Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 23, 1995 TAG: 9507210020
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: F-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: F.J. GALLAGHER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Perhaps more significant to Benchmark is that in all of those markets it has a "duopoly." That is, it owns at least two stations in each community.
Until a few years ago, duopolies were not legal. But on March 12, 1992, the Federal Communications Commission changed the rules of the broadcasting game, allowing a single owner to hold more than one station in the same market, increasing the number of stations that one individual may own in radio, television or a combination of the two. If congressional Republicans have their way, regulations will be relaxed even further. In fact, legislation is working its way through the House and the Senate with the goal of virtually eliminating ownership restrictions of any sort.
Officials at Benchmark were pleased by their acquisition for obvious reasons: They effectively eliminated a competitor for the finite amount of advertising dollars in the market.
"The radio industry is consolidating," Benchmark general partner Bruce Spector said of the purchase. "This is happening all over the country."
Spector is right, but only partially so.
Consolidation in the media goes way beyond radio. It is happening everywhere in every medium; increasingly, because of corporate mergers, takeovers and acquisitions, Americans are getting their entertainment, news and information from a dwindling number of sources.
But even as the number of controlling owners declines, the very nature of the media is changing. The personal computer, combined with the modem and the telephone, has challenged the traditional definition of the word. Yet, in this area, too, consolidation is the norm.
If the current course of events continues, media analysts say, it is not hard to imagine the day when a single massive corporation will control the flow of news and entertainment in the United States by virtue of ownership. And if one looks carefully at recent events, it is obvious that huge strides have been made in that direction.
Ben Bagdikian, a former assistant managing editor at The Washington Post and a professor emeritus at the University of California Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, studies consolidation within the media. And he is none too pleased by what he finds.
"What we're seeing," Bagdikian said by telephone, "is very near a monopoly in small communities. Localism begins to disappear. Sooner or later, it will be a nationalized system, and we will lose something that is peculiar to the United States: a network of stations across the country that reflect the identities of their communities."
In 1983, Bagdikian wrote "Media Monopoly," detailing the concentration of media ownership that had occurred in this country during the previous 25 years. He estimated then that there were approximately 25,000 media outlets in the United States, including newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations, book publishers and movie studios, with the vast majority of these controlled by just 50 corporations.
Things have changed since Bagdikian published his book, said Matt MacAllister, an assistant professor of communications studies at Virginia Tech. For example, Time Inc. merged with Warner Communications. Other major media outlets changed hands. Witness General Electric Co.'s purchase of NBC. Other examples abound. Twelve years later, those 50 corporations mentioned by Bagdikian have dwindled to 23.
And arguably, MacAllister said, because of corporate emphasis on the bottom line or the quick profit, the diversity and quality of the media offerings available to Americans has diminished correspondingly.
For example, MacAllister said, General Electric is a major player in the defense industry. What happens if an NBC reporter uncovers a story that implicates GE in some way as being less than honest in its dealings with the federal government? Would the story get reported accurately and fairly, or would it instead get its own spin, one that paints GE in a much more favorable light?
If the past is any guide, Bagdikian wrote, the favorable spin is the more likely scenario. That's because in 1987, when the stock market crashed, GE's chief executive officer placed a call to the head of NBC's news department and told him to refrain from using language in newscasts that might cause GE's stock to decline in value. One has to wonder if similar calls have been made by corporate executives regarding how other matters were reported.
Yet, as the number of voices in the chorus of American media continues to decrease, many believe technology and all its seductive charm, particularly desktop publishing and the Internet, will appear as the savior in the individual's battle for access to information free from corporate control.
And indeed, computers and laser printers have put professional-quality design elements and the ability to present them on a large scale within the reach of many, and truly the pen is mightier than the sword.
But only if the pen has a better distribution deal.
F.J. Gallagher is a media junkie and a summer intern at The Roanoke Times. Come September, he'll be a senior at the University of Maine.
by CNB