make the most profit from ad sales.
I'd sure like more local programming on both TV and radio. I'd like to see less polished matterial too. I'd love to hear local music on local radio stations, knowing that the band I hear on the radio today, I can go to the bar tonight and hear. I'd love to see local talent on a local TV station produced by local people that know their local audience.
But it ain't gonna happen. ad time is bought and sold by middlemen. They won't pay the rates that they will pay for a network show. Not even when you break it down to price per person. Why? Mediocrity rules I think. If they miss the target but can show the formula said this should have worked, they still have a job and a fat paycheck. If they took a risk and blew it, they would be out of work.
Pitchmen also bring the music to the stations and pretty much tell the stations what to play. It is coupled to everything from advertising dollars to upcomming concerts to who knows what else? A program director who does not play ball quickly finds out that the station loses revenue if he won't play the game. So, he plays the game.
Little guys deserve a chance but somehow, I figure it ain't gonna happen.
I suggest that most slashdot types are libertarian in their political thought. Not Libertarian(tm), but libertarian in thought.
It seemed that way a few years ago, but I'm not sure anymore. Glancing at this thread, opinion seems almost unanimous in favor of government's controlling who can and cannot broadcast over the air. Maybe I'll suggest to ChrisD that we have some more political polls.
grep -ri 'should work'
It sounds like an old-school claim, but this really does set us back a century. We'll take a look at it: Huge media giant buys up a bunch of smaller television stations, and doubles commercial time. Instead of watching a television show, we will be watching a string of commercials with small breaks in between.
This isn't so bad, however. This will push the mass of people that don't want to read for entertainment onto the internet. I spend more time on-line than in front of television. Those that get fed up with the mass abusage of the internet will give up, go to IRC or start reading books for entertainment.
Reading is awesome. I think that everyone's time is better spent reading a book instead of watching a television. Reading affects your articulation skills, enhances spelling ability, and grows your vocabulary. People will eventually get smarter over time, and will be more interesting to speak with.
All of this because some huge media company decided to give ads instead of content. I already gave up on listening to the radio.
You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
The problem with the US electorate is that the majority thinks that way. By 'that way' I mean the thought that there are only 2 options on the ballot. Oddly enough, the folks that have the most influence over that opinion are the Clear Channels of the world. As long as the Big Ds and Big Rs are in power, the system isn't going to change. So the media conglomerates downplay the chances that 3rd party candidates have and describe those votes as 'wasted votes' or effectively as a vote for the opposition.
If the electorate would instead bother to educate themselves a little bit about the wide variety of options available and then vote their conscience, there would be a chance to unseat some of these morons that are in office now (by 'now' I mean most folks at the federal level for the past 2 decades or more).
People that continue to believe that it can't happen should refer back to the 1998 election of the Minnesota governor. Most people thought a 3rd party candidate couldn't win the office, but Ventura did. It doesn't happen more often because the people in control now don't want to see any drastic change in the system. New ideas aren't welcome. The so-called liberal media - controlled by multinational conglomerates - doesn't want to see it change either.
Radio has been on the decline in the US since the 60's. And it has very little to do with Clear Channel.
Both Radio and Network TV suffer from the same egregious yet completely innocent malaise. Fractionated audiences. People have millions of choices to make and they are making choices that do not help the radio and TV stations.
Radio was great back in the day. It was actually fun to listen to the radio, but those days are long gone. Even AM radio was good.
Whose to blame? WE ARE.
I can drive for almost a two weeks straight and never hear the same song twice, listening to MY mp3s on my stereo in the car. When I get home, I can listen to MY mp3s (actually oggs) for hour upon hour and never hear one stupid friggen advertisement.
So leave the conspiracy theories for the morons that wrote the X-Files and accept that radio that we knew and loved has died. It will not come back even if you liberal wankers get your legislator to kill off Clear Channel.
May 13, 2003
The China Syndrome
By PAUL KRUGMAN
A funny thing happened during the Iraq war: many Americans turned to the BBC for their TV news. They were looking for an alternative point of view -- something they couldn't find on domestic networks, which, in the words of the BBC's director general, "wrapped themselves in the American flag and substituted patriotism for impartiality."
Leave aside the rights and wrongs of the war itself, and consider the paradox. The BBC is owned by the British government, and one might have expected it to support that government's policies. In fact, however, it tried hard -- too hard, its critics say -- to stay impartial. America's TV networks are privately owned, yet they behaved like state-run media.
What explains this paradox? It may have something to do with the China syndrome. No, not the one involving nuclear reactors -- the one exhibited by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation when dealing with the government of the People's Republic.
In the United States, Mr. Murdoch's media empire -- which includes Fox News and The New York Post -- is known for its flag-waving patriotism. But all that patriotism didn't stop him from, as a Fortune article put it, "pandering to China's repressive regime to get his programming into that vast market." The pandering included dropping the BBC's World Service -- which reports news China's government doesn't want disseminated -- from his satellite programming, and having his publishing company cancel the publication of a book critical of the Chinese regime.
