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ROMNEY BAIN KILLED AIR AMERICA

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no lnx 11 24

alternet-

The end of left-leaning news?

'Maximum chaos and upset': Rachel Maddow describes nightmare election scenario

Thom Hartmann

November 23, 2024

Have you heard that Comcast is planning to sell MSNBC? Is Rupert Murdoch planning to buy it? Will America’s media landscape soon resemble those of Hungary and Russia?

Without the rightwing media juggernaut, Donald Trump probably wouldn’t be president next year and wouldn’t have won in 2016. That said, the progressive media landscape looks like it might be about to get a whole lot worse.

Comcast, which owns NBC and its subsidiaries CNBC and MSNBC (among other media outlets) announced this week that they’ll be spinning off MSNBC (among others) next year.

And the consequences are already showing up. It was reported this week that Rachel Maddow just took a substantial annual pay-cut because of the uncertain future of the network.

In part, this probably reflects a belt-tightening at Comcast, but is also an indication of how legacy media — which now includes cable properties — are taking a hit from newer digital media, from social media to podcasts to web-based networks and programs.

The principal analyst and VP of content for the market research company eMarketer, Paul Verna, told the AP that:

“The writing is on the wall that the cable TV business is a dwindling business,” and, the AP noted, is “predicting future consolidation of the networks or acquisitions through private equity.”

Private equity (like Bain Capital) and large media operation acquisitions have a long history of gutting media properties to increase their profitability; often this includes what a study by Stanford University researchers described as a trend to “substitute coverage of local politics for coverage of national politics, and use more conservative framing.”

Air America radio (for which I wrote the original business plan and which carried my program) was on the air in virtually every major market in the United States, having leased over 50 major, high-powered radio stations from Clear Channel.

My program regularly beat Rush Limbaugh in the ratings: When I was invited to the Obama White House following that election, one person associated with the campaign noted to me privately that they believed Air America had played a meaningful role in Obama’s 2008 election.

That same year, Mitt Romney’s private equity company, Bain Capital, acquired Clear Channel and, in 2009, began reclaiming their stations, replacing Air America content with mostly sports. By coincidence, around that same time it appears Romney decided he’d run against Obama in the next election.

As Air America lost station after station, its ability to earn revenue through selling advertising collapsed. By 2010, the entire network was bankrupt just in time for Romney to run for president.

Will the same thing happen to MSNBC? Stay tuned.

Similarly, Republicans in Congress are salivating over Elon Musk’s rhetorical war with NPR after the network stopped using Xitter when Musk labeled the news network as “state-affiliated” media.

As the headline on Fox Business notes:

“Elon Musk renews calls to defund NPR after clip of CEO resurfaces on X: 'Your tax dollars' are paying for this.’”

Musk, of course, will be in charge of identifying those parts of government or institutions funded by government which can be cut to help pay for Trump’s planned $4 trillion in tax cuts for billionaires.

While it won’t fit her proposed new role as UN Ambassador, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, a top member of Republican House leadership, was unambiguous, posting to Xitter: “I will DEFUND NPR.”

This is nothing new: Republicans in the House voted this past July to remove all federal funding for NPR by 2026; Musk and Ramaswamy, working hand-in-glove with Marjorie Taylor Greene (who was just made chairperson of the new subcommittee charged with implementing their recommendations) could probably speed up that timeline.

While NPR goes to great lengths to avoid political bias in their news (the Corporation for Public Broadcasting even hired last month, “in response to right-wing criticism,” multiple editors specifically to spot and stamp out any progressive perspectives that may creep into their reporting), if they were crippled, it’s safe to assume the roughly 1,500 rightwing hate radio stations in the country stand more than ready and willing to pick up their radio audience.

Rightwing billionaires brought us Fox “News,” Sinclair, two other web- and cable-based rightwing TV channels, nationwide networks of hate radio (now also in Spanish), tens of millions of dollars in subsidies to rightwing podcast hosts, and the destruction of about half the nation’s local newspapers.

Not to mention an entire network of billionaire-funded hard-right phony “pink slime” newspapers that pop up around the country every election year.

There’s no equivalent politically-tilted media systems on the left; Democratic-leaning billionaires have stayed out of the media space ever since Romney’s company took down Air America.

The closest TV and radio counterparts we have are Free Speech TV (available on the web, Dish, Sling, Roku, AppleTV, and DirecTV) and the Progress Channel on SiriusXM (my daily program is carried on both).

In the print media space, Substack is growing (although they also carry hard-right content) and provides a solid community of progressive publications (like HartmannReport.com), but that’s a drop in a much larger ocean; even The Washington Post and The New York Times don’t come close to the strength of editorial bias found in the Murdoch family’s The New York Post or The Wall Street Journal.

Publications like The New Republic, Mother Jones, The Nation, and The Guardian provide solid progressive content, but all have funding bases that are trivial compared to conservative publications supported by rightwing billionaire networks. Ditto for websites like Raw Story, Common Dreams, Alternet, LA Progressive, Democratic Underground, and Daily Kos.

As my old friend and the former CEO/founder of Air America, Jon Sinton, noted on his excellent “reluctant” Substack newsletter:

“The left-wing silo is barren. A couple of old line newspapers and magazines. MSNBC and a handful of smallish digital platforms and shows. Pod Save America stands nearly alone as a left-leaning podcast with a large audience.

“By contrast, the right-wing silo is vast and deep. It houses YouTubians, TikTokkers, broadcasters on Fox, Newsmax, Sinclair TV stations, and talk radio stations; posters on social media; and narrowcasters on myriad podcasts.”

All, I would add, heavily supported by rightwing billionaires. As Politico reported in 2014, the Heritage Foundation used to give $1 million a year to Sean Hannity and $2 million a year to Rush Limbaugh alone.

A close acquaintance who was, for years, a mid-level rightwing talk show host told me how a dozen or more times a year he’d give a speech at a random high school and would receive a check for $20,000-$30,000 by a rightwing foundation as a “speaking fee” each time. It was their way of supporting conservative talk radio.

Again, there is literally nothing like that on the left. Not even close.

I’ve repeatedly called for progressive billionaires to jump into the media space, and perhaps the Musk/Trump assaults that are coming will provoke some to act. It may be wishful thinking, but if it does happen it can’t come too soon.

In the meantime, we all must support (and share with our friends) those outlets where we find useful news and information; if we fail to, America’s media landscape may soon mirror Hungary’s and Russia’s with every station and publication praising Dear Leader 24/7/365.

NOW READ: The America-attacking Trump is coming for our military — and then he's coming for us

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/09/songs-banned-from-radio/

The term "political correctness" is often described by Republicans to attack liberals and progressives they view as hypersensitive, but Republicans have their own version of "political correctness" and ideas on what one should or should or shouldn't say. Right-wing political correctness was painfully evident in the months and years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and some of it came from the supporters of President George W. Bush who comprised the management at Clear Channel. Journalist Cheyenne Roundtree, in an article published by the Daily Beast on September 9, looks back on the songs that Clear Channel excluded following 9/11.

After 9/11, Roundtree recalls, "Even family-friendly Disney Channel played a part in hammering home the idea of nationalism in having a handful of its beloved child stars, including Hilary Duff, Shia LaBeouf, and twins Tia and Tamera Mowry, wax lyrical about the American flag…. It was in this same vein of thinly veiled propaganda wrapped up in patriotism that the country's largest radio company, Clear Channel Communications, now iHeartRadio, attempted to ban more than 150 songs from the airwaves across its roughly 1200 stations."

