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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 |
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