Letters

From the March 2002 issue

(Page 3 of 3)

The niche marketing he deplores is a result of corporations' owning six or eight full-strength signals in one market. To avoid competing with themselves, they must resort to niche marketing. Small, independent broadcasters cannot possibly compete with media behemoths controlling 40 percent or more of the market share in any given city. In fact, it could be argued that deregulation and the subsequent buying sprees by big corporations drove the price of radio stations far beyond the reach of "mom and pop" broadcasters. Further deregulation will only lead to monopolization. One need only look to the Clear Channel Communications Web site to assess their ultimate goal. They already have their slogan in place: "Clear Channel IS radio."

Cactus Jack
Production Director, KMLE-FM
Phoenix, AZ

Jesse Walker replies: It's misleading to focus exclusively on the Telecommunications Act. To the extent that it deregulated radio's ownership rules, the act was simply continuing a series of changes that began in the early '90s and continue today. The trouble is, the same Federal Communications Commission that loosened those rules has done almost nothing to eliminate the entry barriers that prevent smaller stations from competing with the chains. The government could expand the broadcast spectrum (by, say, allowing new FM stations to transmit over unused UHF frequencies); it could reduce the costly regulatory requirements faced by start-up stations; it could legalize low-power broadcasting on more than a piddling scale. Instead, it only deregulates to the extent that it helps the established industry, leaving other rules in place or even tightening them. Obviously, this is not the kind of "deregulation" that I'm interested in.

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