On 28 Jul 2003 19:54:08 GMT, "Cooperstown.Net"
wrote:

Can the govt. really know how many stations a market is able to support, if
entrepreneurs are willing to bet their own funds that that market can support
one more? Isn't the advertising market dynamic with the evolution of
traditional employees into contractors who must flog their services continually?
Most importantly, doesn't the rate of return generated by that advertising
market depend fundamentally on what the high bidders freely dared to pay for
their licenses? And wouldn't a Bakersfield-inspired, govt.-imposed scarcity
work its way right back into the license price...to where the buyer's ROI from
operations got knocked down all over again?


What we have now is government-imposed oversupply. When we had free
competition, we had two-thirds of stations losing money, so the
government stepped in to keep them on the air by allowing
consolidation of ownership. Without that intervention, the less
capable operators would have gone bust and we would have far fewer
stations on the air than we do today, (just as when we have too many
grocery stores, those that can't maintain market share go out of
business). Had that happened, we might not be having all these
debates about how local service has gone to hell in a handbasket.
Instead, the government created a mechanism that allowed the bad
operators and marginal signals to cash out at inflated prices to
roll-ups -- and some of these stations were even put on the air with
the specific purpose of so doing.

Mark Howell