"Who's abridging? We're just . . . taking OVER."
Posted on 11/10/2008 1:19:49 PM PST by Ouderkirk
Talk radio lost this federal election in two big ways. Its candidate, Republican John McCain, got creamed. And its most dedicated enemies, who want to trim talk radio’s sails, were massively empowered.
Elements of the team of Presidentelect Barack “Hussein” Obama, as they were fond of calling him, and the expanded Democratic majority will move to remind broadcasters of a fundamental tenet of broadcast law.
That is, that the airwaves do not belong to the station “owners,” as they call themselves, but to the people of the United States of America.
The concept that station “owners” were mere licensees who kept their permits on grounds of good behavior and community service was undermined by President Bill Clinton in 1996 and then totally lost under President Bush.
As station ownership became more consolidated, talk radio became more virulent, if not violent, and one-sided.
Statistics on licensees are hard to come by. But Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., noted that in just seven years the number of owners nationwide was cut by 25 percent; that four owners control 80 percent of the New York City market.
Minority ownership fell by 14 percent between 1996 and 2003. So did women ownership.
“Prior to 1996,” Feingold said, “one company couldn’t own more than 20 AM stations and 20 FM stations. Now two companies [nationally] control 42 percent of the content that reaches listeners and 45 percent of industry revenues.”
In the Buffalo Niagara market, ownership is similarly concentrated. From rough data I cobbled together from the Center for Public Integrity and other Web sites, at least 20 of the 34 stations serving the region are owned by only four companies, including one firm that controls seven outlets. With consolidation came irresponsibility.
The basic service that a broadcast
licensee owes a community is truth. As the election neared, that commodity was in short supply.
Obama was compared to Hitler on the “Mark Levin Show.” Obama would open the United States to an “invasion” of Muslims, according to the “Gunny” Bob Newman show. On the Lee Rodgers show, critics of Obama were going to “be jailed or killed.” Host Neal Boortz wanted to know how many prayer rugs Obama owns.
Bill O’Reilly falsely claimed on the radio that Obama did not vote to condemn a Moveon.org ad that lampooned Gen. David Petraeus.
With concentration of control, there is no effective way to answer the lies and smears on the radio. The Internet, whose ownership is still under question, is a useful way. But that’s a subject for another day.
Some Democrats, such as Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois, want to restore the equal time rule, abolished under President Ronald Reagan. Rep. Louise
M. Slaughter, D-Fairport, chairwoman of the House Rules Committee, has also backed the return of this rule, which would require broadcasters to air opposing views.
There are constitutional issues related to imposing equal time. So the Democratic route seems to be to roll-back media consolidation.
Slaughter is co-founder and cochairwoman of the (congressional) Future of American Media caucus. She sponsored a resolution that could overturn a Bush administration rule relaxing even further restrictions on media consolidation.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N. Y., is a co-sponsor of the Senate companion. Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N. Y., is not. In the House, 58 Democrats backed Slaughter’s bill. Rep. Brian Higgins, D-Buffalo, is not among them.
The legislation landed in committee. It is sure to be reintroduced in the next Congress. The fetid puddle of falsehoods and coarseness that talk radio has become was 12 years in the making. The work of flushing it out starts in January.
Why is "Hussein" in quotations? Isn't that his name?
I recall reading not too long ago, within the past five years, that their is an active goal to reduce the ownership of all major industries to simplify control as globalism began to fall into place.
Looking at every major industry this is true. Tele-communications, major retail in every sector of the market, electronic manufacturers of high tech equipment, meat processing, hospitals, airline transportation, freight and passenger, you name it and it is congealing into larger and larger companies. In many cases the market names aren’t changing, but the ownership is. The largest dozen companies control 80% or more of the market in darn near every industry.
“Lets see if the idiots in Congress are really stupid enough to kill the broadcast radio industry.”
Unfortunately, that’s not the current modus operandi. Radio & network TV news will be the next bailout. No censorship required for TV: they already spout the DNC party line. Muzzle talk radio, then subsidize the “housebroken” remainder.
Thus ends the Republic.
Rush, Sean, and Levin, start your own broadcast station! Remember how Mel Gibson handed it to Hollywood, same here! 55 million disenfranchised voters aint no chump change!
It is like we went to bed in a republic and woke up in a banana republic.
News organizations on hundreds of radio and TV stations falsely claimed that Sarah Palin made women pay for their own rape kits.
"Who's abridging? We're just . . . taking OVER."
Does he mean how Charlie Rose and Tom Brokaw lamented about how Obama was still a mystery?
Where was NBC, CBS, and ABC on truth during this election?
-PJ
In other words, satilite/internet radio, and podcasting will take off to fill in the vacuum left by the terestial radio.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/k6KUDv1wzraWhwlBt1
If they try the Fairness Doctrine that will be our cue to fill Washington with about 10 Million conservatives and freedom lovers of all stripes.
Even liberals listen to conservative talk radio for entertainment, liberal radio is like fingernails on a chalkboard.
Golly! I wonder if the author realizes that radios come equipt with a dial for changing channels, and something called an off switch. Those are items I make use of when some hate mongering lefty like a Randi Rhodes comes on.
Also, did any of the above items change the outcome of the election?
Bump to post on my Facebook later (and inevitably annoy certain of my moonbattier friends).
Investors do so to make money. Radio lives and dies by advertising based on audience. How many people are going to listen to AM Radio for music? None. How many for general talk? Answer, very few. NYC's general talk station WOR has in the past two years added Bill O'Reilly, Dennis Miller and locally Steve Malzberg and returned John Gambling. All to the right of center. Guess what, ratings up. No ratings, no ad mony. No ad money no profit. no profit, the investors bail out. The Dems, being Socialist, never understood Eco 101.
RE :”think the Dems are opening a can of worms they may have to eat”
If they are stupid enough to try something big, it is a gift to us, like the bailout was to Pelosi/Obama.
“That is, that the airwaves do not belong to the station “owners,” as they call themselves, but to the people of the United States of America.
The concept that station “owners” were mere licensees who kept their permits on grounds of good behavior and community service ....”
To use the Dem0grats logic, then, as it applies to the bailout.....
The American prople are the “owners” of the tax money we sent you.
Congress are mere licensees to do with the money on the grounds of good behavior and community service.....
Congress has done neither.....
We want our money back!
After they are done with radio they will come after the internet, just as they did after Freedominion our sister site in canada which today is based in panama. We are in for rough times. Espouse conservative ideas and suffer the consequences. They will see you lose your job. Expect the feds to raid the homes of owners of conservative sites and harassment on a large scale to begin. Welcome to left wing fascism.
“The bolsheviks hate free speech. “
The interesting thing about this is that they are going to have to stifle the debate before they stifle free speech.
I bet the fairness doctrine gets reimposed at 2 AM in some kind of omnibus bill.
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