Clear Channel Won't Air Progressive Radio Ads (even at full $$ rates)

[NAO]

The story, snipped from BuzzFlash, is below. You can listen to all the ads at this link:

http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/04/12/con04566.html

Clear Channel Tramples on First Amendment Rights. It Won't Allow a Modern Day Paul Revere on the Public Airwaves, Even if He Pays.

A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION
by Robert Millman

Update: Read Robert's "My Fight with Clear Channel"

BuzzFlash Note: On Monday we posted in the mailbag a letter from Robert about his radio ads. Today we heard the ads, heard that Clear Channel wouldn't air them -- despite that Robert was paying the regular ad rate for them to air -- and had to help. Here's the point of the issue: the airwaves are the property of the American people. The FCC licenses bandwidth, but they are our airwaves. And here is a radio company refusing a person the right to pay to express their opinion. It's like having censors in the Soviet Union. We hope that highlighting these ads brings them wide national coverage. They deserve it. Listen to all seven of them, send the pages to your friends and family, and, if you can afford it, try and get them on your local radio station.

[Liberty Belle]

1. Let's complain to the FCC as well as Clearchannel.

[movonne]

2. This is just the beginning of taking over all media....and I don't know

how we can stop this....

[evolvenow]

3. We need to create our own channel...with our money...public owned...

We need a progressive, humanistic media to broadcast the Truth!!

[CatholicEdHead]

4. NPR/PBS in theory

Not sure what you would call them now.

[Festivito]

25. Neo Partisan Republican / Partly BS.

NPR has been hideous. PBS has some great programs, still muted. IMHO.

[KharmaTrain]

7. Hard To Do When Everyone Has Different Ideas

There's very little networking that goes on between Liberal, Progressive and other groups...and in many cases there's been disastrous competition based on egos and money. While AAR's been a bigger success than I would have predicted 6 months ago, it's still struggling and there's still precious little local liberal radio.

Lately I've re-discovered a huge library of music I am enjoying and tuning out the hate world.

Maybe a day will come when liberal and progressive ideas will be heard on the airwaves, but not when the money rests with the dittoheads and their repugnican sugar daddies.

[Royal Observer]

14. Where are the liberal

sugar daddy's when you need them?

[buddysmellgood]

18. You are it. Come up with $50 bucks and get one station in your area

to air one of those ads even once. I'll do the same. We'll do this ourselves.

[Merlot]

17. No, we don't need "our own" media

We already have the media - it belongs to America. All of us. We need the media to return to the Fairness Doctrine. Equal time for everyone.

Everyone thinks their truth is THE truth. We need to have alternative viewpoints so that people can make up their own mind.

[Liberty Belle]

22. That's only half the battle.

Lots of people won't listen to a progressive station, but we can still get through to them by airing ads on mainstream media stations.

[nine23]

5. "It's like having censors in the Soviet Union..."

That's EXACTLY what it is. Or: Nazi Germany.

I'm Canadian, and I don't really have a dog in this fight. However, I AM a communications grad; I'm more than familiar with the FCC mandate, as well as our own CRTC; I MAKE MY LIVING IN MEDIA, and 40%-60% of my firm's work is destined for/contracted to the US market.

THEY'RE YOUR FUCKING AIRWAVES - YOU'VE BEEN HAD. THE FUCKING AIR HAS BEEN RIPPED FROM RIGHT ABOVE YOU.

Read the FCC mandate (I don't have the links), then compare it to your current reality. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize THEY'VE STOLEN YOUR AIR.

And don't be a self-serving Howie Stern, selling air time for his new PRIVATE EMPLOYER....GET YOUR FUCKING AIR BACK.

[NAO]

6. Propaganda is to a Democracy as Brute Force is to a Dictatorship (Chomsky)

Noam Chomsky explained it that way. In a Democratic society, the ruling powers cannot just smack people over the head with a club (he made the comment before Ashcroft's DOJ and Gonzales' Torture Memo) so they control people with propaganda.

They control the masses by controlling the flow of information and by manipulation of public opinion. With 'The Big Lie' functioning effectively, you don't (usually) need to resort to 'The Big Stick'.

[Bozita]

16. That's really good. ... Thanks.

[evolvenow]

15. Hi nine23! Yay for Canada! My mother was born there and it is beautiful!

With your expertise, what would be the steps needed to take our airwave back?
Thanks, look forward to your reply.
:hi:

[Name removed]

36. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[mitchum]

8. It would be a shame if someone jammed Clear Channel's signals

The airwaves belong to we citizens of the US. We can do with them what we want.
Fuck the fascists.

[InvisibleBallots]

9. as if anymore proof is needed - the Corporate Media are the enemy

I don't see why anyone should be surprised.

