7 Ways White Corporate America Killed Black Radio

Like the talking drum, Black radio has long been a crucial way for Black people to communicate, to hear the latest music, to share passions and outrage about the latest outrageous news stories. But in the last couple of decades, Black radio has been devastated by a host of developments, leaving very few stations standing that still deliver the same kind of scintillating radio that used to keep Black ears glued to the radio. So what happened?

Blame It on Bill Clinton The 1996 Telecom Act was the beginning of the end for Black-owned and Black-formatted radio stations. Backed by President Clinton, the Telecom Act lifted ownership limits and, under the guise of promoting competition in the communications market, ushered in a new era of corporate ownership and deregulation, allowing huge companies to gobble up stations across the country. As a result, local programming, news, music and voices have been systematically homogenized, and Black radio’s microphone has been muted. While Clinton, at a glitzy signing ceremony, predicted that the act would produce more competition, more diversity of viewpoints, lower prices for consumers and more wealth and jobs for the economy, instead the public got more media concentration, less diversity and higher prices.

The Corporatizing of Radio Stations Disproportionately Affected Black Radio When radio stations went from being Black-owned, serving local communities, to being a part of corporations that serve stock holders instead of listeners, the impulse to serve local communities was quickly discarded. Just six years after the Telecommunications Act went into effect, two companies, Clear Channel and Via

com, owned two-thirds of the country’s radio stations — with Clear Channel quickly going from 40 stations to 1,240 stations, 30 times more than Congressional regulation previously allowed. In many cities, virtually overnight Black radio stations ceased to exist, with the familiar Black spot on the dial changing format to sports or even country music. In the years immediately after deregulation, more than 10,000 radio employees lost their jobs, according to a report by Common Cause.

The Corporatizing of Radio Stations Disproportionately Affected Black Radio When radio stations went from being Black-owned, serving local communities, to being a part of corporations that serve stock holders instead of listeners, the impulse to serve local communities was quickly discarded. Just six years after the Telecommunications Act went into effect, two companies, Clear Channel and Viacom, owned two-thirds of the country’s radio stations — with Clear Channel quickly going from 40 stations to 1,240 stations, 30 times more than Congressional regulation previously allowed. In many cities, virtually overnight Black radio stations ceased to exist, with the familiar Black spot on the dial changing format to sports or even country music. In the years immediately after deregulation, more than 10,000 radio employees lost their jobs, according to a report by Common Cause.

Eroded the Role Black Radio Stations Played in the Community
Even with most of the stations being owned by a handful of white corporations, whites are still offered the entire political and social spectrum on their radio dial — from Pacifica to Rush Limbaugh, with NPR and all-news radio in the middle. But Black stations historically depended on one or two Black radio stations in a city to fulfill all the needed functions — educator, motivator, activist, spiritual uplifter. But those principles have been abandoned through white corporate ownership — at a time when the Black community needs them desperately. In the decade following passage of the Telecommunications Act, the number of independent radio station owners declined by 39 percent, with African-Americans owning just 3 percent of full-power commercial radio stations in the U.S.

Hip-Hop Became King
Stations have decided that rap and hip-hop are a way to profitability, so many of the stations that were previously more R&B or contemporary formats switched over to hip-hop or hardcore rap, turning off older listeners and leaving the airwaves to younger listeners who are less likely to be offended by vulgar content that has little socially redeeming value.

No Airtime for New Artists
The creation of radio monoliths such as Clear Channel Communications has driven out radio station owners of color, and has made it more and more difficult for new artists to get airtime on white-owned commercial radio, which is interested only in the bottom line. As a result, communities are fed an endless cycle of the same corporate-approved playlists, cutting out the local DJs who used to pride themselves on breaking new artists and music. National playlists and a reliance on market research have made DJs little more than button-pushers with limited say in what records get aired. Pressure to attract and maintain the widest possible market share has resulted in music and program directors choosing commercially established, major label artists over idiosyncratic or developing acts. The net result is that the average listener has fewer choices, especially when it comes to hearing local music

Oversexualization of Music
The corporate takeover of Black radio happens to coincide with a dramatic increase in the sexualization of Black music. Many observers believe this was no coincidence. Sexually explicit, vapid lyrics with no political content began to move to the top of corporate radio playlists — encouraging other artists to follow suit. The result has been a massive diminishing of the quality and seriousness of Black music — which had the cyclical effect of pushing fans of good music away from the radio to other music formats where they could control content, such as Internet radio stations like Pandora.

Local Communities Got Ignored Not only did playlists become standardized, with the same 100 songs by major-label artists in rotation in every major market, but access to stations by community groups decreased, as did the number of community-affairs programs. In some cases, corporations cut the number of public affairs department heads per market to just one for as many as eight stations. With the decrease in community accessibility came a lack of community accountability. Despite widespread discontent, commercial stations have only responded to the needs of local communities when significant pressure has been put on them to do so – and then only sometimes.