December 15, 2011
Why did the Media Action Center and the Sacramento Media Group and Occupy Sacramento occupy Clear Channel radio stations in Sacramento Monday? (note: Groups throughout the entire country supported this action.) The corporate giant recently took music off its 92.5 FM frequency and chose to simulcast KFBK programming (Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity et al) on that 50,000 watt station. That means Clear Channel is now broadcasting "conservative" right wing political opinion on three huge frequencies (KFBK, KGBY, and KSTE) on more than 120,000 watts of power. (Note below, the lonely Air America station we once had in Sacramento broadcast over just 1,000 watts of power; it was the only available frequency AA could get in this community.)
The following article appeared in the Sacramento Bee Sunday, May 11, 2008, just after that progressive station went off the air. Then we had 264 hours of right wing talk radio on our airwaves in Sacramento every week. Now, with the Clear Channel flip, it's more like 350 hours of right wing talk, and not a minute of any alternative political opinions.
Sue Wilson: Federal Rules Give Corporation Backed Conservative Radio ALL the Local Voices
There's a mournful hush in Sacramento these days, the empty sound of an
entire political viewpoint quieted. 32,000
weekly listeners who once tuned to KSAC 1240 AM to hear partisan Democrats beat up on George W.
Bush, now hear only Christian hiphop.
There's nothing wrong with Christian HipHop; it's a great
outlet for artists breaking out of the gansta rap mold. But
there are six other commercial radio stations licensed in the Sacramento area programming the Christian
message. In the political realm, three
local radio stations program 264 hours of partisan Republican radio talkers
beating up on Democrats every week. Now,
zero stations program any Democratic view whatsoever. 264-0.
This follows the national trend revealed in the 2007 Free
Press and Center for American Progress study, "The Structural Imbalance of
Political Talk Radio." Nationally, 90%
of commercial talk radio is conservative, only 10% is liberal. (This
study does not include Public Radio, which by statute is required to provide differing
points of view; one is as likely to hear a Republican's views as a Democrat's. And NPR hosts don't beat up on anybody.)
KSAC shared another characteristic with other liberal radio
stations: it had a tiny, 1,000 watt transmitter. Tough for a little station which barely
reached Sacramento's suburbs to compete with 50,000
watt giant KFBK, whose signal stretches from Chico
to Modesto, from Reno
to that little town of San Francisco. Despite KFBK reaching millions more potential listeners,
KSAC mustered an audience nearly 20% that of KFBK's. (Its ratings were double local conservative
station KTKZ, which has a 5,000 watt transmitter.) And Arbitron showed the progressive station's
audience was steadily growing. KSAC was
the little station that could. Until it
couldn't.