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Calls For FCC Ownership Changes

TheBigA said:
The problem isn't deregulation. It's finding someone to pay for news. You can't regulate that.
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One large dinosaur with 300 stations that can't make money is no better than three dinosaurs with 100 stations each that can't make money. It's still a dinosaur, just bigger and less viable.

You can't consolidate out of a crisis. The only winners are those who cash out.
 
Nathan Obral said:
One large dinosaur with 300 stations that can't make money is no better than three dinosaurs with 100 stations each. It's still a dinosaur, just bigger and less viable.

You can't consolidate out of a crisis. The only winners are those who cash out.
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That still doesn't solve the problem of who will pay for news.
 
TheBigA said:
That still doesn't solve the problem of who will pay for news.
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Is there even an answer? Most television chains seemingly have no plan B for when the retransmission revenue well runs dry due to the continued depletion of cable subscribers. Just demand more money from cable and satellite providers and hope for political ad revenue every two years...
 
TheBigA said:
Now you say there is no answer. Which is it?
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I was speaking rhetorically all along. The answer is, there is no answer. I apologize if it didn't come off as such.

Just that I don't understand how further consolidation helps anything but accelerate the inevitable decline and fall.
 
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Nathan Obral said:
One large dinosaur with 300 stations that can't make money is no better than three dinosaurs with 100 stations each that can't make money. It's still a dinosaur, just bigger and less viable.

You can't consolidate out of a crisis. The only winners are those who cash out.
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Actually, in most of the rest of the free world radio companies have found how to consolidate successfully and that is with national real time networks with a single format, beautifully done, with excellent talent and production values.

Advertisers love that: there is one buy for one demographic delivered nationally. Today, buying radio is complex and uninviting.

A national real time network can have multiple streamed channels with variants and also have in-depth articles, complete artist interviews, related podcasts and more. They can also have the use location trigger local weather, news and traffic and things like local and regional event calendars, contests and such.

American "consolidation" is simply a lot of stations in a bigger shopping cart. No true all-market national coverage, and no coordinated deep web presence. U.S. radio is like a junkyard full of a bunch of "stuff". Elsewhere, radio companies have true national brands with huge extensions into new media; one leg in traditional FM and the other in streaming audio and a rich depth of listener offerings on the web.
 
Nathan Obral said:
Just that I don't understand how further consolidation helps anything but accelerate the inevitable decline and fall.
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If the result is the same, what difference does it make? You're just delaying the inevitable.

We need to fix the decline, and that's a financial problem, not a regulatory one.
 
In a way, I’d support lifting the caps so that the companies with the deeper pockets could offer a couple more options in my own market. It manages the reality of the business and utilizes those economies of scale to offer some other formats or options. Reality is reality and we aren’t going back to 1980.
 
I don't think lifting the caps is going to make any difference except to groups like EMF, etc since they're the majority of station buyers right now
 
DavidEduardo said:
American "consolidation" is simply a lot of stations in a bigger shopping cart. No true all-market national coverage, and no coordinated deep web presence. U.S. radio is like a junkyard full of a bunch of "stuff". Elsewhere, radio companies have true national brands with huge extensions into new media; one leg in traditional FM and the other in streaming audio and a rich depth of listener offerings on the web.
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This really is the crux of the problem and it's already manifesting itself in U.S. television as well. Just as radio is incapable of any unifying brands, Nexstar, Scripps and Gray have their own (largely) proprietary centralized news services. All operated differently. Long-term, I don't know how any of them are viable.

I always smirk at people referring to public radio stations as "NPR" when in reality that genre is the most parochial, fractured group out there, with barely any shared programming among all stations and multiple distributors.

The only radio group that comes even remotely close to national coverage, aside from a small smattering of remaining markets, is EMF.
 
Nathan Obral said:
This really is the crux of the problem and it's already manifesting itself in U.S. television as well. Just as radio is incapable of any unifying brands, Nexstar, Scripps and Gray have their own (largely) proprietary centralized news services. All operated differently. Long-term, I don't know how any of them are viable.
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That's where national networks come in. NBC, CBS, and ABC are national, and they have unifying brands that they're extending to their affiliates. They also provide national news, so that every little station doesn't have to cover the same national stories. Not all of their affiliates are owned & operated. Nexstar, Scripps, and Gray typically are affiliates of the broadcast networks. Networks are not local stations, so they're not included in the ownership caps that we're talking about here.
 
