Comments on: The Radio “Monopoly” Myth

By: Erik

Erik — Fri, 16 Dec 2005 00:05:36 +0000

“Clear Channel owns all six of the commercial radio stations in the Minot, North Dakota market…In early 2002, a hazardous chemical spill occurred in North Dakota. Attempts by emergency response personnel to engage the local radio stations in broadcast warnings to local residents were futile. All six of the stations were operated by remote control, and were airing prerecorded satellite feeds from Clear Channel HQ in San Antonio, Texas.” -Anthony Varona, Minn. Journal of Law, Dec. 2004
-Chicken Little, you say?

By: Jordan

Jordan — Fri, 01 Apr 2005 01:56:13 +0000

You are just a partisan hack shilling for the Republican Party, which wants to give big media companies everything they want so they will support Republicans politically. Think I’m kidding? Look at the political donations of Clear Channel execs. Look at how Republican-controlled Sinclair Broadcasting decided to preempt prime-time programming and air a blatantly anti-Kerry documentary days before the election. Look at how Pappas TV Group gave away free airtime to Republican candidates but not Democrats. Why did George Bush want to let newspapers own TV stations in the same town? So newspapers will slant their coverage in favor of Bush and his policies. Your snarky attitude can’t disguise the media-Republican mutual backscratching going on here, nor does it hide your complete misunderstanding of HHI. Who argues that CC has a national monopoly? Only you, so you can proceed to “disprove” that theory. Radio is local you loon, or perhaps you didn’t notice. And locally, CC dominates by market share many markets it is in. The silver lining here is that it turns out Bigger Is Actually Worse. The bigger CC gets, the more they look at radio as if they are manufacturing paper clips or bread — it’s all about efficiency. After they got big (thanks, Republican Congress), they must hired a bunch of MBAs who brilliantly figured out that machines are better at figuring out what people want to hear more than people are. Well look where they are now. The value of their radio stations is going into the toilet. So I say let them get bigger. By 2008, they’ll be gone from the face of the earth, and their lackeys like you can find some more strawmen to push around.

By: Greg

Greg — Fri, 25 Mar 2005 21:19:30 +0000

What happens when you limit the pool to large urban markets? I bet these market percentages go way up and even push the numbers necessary for monopoly status. For example, according to Journalism.org, Clear Channel’s 1194 stations (which is more than the next seven competitors combined, by the way, including both Viacom subsidiaries, Infinity and Citadel) are spread throughout abou 180 markets making for more than six stations in each market. What do you want to bet that these 180 markets include at least the 100 largest media markets in America? Can you even name six radio stations in your market? What about if you don’t include public radio? When you look at it this way, even though Clear Channel doesn’t literally own a monopoly share of all radio stations, it starts to look very much like they have a monopoly share of the actual market, of ears if not frequencies. But isn’t that the metric that really matters?

By: Neil

Neil — Wed, 23 Mar 2005 13:55:41 +0000

Looking at the number of stations as a nationwide total misses the point entirely. If I am a listener in a market served only by CC stations, I have no choice in radio. In my market, CC owns eight stations. They include the most pouplar rock station, two of the most popular alternative stations, and two of the most popular country stations. That is not popularity based on years of building audience loyalty through excellence in CC programming. It is popularity that they bought in this market and are in the process of killing off. I know this is also the case in other markets I travel to. I would argue that radio has lost two or three generations of listeners since 1996 - the current generation and those of us older (former) listeners who have abandoned radio altogether. With the other alternatives out there today, I, personally, will never go back to radio. I suspect that radio was doomed anyway. Technology was going to overtake it no matter what. But the Buggles had it wrong - CC killed the radio star.

By: Tim Keller

Tim Keller — Fri, 18 Mar 2005 20:16:59 +0000

Nobody (nobody I know anyway) is saying Clear Channel has a nationwide monopoly, so let’s drop that strawman. FYI, if you measure market share instead of number of stations, Clear Channel jumps to 25% nationwide. In some markets (Minneapolis for instance) it’s past the 70% needed for a true monopoly. The real issue is its anticompetetive behavior, which is well documented. Don’t play with numbers, address Clear Channel’s proven & excessive abuse of position & synergy between divisions, markets & sectors.

Tim