Do ratings drive radio programs?

I’ll see if I can find it again, it was some updated interpretation of the ‘Fairness Act’ originally on the scene 20 yrs ago.

Update 6/28/07: The House voted overwhelmingly Thursday (309 - 115) to prohibit the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from using taxpayer dollars to impose the Fairness Doctrine on broadcasters.

I’ve always heard radio execs put the programs on that make them and shareholders the most profit - better the ratings, more the profit..guess program popularity doesn’t matter, strange - wonder why in other forms of media, ratings rule.

The issue here is not the radio or the ratings. This is an attempt to alter the constitution or set precedent of ignoring the document. There have been certain political figures hiding out and befriending the extreme right side of politics for some time now. Every attack at the laws that are protected by the constitution allows them to plant more of a seed of indifference to these proceedings. The “Patriot Act” was a huge victory for these people and it will only get worse.

It is much like visiting San Francisco and seeing the blatant use of “crack” being smoked and dealt downtown and seeing people react to it. Some people freak out, others just ignore the terrible scene for its commonality. (I just had to compare a senator to a crackhead just once.)

Killing a constitutional right based on morality will be the downfall of this society. We would be moving ages back into the past and into a much more segregated class structure that would be no better than any dictator driven country on this planet.

Hmm, someone seems to have deleted my latest replay.

So Jim Inhofe claimed to have overheard H. Clinton and Boxer discussing “fixing talk radio” the other day, then backpedaled and said the conversation was 3 years ago.

Clinton and Boxer claim that no such conversation occured. Considering that Inhofe is gong on what he overheard he could have missed the context and the other senators might have been joking. Why should we trust Inhofe over Clinton and Boxer?

The whole things seems like a tempest in a teapot.

amblessed, do you have a link to the proposed legeslation? It is pretty hard to comment on it without seeing more than keywords. Often there is more to a story than meets the eye.

The airwaves are not free; they are a finite resource that the government licenses use. Our government puts certain rules on use. Radio stations in exchange for use of the airwaves are expected to serve the public good. Until 1985 radio stations were covered by the “fairness doctrine” that said when covering controversial issues they must cover both sides in a fair and balanced manner. This rule applied to radio because each station uses up some of the public’s radio spectrum; it never applied to newspapers or magazines.

Many other limitations have been lifted from radio stations. There also used to be rules regarding station ownership to guaranty that there would be a variety of viewpoints available but these rules were eliminated in 1996. Since then station ownership has greatly consolidated and now the top 5 corporations own more than half of all radio stations in America. Corporately owned radio stations may present news with a corporate or conservative slant and continued consolidation will only guaranty that fewer viewpoints will be presented. Currently conservative talk radio shows outnumber liberal shows 10 to 1. The American public is not that conservative so it could be argued that these shows are serving their owners and sponsors rather than the public.

Like I said, I’m not going to comment until I see the proposed legeslation but it certainly could be argued that certain kinds of regulation of radio and TV my be reasonable to limit media consolidation and increase the diversity of views on the airwaves. The Fox memos show how a corporation can slant the news they present. Every day reporters were told what to cover, terms to use, stories to push or downplay. Should a network that goes out of its way to slant the news be given public airwaves for their purposes?