We're way beyond the slippery slope. We're heading to the abyss. Rob Reiner

[calimary]

31. And that aggressive media shopping spree changed the information calculus.

Last edited Thu May 24, 2018, 08:42 PM - Edit history (1)

This allowed these corporate giants to cobble together networks. That begat a frenzy of syndication companies that would pump out Howard Stern and Don Imus and Limbaugh and a handful of others in timeslots serving every little town in America - where listeners didn’t consider that the rude funny dude or loud in-yet-face grumper saying all those things that you felt but didn’t have the nerve to say in public (cuz it wasn’t “PC”).

For folks like me, it meant watching friends get laid off and sometimes entire departments get drastically cut back to save money. Which was because the owners’ eyes were bigger than their stomachs and they acquired WAY more than they could pay for. Big companies went bankrupt. That means MORE firings and layoffs and cutbacks as the staff had to absorb the brunt of the owners’ greedy idiocy.

When I was still working, ownership was restricted to THREE. Period. Could be three radio stations; or an AM, an FM, and a TV station, but no more. And you had to prove you were responsive to your community’s needs and issues and wants, through an active outreach procedure called “ascertainment”.

That was a management obligation to reach out to community leaders of all stripes and ask them what THEY thought were the critical issues facing the community. And you’d fill out a form with their names, credentials, and their responses. That somewhat tedious job most often fell to us news directors and public affairs directors. And we’d do those interviews and fill out those forms and submit the forms to the front office to file in huge binders that were kept open to public inspection at all times. Important to have for license renewal which came around at regular intervals. Personally, all told, I must have done hundreds of them. Then we’d “respond” to those interview comments by developing programs - public affairs interview shows mainly - to present discussion of those issues on the air. Usually offered another opportunity for another ascertainment interview and another completed ascertainment form for that big ol’ binder in the front office.

That “prove you’re worthy to hold that broadcast license” rule also went on the scrap heap at the same time.