Deregulation of Radio and The Disaster That Followed

[BobbyTbone]

Many of us have fond memories of radio "the way it used to be." Not only in Oklahoma City, Tulsa, and other major cities, but small markets all over our state and country. I'm writing this to not only remind those of us who remember these better days, but for young people who never knew it any other way than the greedy and soulless way radio ownership is today.

Often wrongly attributed to Jimmy Carter, whose FCC only wanted mild changes, the deregulation of radio under President Reagan and his FCC Chairman Mark Fowler, has been a disaster.

It all began with FCC Order 84 FCC (2nd) 968 after FCC report 81-17 ("In The Matter Of Deregulation of Radio") written on January 21, 1981. And it destroyed radio as we once knew it. "Market forces" became the catch-word.

Before Deregulation:

- Radio stations were required to offer real and substantial community programing. That went out the door.

- Owners knew when they bought a radio station that the station was theirs for X number of years. No business flipping, no corporate consolidation, it was theirs for at least ten years.

- Abolition of FCC guidelines on maximum commercial time.

- The elimination of ownership station caps in any one market. This led to the biggest "land grab" in the history of the industry.

- All of the above - and much more - resulted in money and greed becoming the driving force in radio. No longer were radio stations bought by broadcasters who simply loved the business. Further into deregulation, station values falsely skyrocketed and allowed only the wealthiest corporations to play the game - most who couldn't give two hoots about broadcasting or good programming, but only how fast they could jack the ratings and unload at a great profit.

- Once never given a thought for purchase, the big boys started buying small market radio on speculation and destroyed small market radio in a flash.

- The once powerful AFTRA (American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) that negotiated fair compensation for disc jockeys in many of our biggest cities, became more of a toothless "association" than an equal advocate to negotiate with with owners.

- And then, "the consolidation".....staid cookie-cutter radio was the result......the rest is history.... and it was the end of an era.

R.I.P. to the independent radio stations that many of us remember were owned by true broadcasters and nurtured with love (or at least sound business sense) instead of dollars, dollars and more dollars.

The deregulation of radio continues to haunt us --- just turn on the radio.

Thanks for reading.

Bob T.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

I hope this can become an ongoing thread that helps us all wrap our arms around change.

Many of us have this want and need to let it be known that we miss what radio once was. Unfortunately, you may have over-simplified what has caused radio to change.

The entire blooming civilization is changing. Small town America is no longer dominated by owner-operated single location retail operations. Walmart has arrived. Wendys and Taco Bell and other food chains have arrived and "Maude's Diner" is more or less gone. The Internet has arrived and we now have high-speed full-time connections... not the dial-up connection where maybe once a day we would download e-mail. How many times per day do you check your favorite on-line sources today?

Even you local car dealership may be part of a national chain today.

Take a look at churches: many of us grew up going to a one-room frame-building church with a pot-bellied wood-burning stove for heat. An out of tune piano. A paper back song-book published by Stamps Baxter. Today even little county seat towns have a smaller version of The Mega Church. A worship bank with more electronics on stage than the typical radio station had in the era you are yearning for. You think radio has changed? Look how theology openly proclaimed in small town America has changed from 30 and 40 years ago.

The genie is out of the bottle. We can argue that the government changed broadcasting rules in the wrong way, or on the wrong time frame, but I suggest to you that even without regulatory changes, the business culture, the social culture, the religious culture of our nation was eventually going to force radio to change.... whether the government made it change or not.

 

[TheBigA]

I think you're being selective in your view of radio history.

The fact is that there was a series of FCC decisions, coupled with a series of technical innovations, that changed radio. It happened over a long period of time, not just in 1981 or 1996. Some decisions go back to the 70s. Cutting back clear channel AMs and the growth of FM really hurt the popularity of radio. Certainly Docket 80-90 did a lot to disrupt the radio environment. Too many radio stations drove down shares and spot prices. Then the growth of alternative sources of music, from the Walkman to the mp3 player, changed the marketplace, and gave listeners the chance to program their own stations.

If you stand back and look at radio in the context of all comparable industries, it's been about consolidation and change. Look at the music business. They started to consolidate in the 80s. The major labels first destroyed small local labels, and then got sold to foreign conglomerates. Radio in the early 90s was at a disadvantage when dealing with these major labels. They realized they needed to band together to have more power. They did. Now those foreign labels are using Congress to pass a new performance royalty that they hope will take as much as 50% of radio's revenues.

The electronics industry has consolidated and is now united against innovative radio devices or incorporating radio in cell phones or other devices. They're putting all their focus in transitioning the public from portable radios to cell phones because profit margins are better. The telecom industry, the main beneficiary of the 1996 Act, is also driving radio listeners to devices that use their exclusive spectrum rather than the free radio waves.

I feel it's wrong for radio to be forced to operate as though nothing else has changed. For radio to compete in a world filled with consolidated industries, radio needs to operate from an equal position of strength. The reality is that it won't go back to the way it was. You just have to live with that. What those of us who still work in the industry need to do is figure out how to compete today, with everyone else organized against us.