By Rick Kaempfer
The FCC came to town last week for a hearing at Operation PUSH about proposed changes to media consolidation rules as well as other topics such as minority ownership of media outlets. Our very own Rick Kaempfer was there and filed this report.
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I wrote a two-minute speech (the time alloted for each speaker), hired a babysitter, drove over to Jesse Jackson’s Operation PUSH headquarters, and by the time I arrived I was #170 on the list. While I was encouraged to see how many people showed up (it was packed), and how unanimous everyone was in opposition to this latest deregulation proposal, I could also do math in my head. As #170 on the list, at best I had a 5-hour and 40-minute wait, and there was no way I was going to get my time in. So, I listened for about an hour or so, and then drove home. Here’s what I would have said:
My name is Rick Kaempfer and I’m a 20-year veteran of the Chicago media community; as a radio producer and host. I’ve written two books about radio, The Radio Producer’s Handbook and a novel about the business called $everance.
Unlike most of the people speaking here today, I owe a debt of gratitude to the Telecom Act of 1996. Without it, I would probably still be working in radio, getting up at three in the morning, dedicating my life to writing and producing a local Chicago morning show with local Chicago content.
When the cutbacks started, and the local shows were replaced by nationally syndicated shows, and the salaries plummeted, I chose to leave the business. And I realized on my way over here that I’ve never formally thanked the media giants for giving me my life back, so let me say it now.
Thank you media giants.
My family appreciates your insatiable greed.
But I feel like I should apologize for even bringing up the last deregulation. As was pointed out in the Chicago Tribune, that’s yesterday’s war. The Internet has changed everything.
That is so true.
People who didn’t see or hear the information they needed from the deeply cutback radio or television news departments, or the rabid-foaming-at-the mouth syndicated talk show hosts, have messed up the media giants’ business model by abandoning the mainstream media.
And that’s just not fair.
The media giants can’t be blamed for overpaying for radio stations so much that they can’t make more than the 40 percent profit margin Wall Street demands. The media giants can’t be blamed for buying newspapers and TV/radio stations in the same cities hoping that the FCC would change the rules that have been in place for decades.
Sure, I know that these airwaves were given to them for free in exchange for agreeing to broadcast in the public interest, but how can they be expected to live up to that when they have to work so much harder at making money thanks to those people who brazenly disregarded the media giants’ business model?
Just because the overwhelming majority of America, left and right, north and south, blue state and red state, doesn’t want this further deregulation, doesn’t mean that the FCC should stop it. As my mother used to say, if “the overwhelming majority of America, left and right, north and south, blue state and red state, jumped off a bridge, would you jump off a bridge too?”
No I wouldn’t.
That’s why I’m on the side of all nine Americans who are in favor of this: the CEOs of the six media giants, and the three Republican members of the FCC.
And I’m not ashamed to say so.
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Rick Kaempfer also addressed Big Media in his January review of Eric Klinenberg’s Fighting for Air.
Posted on September 24, 2007