Roundtree continues, "Any song that mentioned airplanes was targeted, as well as war, death, and fire. The de facto ban seemed primarily to target rock, punk and heavy metal bands, such as Alice in Chains, System of a Down, and every single track by Rage Against the Machine. But relatively innocuous songs were included too, including 'Walk Like an Egyptian,' because of its references to the Middle East;the hopeful lyrics of John Lennon's 'Imagine'; Louis Armstrong's 'What a Wonderful World'; and Frank Sinatra's cheery 'New York, New York.'"

The Bangles' 1986 smash "Walk Like an Egyptian" is a fun, goofy song from the Ronald Reagan era — hardly an ode to jihadists. But as Roundtree points out, the very fact that it had "references to the Middle East" suddenly made it unacceptable to Clear Channel execs.

"At the time," Roundtree explains, "Clear Channel moved quickly to stamp out reports that it had issued a mandate that barred stations from playing these songs. But when the full list eventually leaked, top executives hurriedly placed the blame on those at the local level, calling it 'a grass-roots effort that was apparently circulated among program directors,' although the final compiled list, known as the 'Clear Channel memorandum,' was sent out by company management."

On September 17, 2001 — six days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks — Slate reported that Clear Channel's do-not-play guidelines included not only edgy heavy metal favorites like Metallica's "Seek and Destroy" and Ozzy Osbourne's "Suicide Solution," but also, Pat Benatar's 1983 hit "Love Is a Battlefield" and Bobby Darin's recording of "Mack the Knife" (an English-language version of a German cabaret standard from the 1920s). Slate observed that "many of the songs on the list are ridiculous in their tenuous connection to anything even remotely offensive to survivors of the September 11 attack."

Roundtree comments, "On the surface, it makes sense for stations perhaps not to play songs about death, airplane crashes, or anything doomsday-related out of an abundance of caution and sensitivity for freshly traumatized listeners — who had just witnessed a terrorist attack unfold in real time on their TVs. But in hindsight, it reeks of needless censorship."

Nora Pelizzari, director of communications for the National Coalition Against Censorship, believes that Clear Channel's post-9/11 do-not-play list went to ridiculous extremes.

Pelizzari told the Beast, "It's one thing to say, 'OK, we're not going to release a movie that depicts anything eerily similar to what happened on 9/11 because we feel now is not the moment when that's going to get a good response…But John Lennon's 'Imagine' was on that list. What's the justification there? The idea that we shouldn't be talking about peace, we shouldn't be talking about people coming together as one — that somehow that was going to be the wrong moment to be talking about that?"

Rage Against the Machine,a rap-metal band with a hard-left point of view, were totally banned from airplay under Clear Channel's do-not-play guidelines.

"It just reinforces this sort of nativist patriotism that is really troubling to see reinforced by private companies, because what it really suggests is that dissent is unpatriotic, when in fact, America is built on the right to disagree with the government," Pelizzari told the Beast. "We must be allowed to access dissenting views and opposing views to express our own dissent, our own confusion, our own anger, our own agreements. That's how our democracy functions. Disagreement and debate are crucial to thoughtful decision-making. In times of crisis, it's even more important to make sure that we're allowing dissenting voices to be heard."

August 4, 2015

Now advertising billboards can read your emotions … and that’s just the start

Andrew McStay, Bangor University

M&C Saatchi's new development signifies the dawn of a new age of real-time responsive advertising

facial recog microsoft

https://webbrain.com/brainpage/brain/E212D5AA-EEF5-535C-9D0D-27920B094E45#-9229

https://www.alternet.org/media/tom-steyer-you-want-trump-out-buy-clear-channel

thom AN

if liberal billionaires like Tom Steyer want to have a real and lasting impact on American politics, they should seriously think about buying a nationwide radio network.

Bloomberg reports that iHeartMedia LLC, previously known as Clear Channel, is “open to takeover talks.” It’s the largest operator of radio stations in the nation.

The simple fact is that if Richard Nixon had had hundreds of radio stations in virtually every city or town in America of any consequence, with all of them running right-wing talk nonstop, it would have been difficult to impeach him. If Nixon had had Fox News in addition to all that radio power, he could have safely and easily pulled an Andrew Jackson (who sneered at and ignored the Supreme Court’s order to stop the Trail of Tears) and refused to turn over his tapes when SCOTUS ordered it, thus avoiding both impeachment and resigning office.

As Trump may well do when Mueller’s final reports come out. (It’s probably not a coincidence that Andrew Jackson’s portrait now hangs in the Oval Office.)

Liberty Media made a $1.4 billion offer to buy 40 percent of the debt, and effective control, of iHeartMedia (it’s bankrupt and massively in debt because of a failed takeover by Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital, but that’s another story) and iHeart turned it down as insufficient.

But with just a little more money, a progressive billionaire or two could own a nationwide radio network with virtually 100 percent penetration, and restore progressive voices to the nation’s largest stations.

The billion-dollar-plus cost of iHeartMedia, along with the eye-popping profit numbers and immense political influence of billionaire Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News and Wall Street Journal, shows just how powerful and valuable the right-wing media machine has become.

Following a string of Democratic victories in cities and states where Clear Channel was leasing stations to Air America, the company was purchased in a leveraged buyout by Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital and Thomas Lee.Back in 2004 when Air America was rolled out, it was successful for as long as it was in large part because it could lease stations owned by what was then Clear Channel and is now iHeartMedia: we were on over 50 Clear Channel stations in the nation’s major markets, and drew very good ratings, even occasionally beating Rush Limbaugh and his ilk on competing Clear Channel stations.

Soon thereafter, Clear Channel began pulling Air America’s progressive programming off the air, dramatically cutting Air America’s audience and their advertising revenue; the new progressive network was soon bankrupt, and two years later so was Clear Channel (because of the debt load dumped on them by Bain’s business model), then reincarnated as iHeartMedia.

Meanwhile the right-wing media machine continues to elect Republicans with big funding from right-wing corporations and the billionaires that own them and fund right-wing think tanks. As Ken Vogel, et al, point out in a 2011 article for Politico, “The Heritage Foundation pays about $2 million [a year] to sponsor Limbaugh’s show and about $1.3 million to do the same with Hannity’s—and considers it money well spent.”

To the best of my knowledge, none of the talkers on the left has ever been funded in such a fashion. Small wonder that Hannity now owns a real estate empire worth tens of millions, and Limbaugh can brag of an eight-figure net worth or more. But more importantly, the influence of those two well-financed talkers has altered America’s political landscape in fewer than three decades.

Those of great wealth aligned with the left in America, however, have always largely ignored media, probably because they grew up in an America with the Fairness Doctrine and before the 1996 Telecommunications Act and they always just assumed that “the truth will eventually be known.”What this shows is that the movers and shakers on the far right, the libertarian billionaires like the Kochs, understand the power of media.

But investing in political media can produce both a huge return on investment, and can transform the politics of the nation.

That’s certainly what Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch thought when they lost an average of $90 million a year for about five years before the Fox News Channel became profitable.

Brit Hume noted, in a 1999 interview with PBS: “This operation loses money. It doesn’t lose nearly as much as it did at first, and it’s—well, it’s hit all its projections in terms of, you know, turning a profit, but it’s—it will lose money now, and we expect for a couple more years. I think it’s losing about $80 million to $90 million a year.”

But that loss wasn’t viewed by these right-wing billionaires as a “loss”—rather, it was an investment.

It’s what Reverend Moon believed, as his Washington Times newspaper lost hundreds of millions of dollars but spread right-wing perspectives that influenced the nation. It’s how the Koch brothers have referred to the hundreds of millions they shower on right-wing politicians and causes. And it’s what the people who started Air America Radio believed, although they couldn’t get big funders to understand the stakes.

