On Friday, as the news was breaking, and even as the unannounced flip was occurring before it had otherwise been planned, I detailed the outrage of Bain Capital-owned Clear Channel killing KPOJ, the only commercial Progressive talk radio station in Portland, one of the nation’s most progressive cities, while leaving their two “competing” Clear Channel-owned Rightwing stations in the same market intact.
They flipped the station, one of the first and most successful Progressive talk stations in the nation, over to the Fox Sports format, which, I have since learned, is also syndicated by Clear Channel-owned Premiere Radio, further underscoring the unenforced anti-trust issues that seem to be in violation of, among other things, the 1948 U.S. v. Paramount Supreme Court decision I also briefly discussed in my Friday night coverage.
In that case, the U.S. Supreme Court found that Paramount Pictures was in violation of anti-trust laws because it was unfairly leveraging its chain of movie theaters around the country to keep films made by competing movie studios from being exhibited. The vertical integration, controlling both the production and means of distribution, was the very definition of a monopoly. In this case, as I’ve argued, Clear Channel is using the very limited public airwaves broadcast licenses that it receives for free from the government — in exchange, supposedly, for serving in the public interest — in order to push its own Premiere syndicated programming, even when other, non-Clear Channel owned shows and formats both garner higher ratings and, arguable, are far more in the public’s interest than a third sports talk station in the very same market.
That’s exactly what Clear Channel did when they replaced the popular Stephanie Miller Show with the rightwing Glenn Beck program on San Francisco’s progressive Green 960 earlier this year, despite his much lower ratings in the same time slot, on the same station, ever since.
More to the point, as I have noted many times in the past, the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which allowed companies like Clear Channel and a handful of other mega-corporations to buy up control of licensing rights to theoretically “competing” stations in the same market — Clear Channel, for example, owns both the Rightwing and Progressive talk radio stations in many major markets — assures that there is no real free-market competition in the Talk Radio business. While Rightwing talk radio is allowed to propagandize over our public airwaves in favor of supposed “free-market” competition, there is no such free-market competition in the talk radio business itself. The game is as rigged as it would be if Coca-Cola had the sole distribution rights to both Coke and Pepsi in the same major market.
Shortly after running my piece on Friday, I was informed by someone inside the business, in a very good position to know, that “the Seattle station is next.” They were referring to Seattle, Washington’s KPTK am1090 Progressive Talk station, owned by CBS-Viacom. On Monday morning, Stephanie Miller, whose very successful show is heard on that station, and many others, along with appearing on Current TV, told listeners the same thing, that the progressive Seattle talk station, in another very progressive market (in a state that just approved the recreational use of marijuana, for chrissakes) was expected to flip to the newly introduces CBS Sports format on January 1…
On Tuesday, industry outlet Talkers Magazine repeated the same rumor, without confirmation. And, on Wednesday, Talkers notes that “local blog SeaTacRadio.com reports that KLAY, Tacoma is planning to add some of the progressive talk shows – reportedly WYD Media’s Stephanie Miller and the Ed Schultz show – currently heard on KPTK to its program schedule.”
“As numerous CBS Radio and Cumulus stations prepare to flip to sports talk in January, KPTK is just another victim of the companywide desire for affiliate stations,” Talkers writes. “While consumers and the consumer press bemoan the proliferation of sports talk (“How many sports stations do we need in this market?â€), the answer is that CBS Radio and Cumulus need to have affiliates in as many markets as possible to be able to sell a national sports talk product to national clients.”
Well, isn’t it nice that mega-corporations like Clear Channel and CBS and Cumulus — the three largest media outlets in the nation — feel they can leverage their free licenses to broadcast over our public airwaves in order to help improve their bottom line, even if it has nothing to do with serving the public interests for which they are granted those licenses in the first place by we, the people?
KPTK Program Director Carey Curelop responded to our request to confirm the rumors of the station’s January 1 flip to CBS Sports by replying via email: “I have no comment on KPTK’s format. If that changes, I will contact you.”
