mediageek

Month: February 2004

  • In today’s Salon, reporter Eric Bohlert further deconstructs Clear Channel’s recent born-again decency: “But the pattern seems clear: Clear Channel turns a deaf ear to continuous complaints about its rampant consolidation and hardball business practices, but when Capitol Hill shows interest, the company springs into action. ‘They don’t want to be before Congress and they…

  • Hello New Mediageek Readers

    As it happens every so often, traffic to the site today is nearly triple the average, mostly due to people doing websearches regarding Bubba the Love Sponge’s firing and Clear Channel yanking Howard Stern off six whole stations. To those of you encountering mediageek for the first time: welcome. If you came here thirsty for…

  • Real Broadcast Decency

    With all this talk about broadcast indecency, such as the news that Clear Channel dropped Howard Stern from six stations today while instituting on-air decency standards, it gets me thinking about what’s really indecent, and what actually would be decent. You know what would represent real decency on the part of the big radio giants,…

  • FCC’s LPFM Report to Congress Says More Room for Stations

    Last year the FCC finally released the Congressionally mandated Mitre report that examined the reality behind the National Association of Broadcaster’s claims that low-power FM station would interfere with full-power stations. The Commission released the report only under duress–a FOIA request and lawsuit threat. Now the FCC has officially released the report to Congress along…

  • A Sacrificial Pig to the Slaughter – Bubba The Love Sponge Fired

    My pal Aj points me to this St. Petersburg Times article that reports Clear Channel’s recently fined shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge has been fired. Clear Channel was slapped with a $755,000 fine a month ago for a series of moronic segments aired on Bubba’s morning program that the FCC found to be indecent.…

  • FCC Tries Civil Suit To Shut Down Radio Free Brattleboro

    In an interesting turn of events, the U.S. Attorney for Vermont and the FCC seem to be trying to avoid bringing jackbooted federal marshals into downtown Brattleboro to shut down that city’s unlicensed community station. Instead, they have filed a civil suit against Radio Free Brattleboro and its co-founder. This comes a month after RFB…

  • Broadcast Indecency Enforcement Is Just a Symptom of Bigger Cancer

    In a Reason magazine article, Jesse Walker identifies the reason why I’m always uncomfortable with the FCC’s anti-indecency efforts: “You needn’t like Clear Channel to recognize that an FCC which revokes licenses and imposes draconian fines isn’t going to refrain from penalizing college stations and low-power broadcasters. ” Indeed, as I’ve noted before, this is…

  • Visit to Free Speech TV

    I’ve been in the Denver, Colorado area since Sunday, and had the opportunity to make a trip to Boulder yesterday, which is the home of Free Speech TV. FSTV is the first and only nationwide progressive satellite TV channel, airing on Dish Network, with some programming picked up and rebroadcast on public access TV channels…

  • Louisiana’s Corporate Whore To Leave Committee & Congress

    Republican Rep. Bill Tauzin of Louisiana is set to step down from his chairship of the House Engergy and Commerce Committee, which oversees telecommunications issues and the FCC, on Feb. 16, and leave the House altogether at the end of his term. Tauzin was a tireless friend to the corporate media and the entertainment cartel,…

  • Ben Bagdikian Updates His Classic Analysis of Media Monopoly

    Editor and Publisher has a quick note that a new edition of The Media Monopoly will be out in May, containing seven new chapters. Bagdikian has updated the book regularly since first publishing it in 1983. The saddest part of this process has been that in every update the list of media conglomerates shrinks ever…