While Rupert Murdoch lost hundreds of millions of dollars (Air America’s bankruptcy was for $14 million) in its first few years, Murdoch hung on and kept pouring in the cash. And it put George W. Bush into the White House, according to several independent analyses.

As Richard Morin wrote for the Washington Post back in 2006, asking rhetorically, “Does President Bush owe his controversial win in 2000 to Fox cable television news?”

The answer was an emphatic “yes!” according to academics who did exhaustive research into what they called “the Fox Effect.”

As Morin reported:

“‘Our estimates imply that Fox News convinced 3 to 8 percent of its audience to shift its voting behavior towards the Republican Party, a sizable media persuasion effect,’ said Stefano DellaVigna of the University of California at Berkely [sic] and Ethan Kaplan of Stockholm University.’

“In Florida alone, they estimate, the Fox Effect may have produced more than 10,000 additional votes for Bush -- clearly a decisive factor in a state he carried by fewer than 600 votes.”

The analysis looked at the vote from 1996 to 2004 in 9,256 American cities and towns where Fox was available on basic cable.

“They found,” reports Morin, “clear evidence of a Fox Effect among non-Republicans in the presidential and senate races, even after controlling for other factors including vote trends in similar nearby towns without access to Fox.”

The researchers added, Morin wrote, that, “[T]he Fox effect seems to [be] permanent and may be increasing.” And that was in 2006.

Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1786 to his close friend Dr. James Currie, “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.”

But ever since Ronald Reagan stopped enforcing the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1983, leading to an explosion of acquisitions and mergers, and Bill Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996, leading to an even more startling concentration of media in a very few hands, freedom of the press in America has become as much an economic issue as a political one.

This is problematic, because no democracy can survive intact when only one voice or political perspective overwhelmingly dominates any major branch of the media.

Literally hundreds of right-wing talk show hosts, both local and national, are broadcasting every day, all day, in every town or city in America.

Progressive voices, on the other hand, are few and far between; in most parts of America (and virtually all of rural America), the only radio signal that carries any progressive programming whatsoever is SiriusXM, which requires a subscription and special receiver—costs that are hard to bear among voters in the reddest states where Republican policies have destroyed unions and exported jobs overseas, thus leading to widespread poverty.

Jefferson made his comment about newspapers being vital to America just at the time he was being most viciously attacked in the newspapers.

The core requisite of democracy is debate. When there’s only a single predominant voice in the media, American democracy itself is at greatest risk, be that voice on the right or the left.

If Tom Steyer wants to see Trump impeached, wants to see a semblance of balance on our airwaves, and wants a positive, healing, life-affirming progressive message available in every town in America, he should buy iHeartMedia tomorrow morning…

This article was produced by the Independent Media Institute.

holdings http://www.cjr.org/resources/?c=clearchannel

hmmn

Bain Capital Owns Clear Channel (Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, Etc.)

By Michael Snyder, on January 12th, 2012

http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/bain-capital-owns-clear-channel-rush-limbaugh-sean-hannity-glenn-beck-michael-savage-etc

Wouldn’t it be great if a Republican presidential candidate could just buy the support of just about every major conservative talk show host in America? Well, it may not be as far-fetched as you may think. Clear Channel owns more radio stations (850) than anyone else in the United States. They also own Premiere Radio Networks, the company that syndicates the radio shows of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck, among others. Needless to say, Clear Channel basically owns conservative talk radio in the United States. So who owns Clear Channel? Well, it turns out that Bain Capital is one of the primary owners of Clear Channel. Yes, you read that correctly. The company that Mitt Romney ran for so long is one of the “big bosses” over virtually all conservative talk radio in America. Of course Mitt Romney is not running Bain Capital anymore. He is a “retired partner”, but he still has a huge financial stake in Bain Capital. We’re talking about millions upon millions of dollars. If you doubt this, just check out page 34 of this public financial disclosure report. So if you have been wondering why so many conservative talk show hosts are being so incredibly kind to Mitt Romney, this just might be the answer.

In the media world, there is a clear understanding that you simply do not bite the hand that feeds you. Some of the most prominent conservative talk radio hosts are earning tens of millions of dollars a year.

If you were making tens of millions of dollars a year, wouldn’t you be very careful to avoid offending your boss?

The deal in which Bain Capital became one of the owners of Clear Channel was initiated just a short time before Mitt Romney’s first run for president. The following comes from Wikipedia….

On November 16, 2006, Clear Channel announced plans to go private, being bought out by two private-equity firms,Thomas H. Lee Partners and Bain Capital Partners for $18.7 billion, which is just under a 10 percent premium above its closing price of $35.36 a share on November 16 (the deal values Clear Channel at $37.60 per share).

The deal was finalized in 2008. Today, Bain Capital is still one of the primary owners of Clear Channel.

One of the subsidiaries of Clear Channel is Premiere Radio Networks.

Premiere Radio Networks distributes a whole host of conservative talk radio shows. Everyone in the conservative world knows names such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck. Clear Channel also controls some other conservative talk radio hosts (such as Michael Savage and Mark Levin) that are not part of the Premiere Radio family.

The power that Premiere Radio Networks has is absolutely staggering. The following is directly from the official Clear Channel website….

Premiere Radio Networks Inc., a subsidiary of Clear Channel Communications, syndicates 90 radio programs and services to more than 5,000 radio affiliations and reaches over 190 million listeners weekly.Premiere Radio is the number one radio network in the country and features the following personalities: Rush Limbaugh, Jim Rome, Casey Kasem, Ryan Seacrest, Glenn Beck, Bob (Kevoian) & Tom (Griswold), Delilah, Steve Harvey, Blair Garner, George Noory, John Boy and Billy, Big Tigger, Dr. Dean Edell, Bob Costas, Sean Hannityand others. Premiere is based in Sherman Oaks, California, with 13 offices nationwide.

So do you think that any of those hosts is going to risk viciously attacking Mitt Romney and Bain Capital during this election season?

Not likely.

One of the controversies that has plagued Premiere Radio Networks in recent years has been the uproar over their use of paid actors to call in to their radio shows.

The following comes from Wikipedia….

Clear Channel, through its subsidiary, Premiere Radio Networks, auditions and hires actors to call in to talk radio shows and pose as listeners in order to provide shows, carried by Clear Channel and other broadcasters, with planned content in the form of stories and opinions. The custom caller service provided by Premiere Radio ensures its clients they won’t hear the same actor’s voice for at least two months in order to appear authentic to listeners who might otherwise catch on.

So perhaps that explains where some of the “Romney callers” come from.

There is nothing illegal about what Romney and Bain Capital have done, but it sure does not pass the “smell test”.

Conservative talk radio has the potential to sway millions of conservative voters in one direction or another, and it is just not proper for Bain Capital and Romney to have such an overpowering financial interest in conservative talk radio.

And yes, Mitt Romney is still bringing in lots of money from Bain Capital. The following comes from a Wikipedia article about Mitt Romney….

At the time of his departure, Romney negotiated an agreement with Bain Capital that allowed him to receive a passive profit share as a retired partner in some Bain Capital entities, including buyout and investment funds.^[62][57] With the private equity business continuing to thrive, this deal would bring him millions of dollars in income each year.^[57] As a result of his business career, by 2007 Romney and his wife had a net worth of between $190 and $250 million, most of it held in blind trusts.^[62] An additional blind trust existed in the name of the Romneys’ children and grandchildren that was valued at between $70 and $100 million as of 2007.^[63] The couple’s net worth remained in the same range as of 2011, and was still held in blind trusts.