Since we ran our story on Friday night, I’ve had the opportunity to discuss the issue — on Internet radio — with Nicole Sandler, the regular guest host for Premiere Radio’s only progressive program, the Randi Rhodes Show, as well as with Peter B. Collins, a long-time radio and radio industry veteran. If you’d like to listen to those discussions, both enlightening, I think, they are here…
• Peter B. Colins Show (11/12/12) – Download MP3 or listen online below [appx 30 mins]…
[audio:http://bradblog.com/audio/PeterBCollins_BradFriedman_111212_KPOJFlip.mp3]• Nicole Sandler Show (11/12/12) – Download MP3 or listen online below [Appx. 10 mins]…
[audio:http://bradblog.com/audio/NicoleSandler_BradFriedman_111212_KPOJFlip.mp3](Note: On both shows we also discussed continuing concerns about election failures and tallies across the country, particularly in Gov. Rick Scott’s Florida, in Maricopa County, AZ, as well as in the FL-18 U.S. House race between Rep. Allen West (R) and Patrick Murphy (D). The clips above include only our discussions about KPOJ and Progressive radio, etc. See the links above for the complete interviews on each show.)
Fighting Back
Since Friday, petitions have been circulated in an attempt to take action and push back against the usurpation of our public airwaves by major corporations who are not serving in the public interest, but rather, only for their bottom line.
One petition, urging Clear Channel management to restore Progressive talk to Portland is at SaveKPOJ.com and another, broader call to President Obama and the FCC to “Initiate legislation or new rules that repeal the Communications Act of 1996 so ‘the public interest, convenience, and necessity’ can be served on our airwaves”, has been set up under the name “Restore the Airwaves to the ‘Public'”.
The BRAD BLOG endorses both efforts and urges you to sign them.
In the meantime, another industry insider, who did not give us permission to include his name here (highlighting, again, just one more problem with the near-monopoly control of our public airwaves by a few huge mega-corporations: the fear by those who work in the industry that their free speech responses to this most important of issues will be leveraged against them on other company-owned stations) offered a more optimistic outlet, of sorts, in response:
And, finally, there was this response, worth highlighting here, from BRAD BLOG commenter Charles Letherwood who shared these thoughts among the many excellent comments from the public and broadcasters alike in response to our Friday article:
Good points all, and ones that Progressives in Seattle, in particular, may also wish to begin heeding right now.
Excellent points, Brad and I as a former broadcaster I’m happy you included mention of the former KPOJ advertisers who’ve been thrown under the bus by the format change.
IMHO Radio began a huge downhill slide when rules were loosened to allow a handful of companies to own monopoly control. Then companies like Bain got involved and literally 1,000’s of former “Radio people” were thrown out of work. This is a much bigger problem than just allowing divergent voices and opinions, it has resulted in the beginning of the end for broadcast radio, with time spent listening figures decreasing for the 1st time in the medium’s history. That’s what the “McDonaldization” of Radio has resulted in; when it’s Ryan Seacrest all day long on every station, there’s no reason to listen, nor is there a need for 3-5 sports talkers in a market.
Companies like Clear Channel & Cumulus have literally killed the proverbial Goose, and I understand CBS is ready to leave the Radio business entirely very soon.
The rules need to be changed and these mega-companies broken up.
Tom Shane (jeweler) was a longtime advertiser on KPOJ.
Know who else was? Home Depot…for YEARS. Their ads suddenly disappeared just before election season kicked into gear.
According to Blue Oregon, KPOJ was a profitable station.
Ever since this happened in Portland, local blogs have been inundated with right-wing lies and the familiar “liberal radio doesn’t work anywhere” crap. Propaganda from really sore Romney bone-heads, and I’m guessing that most are affiliated with all the right-wing stations in Portland.
Here’s a good local update of what’s going on: Blue Oregon.
Mike Papantonio did indeed give a warning on Ed’s show the other day; it was rather jarring, but exciting.
I have unplugged and stowed all of my radios in the house. KPOJ was the only station worth listening to (no, KBOO is not a substitute; it’s painfully boring to me).
Portland airwaves have been officially taken over by the right, and Romney’s Bain made it possible. I signed the petition, but it felt like I was kissing Bain’s ass by begging.
As a voting American citizen living in Switzerland, I used to surf the progressive radio stations in order to listen to my favorite talk shows at times convenient to me.
