Thank You Ronald Reagan

[spew]

...for deregulating radio and letting the free market rule
...for letting the big corporations do away with the local news and psa's and all that waste of radio time
...for letting the big fish own lots of radio stations so that local small businesses would go away
...and most of all Mr. Reagan thank you for taking away the jobs from local Nashville radio people and giving them to people in New York, Atlanta, Louisville, Charlotte and Indianapolis

 

[borderblaster]

Let's see, I have an iPod and your music station starts a federally-mandated ten minute newscast at 3pm. I can turn your station off in five seconds or less.

You should blame Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. If it wasn't for them we could still be playing 45s and open reel tapes.

 

[secondchoice]

...for deregulating radio and letting the free market rule
...for letting the big corporations do away with the local news and psa's and all that waste of radio time
...for letting the big fish own lots of radio stations so that local small businesses would go away
...and most of all Mr. Reagan thank you for taking away the jobs from local Nashville radio people and giving them to people in New York, Atlanta, Louisville, Charlotte and Indianapolis

Check your history:

80 90 came about during the Carter years.

 

[spew]

...for deregulating radio and letting the free market rule
...for letting the big corporations do away with the local news and psa's and all that waste of radio time
...for letting the big fish own lots of radio stations so that local small businesses would go away
...and most of all Mr. Reagan thank you for taking away the jobs from local Nashville radio people and giving them to people in New York, Atlanta, Louisville, Charlotte and Indianapolis

Check your history:

80 90 came about during the Carter years.

Sadly you're right. The deregulation started by Ronald Reagan in 84 FCC 2nd 968 was continued by subsequent administrations along with deregulation of banks, wall street etc and it continues today. Big corporations stompin out the little locals in all industries. Thanks Ronald for getting the ball rolling!!!

 

[jetfli]

It almost seems as though there wasn't a lot of cut-throat political debating involving radio until Docket 80-90, or at least that's when I came more aware of it. Seems like most anything the FCC sent down to Congress before that was rubber stamped. What started out as a bill to address issues surrounding non-coms ended up snowballing into legislation that did indeed pave the way for deregulation.

80-90 first saw life in 1980, yes, during the Carter years. It was the brainchild of a Democrat-controlled FCC. The debate around it became so involved and so lengthy it would be 1983 before it finally passed. Yes, by then, Reagan was president, and his appointed man Fowler was in place. But many at the time believed Fowler just wanted to get 80-90 behind him because it had consumed so much of his first two years on the job, allowing him to move on to items on his administration's agenda.

80-90 relaxed the spacing rules between FM stations so that more FMs were possible. However in 1992 (when the elder Bush was president) it was a Democrat-controlled Congress that saw fit to find a way to begin to change ownership rules, allowing companies to own more than just two stations in a market. This put the proverbial foot in the door that paved the way for the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which came under Clinton's watch (although with a Republican controlled Congress). The TA of 96 is then what opened the door wide enough to allow Clear Channel to go on its first big shopping spree.

So the truth is, a lot of politicians, both Republican and Democrat, have had their hands all over radio deregulation. If you want to look for a president on whose watch the origination of deregulation came about, you can go with Carter. If you want to blame a party for the origin of ownership deregulation, look to the Democrat-controlled Congress of 1992. If you want to blame a sitting president for the deregulatory act that busted regulation wide open, well that's Clinton.

But don't just pick up one fragment of the truth and rant on it. That schtick is already owned by Rush et. al.

 

[borderblaster]

No matter what had happened, radio would not have remained frozen in time in 1975. All of the other innovations, satellite delivery, T1 lines, the internet, Pandora, more advertising competition with online, Groupon, shopper publications, you name it still would have happened. We don't know how a combination of mom and pop stations (where you got paid minimum wage and all the car wash coupons you could eat) and bigger stations owned by insurance companies and banks would have survived and what they would have done, but it's likely it wouldn't be with live and local DJs 24/7 hittin' the post and 10 person news staffs. BTW, the FCC only ever required staffing for the purpose of controlling/monitoring the transmitter and someone to babysit the public file. The Feds never required Marketing Directors, Program Directors, Traffic Managers or DJs.

 

[spew]

So glad the Democrats were behind deregulation. They have been getting a bad rap recently as the regulators.

 

[w9wi]

It almost seems as though there wasn't a lot of cut-throat political debating involving radio until Docket 80-90, or at least that's when I came more aware of it. Seems like most anything the FCC sent down to Congress before that was rubber stamped. What started out as a bill to address issues surrounding non-coms ended up snowballing into legislation that did indeed pave the way for deregulation.

Not entirely sure I'd say that.

Clear channels were a big political issue for a few decades. Keep 'em clear so big stations like WSM can continue to serve half the country, or break them up so states without a wide-coverage station can have one.

TV instead of radio, but the VHF/UHF thing was a big political deal for most of the 1950s. Cities that didn't have VHF wanted it, stations that had it didn't want their stations "downgraded" to UHF. Can we "drop-in" short-spaced VHF stations? Should the FCC have the power to require setmakers to include UHF tuners?

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But the rest of it, fully agreed.