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Clear
Channel Media Conglomerate
When
radio began in this country, it was not supposed to
simply be a commodity. The Federal Communication Commission,
a government federal agency that was established by the
Communications Act of 1934, was charged
with allocating spectrum space to maximize "the
public interest and to encourage a diversity of voices
so as to promote a vibrant democracy."
Today, Clear
Channel Corporation owns over 1,200
stations, or roughly one in every ten in the country,
over 776,000 outdoor advertising displays, such
as billboards and street benches, as well as 200
major concert halls across the nation. Clear Channel
is a product of the deregulation of radio in the
United States which took place via the Telecommunication
Act of 1996, which overturned the rule limiting
to forty the number of radio stations around the
country that a single company could own. Clear
Channel operates in 65 countries worldwide.
Internationally
Clear Channel owns:
A
33% interest in the largest radio group in New Zealand
A 50% interest in Australian Radio Network, the second largest radio
group in Australia
A 40% interest in Grupo Acir, the largest operator of radio stations
in Mexico
Dauphin, a leading European outdoor advertising company
Clear
Channel owns many other companies, besides the ten
percent of the radio industry. For example, there's Critical
Mass Media, a euphimistically named radio research
group that sells information about listeners to advertisers
so they can cater their message to the right group
of consumers.
Clear
Channel owns its share of performers as well, ranging
from N'Sync, Tina Turner and Pearl Jam to sports stars
like Michael Jordan and Andre Agassi.
Believe
it or not, the world's largest radio station operator
is a supporter of political censorship as well! In
October 2001, Oakland's KMEL broadcast an interview
with Congresswoman Barbara
Lee, the only member of US Congress to vote against
going to war in Afghanistan. Interviewer Davey D was
promptly fired from the station which had recently
been acquired by the media giant Clear Channel.
They
haven't been opposed to all forms of political organizing,
however. In 2003 the company paid for pro-war rallies
around
Comic
courtesy of corpwatch.org |
