Radio Ownership

The consortium wasn’t the only time that Clear Channel’s Mays and Entercom’s Field came together in 2005. Immediately following Hurricane Katrina — when the immense value of radio’s portability came sharply to the fore as citizens of the flood-ravaged Gulf Coast turned to battery-operated radios for information — Entercom and Clear Channel joined together to create United Radio Broadcast.

There was a certain irony. Clear Channel came under stinging criticism in January 2002 following a train derailment in Minot , N.D. , that resulted in a cloud of anhydrous ammonia. The town’s Clear Channel-operated station did not issue an emergency broadcast signal because it was running automated content. While Clear Channel insisted that the problem arose because local law enforcement didn’t know how to activate the system, critics of consolidation used the incident as an example of the potential public danger of massive media ownership (see 2004 Radio Ownership).

The year 2005, then, offered an example of how size could become an invaluable resource in the event of an emergency.

While much media attention following Hurricane Katrina was turned to telling the story of WWL-TV, the only television station to remain continuously on the air when Katrina hit New Orleans , Entercom kept four of its six New Orleans-area stations on the air. One of those was WWL-AM. During the storm, the news/talk station managed to provide a continuous stream of information to citizens even as winds blew out the studio’s windows. Finally, after two days of broadcasts, WWL’s radio news staff was forced to evacuate their Hyatt Regency studios (the hotel had already been evacuated).

Clear Channel, which operates seven music-formatted stations in the Big Easy, had been able to repair the transmitter it lost during the storm (thanks to a helicopter and a team of technicians) but lacked a news team. WWL had a team of reporters with nowhere to go. As reported on the October 21, 2005 edition of the National Public Radio program “On the Media,” the two companies struck a partnership and, by husbanding the resources of some 15 Clear Channel, Entercom and independent stations in the area, created the United Radio Broadcasters. The group began broadcasting on September 1, 2005 , at 10:00 p.m. central time from Clear Channel’s Baton Rouge studios.

The cooperative radio network, which continued to air until early November 2005, broadcast emergency information and took calls from listeners unable to reach 911 but able to get through to the station. It also conducted the now famous radio interview in which Mayor Ray Nagin demanded action, not press conferences, from federal officials. As the tragedy shifted from imminent danger to the long-term rebuilding process, United Radio Broadcasters shifted its focus to public service announcements and information on insurance and job opportunities.

At one point, the content produced by the partnership was broadcast over WWL and simulcast over multiple stations. During the “On the Media” piece reporting on the United Radio Broadcasters partnership, Dick Lewis, regional vice president of Clear Channel Communications, and David Cohen, news director of Entercom’s WWL-AM, both took a position that is rare in discussions about radio and the public interest: Consolidation can be positive.

“Dave Cohen: There are valid criticisms and debates to be had over allowing one company to own so many radio stations… But in this case, there’s no way this could have happened, no way, had we not had two big media companies that owned this many radio stations.”9

Beyond the sheer number of stations, there is also the sharp reality of costs. According to the “On the Media” story, estimates are that the cost of the operation will be in the millions. Once again, the size of the two companies, even during this time of radio’s unclear fiscal future, provided a kind of cushioning unrealized in the past.

“Dick Lewis: It’s because of the consolidation that Clear Channel and Entercom have the resources to do this. If it were as it was prior to consolidation and we were all small independent companies, we’d be off the air. We’d be bankrupt. We’d be gone.”10

Whether or not a collection of smaller stations would have banded together is something that will never be known for certain. Almost certainly, the answer changes depending on which side of the consolidation question the respondent represents. What is clear is that the question of media consolidation is a complicated one that will likely garner even greater attention from the companies themselves as they contemplate their best strategy against the new audio.