Future of Music Coalition has released a new study about the radio industry: False Premises, False Promises (available at http://www.futureofmusic.org/research/radiostudy06.cfm). We asked first whether allowing greater ownership consolidation in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 worked as a policy. Going by the FCC’s three policy goals of competition, localism, and diversity:
Competition: We found that 281 out of 297 local markets had experienced extreme concentration, that is, to a point beyond the “danger zone” for antitrust concerns (see p. 69).These trends have not improved radio for the public. The pre-existing decline in radio listenership has accelerated since the Telecom Act (see p. 44). But has consolidation has worked as a business model, at least? Our findings—in both our 2002 report and our new report—have suggested that hypothetical “economies of scale” have not materialized (see pp. 45-48).
Localism: We created a Local Ownership Index to measure of the geographic local-ness of station ownership—the index decline 28 percent between 1995 and 2005 (see p. 78).
Diversity: We learned that large station groups exceeding the local caps offer a narrow range of about eight formats: Country, Classic Rock, Talk, Sports, News, Oldies, CHR, and AC alone account for over half their programming (see p. 94).
In the report we make some concrete, realistic suggestions for fixing radio (see pp. 114-116). But the bottom line is that radio policy has to reverse course and promote the efforts of small, local, independent, and minority-owned station groups.
Peter DiCola is the research director for the Future of Music Coalition
