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Clear Channel Clear Channel To find out what stations Clear Channel owns in your area see: While most U.S. media outlets have mostly avoided criticizing the Bush administration for starting a war in Iraq and for the way it has conducted the war since, Clear Channel has gone one step further. Stations owned by Clear Channel, the largest owner of radios stations in the U.S., have sponsored rallies across the country that they call "patriotic rallies." But the rallies have not been patriotic so much as they have been pro-war rallies and rallies against anyone who opposes the Bush Administration's policies. Former Federal Communications Commissioner Glen Robinson called the rallies "pretty extraordinary … like borderline manufacturing of the news." Why is Clear Channel doing these rallies? Is it just out of a sense of patriotic duty? Media democracy activists suspect there is more to it than that. For instance, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman reported on March 25, Clear Channel has close ties to George W. Bush and an ongoing interest in new Federal Communications Commission rules that would allow the company to expand further, particularly into television. Clear Channel not only owns over 1,200 radio stations, they also own billboards, concert venues, and ticketing agencies. Industry insiders accuse the company of using its clout to run an illegal monopoly that thwarts competition . They also say the company's way of operating its radio stations results in "crappy programming ." The destruction of independent radio also means, as Don Henley of the Eagles testified in a congressional hearing, "a recording artist has a much better chance of getting radio airplay if the promotional budget for a record is large than if the record is good. . . . This unprecedented control over the music industry by the conglomerates is hurting the music business and the culture." A Clear Channel internal memo reminds its employees that "THIS IS WAR. We will only get hurt by not giving people enough information at a time like this, not by giving them too much." But antiwar views and opinions apparently don't meet that standard. And as a result of its pro-war tilt, many well-known musicians who oppose the war(see Musicians United to Win Without War, are getting little to no play on the public's airwaves. The most obvious example is the Dixie Chicks. As another New York Times report explains, although Woodstock-era stations played "Give Peace a Chance," "Ohio" and other antiwar songs on a regular basis, "a comparable song about George W. Bush's rush to war in Iraq would have no chance at all today …. Independent radio stations that once would have played edgy, political music have been gobbled up by corporations that control hundreds of stations and have no wish to rock the boat." These stations have "sterile play lists" whose point is "to continually repeat songs that challenge nothing and no one, blending in large blocks of commercials." After the September 11 terrorist attack, Clear Channel issued a list
of 150 "lyrically questionable" songs to its more than 1,100
radio stations, asking the stations to avoid playing the songs. Clear
Channel at first denied the list's existence, but employees provided the
list to reporters. The
list included "Peace Train" by Cat Stephens and "Lucy
in the Sky With Diamonds" by the Beatles. For more see: Last Updated March 26, 2003 |
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