With the turn of the year 2011-2012 this was no longer possible as almost all stations stopped their overseas internet broadcasting.
I vote absentee every 2 years. I am entitled to broad spectrum information.
That was a great interview with Peter B. Collins.
Collins: …and then they choked off the oxygen…yes, Clear Channel purposely killed KPOJ.
And BTW, it took me a helluva long time to get over Collin’s dismissal from the air-waves. He was consistently engaging, even with topics that didn’t particularly interest me.
It is dangerous to allow right-wing hate radio, sports radio, and religious radio to own the public air-waves, like they now do in Portland. Case in point:
Right-wing hate-talk, sports, and religious stations own Ohio’s air-waves. Go there, drive across the state, and try to find something liberal. You will hear Limbaugh/Beck/Hannity on multiple stations in any given geographical spot…even in the middle of farm-land. Limbaugh quite literally owns the Ohio air-waves, 24/7.
I still see near-zero serious interest in this matter from progressives. Their idiot solution: Oh, just tune into blah-blah-blah, online.
It is sort of like the left’s solution to rigged elections: Just turn out in great numbers, and you won’t notice all the felonies taking place.
These are not solutions. They are insipid responses on our part.
I would sure like know what Mike Papantonio’s contacts are looking into at the moment, and what they are planning to do, if anything. In my book, a legal challenge to test the Telecommunications Act is what’s necessary at this point. That is why I have written to Jeff Merkley: we need congressional interest in this matter.
Finally, what does it tell you when a national host who keeps company with the Devil’s own is searching for a new home, presumably outside the Devil’s house? WTF is up with this nonsense, and why are people who are in this industry so effin evasive and cryptic?
Your analogy is a good one, but a clearer one would be a Coke distributor selling both Coke and Pepsi, but featuring Coke in the high traffic locations (big supermarkets, Walmart, etc) then just selling Pepsi in small bodegas in low traffic areas. Put Prog Talk on a big signal like WXXM-FM (92.1 The Mic) in Madison and you will have a top ten ratings station.
Bain Capital makes a mockery of capitalism – buying Clearchannel radio just to load it up with 3.4 billion in debt they pay to themselves as bonuses while clearchannel goes bankrupt and liberal talk radio is canceled all over the nation. To have no liberal talk radio stations in san Francisco OR Portland Ore is prima facie evidence that Bain has no intention whatsoever of serving the public good. Bain needs to be broken up before they do more damage to the country.
SHAME on Bain Capital-owned Clear Channel (isn’t Bain the one with Mitt Romney as majority stockholder?!) killing KPOJ, the only commercial Progressive talk radio station in Portland, one of the nation’s most progressive cities, while leaving their two “competing” Clear Channel-owned Rightwing stations in the same market intact. As well as a Seattle owned progressive radio show. How many others to come?! NO, NO, NO. SHAME, SHAME, SHAME. Everyone, let’s fight this right of free speech AND force the courts to issue injunctions on anti-trust laws. PLEASE! IT’S ALL OF US AT RISK – AGAIN – OF THE POWERFUL AND RICH.
Perhaps the most compelling reason to have a progressive radio station is to be able to hear and ask questions of candidates for office. If broadcast radio is indeed to be in the “public interest” then that is of primary importance. It was obvious for quite awhile that the management of KPOJ had other fish to fry, with their lack of self-promotion and disinterest in advertising dollars. So many great advertisers stuck with them, but the “Boys Of Bain” had other ideas. Intersting how this coincides with the election abd the upcoming changes at KTPK-Seattle. My biggest gripe is with the treatment of Carl Wolfson, who did a brilliant job with Paul on their morning show. This is a perfect demonstration of what a right-wing America would be like from top to bottom. We can’t let it happen.
The only commercial liberal radio outlet, but what about NPR (which gets some taxpayer money)? I’m sure that leans left. The day I hear “The Tea Party Show” on an NPR station is the day I know at least some conservative views are being allowed on there.
Radio (comm.) is a business enterprise and people pay $$$ to buy stations and run what they want (freedom of speech/choice) and what will make money. At this time that means sports. Granted these companies do run them on the cheap to maximize profits and that can cost jobs but right now CC (and CBS) want to sell beer to people who like football, and sports radio will do just that.