In addition, Bain Capital and Bain & Company continue to pour huge amounts of money into Romney’s campaign coffers.

Just check out the following list of the biggest donors to the Romney campaign. These numbers come from opensecrets.org….

:{Goldman Sachs $367,200

Credit Suisse Group $203,750

Morgan Stanley $199,800

HIG Capital $186,500

Barclays $157,750

Kirkland & Ellis $132,100

Bank of America $126,500}:

PriceWaterhouseCoopers $118,250

EMC Corp $117,300

JPMorgan Chase & Co $112,250

The Villages $97,500

Vivint Inc $80,750

Marriott International $79,837

Sullivan & Cromwell $79,250

Bain Capital $74,500

UBS AG $73,750

Wells Fargo $61,500

Blackstone Group $59,800

Citigroup Inc $57,050

Bain & Co $52,500

As with anything, whenever you want to get to the real truth you just need to follow the money.

Earlier this week, Sean Hannity told Rick Perry that his attacks on Mitt Romney’s time at Bain Capital sounded like something that “Occupy Wall Street” would say.

Just the other day, Rush Limbaugh compared Rick Perry to Fidel Castro and rabidly defended Mitt Romney on his radio program….

“There’s no way you can try to dress that up,” Limbaugh fumed. “I don’t understand it. Well, politically I understand it, but that’s just absurd. It’s sad. ‘Cause I really, really, really like Rick Perry! I really do. I had such hopes! I did. I’ll tell you, I did, but all of this talk about “corporate raiders,” and as I listen to politicians start talking about capitalism, lights are going off in my head. “Maybe they don’t really know what it is. Maybe they’re under some misconception about what capitalism is, because this characterization of it? A distinction with venture capitalism and vulture capitalism? This bite from Perry doesn’t compute.”

Michael Savage has been one of the worst offenders of all. He made national headlines when he offered Newt Gingrich one millions dollars to drop out of the race so that Mitt Romney would have a clear path to the nomination.

When he announced this offer, Savage wrote the following on his own website….

“Mitt Romney is the only candidate with a chance of defeating Barack Obama, and there is nothing more important than that for future health, safety, and security of the United States of America”

So why are these conservative talk show hosts defending Mitt Romney so furiously?

I think now we know.

It is all about the money.

When you have enough money, you can get conservative talk show hosts to promote an extremely liberal candidate.

Yes, of course Bain Capital does not “control” what these talk show hosts say.

Yes, of course some of the talk show hosts toss some light criticism at Romney from time to time.

But they simply do not go after Romney like they should be.

The truth is that Mitt Romney is really a Democrat that is masquerading as a Republican. When you closely examine his record, he is very similar to Obama.

There is no way in the world that any self-respecting conservative should ever cast a single vote for him.

But right now Mitt Romney is running away with the race for the Republican nomination.

If Republicans can be fooled this badly, is there any hope for the future of the Republican Party?

bs islam rant: http://www.limitstogrowth.org/articles/2012/09/26/radio-jocks-suspended-for-defending-free-speech/

Armstrong & Getty is a morning drive radio show and television show airing in California and Hawaii on several Clear Channel radio stations. The call-in format talk show is a mixture of political commentary, observations on local, national, and international news as well as reflections on social issues presented with humor.

[hide]

The show:{:(style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px"):}:[edit:{]}:

Armstrong & Getty airs live on KSTE in Sacramento, CA. The show won Best of Sacramento twenty four years in a row.^[1]

Doug Stephan incident:{:(style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px"):}:[edit:{]}:

On July 28, 2010, Armstrong and Getty were tipped off by a listener that a fellow radio talk show host, Doug Stephan, had been stealing audio material from the Armstrong and Getty show, editing the audio, and using it in his show in an attempt to portray it as if he were speaking to their caller.^[2][3]

During that same broadcast, the hosts were able to speak to Douglas Stephan, himself, regarding the plagiarism that appeared evident upon comparison of the duo's show content and Douglas Stephan's "callers" some days later. Stephen never admitted to the allegations, but apologized, saying that the calls were misplaced and accidentally played on his Good Day show.^[4]

Notable facts:{:(style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px"):}:[edit:{]}:

In September 2008, both Armstrong and Getty were named to Sacramento Magazine's 100 Most Powerful and Influential list.^[5]

The duo emcees for various events in Northern California, participating in The Great Debate to "Get Out the 2006 Vote",^[6] and opening for a few of political commentator Michael Savage's live shows.

Comments regarding Sacramento:{:(style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px"):}:[edit:{]}:

In August, 2000, on their daytime show Armstrong and Getty discussed a *Time* magazine article on diversity.^[7][8] At the time, the Mayor Heather Fargo of Sacramento was allegedly "mad to hear the show denigrating that distinction (regarding Time's honoring Sacramento)" and attempted to rally support in opposition of the comments.^[7]

http://academi.com/pages/about-us/board-of-directors/john-ashcroft w/ clearchannels fdr

Billy Joe “Red” McCombs is a director of ACADEMI and the founder of the Red McCombs Automotive Group, a co-founder of Clear Channel Communications, a former owner of the San Antonio Spurs, Denver Nuggets and the Minnesota Vikings, and the namesake of the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin. He is a long-standing member of Forbes Magazine’s top 400 richest Americans and has owned nearly 400 businesses during his career.

Mr. McCombs is recognized as one of the leading automobile dealers in the United States. His career began in 1950, and since then he has owned and represented almost every brand of vehicle. The operations have included retail dealerships as well as importation and distribution of Japanese and Korean vehicles. McCombs Automotive ranked sixth in the U.S. in sales in 1998, exceeding $1.7 billion in revenues, with more than 100 locations.

He is also the co-founder of Clear Channel Communications, Inc. Clear Channel is the largest radio station operator and outdoor advertising business in the world, with operations in more than 30 countries. The company was sold to private investors for an excess of $20 billion in 2008.

Mr. McCombs has also worked in various leadership positions in his community. His family foundation gives over 300 monetary gifts each year to community, education and health-oriented charities.

He is married to wife Charline and has three daughters, eight grandchildren and two great grandchildren.

===

mm eric b: And it's Hannity who supposedly decided to walk away from Cumulus because the broadcasting group has fired too many people? Veterans inside the radio industry must still be chuckling at that one. The punch line stems from the fact that over the last ten years Hannity's bosses at Clear Channel have laid off thousands and thousands of employees. Clear Channel has pretty much defined itself by the ruthless way it has treated its employees and endless ways it's found to fire them; to strip down once-vibrant stations, run them on the cheap, and then often run them into the ground. There's a reason Clear Channel is known as the Evil Empire of commercial radio.

last vestige of free media is ownership, but b2 changed. clear ch and cumulus(dixie chicks) Michael Powell gave waivers to overages. corp get up to 45% of

nation viewers and can have paper, tv and radio in same city 187

rules done in secrt w/ only 1 public mtg led to protest (2.4 mil ltrs) . sen voted to halt, house about to but delayand lobbyists blocked vote; fed ct

rejected b/c of lack of "reasoned analysis" rfk2

clearchannel

Just as local taxpayers enhanced the value of Bush�s Rangers by paying $135 million for their stadium, Hicks and Ross Perot, Jr. got Dallas taxpayers to spend $125 million on a stadiumfor their Dallas Stars and Mavericks in �98. Tom Hicks heads the corporate raider firm Hicks Muse Tate & Furst (Bush�s No. 4 career patron). Hicks Muse long wanted to tap the $13-billion University of Texas (UT) endowment for its takeover deals. As Bush assumed office in �95, Hicks was confirmed as a University of Texas Regent and hired lobbyists to push a bill creating the UT Investment Management Co. (UTIMCO). With Hicks as its first chair, UTIMCO began doling out contracts to private investment firms to manage portions of the endowment. A scandal blew up when the media discovered that UTIMCO awarded many of these lucrative contracts to firms tied to Hicks and Bush�including one that former President Bush reportedly owns a piece of. The UTIMCO board doling out these contracts included Clear Channel Chair L. Lowry Mays and the Pioneers Tom Loeffler, A.W. Riter, and A. R. Sanchez. Ed Bass and Pioneer Charles Wyly owned two firms that landed some of these contracts.

