When you live in a smaller media market like Champaign-Urbana, IL there doesn’t tend to be much press coverage on media ownership. We’ve only got one daily newspaper that doesn’t have radio or TV column, and is itself the owner of two local radio stations. Even the university students’ independent newspaper itself owns a radio station. So, the issue only seems to come up when a property gets bought or sold.
I’ve written on the topic for our IMC’s monthly newspaper and website, and now I think it’s time to bring it to the airwaves. With the help of radioshow producer Drew Tarico, we’ll be laying out who own’s what in Champaign-Urbana, and also looking at questions like:
- who they are
- where they’re located
- what else they own
- and what they plan to do…
The program airs this Friday at 5:30 PM on community radio WEFT 90.1 FM.
This will also be our first pledge drive show, and so I’m really not sure how much ground we’ll be able to cover. We’ll start with radio and newspapers, and go from there. So this may well be a two-parter.
Of course, the program will be archived after it airs.
Even if you don’t like in the Champaign-Urbana area and don’t care much about our media ownership, I hope that perhaps this effort inspires you to check into who own’s your local media. The answers may surprise you.