Liberals Trying To End Conservative "Domination" Of Talk Radio
From ThinkProgress.org, Full version available here, in PDF. It's a hoot.
Our conclusion is that the gap between conservative and progressive talk radio is the result of multiple structural problems in the U.S. regulatory system, particularly the complete breakdown of the public
trustee concept of broadcast, the elimination of clear public interest requirements for broadcasting, and the relaxation of ownership rules including the requirement of local participation in management.[...]
This analysis suggests that any effort to encourage more responsive and balanced radio programming will first require steps to increase localism and diversify radio station ownership to better meet local and community needs.
We suggest three ways to accomplish this:
- Restore local and national caps on the ownership of commercial radio stations.
- Ensure greater local accountability over radio licensing.
- Require commercial owners who fail to abide by enforceable public interest obligations to pay a fee to support public broadcasting.
The breakdown. No multi-station owners like Clear Channel, re-enact the Fairness Doctrine, and/or pay a fine if they don't like your programming.
There's more, Hillary Clinton and Barbara Boxer were overheard by Sen. James Inhofe saying they want a legislative fix for talk radio. I'm sure Trent Lott will gladly jump all over this.
This isn't about Conservative "domination" of talk radio, this is about liberal domination of the media. Talk Radio is the one media segment they don't have control over. They already have television and print media. I would guess that the internet is about 50/50. It's just that the liberals in the blogosphere are not as smart as Conservative bloggers. Another thing that troubles liberals is the cooperation between Conservative bloggers.
Liberals tried to compete with Conservative talk radio by creating Air America. As everyone knows, it was a huge failure. The fact is liberals don't need talk radio to supplement their views, they have everything else.
