The FCC has rules dating back to The 1930s limiting ownership of American Radio (and later TV) stations to Americans, and not allow foreign governments to produce propoganda that is carried on American Radio\/TV (like the BBC North American service carried on many Public Radio Stations)<\/p>\n
The current rule limited ownership of a license to 20% foreign ownership and a holding company like Clear Channel to 25%. The way businesses are structured these days makes the rule pretty much unenforceable – companies are no longer owned and controlled by stock holders, they’re controlled by global banks using loans which give them direct oversight of any major decisions.<\/p>\n
Clear Channel still owes something like $20 billion when the company was “taken private”. From the list of banks that put together the loans, it is pretty obvious that much of that money was coming from Europe and beyond. A legal fiction was created that two “American” private equity firms would manage the company and that made the owners “Americans”.<\/p>\n
In the 1980s, the Reagan Administration forced Univision to divest its American TV and radio stations, because the company is owned by Mexicans. Univision is one of forces behind this change, and the NAB is fully on board as they see an opportunity to “cash out” their dying stations.<\/p>\n
The change will replace the objective 20\/25% rule with a $ubjective “case by case” ruling. The FCC hopes to use that discretionary power to get existing license holders to free up spectrum for more mobile device bandwidth<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The FCC has rules dating back to The 1930s limiting ownership of American Radio (and later TV) stations to Americans, and not allow foreign governments to produce propoganda that is carried on American Radio\/TV (like the BBC North American service … Continue reading