Clear Channel

[Undertoad]

Hopefully they'll be toast in 20 years. Here's one way how!

Step one. Stern leaves "traditional" broadcasting for satellite radio where the FCC holds no power.

Step two. Over a year, half of his audience follows him.

Step two point five. The purchasing power of more than half his audience follows him. Satellite listeners will be the Stern listeners with money. Left listening to radio are the ones who can't afford a small up front investment and ten bucks a month.

Step two point six. They never return. I don't have satellite myself yet but I hear nobody goes back once they have it.

Step three. Wireless (i.e., cellular) services arrive as the price of minutes goes down and the bandwidth goes up. Tipping point: once you can get 128kbps to a phone, you can use your phone to receive music radio. The wireless companies are a bigger gorilla than clear channel, and their continuing existence will depend on finding new reasons for you to get new phones every three years. And they will, and nobody will wait 10 minutes to get a traffic report if they can get one in 10 seconds.

Step four. FM, which has been advertising shitty products for years already, becomes a lower-class vehicle for ads. Revenue is cut in half. The only audience remaining is over 65 (talk radio listeners), under 18 (music radio listeners), and non-commercial (NPR listeners). Without the ability to market to broad audiences, CC loses its monopoly abilities.