Posted by Tina
The following is an open letter Rush Limbaugh has penned to ask our president an important question. The subject is free speech as it pertains to the use of our airwaves and specfically, talk radio. It’s an important topic and deserves our attention. I hope you will follow the link and read the entire superb article which begins…
** Dear President Obama: I have a straightforward question, which I hope you will answer in a straightforward way: Is it your intention to censor talk radio through a variety of contrivances, such as “local content,” “diversity of ownership,” and “public interest” rules — all of which are designed to appeal to populist sentiments but, as you know, are the death knell of talk radio and the AM band? **
Lest you think Rush Limbaugh is just being paranoid consider the following articles and reports taken from the web…
** November 09, 2007 * On Thursday, the non-profit citizens’ media watchdog organization Accuracy in Media unleashed criticisms against the Senate Commerce Committee for today holding a hearing on “media diversity”. *** The “hearing” featured a prominent advocate of the federal Fairness Doctrine, which Aim denounces as a measure that Leftist liberals hope to use to silence conservative talk radio–thereby denying First Amendment Rights of free speech to any radio personality that has strong criticisms of leftish liberal agendas or attitudes. *** Alex Nogales of the liberal National Hispanic Media Coalition used his testimony to attack “hate speech on talk radio programs” and took the position that “more diversity of ownership” in the media would somehow help solve the alleged problem. *** Nogales has been vociferous about wanting to call back the Fairness Doctrine in order counter conservative “hate speech” against “undocumented Latinos” and others. *** Broadcasting licenses, he says, should only be given to “responsible” parties who agree to show “varied points of view.” **
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On Radio: The FCC takes a new look at the diversity of station ownership, by Bill Virgin Seattle PI
** The Federal Communications Commission is out on the road again with another hearing on the issue of ownership concentration of media properties, particularly in broadcasting. Commissioner Michael Copps, the most persistent critic of efforts to relax ownership rules, used the most recent hearing to make pointed comments about the lack of diversity in ownership or coverage, as well as an overall lack of local content. *** Copps suggested one way to get the diversity of ownership and increased local service he’d like to see is a shake-up of the FCC’s own procedures. “Let’s go back to an honest-to-goodness licensing system that doesn’t grant slam-dunk renewals, but stops to ask if a license-holder is really doing its job to serve the common good,” he said. “All license holders have to do now is basically send in a postcard and that’s it. And let’s do this license renewal every three years — the way it used to be — not every eight years like it is now.” **
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** Despite the dramatic expansion of viewing and listening options for consumers today, traditional radio remains one of the most widely used media formats in America. Arbitron, the national radio ratings company, reports that more than 90 percent of Americans ages 12 or older listen to radio each week, a higher penetration than television, magazines, newspapers, or the Internet. Although listening hours have declined slightly in recent years, Americans listened on average to 19 hours of radio per week in 2006. *** Among radio formats, the combined news/talk format (which includes news/talk/information and talk/personality) leads all others in terms of the total number of stations per format and trails only country music in terms of national audience share. Through more than 1,700 stations across the nation, the combined news/talk format is estimated to reach more than 50 million listeners each week. *** As this report will document in detail, conservative talk radio undeniably dominates the format:
Our analysis in the spring of 2007 of the 257 news/talk stations owned by the top five commercial station owners reveals that 91 percent of the total weekday talk radio programming is conservative, and 9 percent is progressive. *** Each weekday, 2,570 hours and 15 minutes of conservative talk are broadcast on these stations compared to 254 hours of progressive talk10 times as much conservative talk as progressive talk. *** A separate analysis of all of the news/talk stations in the top 10 radio markets reveals that 76 percent of the programming in these markets is conservative and 24 percent is progressive, although programming is more balanced in markets such as New York and Chicago. *** This dynamic is repeated over and over again no matter how the data is analyzed, whether one looks at the number of stations, number of hours, power of stations, or the number of programs. While progressive talk is making inroads on commercial stations, conservative talk continues to be pushed out over the airwaves in greater multiples of hours than progressive talk is broadcast. *** These empirical findings may not be surprising given general impressions about the format, but they are stark and raise serious questions about whether the companies licensed to broadcast over the public airwaves are serving the listening needs of all Americans. *** There are many potential explanations for why this gap exists. The two most frequently cited reasons are the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 and simple consumer demand. As this report will detail, neither of these reasons adequately explains why conservative talk radio dominates the airwaves. *** Our conclusion is that the gap between conservative and progressive talk radio is the result of multiple structural problems in the U.S. regulatory system, particularly the complete breakdown of the public trustee concept of broadcast, the elimination of clear public interest requirements for broadcasting, and the relaxation of ownership rules including the requirement of local participation in management. **
When they cannot compete they REGULATE. Control is the name of the game!