An Open Letter to America's Radio Listeners

Dear Radio Listener,

As a radio listener and a former radio professional, I've been appalled at the declining quality of radio programming on commercial radio in the United States. You know the kind. No local flavor. No homegrown talent. No standards of good taste. No educational value. And no attention to truth.

As you may know, commercial radio has lost one-fifth of it's listeners since 1989. Deregulation has been the primary cause of the decline. Fewer owners have made commercial radio less competitive. When radio was more regulated and had more owners, the industry was more competitive. More people were working in commercial radio, and making a decent living at it. More people made money in radio. Commercial radio was more profitable as it is now. Deregulatory policies have led to massive financial losses, especially at the larger corporations. Outside the radio business, this has already resulted in Enron going bankrupt; Arthur Andersen is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy as of March 27, 2002. If this continues, we may be looking at the death of commercial radio in the next five to ten years.

Commercial radio has also lost it's standards of good taste that it had 20-25 years ago. Illegitimate DJs (those who DO NOT play the DJ game by the rules and regulations established by the FCC) like Howard Stern have taken something that wasn't broken, and broke it. Legitimate, "play by the (FCC) rules" DJs have been shoved aside in favor of these charlatans. And these sex-driven "shock jocks" don't usually tell the truth.

The radio industry is supposed to be one based on merit, not on social networking. The U.S. government went to a merit-based system of employment following the 1881 assassination of President James Garfield. Why hasn't commercial broadcasting embraced a merit-based system? In this ex-DJ's opinion, they want to protect their friends. They want to continue discriminating against certain ethnic and religious minorities, and, most of all, against those with even minor disabilities. Discrimination against "homegrown" talent is discrimination on the basis of origin; a clear and blatant violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Discrimination on the basis of race and religion is also a violation of the Civil Rights Act, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Discrimination on the basis of disability is a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990; a law signed into law by President George H.W. Bush. There is no defense for continuing a homogeneous workplace in commercial radio; it's too dominated by able-bodied whites. There is no argument that can be made in defense of American commercial radio's continued adherence to an employment system out of the Nineteenth Century; such a system should be abandoned, once and for all.

There is also no defense that can be made in defense of a company that owns over 1,200 radio stations, 19 television stations, a number of entertainment concerns, and circumvents every established law currently on the books. There is no defense of their policy of pulling the music of certain artists off the airwaves if they don't use their services to promote their concert tours. There is no defense of extortion of money from not-for-profit organizations for their own benefit, no defense for using their Christian-formatted radio stations as profit centers instead of Christian radio outreach ministries, in clear violation of Biblical sanctions against this. The idea of Christian radio is to reach out to the Christian communities, and make just enough to pay the bills. Paul's First Letter to Timothy clearly states the rule against using Christian radio solely for profit: "For the love of money is the root of all evil" (1 Timothy 6:10). This company is CLEARLY NOT RADIO. This may not be true of other companies; but I'm afraid that deregulation has created a media system in the United States similar to that in the People's Republic of China, Cuba or the former Soviet Union.

The only truly professional radio left is public radio. Many of the respected people in radio today are working in public radio. They are more motivated by public service than by outlandish greed. They only need enough to pay the bills, and that's it. The production values are the highest in the industry; public radio stations generally take great attention to detail and accuracy in their programming. Isn't it time that you switched to public radio?

The idea of commercial radio is that it is not only a business, but also a public service to the listener and the community at large. Commercial radio is designed to meet the needs of the average Joe or Jane on Main Street, not the "suits" on Wall Street. Sadly, public service is being abandoned; many commercial radio stations, in general, no longer care about the issues facing our communities.

Unless we get our elected officials to restore ownership limits based on actual physical properties instead of audience numbers; unless we can get them to realize how much damage has been done, not only to the industry in general, but also to the careers of the hard-working radio people who have had their jobs taken away, then commercial radio in the United States has NO FUTURE. Ownership limits worked beautifully; it made radio more competitive. Now, further deregulation is threatening the future viability of commercial radio.

In 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower said that "there shall be no second-class citizens in this country". It's time for the domination of commercial radio by the industry's Robber Barons to end, before we create a new class of second-class citizens; ex-radio professionals who aren't allowed to work in radio because of their view that commercial radio has a twofold mission; a business and a public service to the listener and the community.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the sad state of commercial radio in the United States. Over 11,000 jobs have been lost since the Telecommunications Act was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996. Commercial radio continues to lose listeners to public radio, the Internet, and other audio sources. Technologies such as In-Band, On-Channel Digital Audio Broadcasting will not reverse the decline. The only way to reverse the decline is a return to ownership limits; that will result in a gradual return to local programming. It is not a technology crisis in this country, as Christopher Maxwell of the Virginia Center for The Public Press has stated. It's a programming crisis.

One sad example I can cite is former commercial radio personality E.B. Stevenson. Stevenson was an up-and-coming DJ in St. Louis when his employer, WFUN-FM (95.5) Bethalto, IL was sold by locally-owned Coltre Broadcasting Company to Baltimore-based Radio One in 1999. While he has returned to his public radio roots, he was so angered by his being turned down at every commercial radio station in St. Louis, that he ended his last attempt at a commercial comeback in April 2001. He wasn't even allowed to apply for an on-air job at one St. Louis station.

The crisis in radio goes far beyond programming; it also goes into competitive, anti-trust and employment issues. It's time for a general reversal of attitude in radio; abandonment of negative attitudes in favor of more positive ones. Otherwise, commercial radio is as GOOD AS DEAD.

Thanks for your attention.

A very concerned radio listener

and ex-broadcast professional