leasing a station to the Chinese Government

[Dan.Strassberg]

Ten years ago, give or take, Douglas Broadcasting owned what is now
WAMG. I can't remember what the calls were then. Mr Douglas is an
African-American, so, although I don't think he has ever lived in
Boston--or even in New England--in a manner of speaking, as WILD's LMA
partner, he maintains WILD's connection with Boston's inner-city
community. You can bet that Douglas is getting paid handsomely by
China Radio to find stations that will carry the CRI programming. If
he weren't being paid, why would he pay RadioOne for the time?

-----
Dan Strassberg (dan.strassberg@att.net)
eFax 1-707-215-6367

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Ward" <mward@iname.com>
To: "Donna Halper" <dlh@donnahalper.com>
Cc: "Boston radio e-mail list" <boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, June 28, 2011 3:19 PM
Subject: Re: leasing a station to the Chinese Government


> On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 2:30 PM, Donna Halper <dlh@donnahalper.com>
> wrote:
>> I am still mystified by how Radio One is getting away with doing
>> this-- I
>> mean, I understand it's capitalism and owners can do what they
>> want, but
>> somehow leasing a Boston station (WILD) to the Chinese government
>> seems
>> wrong somehow. I guess the FCC no longer enforces "public interest"
>> rules
>> anymore...
>
> Well, according to the article, the station is not being leased to
> the
> Chinese government.  It's being leased to a company called Douglas
> Broadcasting, and that company's being tight lipped about what
> financial arrangement is taking place with China/CRI.
>
> Maybe it's considered like MHz Worldview, the public TV network that
> reairs foreign programming in English - including China's state-run
> TV
> network news.
>
> The bottom line here is that the FCC doesn't get involved in
> programming decisions (unless you curse or show nudity on TV!), and
> Douglas Broadcasting is presumably an American company re-leasing
> its
> time on WILD to CRI...much like other leased stations that re-sell
> time to block buyers.
>
> It is kind of odd, though.
>