Can something like that happen in this country? Of course it can. Through its policy decisions -- especially, though not only, decisions involving media regulation -- the U.S. government can reward media companies that please it, punish those that don't. This gives private networks an incentive to curry favor with those in power. Yet because the networks aren't government-owned, they aren't subject to the kind of scrutiny faced by the BBC, which must take care not to seem like a tool of the ruling party. So we shouldn't be surprised if America's "independent" television is far more deferential to those in power than the state-run systems in Britain or -- for another example -- Israel.
A recent report by Stephen Labaton of The Times contained a nice illustration of the U.S. government's ability to reward media companies that do what it wants. The issue was a proposal by Michael Powell, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, to relax regulations on media ownership. The proposal, formally presented yesterday, may be summarized as a plan to let the bigger fish eat more of the smaller fish. Big media companies will be allowed to have a larger share of the national market and own more TV stations in any given local market, and many restrictions on "cross-ownership" -- owning radio stations, TV stations and newspapers in the same local market -- will be lifted.
The plan's defects aside -- it will further reduce the diversity of news available to most people -- what struck me was the horse-trading involved. One media group wrote to Mr. Powell, dropping its opposition to part of his plan "in return for favorable commission action" on another matter. That was indiscreet, but you'd have to be very naïve not to imagine that there are a lot of implicit quid pro quos out there.
And the implicit trading surely extends to news content. Imagine a TV news executive considering whether to run a major story that might damage the Bush administration -- say, a follow-up on Senator Bob Graham's charge that a Congressional report on Sept. 11 has been kept classified because it would raise embarrassing questions about the administration's performance. Surely it would occur to that executive that the administration could punish any network running that story.
Meanwhile, both the formal rules and the codes of ethics that formerly prevented blatant partisanship are gone or ignored. Neil Cavuto of Fox News is an anchor, not a commentator.
Along with howard. I just dont like them quite as much day to day.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Help suuport a locally owned station. WDKX.com
We don't have to fantasize about what an FCC-less radio market would look like. Once upon a time, there was no FCC. We did live in a libertarian radio utopia. Anyone who wanted to could build a transmitter and broadcast freely.
What happened in this magical free market? Well, since everyone could broadcast, there was so much interference that radio became useless as a medium. To save the medium, radio manufacturers and large commercial broadcasters lobbied for the creation of the FCC and the system of regulation and allocation we use today.
So, to sum up, we tried a free market solution and it didn't work. That's why the FCC exists.
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
The "President" and "Vice President" really wouldn't be politicians, they would businessmen with strong ties to big corporations and they would give favor to their former companies once they got in power. You konw sort of like a bonus for "making it to the top".
And how this is diffrent from what we have now?
This article in the NY times is one of the best things I've seen on the subject, so I have to pass it along.
It's true that it is very hard to find an alternative viewpoint in the media in this country, and surprising when the press is so profit-driven. This is the best explanation of this problem that I've seen so far, and suggests that it is this very profit motive that causes large media companies to take the side of the party in power.
This article in the NY times is one of the best things I've seen on the subject, so I had to pass it along.
It's true that it is very hard to find an alternative viewpoint in the media in this country, and surprising when the press is so profit-driven. This is the best explanation of this problem that I've seen so far, and suggests that it is this very profit motive that causes large media companies in the US to take the side of the party in power.
Very interesting and important.
(previous submission accidental)
I used to work for them as an Engineer. I resigned (with over a months notice to them and for a huge raise), then a year later after being laid off, tried to return. You can't...pure and simple. There's a blacklist, and because I resigned, I'm on it. What's even more amazing is that they actually TOLD me about it when I called to find out what was going on (I suspected something was amiss). Clear Channel controls almost half the engineering jobs in Radio, and now the FCC wants to reward them for being nasty by allowing them to control half the jobs in Television? Somethings very wrong here.......
And let me tell you, there's huge implied pressure to join. All the candidates they support are conservatives too. Plus, look at their stations organizing political rallies supporting Bush and the IRAQ war, and promoting them on the air ad nauseum. Where's the Fairness Doctrine now that we need it?
I used to work there, and many of my friends still do....None of them are happy. None of them enjoy their jobs. The word: "sweatshop" has been mentioned. It's pretty accurate these days there.
I've heard everything from bluegrass to Dave Matthews Band on this station. They're run out of a small community college in Spindale, NC. Like no other station on the air. I just wish they had a more powerful transmitter.
As for opening up the spectrum: Some of us still have analog radios in our cars. I am roughly equdistant between 3 stations, two of which I listen to frequently: 103.7, 103.9, & 104.1. I'll go around a curve and the station will change on me! There needs to be some separation between the stations.
