Undoubtedly radio's rules were relaxed in 1996 but in September of 2001, the FCC started to work to remove several rules that prevented cross ownership in the same market and limits on cable ownership.
On June 2, 2003 Powell wanted to change media ownership drastically. Here is a comment from a majority of the Senate Commerce Committee members expressing disappointment that such changes would occur "without any opportunity for the Congress or the public to review them beforehand."
Right now 10 companies dominate the nationwide radio market. Clear Channel and Viacom alone control 42% of listeners and 45% of industry revenues.
If you have "deep pockets" as you put it or the ability to do favor's for a politician, there is a good chance that politician will return the favor. In banking nobody really bribes each other anymore. But those consultants that are good friends with politicians sure are paid a lot for doing nothing - sometimes they just want to watch a Bears game with Michael Jordan...not even money for consultants.
-Rudey
Quote:
Originally posted by DeltAlum
Actually, it was absolutely frenetic for a while and seems to have slowed down to some extent now.
The beginning, as was true with a lot of Federal deregulation began way back in the Regan Administration and continued (got worse?) from there. For a while there was an absolute feeding frenzy as big groups gobbled each other up.
The other thing that made it really crazy was that the rules against "brokering" radio stations were abolished. Formerly, when you bought a station you had to keep it for at least three years. When that went away, investers who not only knew nothing about broadcasting, but really could have cared less bought and sold stations just to make a quick buck. And, of course, part of the result was that a lot of locally owned facilities no longer had any local identity. So much for "Public interest, convenience and necessity."
As for politics, as I said, this happened over several administrations and Congresses, so I would be uncomfortable to point at anything except the deregulation steamroller.
What really controlled it was which groups had the deepest pockets (or maybe were smarter at leveraging their assets).
I have a friend from college who owned a medium market radio station for a while, but he, very much like most other small broadcasters, simply couldn't compete with the big companies.
Over the air broadcasting has never been as "political" as print or cable because of the history of Federal regulation. I've talked about that in a number of threads.
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