Clear Channel Communications

From SourceWatch

also does billboards

http://grist.org/list/the-great-billboard-war-of-2012/

But Clear Channel, which apparently controls the billboard system in Chicago, was having none of it, and would not approve it. The company did, however, give its blessing to a sign from Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project, which asks, more tamely, “Who to believe on climate? Heartland … or EVERY National Scientific Academy in the world?” Zing.

Those anonymous billboards in Ohio and Wisconsin that equate voting with a possible prison sentence are coming down, to be replaced in some cases by new ones that say, "Voting is a right. Not a crime!"

After initially defending the billboards paid for by a "private family foundation," the advertising company Clear Channel has announced that it will take down the scary billboards. Their message -- "Voter fraud is a felony! Up to 3 1/2 years & $10,000 fine" -- has been presented now in dozens of neighborhoods of poor and minority neighborhoods across Ohio and Milwaukee. In Ohio, Clear Channel will then put up 10 billboards with the pro-voting message pictured above. In Wisconsin, Clear Channel will sponsor digital billboards that encourage early voting.

On a like note, after pressure from the Jackson Free Press and local lefties, Mississippi's Republican Secretary of State has added a message -- at right, in very small type -- on the state's website that says the voter ID law will not be in effect in November. The law has been put on hold by the U.S. Justice Department.

And in Pennsylvania, advocates for voting rights have sued over a state ad campaign that could make you think you need ID to vote in that state, when that hasn't been true for weeks now. One look at the ads going around, and it's easy to see what they mean.

Clear Channel Communications is the number one radio station owner in the U.S. "Clear Channel owns, operates, programs, or sells airtime for nearly 1,200 radio stations; it also has equity interests in 240 international stations. Clear Channel owns a 90% stake in one of the world's largest outdoor advertising companies, Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, with more than 910,000 display locations worldwide. In addition, Clear Channel owns or manages about 50 TV stations and sells spot advertising for more than 3,300 radio and TV stations through Katz Media. The company has agreed to be taken private by an investment group led by Thomas H. Lee Partners and Bain Capital." ^[1]

In August 2006, TheDeal.com reported that Clear Channel "is considering filing a formal petition to the Federal Communications Commission seeking to raise the caps limiting how many stations one company can own in the largest individual U.S. markets." According to the article, the company has 1,189 radio stations, but "wants the FCC to relax a rule that limits a company's radio station ownership in individual markets." A Clear Channel spokesperson said, "Easing the ownership restrictions will help level the playing field and let free radio compete with iPods, online music services and satellite radio. Certainly, seeing that satellite radio has 150 unregulated stations in every market and free radio is limited to just eight shows the apparent disparity." [1]

Contents[hide]

History

See the company's web site here for a chronological listing of its acquisitions.

Self-Censorship

Following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Clear Channel program directors issued a list of "potentially offensive songs" that it suggested stations not play. Many reports referred to the list as a "ban" on the songs, which included all Rage Against The Machine songs, the Notorious B.I.G.'s "Juicy" (which includes the line "Time to get paid, blow up like the World Trade"), John Lennon's "Imagine," Metallica's "Seek and Destroy," AC/DC's "Safe in New York," Bobby Darin's "Mack the Knife," Peter, Paul and Mary's "Leaving on a Jet Plane," andJerry Lee Lewis' "Great Balls of Fire," and "The Drifters' On Broadway."

Clear Channel spokesperson Pam Taylor objected to the list being called a "ban," saying, ""This was an effort to help people be sensitive to the unthinkable environment. It's been somehow turned into some sort of evil attempt to control pop music, and that's absurd."[2] According to the New York Times, "a smaller list of questionable songs was originally generated by the corporate office, but an overzealous regional executive began contributing suggestions and circulating the list via e-mail, where it continued to grow." The program directors at individual stations were able to decide whether to play the listed songs or not.[3]

Also, in 2003, "after the Dixie Chicks criticized President Bush during a London performance ... some Clear Channel radio stations pulled the group's music from their play lists."[4] According to the New York Times (March 31, 2003), "More unified were the actions of Cumulus Media, which owns 262 stations, and has at least temporarily stopped all 42 of its country stations from playing the Dixie Chicks."

Pro-War Rallies

The Clear Channel's activities go beyond radio. In March 2003, its affiliate stations throughout the United States organized pro-war rallies, under the name of Rally for America, to coincide with the Bush administration's launch of war with Iraq. "Experienced Bushologists let out a collective 'Aha!' when Clear Channel was revealed to be behind the pro-war rallies, because the company's top management has a history with George W. Bush," reported Paul Krugman in the New York Times. Although Clear Channel denied sponsoring the rallies, "they were promoted repeatedly by the company's widely syndicated radio personality, Glenn Beck."[5]

To counter negative impressions resulting from the post-9/11 playlist and "Rally for America" debacles, Clear Channel hired the crisis-management firm Brainerd Communicators. According to the New York Times (March 31, 2003), part of Clear Channel's damage control included an op/ed article by Glenn Beck in which "Mr. Beck described the [pro-war] rallies as a grassroots response to his personal broadcast call to 'Mr. and Mrs. America' to urge their local radio stations to hold rallies."

Breaking the Law

In their "Ten Worst Corporations of 2003" list, Robert Weissman and Russell Mokhiber report that Clear Channel has "compiled a record of 'repeated law-breaking' ... violating the law -- including prohibitions on deceptive advertising and on broadcasting conversations without obtaining permission of the second party to the conversation -- on 36 separate occasions over the previous three years."[6]

Bush Connections

"The vice chairman of Clear Channel is Tom Hicks. ... When Mr. Bush was governor of Texas, Mr. Hicks was chairman of the University of Texas Investment Management Company, called Utimco, and Clear Channel's chairman, Lowry Mays, was on its board. Under Mr. Hicks, Utimco placed much of the university's endowment under the management of companies with strong Republican Party or Bush family ties. In 1998 Mr. Hicks purchased the Texas Rangers in a deal that made Mr. Bush a multimillionaire." [7],

"In addition, Hicks steered a controversial scheme to use the University of Texas' $13 billion endowment for private investment. Among the beneficiaries were the Carlyle Group, the arms investment firm tied to both George Bush Snr and the bin Laden family, and George W Bush's controversial Harken Oil drilling project in Bahrain."[8]

Political contributions

Data released by the Center for Responsive Politics in early 2004 revealed that Clear Channel executives donated $42,200 to Bush compared to $1,750 to Democrat Presidential candidate John Kerry. Clear Channel's political action committee contributed 77% of their $334,501 in federal contributions to Republicans. [9]

In the 2006 election cycle, Clear Channel gave $492,250 to federal candidates through its political action committee - 40% to Democrats and 60% to Republicans. ^[2]

