Monopoly Wave Threatens Diversity Of Local Radio

The radio industry has been an American success story. When I entered radio in 1957, unlike other telecommunications services, it was not dominated by a few media barons. Instead, competition thrived, helping to ensure a diversity of voices on important community issues.

Competition in the industry faces a debilitating threat, however. Legislation has passed the Senate (S. 652) and the House Commerce Committee (H.R. 1555) that would allow a few powerful corporations to consolidate control over radio.

What’s shaping up is an unprecedented and unhealthy concentration of media ownership that would allow one person or company to own a UHFTV station, a VHF-TV station, the local cable company and an unlimited number of local radio stations, the local newspaper and perhaps the local telephone company. You’d think the broadcast, cable, publishing and telephone industries were broken the way Congress is trying to “fix” them. In radio’s case, how much fixing does an industry need that counts 95 percent of the American public as weekly listeners?

While the nations of the world try to emulate our broadcasting system, we are on the road to abolishing it, or putting it in the hands of a very, very few.

In Spokane/Coeur d’Alene, KXLY-TV/AM/FM has asked FCC approval to add KZZU-FM and KTRW-AM to its control. Sixteen radio stations have signal enough to compete in the Spokane-Kootenai County metro area. Eleven of them are owned by just three group owners, none local.

If the KXLY request is approved, 15 of 16 radio stations will be under the control of just four owners.

For this reason, I have filed a “petition to deny” KXLY’s request. The public interest will not be served by concentrating so much access to so many media outlets in so few hands. The monopoly floodgate is opening for one huge company located in a distant city, guided mostly by bottomline profit and greed.

Deregulation of telecommunications services is a laudable public goal. But a scheme that promotes monopoly ownership at the expense of competition and diversity is hardly what the public needs.

I urge you to tell your congressional representative no on S. 652 and H.R. 1555.

MEMO: Your Turn is a feature of the Wednesday and Saturday Opinion pages. To submit a Your Turn column for consideration, contact Rebecca Nappi at 459-5496 or Doug Floyd at 459-5466 or write Your Turn, The Spokesman-Review, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210-1615.