Radio Power and Politics
The New York Times put some important news in the wrong section yesterday. The headline on page three of “The Arts” read “Fox News’s Deal Will Make It A Radio Power, Analysts Say.” First of all, when you’re talking about Fox News, you’re clearly not in the realm of “the arts.” Second, even though this is nominally a business story about a radio news distribution deal, its real significance is political. It should have been on page one, perhaps replacing “Lockout in NHL Pushes Businesses to the Brink” (below the fold) or even “Snow to Replace Treasury’s Chief, White House Says” (right hand column).
The lead to the Times piece says, “Industry analysts have said that Fox News Channel will become a significant player in radio as a result of its recent deal to provide news to radio stations owned by Clear Channel Communications Inc.” True as far as it goes, but this might have been a more accurate assessment of the deal’s impact: “Fox News and Clear Channel have taken a major step in consolidating recent gains by the political right in controlling the airwaves.”
Clear Channel is by far the dominant radio network in the country. 180 million Americans listen to its 1,207 stations weekly. The next biggest is Viacom, with 70 million listeners and 185 stations. Just five years ago, Clear Channel had only 200 stations. It has grown dramatically since the Telecommunications Act of 1996 eliminated the 40-station cap on ownership.
The consolidation story by itself is sobering enough without the political dimension. Clear Channel’s well-known right-wing political proclivities make it even more troubling. Now add in these facts from the Times story:
Fox will be responsible for information programming on more than 100 Clear Channel news and talk stations, with a five-minute top-of-the-hour newscast and a nightly news broadcast; it will also be Clear Channel’s primary source for breaking national news. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but Fox estimated that it could have as many as 500 Clear Channel affiliates by the middle of next year.
Notwithstanding Clear Channel’s claim that “we don’t run our business to any political agenda” and that it carries Air America radio (the fledging progressive radio network), the Clear Channel-Fox deal punctures another hole in that quaint shibboleth of the “liberal media.” So we have a story about an alliance between two major right-wing media companies that will result in the dominance of their views on the radio airwaves. That’s a story to bury on page E3?