Lobbyists

According to The Hill, in late 2004 Clear Channel hired Brownstein Hyatt & Farber PC to lobby on "competition in the broadcast industry, media ownership and Federal Communications Commission oversight." Lobbyists working on the account included Thomas Hudson, "who served two years as chief of staff to Sen. John Breaux (D-La.)."[10]

In 2006 Clear Channel spent $2,520,000 for lobbying. $700,000 went to four lobbying firms with the remainder being spent using in-house lobbyists. ^[3]

Astroturf Pirate Radio

In 2005, to promote the formatting switch of a Clear Channel station in Akron, Ohio from "sports talk to progressive talk," Clear Channel launched "Radio Free Ohio" in a guerrilla marketing campaign. The New York Times wrote, "To the average listener, Radio Free Ohio has all the earmarks of pirate radio. For weeks, it sounded as if amateurs had been bleeding their voices into the broadcasts of stations in Akron, Ohio, owned by Clear Channel, the corporate radio giant. At the Web site www.radiofreeohio.com, there was a manifesto about "corporate-controlled music playlists" that took potshots at several local Clear Channel stations." [11]

"Radio Free Ohio" was outed by truly independent Ohio radio station WOXY, after a contributor to their online message board "learn[ed] that the [Radio Free Ohio] site is registered to Clear Channel, presumably as a promotion for an upcoming format switch at one of their Akron-area stations." [12] The Stay Free magazine blog then picked up the story, running excerpts of the "Radio Free Ohio" website, which was taken down on May 26, 2005. Stay Free editor Carrie McLaren wrote, "I supposed this isn't all that surprising coming from the company that pioneered the art of making generic, nationally produced newscasts sound as if they're local. ... I think of all this as good news: Clear Channel is so desperate to defend its turf that it'll even try joining the chorus of critics." [13]

Clear Channel later admitted they were behind "Radio Free Ohio." "Once we determined we were going to change the format, we tried to get into the mindset of people who would listen to this new station," said the company's Akron vice president and market manager, Dan Lankford. "Clear Channel, as I see it, is dedicated to entertaining radio and to getting results for our advertisers," he said. [14]

Clear Channel's Names Wisconsin Newsrooms After Corporate Sponsors

"Clear Channel Communications Inc. radio stations in Madison, Wis., and Milwaukee" are naming their newsrooms after corporate sponsors. "Starting in January, the news on WIBA-AM in Madison will deliver its report from the Amcore Bank News Center. ... About two years ago, WISN-AM in Milwaukee introduced listeners to its newscast from the PyraMax Bank News Center." The sponsorships are not exclusive and "will not impose strictures on the broadcasts." [15]

But a journalism ethics expert at the Poynter Institute said such arrangements create "the perception that the newsroom is for sale to the highest bidder." The Social of Professional Journalists' president asked, "How can you not wonder if a story about Amcore is told as tenaciously as a story about another bank might be?" The banks' news sponsorships come a year after revelations that 280 financial institutions used subsidiaries in other states to avoid paying Wisconsin state taxes. [16] [17]

Spin on Wikipedia

On February 5, 2007, a computer at Clear Channel Communications added a section on Senate candidate Al Franken's Wikipedia page to suggest that he plagiarized some of his writing. The edit was made anonymously but was picked up by the WikiScanner tool.^[4]

Executives

With 2006 pay:

Lowry Mays (L. Lowry Mays), Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, $4,910,040^[5]
Mark P. Mays, President and Chief Operating Officer, $9,311,996^[6]
Randall T. Mays, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, $9,282,382^[7]

Contact

Clear Channel

200 Basse Road

San Antonio, TX 78209

Phone: 1-210-822-2828

URL: http://www.clearchannel.com

References

↑ Profile, Hoovers, accessed July 2007.
↑ 2006 PAC Summary Data, Open Secrets, accessed July 2007.
↑ Clear Channel lobbying expenses, Open Secrets.
↑ "Al Franken Article History," Wikipedia, February 5, 2007.
↑ L Lowry Mays, Forbes, accessed February 2008.
↑ Mark P Mays, Forbes, accessed February 2008.
↑ Randall T Mays, Forbes, accessed February 2008.

External links

Clear Channel connection to the Bush Administration
Paul Krugman, "Channels of Influence," New York Times, March 25, 2003.
Brooks Boliek, ""Clear Channel pulls plug on 'vulgar' Stern", Hollywood Reporter, 26 February 2004
Maureen Farrell, "As the Worm Turns: Stern, Sully and the Bush Backlash", BuzzFlash, March 2, 2004.
Jim Hopkins, "Clear Channel execs donate more to Bush", USA Today, March 23, 2004.
Carrie McLaren, "Radio Free Clear Channel," Stay Free magazine blog, May 25, 2005.
Robert Levine, "Clear Channel in a Stealth Promotional Campaign," New York Times, May 30, 2005.
Steven Levingston, "Putting Their Names All Over the News: Banks' Sponsorship of Radio Newsrooms Raises Questions About Journalism Ethics", Washington Post, December 15, 2005; Page D05.
Ron Orol, "Clear Channel lobbies for change," TheDeal.com, August 3, 2006.
Jeffrey Yorke and Carol Archer, "Clear Channel Presses FCC To Raise Ownership Caps In Largest Markets," Radio and Records, August 31, 2006.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Clear_Channel

TP:

huffopo:

The important thing about today's Teabag Parties is that these are straight up grassroots operations,. Grown from the bottom-up by populist Dick Armeys and not at all by corporate lobbyists and political action groups and major cable news outlets. OK? And this grassroots movement just keeps getting grassier, too! Via the awesome Tea Party catch-all site Teablogging comes the news that one of America's great grassroots organizations, Clear Channel Communications -- a mom and pop operation that makes "radio shows" for the "AM/FM tubes" -- is going all out in promoting the Tea Parties.

An email to Teablogging from Paul W. Westcott, National Correspondent for Clear Channel Radio & Online Network reads:

All of Clear Channel Radio's 140 news/talk station sites are featuring "Tax Revolt" & "Tea Party" content from our station network.

We're constantly updating with video, pics and audio from our network of stations ....

I'm not a PR guy I'm a content guy, I just wanted to let you guys know we're going big on this today. Thanks!

They are GOING BIG, all right, and Teablogging has the screencaps to prove it.

Anyway, this isn't Clear Channel's first foray into astroturfery, having previously spearheaded pro-war protests, back in 2003.

Grassroots! [Teablogging]

Channels of Influence [The New York Times] = http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/25/opinion/channels-of-influence.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

scripted callers/actors from C&L/ CJR:

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/hmm-prominent-conservative-radio-host

Well, looky here! From the Columbia Journalism Review:

Well, here’s a shocker: Some of the people who phone in to talk radio shows (that caller with the pitch-perfect rant, provocative comment or burning question) may actually be hired actors reading from scripts. I’m not an angry listener, but I play one on radio!

Via Tablet Magazine:

If [the actor] passed the audition, he would be invited periodically to call in to various talk shows and recite various scenarios that made for interesting radio. He would never be identified as an actor, and his scenarios would never be identified as fabricated—which they always were.

“I was surprised that it seemed so open,” the actor told me in an interview. “There was really no pretense of covering it up.”

Curious, the actor did some snooping and learned that Premiere On Call was a service offered by Premiere Radio Networks, the largest syndication company in the United States and a subsidiary of Clear Channel Communications, the entertainment and advertising giant. Premiere syndicates some of the more sterling names in radio, including Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sean Hannity. But a great radio show depends as much on great callers as it does on great hosts: Enter Premiere On Call.

