Radio stations hacked to play “F— Donald Trump” over and over. Concerns that Trump declaring himself a candidate for 2020 already might limit non-comms’ ability to criticize him. And with an Entercom / CBS Radio merger on the horizon, what does this all mean for community radio and podcasting? John Anderson, Assistant Professor of Television […]
On Monday the Trump administration announced the appointment of Ajit Pai as the new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. Last week when we talked to Prof. Christopher Terry from the University of Minnesota he predicted that Pai would be the pick, and now that it’s happened we call him back to help us understand […]
On August 10, 2016, the Federal Communications Commission released The Second Report and Order which concluded the agency’s long proceeding–launched in 2010 and renewed in 2014–dealing with media ownership rules. This order represents yet another failure–and lost opportunity–within the agency’s 13-year legacy of failure in addressing the problems of the consolidation and the sharply diminished […]
Editor’s Note: Prof. Terry also guests on this week’s Radio Survivor Podcast, which is a companion to this post. The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals recently handed down a decision in a third round of the case Prometheus Radio Project v FCC. This decision, while reasonably straightforward, has the potential to be earth shattering to […]
Once upon a time no company could own more than 20 AM and 20 FM stations nationwide. Then came the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which removed any national restrictions on radio station ownership. In a recent edition of our podcast, Paul Riismandel and Eric Klein sat down with Dr. Christopher Terry at the University of […]
Four years ago, on July 7, 2011, the United States Third Circuit Court of Appeals handed down a second “remand” to the Federal Communications Commission’s attempt to weaken its media ownership rules. When a court remands an action by a government agency, it is telling the agency that the decision is somehow wrong, often procedurally wrong, and needs to be revised. The […]
“I think radio did a very poor job of marketing itself, and everybody started talking all about the shiny new things.” That’s Clear Channel CEO Bob Pittman explaining why radio lost much of its public mindshare at Adweek’s Power of Personality event. Sure, that claim is plausible to someone who hasn’t been listening to radio […]
This week the National Association of Broadcasters convention takes over Las Vegas. To kick it off, the lobbying group’s top man, Gordon Smith, took to the stage Monday to set the tone. And the tone was this: Hey, FCC what about us broadcasters? Leading off Smith’s list of complaints is the FCC’s effort asking TV […]
New FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler announced his staff appointments today, and there is potentially good news for public interest advocates and supporters of innovative radio in his appointment of Public Knowledge president Gigi Sohn as Special Counsel for External Affairs. Sohn co-founded Public Knowledge in 2001, and under her leadership the group has been a […]
A lengthy article on The Deal Pipeline outlines some of the recent public radio transactions involving classical music radio stations in particular. For those of us who have monitored the deals mentioned in the piece, it’s a fascinating overview of what seems like increasing consolidation in public radio. Of interest to me, since I have […]