[Bozita]

10. If Walmart can air ads hyping the happiness and benevolence of its ...

... employees, you'd think that cash-in-hand buys airtime.

This really pisses me off.

[Javaman]

11. Hmmmm, complain to michael, I have a dad with an ass name, powell???

Are you kidding? Dream on. The revolving rules they apply to things makes ones head spin. You might as well scream into a closet, it would have the same effect.

[Gloria]

12. And this is the same Clear Channel that Air America is now

hooked up....this is the sort of thing that makes me VERY NERVOUS about that arrangement....They could cut us off anytime they want, I would think.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

13. yes they can.

We need an alternative to KKKlear Channel!

[cascadiance]

32. There is a non-Clear Channel alternative everywhere, get Sirius

Sirius is available everywhere in the U.S. and is not partially owned by Clear Channel like XM (it's satellite competitor) is. I'd say there's no coincidence that Howard Stern just moved over to them and is promoting the heck out of them too.

Sirius has a lot more talk radio programming than XM with two left wing talk radio channels (Sirius Left and a full time 24x7 Air America stream), in addition to more NPR offerings and Howard Stern.

If we were all to put out money where our mouth was and buy Sirius (and note to them this is why you're buying it), I think we'd build a market driven force to keep Democracy on the airwaves alive.

Michael Powell and the FCC may try to go after satellite radio soon, but he'll have a fight on his hands if there are enough of us subscribers there already. Would probably have to have congress ammend a bit of the communications laws to allow him to do it too.

I have it and love it!

[lostnfound]

37. I have it and I love it too, but it won't get the word out to the masses

at $12 per month plus usually $100 or so to get equipment. Ordinary radios cost about $1 and you can listen to all the garbage from Clear Channel, on at least 5 different stations in my city, for free.

Re: "I think we'd build a market driven force to keep Democracy on the airwaves alive." The issue is not the absence of a market of listeners. Shows get cancelled despite favorable ratings for being leftwing. The issue is corporate pressure.

[madison2000]

21. Some of the advertising is so ridiculous and doesn't match the content

at all... Become a Millionaire!!

[Name removed]

35. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[bob-calhoun]

19. Find Shareholders who will sue

ClearChannel is a publicly traded company and if you look at their revenues from both their radio and billboard divisions, their ad revenues have been in a steady decline for a while now. That is part of the reason they find so many bare billboards to put up those Stalinist "George Bush: Our Leader" propaganda freebees.

Now if you are a shareholder in ClearChannel, them refusing potential advertisers for political reasons is actually costing you money and therefore you have a right to sue them. As a shareholder, all you care about is the bottom line and CC is in no position right now to turn down potential advertisers.

What we need to find are people and institutions who have stock in Clear Channel and urge them to threaten lawsuits over this. It was union pension funds that had money in Sinclair that got the media giant to back down from showing its anti-Kerry film. To those pension funds, Sinclair's political decision to cancel highly rated programming on its stations in favor of a ratings dog (the anti-Kerry documentary) was something that was going to drive down quarterly earnings at a cost to the company's investors.

We must use our current messed up corporate structure against itself and find left leaning investors and investment groups (usually union pension funds) and have them sue ClearChannel over this loss of potential revenue at a time when their revenues are down.

[Liberty Belle]

23. I've heard you can legally buy 1 share of stock

for the sole purpose of filing a shareholder lawsuit.

[bob-calhoun]

24. Yes!

That might be a direction to start going in. Of course there are the legal fees to contend with so it isn't as easy as all of that, but you could technically buy that one share of stock and sue the company for mismanagement. Still, these media combines are completely vulnerable to shareholder revolt when their right wing political fervor starts getting in the way of the bottom line.

The strange thing is that with the Internet and Moveon.org and even Democratic Underground, there is all of a sudden these pools of lefty money floating around that these media giants never thought that they would have to contend with. That is why those bastards Bush and McCain want to get rid of the 527s so badly -- because they actually have evened the playing field! Arizona John should actually be proud of himself -- the McCain/Feingold bill actually worked. What is he complaining about?

[Liberty Belle]

40. Is there a lefty lawyer here wh'd take this on gratis?

[sweetlips]

34. We Must Take It Back!

They have no right to own anything! Let's just take over and we can take it all away from them!

[bob-calhoun]

39. I agree on that one.

I hate to start pointing fingers at Clinton but it was his administration that sadly relaxed media ownership rules to the sad state that they are in today. I think that Reagan left it with one company being able to own like 50 radio stations. Now ClearChannel owns over 1300. I always scratched my head over that 1990s broadcasting bill. At the very least democrats of the time (incl. the president and vice president) should have insisted that the Fairness Doctrine and all of its equal time provisions be written into law as a quid pro quo for CC, Infinity and Sinclair getting to own so many damned stations. Sure if Gore and Clinton had insisted on a FD proviso to their communications bill then republicans may not have voted for it but oh well. It shouldn't have passed anyway.

