I’m a long-time listener to good (well-prepared, well-presented) radio.
I’m a person who appreciates excellence in broadcasting: good voice, good delivery, and good content—regardless of slant, subject matter or genre (news, analysis, humor, etc). Good “theater of the mind” should offer knowledge, useful learning—without preaching, proselytizing, or demonizing. I like learning and having my own knowledge challenged, broadened, expanded. I like respectfulness. Good radio respects its audience.
I abhor trash, vulgarity, carelessness; and unprepared, unstudied, intellectually inferior content. I abhor delivery in poor voice quality, unsuitable timbre, and delivery in nonstandard English language. I abhor rank amateurs (unprofessional broadcasters or podcasters), ignorant personalities and entities, parrots and rip and readers who spread trash and ignorance and pander to the basest and most ignorant element in society.
Unfortunately, that last bit reflects the caliber of iHeart and other concentrated media owners, employers and operators whose personalities and programming broadcast on radio in Metropolitan Rochester, New York.
I abhor trash, vulgarity, carelessness; and unprepared, unstudied, intellectually inferior content. I abhor delivery in poor voice quality, unsuitable timbre, and delivery in nonstandard English language. I abhor rank amateurs (unprofessional broadcasters or podcasters), ignorant personalities and entities, parrots and rip and readers who spread trash and ignorance and pander to the basest and most ignorant element in society.
Unfortunately, that last bit reflects the caliber of iHeart and other concentrated media owners, employers and operators whose personalities and programming broadcast on radio in Metropolitan Rochester, New York.
Takeover and Vulgarization
Orchestrated Decline of Radio BroadcastingUnited States Federal and Private Entities conspired in removing Rules and Regulations and proper Standards in Broadcasting and have thus Stymied all Possibility of true Excellence in Broadcasting
1987: Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Fairness Doctrine of 1949 (requiring that audiences be exposed to a variety of viewpoints) was repealed.
Before destruction of the Fairness Doctrine, broadcast license holders were required to present “controversial issues of public importance;” and to do so in a manner determined by FCC rules to be “honest, equitable and balanced.” (And clean!)1990s: FCC relaxes regulations on ownership of multiple radio stations.
Entertainment Communications (aka Entercom) in 1999 purchases 43 radio stations from Sinclair Broadcasting and becomes the fifth-largest radio broadcaster in the United States its ownership totaling “88 stations in 17 markets.”
Without broadcasting standards, shock jocks begin to rise and pander to pop and commerce and the basest of society: tough-guy aggression, vulgarity-driven, and culturally divisive.2008-launched: iHeartMedia owned iHeartRadio (aka "iHeart"), a “freemium broadcast, podcast and radio streaming platform”
2010-launched: Audacy (orig CBS Radio acquired by prev. Entercom 1968–2021, aka Radio.com) owned by Audacy Inc (launched 2010) ownership exceeding 235 local radio stations in the United States
2011: FCC rips the rules from the Federal Register and the decline accelerates with on-air personalities and their promoters’ pledging their allegiance to the recklessness that “anything goes.”
2015: Conglomerate Clear Channel Communications becomes conglomerate “iHeartMedia”
2017: Entercom merges with CBS Radio.
2018: CBS Radio’s corporate successor Entercom (turned Audacy, Inc.) enters shock jock genre
2019: iHeartRadio national umbrella brand for iHeartMedia’s radio network claims “128 million registered users” in the United States
Concentration corresponds with Decline in Quality Broadcasting
2011: 90 percent of United States media controlled by six companies
In the six is Murdoch’s News Corporation that split (June 28, 2013) into two separate companies: in News Corp publishing assets and Australian media assets; in 21st Century Fox broadcasting and media assets.iHeartMedia (formerly Lester Lowry Mays’ Clear Channel Communications) claims ownership of more than 1,200 stations.
BROADCASTER NETWORKS
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iHeartMedia |
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Cumulus Media |
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Audacy, Inc. |
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Reference Sources: Encyclopedia last updated February 2023
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_in_the_United_States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk_radio
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audacy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IHeartRadio
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_of_media_ownership
https://sports.yahoo.com/shaq-on-the-draymond-green-stomp-i-would-have-done-the-same-thing-155655039.html
All the “freedom” Talk among Americans (Particularly freedom of speech talk) is no more than talk.
Empty words.
To understand what these talkers mean by “freedom,” one has to look to their actions.
When Americans mouth (recite, mantra, parrot) “freedom,” they are focusing on themselves, their individual (self-centered) words, ideas, thoughts; that which is “possessed” or is believed to be possessed by them—in whatever situation they find themselves.
Their actions reveal their true beliefs.
Americans embrace an individual, selfish, notion of “freedom.” The notion of freedom that they subscribe to is a freedom intended exclusively for them and theirs.
Americans embrace an individual, selfish, notion of “freedom.” The notion of freedom that they subscribe to is a freedom intended exclusively for them and theirs.
In their minds, the notion of freedom extends only to them; and, contrary to any intelligent reading of the Bill of Rights under the U.S. Constitution (or any universal declaration of human rights), freedom of speech is not the inalienable right of all human beings, a societal right under law. They do not differentiate license and rights. (One can buy a license but should not be able to buy a human or constitutional right.)
These Americans do not understand the principle of societal responsibility; or that, by definition and design, a narrow-mindedly drawn or applied freedom of speech robs others of utterance, platform, freedom of expression.
Speech should not be the possession of concentrated wealth or of the loudest speaker.
Freedom of speech should not be a commodity subject to bulldozing by billionaires.
Freedom of speech should not be subject to commercialization or the buying and selling by entities or individuals capable of or interested buying and selling or cornering the market (denying utterance to others).At the same time, speech should be disciplined. It should be subject to and bound by proper principles and standards, rules and regulations.
Freedom should not presume, infer or permit anarchy or violence of language or action. The right of free speech should not be the private possession or domain of concentrated wealth or commerce nor of merger, force or belligerence.
Composition and Commentary excluding quoted material and individual images
Copyright © Carolyn LaDelle Bennett
Author’s links: www.BennettsAmericanEpitaph.com
https://www.facebook.com/carolynladelle.bennett
https://insightbeyondtodaysnews.blogspot.com/
https://www.xlibris.com/en/search?query=Carolyn+LaDelle+Bennett
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