You make some good points, Frank.

Another thing that I believe is going to change the domestic radio landscape
is satellite radio.

Do you have XM or Sirius radio yourself, or have you talked to people that
have it? To a person, every one of them that I've spoken with is totally
hooked on it, and would not give it up for anything. And -- that's almost
ALL they listen to in their vehicles anymore.

This means the "free" broadcast radio listener pool is shrinking, and that
trend will continue (very probably exponentially) with time.

The paradigm where AM radio was for talk and FM radio was for (mostly) music
had begun to shift a few years ago, as more talk moved to FM.

I think the advent of satellite radio will force local broadcaters to:
(1) have to jealously defend their turf on "local" content to survive. An
argument has already begun over a "local traffic reports" channel on XM.
(2) lead to more "narrowcasting" to target specific audiences (for both
mediums)
(3) lead to fewer commercials (but at more money per "spot") as commercial
broadcasters become sensitive to competing with commercial-free radio.

It's going to be interesting, for sure.

-- Stinger

"Frank Dresser" wrote in message
...

"CW" wrote in message
...
He has no evidence. It is a product of his mind. It has always been
government policy to prevent any one, or only a few, entities from
controlling the majority of the media. That includes newspapers, TV
and
radio. The reason for that was to ensure variety of opinion. We had a
case
here locally a year of so ago where, one of the two largest newspapers
in
the area wanted to buy the other. They had to get government
permission to
do so. They were denied. If it had been two bicycle factories, the
government would have no say about it. The deregulation and buy up of
radio
stations is due to greed helped along by a president (passed) that had
the
motto "Morals? We don't need no stinkin' morals".


The government might have had something to say about the bicycle
factories if the buyout led to a monopoly of the US bicycle market. But
the whole anti trust picture has changed in the last 30 years or so for
both bicycle factories and the media. I'm sure the competition from new
media such as cable TV, sattelite radio and TV and the internet has
changed Congress' and the FCC's opinion on the need for strict ownership
regulation.

Anyway, Clear Channel is making a profit now, but I don't think it's a
particularly big profit. Despite running a huge number of radio
stations, I doubt their stock will rise like Microsoft's did in the 90s.
Nor do I think Clear Channel and the other large networks will be raking
in the cash like the radio and TV networks did back from about 1930 to
1980.

Let's not forget that some stations were going dark a few years ago.
That was fine with me, because when I tune around at night I think there
are too damn many stations, but Congress didn't ask my opinion. I did
see the sense of the old restrictions, and if a radio station couldn't
make enough money to stay on the air, they shouldn't. I suppose the
modern Congressman feared taking the political blame if one or two small
market stations in his district should go dark.

Oh well. At least telecommunications act, or whatever they called it.
didn't bloat the government or the deficit. Other legislation has been
worse.

Frank Dresser