I have to laugh every time I see the NAB beg for a government bailout of radio by overemphasizing the critical importance of local radio.
Radio is the least local it has ever been and the NAB is ironically the chief enabler of consolidators and their private equity backers who have ruined the industry.
Late last week, the FCC gave the greenlight to a Cumulus petition to allow virtual monopoly control of “local radio” by foreign interests.
This changes everything – obviously the failing consolidators would not go begging for money overseas unless it was their absolute last option.
We’ve discussed the deleterious effects of private equity owners on local radio, Main Street advertisers and declining radio jobs but the greenlighting of foreign financial interest in radio is an entire other aspect to reckon with.
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