TheBigA said:
That's where national networks come in. NBC, CBS, and ABC are national, and they have unifying brands that they're extending to their affiliates. They also provide national news, so that every little station doesn't have to cover the same national stories. Not all of their affiliates are owned & operated. Nexstar, Scripps, and Gray typically are affiliates of the broadcast networks. Networks are not local stations, so they're not included in the ownership caps that we're talking about here.
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The traditional Big Three are being reduced to nightly promotions for the streaming services owned by their corporate overlords. Plus Nexstar has the CW—it was literally given away to them—and they've made it known they want to own as many affiliates of the network as possible.

The traditional network-affiliate model is now a threatened species. If unfettered deregulation happens, it will go away like it went away in Canada in the 1990s.
 
TheBigA said:
I don't think anyone is asking for "unfettered deregulation." Just a slight loosening.
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Nexstar has 68% national reach without the UHF Discount. They don't even own their largest station WPIX, Mission does. They blatantly exploit every possible loophole in the rules for the heck of it.

Any "loosening" of the current rules renders them even more worthless than they already are. It's de facto unfettered deregulation.
 
Nathan Obral said:
Any "loosening" of the current rules renders them even more worthless than they already are. It's de facto unfettered deregulation.
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You're talking about TV. This thread and the lawsuit is about radio. The FCC can be very specific in that way. They can loosen ownership rules with just AM radio, and it wouldn't cause any of the problems you're talking about.
 
TheBigA said:
You're talking about TV. This thread and the lawsuit is about radio. The FCC can be very specific in that way. They can loosen ownership rules with just AM radio, and it wouldn't cause any of the problems you're talking about.
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A mere distinction without a difference. Nexstar is suing because they want unfettered deregulation. So yes, there are people publicly posturing for it.
 
Everyone is jumping to conclusions here by assuming that iHeart, Cumulus and the other major groups are the ones who are going to snatch up everything and drive everyone else out of broadcasting. One, that takes money to do, which Cumulus and Audacy and a few others don't have access to, and two, it assumes that they care about smaller markets, which is where these changes would really affect.

I'll spill the beans here on a deal I've been working on for a while without naming stations. I want to combine 2 groups in 3 separate small markets, and the framework is in place. However, the current rules prohibit this because of the AM contour overlap, which would put the deal ONE FM over. With the current rules in place, we can't proceed EVEN though all parties want this to happen, unless we find a third party to divest this AM to that is causing the issue. Problem is, I want to keep the AM because I have programming to go on it, and it fits our long-term plans. My purchase would allow everyone currently employed to keep their jobs, and by eliminating the overhead of rent on an office building by consolidating operations to one physical location, I can hire 2 more full-time employees at one of the other stations in the group. But in the eyes of the FCC, this deal is a no-go, and everyone is stuck waiting and spending money needlessly.

Now though, I have been in contact with both groups, as well as my attorneys, and we may very well go ahead and file this deal with the FCC, while also filing a lawsuit against the FCC seeking an injunction to allow us to operate the stations while the court battle works it's way through the system. Not really sure whether I want a prolonged court battle at this time, but damn it, I'm tired of waiting for the FCC to get out of the way, so maybe it's time to try and force them to do something until Congress and the White House dismantle them. Stay tuned....
 
My problem with the FCC is they think that it is still the 1960s and not 2024 thinking that there is only 3 or 4 channels when broadcast is competing with Big Tech, that is what The FCC with the outdated rules that aren't going to save local as the 3 FCC members claimed in Dec of last year.
 
TheBigA said:
More groups join the lawsuit against the FCC ownership rules:

www.insideradio.com

More Radio Groups Join Legal Fight Over FCC’s Recent Media Ownership Decision.

The legal challenge brought by a trio of broadcasters to the most recent quadrennial media ownership review outcome by the FCC continues to pick up support from other broadcasters across
www.insideradio.com www.insideradio.com
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All those companies will only benefit in the sense that they'll take the money and run. If they were honest on that part I'd be much less cynical about this.
 
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