Or get someone very rich to buy a station and put liberal talk on for you. John Kerry’s second wife’s first husband’s trust fund has about $700 million, for one…
The FCC doesn’t step in to format disputes.
Broadcasters have freedom of speech/press. “…in the US, broadcasters can change formats at will to react to marketplace conditions.” With new technology like the Net, the FCC won’t step in re: cases like this. As for huge corporations dominating markets, maybe Mr. Clinton should not have signed that Telecom Act…
They killed the local progressive station here in San Diego for like a 5th or sixth sports station. The ratings dropped dramatically. So, yeah, your full of beans, Bob.
Bob Nelson propagandized @ 9 & 10:
Actually, I didn’t say anything about “liberal radio outlets”, but I’ll assume you meant Progressive. So, you’re saying that NPR, funded by the fossil fuel industry, which regularly pushes Rightwing nonsense like the James O’Keefe hoax that helped destroy a four-decade old community organization which broke no laws, and regularly gives voice to Rightwing propagandists like John Fund, Hans von Spakovsky and more is the Progressive equivalent of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, Laura Ingraham, Mike Huckabee, Brian Kilmeade, and on and on and on?
Really?
You just made the argument for why its so important that Americans get real information beyond that 95% of political talk radio over our public airwaves which spews only Rightwing disinformation to gullible folks like yourself.
Actually, that’s not how radio works at all. Clearly you didn’t bother to read the article you’re actually commenting on, but in short, the government grants free broadcast licenses, allowing companies to broadcast over our public airwaves, in exchange for them using those licenses to broadcast on the very limited public broadcast spectrum by serving in the public interest.
Beyond that, I’d love you to explain how running a 3rd or 4th sports station, or Glenn Beck instead of Stephanie Miller, both of which get smaller ratings than the Progressive broadcasts they replace, is meant only to “make money”.
Really? Even if “sports” gets lower ratings in the particular market when they replaced Progressive political programming?
Evidence for that? Or just passing on the unsubstantiated bullshit you hear in the Rightwing media?
They haven’t for years. They have been delinquent in enforcing any public interest requirements for corporate licensees, and it’s disgraceful. As noted in the article you linked to: “US broadcasters often complain about FCC regulations on programming, but they don’t realize how easy they have it compared to much of the rest of the world.”
As the article also notes, the FCC used to do its job, at least somewhat, back before the mid-80’s, when Reagan decided that corporations should receive free government largess from the people without needing to offer anything in exchange for that privilege. It was a corporate welfare queen giveaway. I guess you’re in favor of that sort of thing. I’m not.
Of course, you have no idea what they will or won’t do. But it’s clear what you would like them to do. That said, I suspect if they were protecting actual “liberal political radio” across 95% of the public spectrum, you too might demand they actually do the job they are empowered, by law, to do.
As we have noted here many times, you’re damned right! Finally, you got something right in two, otherwise substance free comments. Congrats!
What I’m saying isn’t propaganda, it’s the facts. Broadcasters cannot be forced to run a certain format by the government. They pay for the license and follow the FCC regs about power, documentation, etc. but can run what will make them money or what their agenda is. Unless you’re CC or CBS you can’t change that. Can any of us walk into a TV or radio station and demand they run something because “the airwaves are public”?
If so, NPR might be running “The Tea Party Show” now but they’re not. (And even if they proclaim themselves “non-commercial” they do have REVENUE.)
CBS and CC want to make a profit. In the case of CC they own Fox Sports Radio and want to expand it. CBS/Cumulus run CBS Sports and want to make it nationwide. Bud wants to sponsor shows about football, not global warming talk. This is capitalism and the free market system.
Had Al Franken (pre-Senate) put out a dynamic show that was a nationwide success, he’d be making $59 million a year just like Rush is.
The Boston Phoenix, very left leaning, sold their flagship station to…Clear Channel..for $14.5 million. CC promptly put boring but money-making rock on the station. Surprised they didn’t put Rush, Hannity etc on there. Money…makes the broadcast world go round.
