From a Rolling Stone article on Aug 13, 2004 after the Dixie
Chicks situation:
Clear Channel controls roughly 1,200 radio stations and about seventy
percent of all live events that are promoted in the United States.
Critics say the company also has a political agenda, given Clear
Channel executives' close ties to George W. Bush and the company's
willingness to drop Howard Stern at a time when many media companies
are fighting for free speech. "If you don't realize that they've sent
a chill throughout the creative community, you're living on another
planet," says Howie Klein, the former head of Reprise Records. "Clear
Channel pretty much can dictate what they want."
There is no bigger company in the music business, and none with such
close ties to conservative politics. Along with Mays, Tom Hicks, the
former head of AMFM and a Clear Channel board member, was an investor
in the 1989 Texas Rangers deal that made George W. Bush a very rich man.
No other company in recent history has had so much power over what
the world hears -- and so few top executives with a background in
music. Several of the Mayses' friends and business associates say
that popular culture has never come up in conversation; radio-
division CEO John Hogan is a career ad salesman who says that he
prefers talk to rock, rap or country stations. Brian Becker, the live-
entertainment CEO, cut his teeth on motor sports and theater. One
former Clear Channel executive told Rolling Stone that at annual
corporate meetings, sales awards are given out for more than an hour
-- and programming prizes take up only ten minutes. "You're
controlling all this media, and what you're saying is, 'We don't care
about what's on the air,'" he says. "All they care about is moving
product."
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Tommy,
I'm sorry but to many of us the idea of one company like Clear
Channel basically owning the airwaves and being able to dictate what
American hears goes far beyond any of the concerns you may have about
the Fairness Doctrine. And for anyone to be upset at hearing an
artist speak his mind at a concert is rather absurd to me. That
artist has the right to say what they want and the audience has the
right to either agree or disagree; however, when a corporation pretty
much owns the airwaves from coast to coast and lays down the law as
to what can be said - I don't care if they're liberal or conservative
I think that's wrong. I'm against monolopies and this is a good
example of why monopolies are bad.
Clear Channel helped America push against the Dixie Chicks for
speaking their mind on stage - an opinion, which if shared on stage
now would cause very little controversy. I guess they were just
ahead of their time. In fact, many artists are often ahead of their
time, which is why artists should use whatever platforms they have to
push their opinion. It's just their opinion and people can agree or
disagree, but corporations (like Clear Channel) don't necessarily
offer someone the chance to agree or disagree they just force it down
your throat and in many markets there will not be any differing
opinions.
That's not free speech to me, it's propaganda.
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