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Even though I do not make music my hobby and have a tin ear I have noticed a dirth of quailty radio in the last decade and a fall off in quality since the radio of my youth (70s and 80s). For example when some rock stars died (the guy from the Clash and the guy from Alice in Chains) no radio station on the air even broke format to comment on it. I remember when John Lennon died (too young to be a fan of his) the radio was all about that - playing his music, taking calls from fans and the format was put aside for the time. That is on the music side-on the talk radio side I think we have seen lots of clone like radio personalities. That is why I guess a nut like Art Bell gets such ratings because he is so different and original (never listened to his program).

I am as right wing as you can get but I get 3 hours of Rush and then get another 3 hours of Sean Hannity doing his version of Rush's show. Hannity (and others) just repeat issue that Rush just covered for the most part.

You also don't get competition in the format because instead of competition you have segmentation. The giant consolidating media company will have one news channel, one easy listening channel, one rock channel, one talk channel, etc. and they fragment and segment the market so they don't directly compete. So ratings don't matter anymore like they used to.

Lots of things wrong with consolidation and that was some of it, as far as I can recon.

The giant consolidating media company will have one news channel, one easy listening channel, one rock channel, one talk channel, etc. and they fragment and segment the market so they don't directly compete.

It doesn't matter. Trying to create a monopoly is like squeezing a balloon: you can grasp one part, but it just pops out somewhere else. Already there is XSIM, the sattelite radio, and internet radio. The more these guys squeeze, the more they don't expect will pop out.

And why are you just focusing on radio? It's about getting information and entertainment and our sources of that keep expanding, not contracting.

Monopoly power as you are identifying it is vastly overrated.