Bob Nelson @ 13:
First, my apologies, as I just noticed this in the moderate queue where it’s been since you posted it about 7 days ago. Not sure why it got moderated (there are all kinds of automatic triggers that make that happen), so my apologies for that!
As to your actual comment, you said:
Actually, they don’t pay at all for the license. It’s free! In exchange for serving in the public interest. So, yes, the FCC has the right — the responsibility — to assure that is the case.
Is it in the public interest to add a third sports channel in one of the most progressive cities in the country, and leave only Rightwing voices on the air (on two other stations owned by the same company)? That’s what the FCC has every right to determine on behalf of we, the people.
Of course we can. We OWN the airwaves, not CC or CBS and they are allowed to use them at OUR pleasure.
Actually, there is a whole bunch of things that we can walk in and do at TV and radio stations. And, until 1987, yes, we could have walked in and demanded equal access under the Fairness Doctrine. That doctrine, or another similar, could be put in place at any time by the FCC to fulfill their legislative requirement of enforcing the rule of law.
Even today, the Zapple Doctrine is still in affect. Read more about that here and, more recently, here.
Guess you don’t listen to all the wingnuts that NPR allows on their air, eh?
It may be capitalism (more like corporatism), but it certainly ain’t free market. No more “free market” than it would be, as I’ve said already, if Coca-Cola had sole distributorship rights to both Coke AND Pepsi in every major market.
The public airwaves are not there to help ANYBODY “make a profit”. Moreover, those licenses are granted to serve the public in the local market where they are granted. They are not meant to help a national corporation boost it’s national profit margin. That has NOTHING to do with the licensing of our public airwaves, no matter how many times you re-spew the same Rightwing propaganda.
How would anybody know if it was only in a few markets, and on transmitters that can’t be heard after after the sun goes down (versus Rush’s, small “c”, clear channel stations which can be heard in dozens of states at once?)
Oh, yeah, and then there was this: 90 corporations demand their ads do not run on Air America stations.
As I’ve said over and over: There is no free market competition in Talk Radio. The game is rigged. And you fell for it.
Brad,
I smell a change in the air coming to AM960 – KNEW in the Bay Area.
Two clues: First, I have a little device called a Logitek “Squeezebox” which is a true Internet Radio. Going through the menus in my Squeezebox, KKGN was listed as AM960 two year ago. Then the call letters changed to KNEW (which had been the AM910 call letters — the Clear Channel Right Wingnut station) and Stephanie Miller’s morning drive show was put on a 13 hour time delay. In her place at 6 am came one Glen Beck. But despte the call letter change, AM960 (now KNEW) was still listed in my Squeezebox menu as Progressive Talk. Well — now the Progressive Talk label has vanished. AM960 is still designated “Talk” but no longer “Progressive”.
Second clue — saturation advertising (every 15 minutes, and sometimes twice in one break) for a “National Right To Work” legal aide (a “dot org”) law firm offering to help you (the victimized member of a union closed union shop forced to pay dues the “union bosses” used for political purposes against your wishes) recover your First Amendment rights and get your mis-used dues money back.
These clues make me think the “Progressive” part of AM960 will be replaced with more of the wingnut stuff presently on AM910. I expect the change will be literally instant, when it comes, not unlike what CC did to KPOJ.
My guess is the real agenda here in the Bay Area has more to do with Clear Channel’s 20 KW AM910. I am not sure what they will put on AM910, but my guess is the current line up on AM910 will move over to AM960, a 5 KW peanut whistle, and something they think will make tehm more money than Rabid-Right talk does now in the Bay Area.
I suspect that even with a 4 to 1 power advantage, and what I think is rather poor scheduling, Progressive talk on AM960 is holding its own. But given the political agenda I think is from some sore losers at Bain, they will silence Progressive talk radio in the Bay Area. They apparently think folks like Rhodes, Hartmann, and Goldman MUST be the reason the “Left Coast” voted so strongly against “Mint Raw-Money”.
OOPS! I meant to say that even with 4 to 1 power dis-advantage relative to AM910, Progressive talk on AM960 is still holding its own.
Sorry for the typo(s). I was a little too quick to click the “Submit” button.