“Premiere On Call is our new custom caller service,” read the service’s website, which disappeared as this story was being reported (for a cached version of the site click here). “We supply voice talent to take/make your on-air calls, improvise your scenes or deliver your scripts. Using our simple online booking tool, specify the kind of voice you need, and we’ll get your the right person fast. Unless you request it, you won’t hear that same voice again for at least two months, ensuring the authenticity of your programming for avid listeners.”

Channels Of Influence

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: March 25, 2003

By and large, recent pro-war rallies haven't drawn nearly as many people as antiwar rallies, but they have certainly been vehement. One of the most striking took place after Natalie Maines, lead singer for the Dixie Chicks, criticized President Bush: a crowd gathered in Louisiana to watch a 33,000-pound tractor smash a collection of Dixie Chicks CD's, tapes and other paraphernalia. To those familiar with 20th-century European history it seemed eerily reminiscent of. . . . But as Sinclair Lewis said, it can't happen here.

Who has been organizing those pro-war rallies? The answer, it turns out, is that they are being promoted by key players in the radio industry -- with close links to the Bush administration.

The CD-smashing rally was organized by KRMD, part of Cumulus Media, a radio chain that has banned the Dixie Chicks from its playlists. Most of the pro-war demonstrations around the country have, however, been organized by stations owned by Clear Channel Communications, a behemoth based in San Antonio that controls more than 1,200 stations and increasingly dominates the airwaves.

The company claims that the demonstrations, which go under the name Rally for America, reflect the initiative of individual stations. But this is unlikely: according to Eric Boehlert, who has written revelatory articles about Clear Channel in Salon, the company is notorious -- and widely hated -- for its iron-fisted centralized control.

Until now, complaints about Clear Channel have focused on its business practices. Critics say it uses its power to squeeze recording companies and artists and contributes to the growing blandness of broadcast music. But now the company appears to be using its clout to help one side in a political dispute that deeply divides the nation.

Why would a media company insert itself into politics this way? It could, of course, simply be a matter of personal conviction on the part of management. But there are also good reasons for Clear Channel -- which became a giant only in the last few years, after the Telecommunications Act of 1996 removed many restrictions on media ownership -- to curry favor with the ruling party. On one side, Clear Channel is feeling some heat: it is being sued over allegations that it threatens to curtail the airplay of artists who don't tour with its concert division, and there are even some politicians who want to roll back the deregulation that made the company's growth possible. On the other side, the Federal Communications Commission is considering further deregulation that would allow Clear Channel to expand even further, particularly into television.

Or perhaps the quid pro quo is more narrowly focused. Experienced Bushologists let out a collective ''Aha!'' when Clear Channel was revealed to be behind the pro-war rallies, because the company's top management has a history with George W. Bush. The vice chairman of Clear Channel is Tom Hicks, whose name may be familiar to readers of this column. When Mr. Bush was governor of Texas, Mr. Hicks was chairman of the University of Texas Investment Management Company, called Utimco, and Clear Channel's chairman, Lowry Mays, was on its board. Under Mr. Hicks, Utimco placed much of the university's endowment under the management of companies with strong Republican Party or Bush family ties. In 1998 Mr. Hicks purchased the Texas Rangers in a deal that made Mr. Bush a multimillionaire.

There's something happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear, but a good guess is that we're now seeing the next stage in the evolution of a new American oligarchy. As Jonathan Chait has written in The New Republic, in the Bush administration ''government and business have melded into one big 'us.' '' On almost every aspect of domestic policy, business interests rule: ''Scores of midlevel appointees . . . now oversee industries for which they once worked.'' We should have realized that this is a two-way street: if politicians are busy doing favors for businesses that support them, why shouldn't we expect businesses to reciprocate by doing favors for those politicians -- by, for example, organizing ''grass roots'' rallies on their behalf?

What makes it all possible, of course, is the absence of effective watchdogs. In the Clinton years the merest hint of impropriety quickly blew up into a huge scandal; these days, the scandalmongers are more likely to go after journalists who raise questions. Anyway, don't you know there's a war on?

Self-Censorship

Following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Clear Channel program directors issued a list of "potentially offensive songs" that it suggested stations not play. Many reports referred to the list as a "ban" on the songs, which included all Rage Against The Machine songs, the Notorious B.I.G.'s "Juicy" (which includes the line "Time to get paid, blow up like the World Trade"), John Lennon's "Imagine," Metallica's "Seek and Destroy," AC/DC's "Safe in New York," Bobby Darin's "Mack the Knife," Peter, Paul and Mary's "Leaving on a Jet Plane," and Jerry Lee Lewis' "Great Balls of Fire," and "The Drifters' On Broadway."

Pro-War Rallies

Breaking the Law

Bush Connections

Political contributions

In the 2006 election cycle, Clear Channel gave $492,250 to federal candidates through its political action committee - 40% to Democrats and 60% to Republicans. ^{[2]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Clear_Channel_Communications#cite_note-1)

Lobbyists

In 2006 Clear Channel spent $2,520,000 for lobbying. $700,000 went to four lobbying firms with the remainder being spent using in-house lobbyists. ^{[3]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Clear_Channel_Communications#cite_note-2)

Astroturf Pirate Radio

Clear Channel's Names Wisconsin Newsrooms After Corporate Sponsors

Spin on Wikipedia

Executives

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/15/clear-channel-going-big-o_n_187360.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/tea-party

Cumulus media organized dixie chick

Clear channel pro-war

play for pay :

http://www.salon.com/entertainment/clear_channel/

CLEAR CHANNEL'S BIG STINKING DEREGULATION MESS

Eric Boehlert, Salon

Clear Channel, the radio and concert conglomerate, has been the greatest beneficiary of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which stripped all ownership limits in the radio industry. The rapacious company, led by Bush supporter Lowry Mays,

Lowry Mays delay

http://www.nndb.com/people/533/000052377/

has grown from 40 stations to 1,225 since then, and now uses its power to routinely bully advertisers and record companies, and more recently censor antiwar artists. However, as Eric Boehlert points out, its "success" may be the most powerful weapon in the arsenal of media activists. Clear Channel's stranglehold on the radio industry is the best and clearest example of the effects of rampant deregulation.http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15281

huffpo

Ever wonder why the right wing continues to dominate talk radio, even as it loses elections?

"Your Huffington Postpiece showed only the tip of the iceberg," a major talk-show figure e-mailed last month following my blog hereon Rush Limbaugh's empire being built initially by giving his show away for free to hundreds of smaller-market talk stations.

My veteran radio source, assured anonymity, added, "The main story here is vertical integration in the radio business" and the way the big urban talk stations get their programs.

Vertical integration: Precisely what the federal government has moved to ban in the television and movie industries with anti-trust actions. But the radio business has gotten a free pass.

Premiere Radio Networks, which syndicates righties Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, and Dr. Laura, among others, is owned by the nation's largest radio-station conglomerate, Clear Channel. Clear Channel, thanks to FCC deregulation, was allowed to gobble up over 1000 radio stations -- including 16 of the most powerful, (lower-case) clear-channel AM stations in major markets.

Today, Clear Channel either owns or programs most of the nation's 58 strongest, 50,000-watt AM radio stations, liberally stocking them with right-wing talk shows. Among them: Los Angeles' KFI, New York's WABC, Detroit's WJR, Denver's KOA, Portland's KEX, and Chicago's WLS.

Yes, Clear Channel does own liberal Air America stations. But none of them is a 50,000-watt "blowtorch." Instead, Clear Channel puts shows like Thom Hartmann's on its smaller, 5,000-and 10,000-watt "sticks" (antennas).

