[Dryerase] Radio, Radio: Clear Channel Makes Monopoly Nightmare Reality

[annie v]

Radio, Radio: Clear Channel Makes Monopoly Nightmare
Reality 
by Jeff Perlstein


SAN FRANCISCO — Think of a Texas-based multinational
company that is facing a Department of Justice
investigation, lawsuits for inappropriate business
practices, a flurry of criticism in the main-stream
press, and a bill in congress to curb its impact on
the industry. 

Did you think Enron? Try again. This 800-lb. Texas
gorilla has spent $30 billion since 1996 to buy its
way into becoming the world’s largest radio
broadcaster, concert promoter, and outdoor advertising
firm. Clear Channel Communications of San Antonio, TX
may not be a household name yet, but in less than six
years it has rocketed to a place alongside NBC and
Gannett as one of the largest media companies in the
United States and gained a reputation in the radio and
concert promotion industries for its ugly hardball
tactics. 

It has played a leading role in destroying media
diversity in the United States. And yes, it is the
same media company that allegedly “blacklisted”
certain songs following September 11, including Cat
Stevens’ “Peace Train” and John Lennon’s “Imagine.”
Before passage of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, a
company could not own more than 40 radio stations in
the entire country. 

With the Act’s sweeping relaxation of ownership
limits, Clear Channel now owns approximately 1,225
radio stations in 300 cities and dominates the
audience share in 100 of 112 major areas. Its closest
com-petitors — CBS and ABC, media giants in their own
right — own only one-fifth as many stations. 

“It’s not just how big and powerfulthey are but how
they do business, the arm twisting,” Mike Jacobs,
former independent label owner and manager of Blink
182, told Eric Boehlert who has been covering Clear
Channel’s shady business practices for Salon.com. 

Accusations abound that Clear Channel has illegally
used its dominance in radio to help secure control of
the nation’s live entertainment business. Several
cities, including Denver and Cincinnati, have accused
radio station managers of threatening to withdraw
certain music from rotation if the artists do not
perform at a Clear Channel venue. 

This tactic, “negative synergy,” has allegedly been
used to pressure record companies into buying radio
advertising spots in cities where they want to book
concert venues. With this anti-competitive tactic of
leveraging airplay against concert performances, Clear
Channel has firmly solidified its hold in both areas. 

As a result, Clear Channel now owns, operates or
exclusively books the vast majority of amphitheaters,
arenas and clubs in the country. It also controls the
most powerful promoters, who last year sold 27 million
concert tickets. That is 23 million more than the
closest competitor. 

Clear Channel’s mode of operation is also accelerating
the homogenization of programming on the airwaves. The
company shuts out independent artists who can’t afford
to go through high-priced middlemen, and is
responsible for taking the practice of voice tracking
to new heights (or depths, depending on your
perspective). 

Voice tracking is the practice of creating brief,
computer-assisted voice segments that attempt to fool
the listener into thinking that a program is locally
produced, when in fact the same content is being
broadcast to upwards of 75 stations nationwide from a
central site. So you have one overworked “radio
personality” recording the phrases, “Hello Topeka!”
“Hi Springfield!” “How you feeling Oakland?” all day
long. Voice tracking is also part of another Clear
Channel homoge-nizing strategy. 

In cities across America they have set up stations
with call letters which sound like KISS-FM so that
everywhere you hear the same songs, the same DJs and
the same presentation when you tune in to KISS-FM.
Such branding and consolidation is clearly counter to
the Federal Communications Commission’s mandate to
encourage media diversity. 

Fortunately, long-standing concerns of media activists
are now being echoed by the mainstream 
press, courts and regulatory agencies, and members of
Congress. Clear Channel is currently facing antitrust
lawsuits from a wide range of plaintiffs around the
country, including an Illinois concert-goer concerned
with soaring ticket prices and the nation’s largest
Latino-owned radio company. 

Last summer a small Denver-area concert promoter,
called Nobody in Particular Presents, sued the media
behemoth for antitrust violations, claiming that it
“has used its size and clout to coerce artists ... to
use Clear Channel to promote their concerts or else
risk losing airplay.” 

The judge agreed to hear the case, and ruled that the
evidence is “sufficient to make a case of
monopolization and attempted monopolization under
Section 2 of the Sherman Act.” As a result, the halo
of silence surrounding the company’s anti-competitive
practices may finally be shattered. Plaintiffs’
lawyers will be able to compel music industry insiders
to testify regarding the often-repeated,
off-the-record allegations that Clear Channel’s radio
stations have illegally rewarded or punished artists
based on their dealings with the company’s concert
division. 

Community coalitions that hold Clear Channel
accountable for the negative effects of over
consolidation have also emerged in Detroit and San
Francisco. Letter writing campaigns have urged elected
officials to reign in the company and make policy
changes to protect the public interest. 

Several websites and hundreds of listserves have been
providing information about Clear Channel’s excesses
and communities’ resistance. At a Reclaim the Media
Conference in Seattle in mid-September, a national
coalition launched a campaign strategically to
coordinate efforts, amplify their impact, and link up
with broader media-policy initiatives. 

Nationally-recognized organizations such as Fairness
and Accuracy In Reporting, the Democratic Media Legal
Project, Media Alliance, and Prometheus Radio Project
began mapping out steps to mobilize public pressure
against Clear Channel. 

“The political terrain is really shifting,” says
Robert W. McChesney, author and professor of
communications at the University of Illinois,
Urbana-Champaign, in an interview by Randy Dotinga in
Wirednews.com. 

“There’s an opportunity for discussion about radio
that would have been unthinkable six months or a year
ago.” 

Jeff Perlstein is the executive director of Media
Alliance. To get involved with the national cam-paign
to curtail Clear Channel, see www.media-alliance.org
or www.clearchannelsucks.org.

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