Make radio local again.

Macek, Steve ; Young, Karen

As educators who teach college students about media, we hear a lot of complaints about commercial radio. When we assign our students to listen to the radio and report what they hear, horror stories abound. Earlier this year, one student reported that a rock station he listened to played approximately 13 minutes of commercials, followed by one song, and then another 12 minutes of commercials.

Students complain that today's best new rock bands are not played on the radio and that the content of hip-hop has become too violent and misogynist for airplay. Even those who hope to land jobs in the industry cannot muster much enthusiasm about what they hear on the radio.

We hear that its content is extremely limited in diversity, it does not provide small communities with sufficient local news programming, and it threatens democracy as a result. Why do people feel that radio today is threatening democracy, and what can be done to improve it?

Ownership changes are responsible for many of the problems in radio. In the past, radio companies were limited to owning one AM and one FM station in each market and seven stations nationwide. In those days, local owners were deeply tied to their communities. Nevertheless, regulations in the radio industry were all but abolished as a result of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

Since 1996, ownership of many of the nation's 10,000 radio stations has become rapidly consolidated into the hands of a few large companies. In major cities, where most of the population lives, viable stations are now primarily owned by Viacom, Disney, and Clear Channel. Clear Channel is the largest radio owner in the United States, owning more than 1,200 stations and taking in at least 20 percent of all radio revenues. In Chicago, it owns six stations, including all the leading stations targeting African-Americans. In Rockford, Cumulus, the company best known for banning the Dixie

Chicks after one of their members made anti-Bush comments, owns four leading stations. More than half the population tunes to at least one of their stations.

Radio conglomerates like Clear Channel have greatly increased their profits by slashing local jobs, replacing unique local elements with standardized programming created at regional and national headquarters, and sharply increasing the number of commercials they play. They simply do not provide enough diverse voices in commercial radio today. This is bad for our culture and for our democracy.

One of the biggest problems with large radio corporations is that they do not provide sufficient local news programming to small communities. As large radio conglomerates emerge, people in small communities do not get the news they need from the radio. This is a major problem because if a natural disaster were to occur in a small community, a large radio corporation would not be able to report the emergency to the people nearly as quickly as a smaller, low-powered station would. Large radio corporations are not adequately connected to small local communities, and the people of these communities suffer as a result. Fortunately, since 1996, community voices agitating for more alternatives to commercial radio have become louder and louder. In 2000, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decided to allow hundreds of new low-power FM (LPFM) radio stations to go on the air. With a broadcast radius of up to 10 miles, these non-commercial stations could serve their neighborhoods with local public affairs, news programming and a wider array of music. The plan seemed like an ideal way to offset some of the losses caused by media ownership consolidation.

However, big corporate broadcasters lobbied against LPFM by claiming that low-power transmitters interfered with their signals. Under pressure from the National Association of Broadcasters, Congress blocked the FCC from giving licenses to many low-power stations, including the Black Business Alliance in Bloomington, Illinois and the Heartland Community College in Normal, Illinois. In Chicago, the Southwest Youth Collaborative--a group that works with youth from some of the city's most poverty-stricken neighborhoods--wanted to start an LPFM station but was unable to secure a license because of the limits put on LPFM by Congress. In total, 37 applications for licenses have been made in Illinois and 17 have been approved, including the Not-for-Profit Jazz Group in Quincy, the Blues and Soul Inc. in Danville, and the Southern Illinois Educational Low Power Radio Association in Frankfort.

The time has come to revisit LPFM. A recent FCC-commissioned study found that LPFM stations do not interfere with high-powered signals. A proposal has been made in Congress to bring LPFM back. According to the Prometheus Radio Project, a low-power advocacy group, dozens, if not hundreds, of new low-power stations would be created in Illinois if this proposal were accepted. Although low-power radio may not solve all of the problems dealing with radio today, it would be a huge step in the right direction.

Macek is an Assistant Professor of Speech Communication at North Central College in Naperville, IL. Young is an adjunct professor at Columbia College in Chicago, IL, and a founder of local media activist group Active Voice. Copyright [C] 2004 by the American Forum.