Quote:
Originally posted by Derwood
More than the FCC, I fear Clear Channel. If parcels of broadcast "bandwith" were to go to the highest bidder, I fear Clear Channel would own everything.
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I'm not sure that could really work that way. While it is possible for a specific company to own these types of things, it would be difficult for a company as I understand it to exploit that. In other words, lets say ClearChannel were to buy a whole bunch of new licences for new "broadcast bandwidth" as you put it, none of our radios today would be able to recive the new transmissions.
The best way they can take over the airwaves if they really want to do it is to buy all the stations in one area. There are pretty big fixed costs in setting up a station (transmitter, equipment etc.). Since there are hundreds of frequencies on an FM dial for example, it is not too efficient to buy each ot those. Instead they just make sure the fixed costs are too high to get in to the market as a small organization taking over an existing radio station without buying all new crap.
They did it here in San Diego. There was a station at 92.1 that started to show up on the Nielson charts. It was a good station and it was independant. They bought it and shut it down. They don't run it anymore at all. The 92.1 frequency in SD now carries a repeat of
another Clear Channel Country music station.
It is effective. In San Diego, if you look at the dial, there are 14 Clear Channel stations and very little in the way of other choices.
I listen to a lot of NPR these days.