Re: Corperate radio/Clear Channel

["Dan Billings" <dib9@gwi.net>]

----- Original Message -----
From: <dan.strassberg@att.net>
To: "Garrett Wollman" <wollman@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu>
Cc: "SteveOrdinetz" <steveord@wavewizard.com>;
<boston-radio-interest@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2001 5:51 PM
Subject: Re: Corperate radio/Clear Channel


> OK, let's ask a slightly different question. Can you
> cite any example of an activity that the US government
> had regulated, then decided to deregulate, and then
> successfully reregulated?

Good point.  Not to get off subject, but I would say this doesn't happen
because deregulation usally has positive results.

I also think that the companies that have invested millions of dollars
legally in reaction to a change in government policy would have a good
argument that it is not fair to force them to sell stations at what would
end up being fire sale prices.  Millions of dollars of investor money would
be lost.

I think the only thing that is likely to change the current situation would
be a market change that, as Mr. Stassberg has suggested, would cause the
house cards or house of debt that many of these companies are built on to
collaspse.  It is not as far fetched as it may seem.  Look at the dot coms.
A change in market perception of an industry can change stock prices
dramatically and quickly.

> Even if the public (outside of the munuscule number of
> radio geeks, such as ourselves) cared fervently about
> broadcasting, which (except maybe for the monthly cable
> bill) it patently doesn't, all of the concern of 280
> million Americans wouldn't mean as much to our elected
> officials as the concern of one man--Lowry Mays. When it
> comes to elections, he puts his money where his mouth is
> and he gets what he wants.

I think you are too cynical on this point.  Politicians will go against
contributors if it is an issue that a large percentage of the people really
care about.  The issue here is that most people don't care who owns the
radio station they listen to, as long as they keep playing the hits.

When I turn the dial in Portland, I'm not convinced that the average
listener has been hurt by deregulation.  Lots of people working in the
business may have been hurt, but I don't see much of a change in the type of
programming on the air than pre-1996.  Much of the negative things people
atrribute to deregulation (automation, lack of news, lack of local
programming) happened in smaller markets long before 1996.

-- Dan Billings, Bowdoinham, Maine