Different Frequencies

By Brooke Shelby Biggs, The Nation
September 18, 2003

Clear Channel is destroying radio. At least, that's the popular mantra these
days. Radio consolidation - which shifted into high gear with the
Telecommunications Act of 1996 and has been fostered by a pro-big-media
majority at the Federal Communications Commission - has resulted in the
Wal-Martification of radio. Across the nation, stations are being gobbled up
by huge chains like Clear Channel, which then monocrop their playlists. It's
the same fifty mindless cookie-cutter songs played in an endless,
soul-numbing loop, the same conservative talk shows, even the same deejays
doing the same shows for simultaneous broadcast in a half-dozen markets
nationwide. Jockeys are losing their jobs as the big chains consolidate and
centralize their work forces. There, in the distance, is the faint swan song
of independent radio. Abandon all hope, ye who flip thy radio dial...

(Long article at http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16804 )