Is Clear Channel qualified to run all six non-religious commercial
stations in Minot, SD? Is any single company?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/ma...IdeaLab.t.html
In the early morning of Jan. 18, 2002, a Canadian Pacific Railway
train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed just outside Minot, N.D.,
spilling roughly 240,000 gallons of anhydrous ammonia into a woodsy
neighborhood on the outskirts of town. The resulting toxic cloud grew
to some five miles long, two and a half miles wide and 350 feet high,
enveloping the homes of approximately 15,000 people. Confused and
afraid, thousands of Minot residents turned on their radios to get
public warnings and instructions on how to stay safe.
Yet no such information was available. Minot’s six nonreligious
commercial stations, all of which were owned and operated by the
nation’s largest radio company, Clear Channel Communications, were
broadcasting prerecorded programs engineered in remote studios. Police
dispatchers couldn’t reach anyone in Clear Channel’s local offices:
the town’s new emergency-communications system failed to automatically
issue an alert, and no one answered the phones at the stations. What
ensued was horrific: as one man died and hundreds became ill from
inhaling the poisonous gas, the airwaves were filled with canned music
and smooth-talking D.J.’s.
[...]