Sorry about that. I love Bill Clinton and usually don't bash him but that communication bill is really the root of all of our problems with Fox, CC et al today.

[EVDebs]

20. That's because their Army PsyOps and disinformation teams

probably will shoot the management if they went "soft on liberalism".

"We're at war with terrorists and their liberal commie pinko sympathizer pals, soldier ! We won't tolerate dissent you maggots !"

See "CNN and PsyOps" by Alexander Cockburn at counterpunch and as mentioned in Fairness and Accuracy in the Media's stories

http://www.fair.org/activism/cnn-psyops.html

http://www.counterpunch.org/cnnpsyops.html

Makes you wonder when partisans will want to allow the Army to influence a US election, huh ?

Whatever happened to the Pacific Corporation (Delaware) that was the CIA's front for proprietaries ? Who needs it anymore ? They'll do what the intell orgs want out of 'patriotism' nowadays when they get coerced enough...

[Peter Frank]

26. Blurr-Channel is a schill for Bush's compromises...

...It has no conscience. Like Wall-Mart it extols the virtues of the lowest priced Nirvanas.

[Bombtrack]

27. Everybody E-Mail Howard Stern about this. He'll be back on Monday

you can find the e-mail on his website. I think it might be [e-mail]

but I'm not sure.

[shadowknows69]

30. great idea...

if stern starts talking about it it's national news.

[KnowerOfLogic]

28. This kind of censorship has become so common, it's accepted w/o

a second though by most people. Most americans don't even know that the airwaves are public property, or they believe that the station has the "right to choose" what political messages it puts on the air.

[rman]

29. in fact it is legal since the Fairness Doctrine was repealed

let us toast to the independant press.

[OneTwentyoNine]

31. Emmm,don't know about that....

He's offering to pay for the ads,not wanting free time for his side. I thought the fairness doctrine was only for free air time,not paid.

[sweetlips]

33. Stop Private Ownership!

OK, let me get this: Someone buys a radio station, then that person can put on what they want? That's horrible! When we take control, we'll make sure we tell them what they can put on!

[BeachBuckeye]

38. And the horse you rode in on

eom

[depakid]

41. Here we have something that actually is Clinton's fault

Not only did he do nothing to restablish the fairness doctrine, but the telecommunication bill he signed gave free reign to clear channel and viacom to nearly monopolize the airwaves.

You can thank Bill for what's been going on- radio consolodation is his baby.

[bob-calhoun]

42. The Fairness Doctrine no longer exists.

The Fairness Doctrine did apply to free air-time and editorials by station management akin to what Sinclair now broadcasts with impunity.

However, the FD was disposed of by Ronald Reagan. The democratically controlled house and senate of the time did try to write the doctrine into the constitution but they could never muster the two thirds veto proof majority to get it past presidents Reagan and Bush. The Senate, spearheaded by Ted Kennedy attempted to attach it to that cable TV regulation bill that did pass with a two thirds majority, but they had to take the provision establishing the FD out of it get as many republicans to vote yes on it as did. The CATV reg bill made it into law and GHWBush was unable to veto it.

Sadly that law establishing consumer friendly pricing and practices for the CATV industry was undone by the Clinton/Gore communications bill that gave broadcasting, cable and telecom cos. carte blanche. The reasoning from Al Gore on this was that, at that time, you had many different competing versions of broadband technology without a real means to build infrastructure. In order to spur this development then desperately needed to jump start the economy, you had to allow the media giants to become near monopolies so they could force their version of digital technologies on the world. The communications bill also set the standards for HDTV which are now coming into effect today.

Any communications bill favored by a democratic president should have included the reestablishment of the fairness doctrine in it and the Clinton/Gore communications bill didn't.

Also the broad bandwidth was just given to the Bells and AT&T's of the world. Just given to them. Strangely, Dole and McCain led a movement to auction those frequencies off for the 80 billion some odd dollars that they were worth and put that money into things like making social security more solvent. You would think that Clinton wanting to make medical care more available would have invited this extra influx of cash, but instead they didn't. Only five senators incl. republicans McCain and Dole, voted against the communications act. I will have to look it up, but I can only hope that the other three were democrats.

But coming back to the original point of all if this is that if we still had the fairness doctrine in effect, we wouldn't need to BUY all of this air-time just to get our message out there. ClearChannel and Sinclair stations would actually have to allow concerned citizens of all political stripes equal air-time on their stations to make their concerns known. Although Fox on cable would be able to spew its filth with impunity, when Fox exported this right wing programming to ClearChannel or Sinclair stations, those stations would have to allow opposing viewpoints to be aired in timeslots with comparable viewership.