More progressive talk pushed off OUR PUBLIC AIRWAVES and, again, in one of the nation's most progressive cities...
[
UPDATE:
As of 6:00 pm PT, the KPOJ website has now flipped to "Fox Sports AM 620 Portland".]
This is horrible. Tonight, without warning, Clear Channel Communications-owned
620 AM KPOJ
in Portland, Oregon, one of the most progressive cities in one of the
nation's most progressive states, has flipped from it's years-long
progressive news and talk format over to Fox Sports as of 5:30pm local
time.
KPOJ was the only commercial progressive talk radio station in Portland. The city will still have several other
Rightwing talk radio stations, including one owned by Clear Channel, and they already have two sports stations, but the
Bain Capital-owned media conglomerate is now killing yet another progressive voice from our publicly-owned airwaves.
An earlier piece today in
The Oregonian had reported that the station would be flipping as of Monday. An
UPDATE in the Williamette Weekly, however, reports that the station, which had long featured
Ed Schultz,
Randi Rhodes,
Mike Malloy,
Thom Hartmann
(who had broadcast for years out of KPOJ until moving his show to
Washington D.C.) and other progressive talkers, will change to its Fox
Sports format as of this evening.
The BRAD BLOG can now confirm that KPOJ has flipped its programming format and website to Fox Sports as of 6:00pm PT tonight.
This is hardly the first time that Clear Channel has done the same
thing, in very progressive cities, underscoring once again that there is
no real, "free market" competition in talk radio over
our publicly-owned airwaves...
Last year,
The BRAD BLOG detailed Clear Channel's plan
to dump their progressive talk radio station, Green 960 in San
Francisco, and turn it over to Rightwing talkers, such as Glenn Beck,
whose radio show is syndicated by Clear Channel-owned Premiere Radio.
Listener complaints, and upheavals just days later at competing San
Francisco talk station KGO, led Clear Channel to reverse course,
partially, and to
keep some of the progressive talkers on the station
after all --- though they were scheduled to run delayed, instead of
live, many hours later in the day and night. Beck, however, would still
run live in place of the popular
Stephanie Miller Show in the mornings.
Miller has told
The BRAD BLOG
that Beck's ratings during what had previously been her live 6am-9am PT
time slot have been a fraction of what she had previously garnered
during that time slot.
Nonetheless, Beck remains there, as his live clearance in the large
city media market is key to his national ad sales for the syndicated
program.
There is no "free market" competition in talk radio. Period.
In 1987, enforcement of the FCC's
Fairness Doctrine --- requiring equal time to made available for opposing political viewpoints ---
was done away with by President Ronald Reagan.
In the
Telecommunications Act of 1996,
President Bill Clinton did away with many of the limitations on the
number of radio stations that could be owned by a single company in each
market across the country. That would pave the way for
mega-corporations like Clear Channel to take control of almost all of
the bandwidth over
our public airwaves, shutting out independent competing voices.
In the 1948 landmark anti-trust case,
United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc.,
the Supreme Court ruled that movie studios, which owned many of the
nation's theaters at the time, were in violation of anti-trust laws by
controlling which movies would, and wouldn't, be exhibited in those
theaters. Prior to the case, they had owned both the means of production
and the means of exhibition.
The movie studios were forced, thereafter, to sell off their theater
chains, allowing other, smaller studios, to compete in the marketplace.
There is no longer any such "free market" competition in talk radio.
In fact, as we noted when Green 960 was being flipped to its new call
letters KNEW in San Francisco, when progressive shows are allowed to
compete head-to-head in the market place, they often out-perform their
Rightwing competition, even on lower-powered radio stations, which is
usually the case when companies like Clear Channel own
both the "conservative" and progressive stations in the same market.
They also aggressively promote the corporate-friendly Rightwing
shows, while failing to do the same with progressive shows. That is the
case even with shows like Stephanie Miller's whose morning program often
outpaces Laura Ingraham's, an extreme Rightwinger and regular Fox News
Channel guest host, in the ratings in markets where they are broadcast
live head-to-head. And yet, Miller's show is carried by just some 36
affiliate stations, while Ingraham's is carried by more than 300.
In 2012, major corporate conglomerates such as Clear Channel, and a
just two or three others, control the licenses for almost all of
our public
airwaves, particularly in large markets, and are able to choke off all
but the corporate-friendly voices from talk radio, while using those
very same stations to promote radio shows over which they also have
corporate ownership through their Premier Syndication arm.
A documentary film,
Save KLSD, has been screening around the country this year. The film documents the
ultimately unsuccessful 2007 fight
to keep Clear Channel-owned KLSD AM-1360, the only commercial
progressive talk radio outlet in San Diego at the time, from flipping to
a Fox Sports format. The film details the dangers of media
consolidation and "how corporate influence corrupts government
regulation, limits the free flow of information, and adversely affects
American democracy."
Shameful history repeats itself once again in Portland, Oregon
tonight. Though, this time, Clear Channel did not make the mistake of
letting the word get out until the very last minute, when the flip to
the new format was already a done deal. Once word did get out, the
reported plans to change the format on Monday were moved up to change
the format immediately this evening.
That there is no major commercial outlet over
our public airwaves
for political voices other than those friendly to corporations like
Clear Channel in most of the major media markets in the U.S., much less,
as of tonight, in a progressive city like Portland, is simply another
national disgrace.
We can only hope that a newly re-elected President,
without the need to run for election again, may be able to direct his
FCC to restore the
public interest obligations of broadcasters who enjoy the
privilege of being granted licenses to broadcast over
our public airwaves.