That’s the opinion of Mount Wilson FM Broadcasters President Saul Levine who sent his thoughts on the recent Media Ownership ruling to the FCC in a letter. Levine thanked Chairman Wheeler for his courage in limiting further consolidation. “You have done the right thing in preserving the existing restrictions on multiple ownership of broadcast radio facilities.” Levine says thanks to consolidation radio as a competitive, creative medium is worse off today and would face extinction of there was any more consolidation.
Levine wrote that prior to the 1996 Telecommunications Act, local radio was a creative and community-oriented service. “Competing with many other operators, each with no more than an AM/FM combo, fostered a vibrant creative process. The public benefited from the competition, and young people could apply for jobs in broadcasting. Now, two decades after the Telecommunications Act of 1996, what is the state of local radio? Has there been a benefit to the public? Definitely not in my opinion. Tens of thousands of radio station employees have been fired, while programming has become dull and of limited local public appeal. There are few locally-owned, family operated, stations in the market competing against goliaths.”
Read the entire letter HERE and please leave your thoughts below.
Of course it was. Consolidation and faceless corporate ownership has put the radio industry into a death spiral it is unlikely to pull itself out of.
Deregulation of the Radio industry back in 1996 was not in the best interest of the listeners…It was not in the best interest of the advertisers…and it certainly was not in the best interest of the employees of the local radio stations. And most of all, it was not in the best interest of the communities that were to be served by those who help the “local” broadcast licenses. There’s less competition in the radio business than there has ever been. Radio stations have over the past two decades become very predictable…and far too often boring! Further deregulation of the commercial broadcast industry would only serve to make commercial radio less relevant.
That Saul would have to remark on this situation – as obvious to everyone as it is – seems to demonstrate a “taboo” that has been applied by none other than corporate ownership.
Fortunately some, like Saul, are unmoved by such massive influence and/or pressures.
Even as the same situation is ongoing here in Canada, one wonders how it is that such a circumstance is even tolerated.
Any calls to arms go unheeded – ignored.
Maybe it has to do with the fact that martyrs are not recognized – until they have made the ultimate sacrifice. And who in radio is willing to throw themselves on that sword?