"Mark Jeffries" wrote in message
...
A busy day yesterday in Chicago radio.

[...]We will be watching this in the months ahead.

You know, if someone or a public interest group has their s**t together, they should
mount a campaign to contest every single one of these transfers as contrary to the
public interest. Then watch when the negotiations begin.

This intervention should demand, through the attachment of service level agreements,
the re-imposition of news minimums, commercial time limits, public affairs programs
(when they're likely to be heard, not buried in the 2-6am slot on Sunday morning).
Access airtime for local bands. Direct those stations with a non-Chicago
city-of-license (and the in-city operations, for that matter) to do ascertainments
for their cities-of-license, and provide details to the file which would be evaluated
for performance when license renewal comes up. And so on. And failure to meet these
service levels would result in the transfer of the property/ies in question to
another buyer, the proceeds of which would fund a media watchdog group which would
continue to monitor broadcasters and fund local public broadcasting. How's that for
self-regulation? If the FCC won't do it, outsource the work.

Basically turn back the clock to the days when broadcasters had a mandate to serve
their audience. In the right hands, it might actually help to invent a new kind of
radio, just as media fragmentation in the 60s and 70s helped to bring about AOR,
all-news and other formats which are staples in the industry today.

(I can dream, can't I?)
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If there's nothing that offends you in your community, then you know you're not
living in a free society.
Kim Campbell - ex-Prime Minister of Canada - 2004
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