10803: Diversity Or Diversionary?

From Adweek…

FCC Takes Up Low-Power Radio to Add Diversity to Airwaves

But could it just be a diversionary tactic?

By Katy Bachman

Coincidences in Washington? Try this. Just when the Federal Communications Commission is circulating a draft order to loosen media ownership rules, it voted today to take final steps to create lower-power FM radio, a new class of noncommercial radio stations aimed at increasing diversity on the radio airwaves.

While the two FCC actions may seem unrelated, they are connected by a long-standing debate in Washington about whether there is adequate ownership diversity among the nation’s airwaves. Recent data from the FCC shows it is lacking, with people of color owning just 3.6 percent of full-power TV stations and 8 percent of radio stations.

On the one hand, lower-power radio promises to increase diversity on the airwaves by allowing communities and organizations to operate hundreds of low-power, noncommercial radio stations. But the media ownership order being circulated, critics argue, would have the opposite effect by lifting the cross-ownership ban on owning radio and newspapers in all markets and TV and newspaper in the top 20 markets.

The connection was not lost on the FCC, which scheduled the low-power radio item today as a counterpoint to mounting criticism from public interest groups, unions and civil rights organizations ratcheting up their objections to the draft media ownership order.

To kick off the meeting, FCC chairman Julius Genachowski departed from commission procedure and brought in a little political muscle, handing off the podium to two lawmakers, one from each side of the aisle, who worked on the 2010 law clearing the way for the creation of community radio.

“We are going to start this meeting in a most unusual way,” Genachowski said, introducing Reps. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) and Lee Terry (R-Neb.). “[It’s] a big step to empower community voices, promote media diversity and enhance local programming.”

Even though the procedures voted on by the FCC would pave the way to process more than 6,000 applications from communities and minority groups sitting at the agency, it will not divert criticism of the draft media ownership order that blasts the agency for offering what’s basically a giveaway to big media owners.

“[The FCC’s action] doesn’t answer our critique,” said Matt Wood, policy director for Free Press, which earlier this week held a press conference with several unions and civil rights groups to protest the FCC’s draft order. “It’s hard to attack [lower-power FM radio], but it doesn’t address the harmful impact of the rule changes. The FCC is saying ‘look over here’ while ignoring the powerful impact the media ownership rules have on diversity.”

5744: Tuning In Obama.

From The New York Times…

Black Radio on Obama Is Left’s Answer to Limbaugh

By Jim Rutenberg

ATLANTA — Warren Ballentine, one of black talk radio’s new stars, was on a tear against Senator John McCain as he broadcast from the Greenbriar Mall here last week, blithely dismissing Mr. McCain’s kind words about Senator Barack Obama at the recent N.A.A.C.P. national convention.

“He came out talking about how good of a race Barack Obama was running, and how proud he was of Barack,” Mr. Ballentine said. “You know he went back home and said, ‘I can’t believe I spoke in front of all those Negroes today!’”

“He was pandering to the crowd, talking about how he felt when Martin Luther King Jr. died,” Mr. Ballentine went on. “However, he didn’t vote for the holiday of Martin Luther King Jr.”

Rush Limbaugh, meet your black liberal counterprogramming. Mr. Ballentine is one of the many African-American radio hosts and commentators who are aggressively advocating for Mr. Obama’s election on black-oriented radio stations daily.

Since Mr. Limbaugh first flexed his tonsils two decades ago, Democrats have publicly worried about their lack of an answer to him and his imitators, who have proven so adept at motivating conservative Republicans to go to the polls, especially for President Bush.

Now it is Mr. Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, who has a harmonious chorus of broadcast supporters addressing a vital part of his coalition, feeding and reflecting the excitement blacks have for his candidacy in general. Mr. Obama is getting support from white liberal talk radio hosts as well, but the backing he is getting from black radio hosts could be especially helpful to his campaign’s efforts to increase black turnout and raise historically low voter registration enough to change the math of presidential elections in battlegrounds and traditionally Republican states like this one.

“Urban stations can be in ’08 what Rush Limbaugh delivered for conservatives a generation ago,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, who has a two-year-old radio program that is now syndicated on stations throughout the country, including in states like Georgia, Michigan, Ohio and North Carolina. “If you look at the political map of where our shows are, it matches the gap of unregistered voters.”

[Read the full story here.]