Reply #42: Forced as in I'm "forced to subscribe to them IF I want progressive talk in my car"...

[cascadiance]

The size of radio audiences has been decreasing over the last few years. Some would argue that it is because it is bleeding into other areas of technology (more car mp3 players, etc. that allow more off the air listening experienceds, etc.). Some might also argue that this move to allow *unregulated* consolidation that's been happening with the current FCC and anti-trust regulators (or lack thereof), has allowed companies like Clear Channel to take away a lot of the radio audience that aren't part of the "mass audience" that they are targeting. When you swallow up many smaller more narrowly targetted radio stations in an area and then try to change them to "mass audience" stations, you might let some stations "increase" their draw, but overall you reduce the number of listeners in a given community when you take away what they've been used to listening too. This isn't just progressive talk, but other fringe stations such as classical music, jazz stations, etc.

The idea that we should only allow for radio that "makes money" is why the media is in the mess it is in now, and why we as progressives have SUCH a difficult time in getting the word out of what we know is a mess in our government to the masses. I think that's the biggest difference between now and the 70's when Nixon was impeached. Back then, you couldn't AVOID the Watergate hearings in the afternoons if you wanted to watch TV, and didn't have much else to distract yourself with (videos, video games, etc. wern't around then). Now its' even becoming more difficult for those who DO want access to this information to even find it on the spectrum where they are searching, let alone just happening onto it.

This is about having proper regulations that are analagous to what the Fairness Doctrine gave us back before 1980. Now I will be the first to say that you couldn't just restore the Fairness Doctrine as it was written before and have it work in today's society where they technology and media availability are so different from what they were then. But the same legal strategies/philosophies that brought us the Fairness Doctrine then need to happen again to give us more responsible regulative rules now to allow for a free press in today's environment. You need to make them fair, so that complying businesses can comply with them and still make a profit. If done properly, it will go a long way towards making sure that minority voices and hopefully more objective voices not bound by "profit motives" are able to speak in these various domains (over the air TV and radio, cable TV, satellite TV and radio.