Clear Channel is more than a corporate name. It's also a radio descriptor: A clear-channel radio station is a powerful, 50,000-watt signal with interference-free nightly coverage 750 miles from its city.

Clear Channel owns 17 of those coveted licenses, and its Premiere supplies much of the programming to many of the rest. There are only one or two 50,000-watt stations carrying Air America's -- or any -- liberal shows.

Wherever Clear Channel owns a big AM radio station and other smaller ones, it always puts Premiere's Hannity, Rush, et al on its biggest signal. This puts liberal stations at a big disadvantage in virtually all large markets -- where the real radio money is.

"The prevailing assumption right now in talk radio," one talk programmer told me. "Is that you won't lose money on conservative talk. That could change, but it'll take time."

In the large metropolitan areas where Clear Channel owns station "clusters" -- usually five or more stations -- their sales force concentrates mostly on selling ads for the big, usually right-wing stations.

"If you can sell a 60-second spot for $200 on the big conservative station, or the same spot for $20 on the 5,000-watt liberal station, which one would YOU sell?" a radio sales vet told me during this investigation. Ka ching.

"You need a dedicated sales force for the Air America stations to succeed financially - one that sells ads only for that station."

There's no doubt San Antonio-based Clear Channel prefers pushing Premiere's largely conservative talkers: I once endured right-wing CNN hack Lou "Broken Borders" Dobbskiss Clear Channel founder Lowry Mays' butt for an hour while "interviewing" glorified billboard salesman-turned-broadcaster Mays during the keynote event at the National Association of Broadcasters' big convention in San Francisco.

FDR's Justice Department took the powerful movie studios to court in the 1930's in a major antitrust case to stop them from both supplying product to -- and owning -- movie theatres.

In the 1970's, the FCC imposed rules to stop vertical integration by the then-Big Three TV networks: It banned them from owning the shows they aired in prime time. (The so-called "fin-syn" rules).

But radio has gotten a free pass from legal action by the government. Which is the big reason why Premiere and its powerful owner Clear Channel have a stranglehold today on talk radio.

biz erors http://open.salon.com/blog/mick_arran/2009/07/31/clear_channel_limbo_wingnut_welfare_on_a_massive_scale

February 17 -- Malkin announces that there will be a protest in Mesa, Arizona when Obama is there the next day. "KFYI is taking the lead," she says. KFYI is the Clear Channel station that kicked "Goldwater Republican" Charles Goyette off for speaking out against the war.

February 18 -- Mesa Arizona "porkulus" rally (still no mention of tea). ," KFYI shock jock Bruce Jacobs says, pointing to Hispanic demonstrators. He hosts the event with fellow KFYI host, former GOP Congressman JD Hayworth.

**Third rally in Mesa, Arizona organized by right wing Clear Channel radio station and hosted by six term GOP Congresmman**

Drowning under massive debt and desperate to cut more costs, Clear Channel took an ax to its payroll -- again -- and hacked hundreds of radio pros out the door. Program directors, morning show hosts, production pros, news anchors -- all of them tossed over the side. A "bloodbath," one newspaper called it. (In Albany, New York, the entire on-air staff at a Clear Channel music station was sacked; same with a radio outpost in Exeter, New Hampshire)

The most recent blizzard of pink slips (one industry report pegged it at "nearly 1,000") came in the wake of a January purge, in which 1,850 Clear Channel employees were let go. So already this year the company has shed nearly 3,000 employees, or 12 percent of its workforce. Also, last week, Clear Channel's parent company announced it was suspending its matching contributions to employee 401(k) retirement programs.

Clear Channel, the conservative-friendly media behemoth with a soft spot for right-wing radio -- and which emerged earlier this decade as the poster child for everything that's wrong with runaway media consolidation (aka "The Evil Empire") -- is now hanging on for dear life. "It's a house of cards," radio watcher and Clear Channel expert Alec Foege recently told me, noting the company's crippling debt payments, which are due at a time when advertising revenues are vanishing. (Foege is author of 2008's Right of the Dial: The Rise of Clear Channel and the Fall of Commercial Radio.)

The power that Premiere Radio Networks has is absolutely staggering. The following is directly from the official Clear Channel website….

Premiere Radio Networks Inc., a subsidiary of Clear Channel Communications, syndicates 90 radio programs and services to more than 5,000 radio affiliations and reaches over 190 million listeners weekly. Premiere Radio is the number one radio network in the country and features the following personalities: Rush Limbaugh, Jim Rome, Casey Kasem, Ryan Seacrest, Glenn Beck, Bob (Kevoian) & Tom (Griswold), Delilah, Steve Harvey, Blair Garner, George Noory, John Boy and Billy, Big Tigger, Dr. Dean Edell, Bob Costas, Sean Hannity and others. Premiere is based in Sherman Oaks, California, with 13 offices nationwide.

One Wisconsin Now and theGrio have uncovered that the Milwaukee-based Einhorn Family Foundation is the "private family foundation" that funded controversial billboards in Milwaukee which warned: "VOTER FRAUD IS A FELONY! 3 1/2 years and a $10,000 fine." The billboards were denounced as voter suppression by Mike Wilder, director of the African-American Round Table, and other community groups. The billboards were put up in largely African-American and Latino communities in Milwaukee, Cleveland and Columbus by media behemoth Clear Channel, but the client remained anonymous.

The billboards were first put up around Milwaukee for the 2010 election cycle even though there was no evidence of any coordinated voter fraud in the state. They reappeared in September 2012. In between, Wisconsin passed a strict ALEC-inspired voter ID law in May 2011 that threatened to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of African Americans, the elderly and students. The law was found to violate the right to vote enshrined in the Wisconsin Constitution by two state court judges, but confusion over the status of the law and whether or not identification needs to be presented at the polls is still prevalent.

After increasing public pressure by civil rights groups, which included the online group Color of Change, Clear Channel (owned by Bain Capital) agreed to remove the billboards in mid-October, but the origin of the funding for the billboards was still unclear.

An investigation by theGrio.com and One Wisconsin Now, identified the Einhorn Family Foundation as the group that bought the ads. Stephen Einhorn, the head of the foundation and his wife Nancy have donated $49,750 to Governor Scott Walker since 2005. Stephen Einhorn is also the founder of Einhorn Associates, inc., a Milwaukee-based firm that provides investment banking services to chemical companies.

The groups also revealed that the Einhorn Family Foundation received $10,000 in 2010, right around the time the billboards went up, from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation "to support a public education project," but there are no other public details about how that money was spent. The Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation has spent almost $500 million on conservative causes since 2001. The foundation is best known for its advocacy for the privatization of public schools (so called "school choice" laws), but the head of the foundation, Michael Grebe is no stranger to politics having served as the chair of Walker's campaign committee Friends of Scott Walker and the leader of his transition team.

Clear Channel

Now advertising billboards can read your emotions … and that’s just the start

Contents

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http://academi.com/pages/about-us/board-of-directors/john-ashcroft w/ clearchannels fdr

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Clear Channel Communications

History

Self-Censorship

Pro-War Rallies

Breaking the Law

Bush Connections

Political contributions

Lobbyists

Astroturf Pirate Radio

Clear Channel's Names Wisconsin Newsrooms After Corporate Sponsors

Spin on Wikipedia

Executives

Contact

References

External links

Channels Of Influence

Self-Censorship

Pro-War Rallies

Breaking the Law

Bush Connections

Political contributions

Lobbyists

Astroturf Pirate Radio

Clear Channel's Names Wisconsin Newsrooms After Corporate Sponsors

Spin on Wikipedia

Executives

Attachments