The media reform group FreePress has a campaign called Change the Channels, and it is currently profiling our fair city, saying, “Peoria, Illinois is suffering from one of the worst cases of covert consolidation in the country; all five of its commercial TV stations produce just two distinct newscasts and are controlled by only two companies.” Those two companies, of course, are:
- Granite Broadcasting, which owns and operates WEEK (channel 25) and, through a local marketing agreement (LMA), operates WHOI (channel 19) and WAOE (channel 59)
- Nexstar Broadcasting Group, which owns and operates WMBD (channel 31) and, through an LMA, operates WYZZ (channel 43)
They go on to say, “This situation is unacceptable. Two newsrooms simply cannot provide Peoria…with the amount of local news coverage and diversity of perspectives that residents need to stay informed.”
Of course, most of this isn’t news to the residents here in Peoria, but they did have one other claim that I hadn’t heard before: “Three of those stations, WEEK, WHOI and WAOE, are part of an anti-competitive conspiracy that spans two states.” They explain:
Granite’s Shared Services Agreement with Barrington Broadcasters is a particularly outrageous anti-competitive conspiracy between the two companies. Each company owned one station in the Peoria market, as well as one station in the Syracuse, N.Y., market. In order to avoid competing with one another in both markets, they simply “swapped” control of the stations, yielding these comparable markets completely to their former competition. This shady deal cost more than 30 jobs in Peoria (along with 45 in Syracuse), destroyed competition and left viewers in both communities with less local news.
Note that phrase: “to avoid competing with one another.” Barrington Broadcasting owns WHOI in Peoria, and when they were producing their own news program, it was unique in the Peoria area, often including investigative reports and stories that the other stations weren’t covering. Once Barrington and Granite entered into an LMA, the reporters were fired and the anchors moved to a set in the same building as WEEK. Now the WEEK and WHOI news programs are nearly identical.
Granite is now in a dispute with the Peoria chapter of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) over contract language that would give Granite “jurisdictional flexibility” — something they could use to move the anchor jobs to their central broadcasting hub in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, for example. The local general manager denies the company has any plans to do so, but he won’t explain why the company insists on having the “jurisdictional flexibility” language in the contract. Granite imposed the contract, and AFTRA has filed a grievance.
The Change the Channels campaign is asking those opposed to these kinds of shared services agreements (which they call “covert media consolidation”) to write to the Federal Communications Commission and ask them to put an end to the practice.
The rules are supposed to protect localism, diversity and competition on the public airwaves, but in almost 80 markets across the country, these rules have been circumvented. Media companies have taken advantage of loopholes to covertly consolidate more than 200 stations, colluding rather than competing in order to cut costs.
As a result, communities are getting less local news than ever before. When the exact same news is aired on several stations, fewer stories told, fewer viewpoints are presented, and the public airwaves are wasted on copycat broadcasts.
This is all stupid nonsense. First, none of these operational agreements can go through without FCC scrutiny. These deals are not covert, they are well-publicized, above board, within FCC rules/regs and very common. The first of these occurred 20 years or more ago. In many larger markets, the consolidated stations can be co-owned. In smaller markets such as Peoria, the ownership must remain separate. Remember that The Peoria Journal Star is the combination of two separate newspapers, The Journal and The Star. Peoria used to have two separate newspapers, now only one. The 20 local radio stations are owned by two or three companies….where is the outrage over that??
One must take into account the literally thousands of Internet news voices out there as part of the mix, and the hundreds of cable channels providing news and information that were not available just a few years ago. This is not heinous or threatening, consolidation is the normal course of a mature business model. This is mere junk from organizations like the Free Press who are misinformed and stuck looking in the rear view mirror of their VW Bug convertible.
Sorry Sampson but I agree. These stations no longer operate in the public interest, convenience and necessity. The FCC is complicit, allowing them to skate on their responsibilities. Shame.
And if these guys wanted to serve their communities, they wouldn’t have “paid programming” on for what seems like 1/2 the day.
Vonster,
First, the FCC rules are set up to allow for these operational agreements and were first set up by the Clinton administration. It was a Democratic FCC that allowed for this. Further, you cannot will a company to stay in business to protect a voice. If these deals did not exist, many stations would already be unable to provide local news, or go off the air completely. That is why consolidation will continue. If regulations go against it, many broadcast stations will go away, simple fact. As far as infomercials, broadcast stations still offer their signals for free, over the air. Commercials and infomercial programming continues to allow for free over the air signals to operate. If you don’t like them, you need not watch them.
Sampson: I call bullshit.
“There’s no question that traditional media are suffering due to increased competition, shifting advertising dollars, and the sexy appeal of companies like Google and YouTube. So why would private equity groups jump on a company like Clear Channel if the traditional business is in decline?
The fact is radio stations can still generate as much as 40-60 cents in profit margins on the dollar. Sure, there is Internet radio, Satellite radio, and podcasting–but they have years to go to reach any sort of parity with traditional radio.”
http://www.glgroup.com/News/Radio-still-generates-good-profit-margins-but-Wall-Street-not-excited-6452.html
The idea that media companies are not HUGE money making ventures is provably false.
Sampson: Are you sure you’re not really Mark DeSantis? If not, you ought to be.
Amen.
Did you hear that? “It happened under Clinton with a Democrat FCC so it must be OK.”
[rolls eyes]
For once, I agree with you, Vonster. {rolls eyes]
And what would be wrong if some of these stations went out of business? It might just open up the license for other innovative stations. Having 1 station holding 2 licenses is not in the public interest.
Bingo. They make it sound as if NO ONE ELSE would buy their license were they not allowed to rape the public. Let them fail.