The Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council has also filed comments with The FCC. The group opposes lifting ownership caps because it believes it would only benefit a tiny handful of broadcasters which, over the years, have been able to acquire enough stations in a market to bump up against the local ownership cap or the FM subcaps. And raising the caps, according to The MMTC, would be at the expense of minority groups.
The MMTC’s 27-page filing says that a benefit for these few companies would come entirely at the expense of others who entered the industry late or have yet to enter—including nearly all of the nation’s minority, women, and aspiring broadcasters. “The industry urgently needs a steady influx of new entrants with programming skills tailored to meet the needs of our rapidly growing and diversifying population. Greater consolidation would suppress the development of the new voices the industry needs the most for its survival in the face of new competition.”
And while The MMTC recognizes, and agrees, that new platforms such as Facebook and Google are competing with radio for advertising dollars, the solution is not more consolidation. The solution is more diversity, more new entry by innovators, and more new voices.
Read the filing HERE
Where are the minority owners and small businessmen/women in radio these days? Let me give you a hint: Look at the pirate busts. The Telecommunications Act of 1996, with its frequency auctions and the feeding frenzy caused by the first lifting of ownership caps, has effectively frozen minorities and small businesspeople out of radio ownership. But tune around the FM band in New York City. If you hear a station that caters to a minority group (Haitian, Jamaican, Russian, etc.), chances are good that it’s a pirate station.
Tight ownership caps need to be imposed upon noncommercial broadcasters as well. Look at how the greedy octopus called the “Educational” Media Foundation has wrapped its tentacles around station after station in market after market, killing jobs and freezing the locals out of radio ownership while blasting its banal, canned programming across America.
Repeal the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and tighten up the ownership caps. Then break up the conglomerates and give the frequencies back to those who would serve their local communities.