The FCC has already decided that it will allow companies to own much more than they can now. The FCC director stated that this oh so important decision does not need any debate. He tried to shut down the debate by refusing to fund town meetings around the country debating this and informing the general public. He has definitely been bought by the likes of Clear Channel. This will further erode democracy in this country, and if you now hate DMCA and its ilk, wait until the next pass. Laws like DMCA and PATRIOT 2 get passed because there is a lack of healthy debate. It has been shown time and time again that Clear Channel refuses to report on such items. If you don't believe me, when was this particular debate even mentioned on any of Clear Channel's stations? The only time that I saw this reported was on a PBS program called "NOW with Bill Moyers". This was an excellent program that tried to look at the issue from all sides. You can find an in-depth discussion at http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/bigmedia.html
Little by little our rights are being taken away from us. Just look at all of the recent laws implemented, DMCA, copyrights, PATRIOT act etc.
We need to act now, before the decision has been rendered. Once it has, there is very little chance of getting it changed. What's at stake is the very nature of democracy in this country. There is no way to rectify this if a bad decision is made. How do we rectify this in 10 years from now, once Clear Channel has bought up the few remaining independent stations? Do we really expect that at that point, a healthy debate about breaking up Clear Channel will be allowed by Clear Channel?
Clear Channel says it needs to be allowed to buy the remaining independent stations in order to become profitable. If they haven't become profitable at this size, what makes us believe that will become profitable when they have taken over the rest? Lets face it folks, these guys are lying to us saying that they are not profitable. They are quite profitable now, and what's really driving this is pure greed at the expense of this country's core values. They are destroying this country at the expense of a few bucks. Enough is enough.
Quit playing Monopoly with Bill.
Linux - of the people, by the people, and for the people.
Here's a link to an online petition. Fill it out and click on the submit button:
http://www.commoncause.org/action/petition.cfm
This is probably the single most important event that will impact the future of American Democracy. Please take action.
Capital-L Libertarians seem to be right-liberals, but Slashdot leans more toward left-liberal views. Democrats and Republicans hover around left- and right-center, respectively (though the "Republican" nutjobs from the "Christian" Coalition seem to get more authoritarian every day).
The reason I get my news and entertainment from the Internet is because TV and radio are now inferior goods.
Free television is for people who cannot afford pay tv, and thus they get an inferior product. Cable is much better, but it is 'standard' and if you're anything like the rest of America, you're always wondering why you have 100 channels and nothing interesting to you.
Radio is the same situation as free tv, except that they still have the captive car audience. Expect satellite radio to push clearchannel to increased suckiness as they try to corner the bottom of the market.
Theres a reason mp3s are the desired medium of music. Radio is 90% shit, cds are 90% shit and overpriced, and mp3s are 100% controllable free and illegal. Hell, I watch the news stories I want now on my computer because I can't stand CNNs chatting or Foxs incessant republicanism.
Once the market is mainstream, you sacrifice quality for consistency and mass production. You can get quality if you pay the cost and since the demand for quality is always higher (than demand for anything+quality), it will always be more expensive.
http://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
You can send a letter to both the FCC comments page and to your senators here.
And it was arguably true. Variety, oddness, serious weirdness (one day I listened to better than an hour of their station ID spots which ranged from silly to hilarious to disturbing - My favorite went something like "WRPI - the best radio station... ever. Example number seventeen. Our signoffs." Click - and they were gone. ) How many other radio stations would play one track from every album on their shelves in the order that they're shelved?
And they were perenially under fire from the students for not being a top-40 type station. Sigh.
I think we need more like it. Not more of that pablum crap that clearchannel wants to foist on us. Though I'm waiting for them to buy out NPR and completely destroy radio.
Try going to the FCC's page and letting them know what you think... comments are being accepted here. (Select the third item down.)
Movie at 11.
sigs reply to wankers
You can send in a public statement and a letter to your reps. Go here.
There are still a few good Fox shows. The Simpsons, That 70s Show, and Malcolm In the Middle. Those are all I can think of though, and I haven't watched the shit on NBC, CBS, or ABC in a long time. I keep finding myself watching freakin CSPAN or one of the 24/7 News channels, because even as biased and silly they can get, it's better than spending half an hour watching 14 minutes of retarded television and 16 minutes watching even more retarded commercials. I mean, shit, why should I sit there watching advertisements in my spare time? I would happily double the 2 cents or whatever the advertisers are paying for me to watch the show to watch it without commercials.!
Hilarious. mod this up. Almost so true it isn't funny.
I propose that every company that owns radio broadast licenses be required to pay the federal government an annual tax of $1000 multiplied by the square of the number of licenses owned by that entire company. Thus your local independent radio station pays $1000 a year.
ClearChannel, with ~1200 licenses, is welcome to continue operating as they are now provided they are willing to pay the US government $1000 x (1200)^2 = 1.44 billion dollars each year for the privilege.
I suspect that they would quickly divest themselves of all but their 10 or so most profitable stations -- which is as it should be.