Show me where the FCC was using its power to ensure that stations didn't change musical format, then.
You just don't get it, do you?
Having spent--or should I say, wasted--five years of my life working in
commercial radio, I know a few things about the medium, so let me give
you some history.
At one time, a single company was forbidden to own more than one radio
station in a single market, and they could not own more than six
stations nationally. These rules ensured that the various stations in a
single market would sound very different from one another in an attempt
to gain listeners. It also guaranteed that these stations would, by and
large, program to their local community--if not the music, then at
least the news, public affairs programs, advertisements, and assorted
special presentations. Those mom-and-pop radio stations were locally
owned and therefore an integral part of their community. Much of the
money a station made went back into the community it served. No, the
FCC did not tell these stations what formats they could have, but it
made rules ensuring that a station operated "in the public interest,
convenience, and necessity." After all, the public owned the airwaves
and was entitled to such service.
When Reagan-era deregulation began, the number of radio-station owners
started a dramatic decrease. Now, those owners lived nowhere near the
communities their stations "served," nor did they give a damn about
said communities. Local businesses could no longer afford to advertise
on those stations because the rates skyrocketed as the broadcasting
industry courted big-money national sponsors like, say, Wal-Mart. Any
money a station made was sucked out of the community and plunked down
into the corporation's coffers hundreds of miles away. The only ones
who benefitted were the conglomerate's stockholders, most of whom
already had more cash than they could conceivably spend in a lifetime.
These conglomerates also eliminated hundreds of thousands of on-air
jobs, replacing them with automation, network feeds, and what they call
"virtual radio," whose announcers sound local but are not. The
playlists became increasingly narrower, and radio sounded exactly the
same from coast to coast. No matter where in America you were, not only
would you hear the same handful of played-to-death chart hits, but the
same on-air voices as well. And, needless to say, the same
advertisements.
In 1992, the FCC ruled that a single company could now own six stations
in a single market and 30 stations nationally. Four years later, we got
the Telecommunications Act of 1996--which was literally written by
broadcast-industry lobbyists--and live local radio was as good as dead.
Do you honestly think radio wasn't better before the onset of
deregulation? If so, you're living in denial, pal.