Thursday, May 01, 2003

¡Ay caramba! Clear Channel goes latino In an insightful and scary article on Salon.com, Eric Boehlert recently discussed a plan now before the FCC to dominate the US Latino airwaves. The proposed merger is one between the Hispanic Broadcasting Company (HBC), the leading Spanish-language radio network in the United States with 63 stations, and Univision Communications, the leading Spanish-language television broadcast company and a major Latino music label. The combined company would control almost 70% of the Spanish language advertising in the United States. Since Hispanics represent 14% of the US population and growing, you do the math. But that dominant position will be even more so. Clear Channel, the owner of the largest radio network in the US is the majority owner of HBC. Clear Channels owns over 1,200 radio stations nationwide, and has several stations among the top five in most radio markets. The company also owns 37 television stations, 770,000 billboards, and is the leading concert promoter in the United States by a long shot.  As Boehlert puts it: Clear Channel and Univision boast many similarities. Neither is known for the originality of its programming. Both are run by conservative, politically active billionaire Republicans, and both exert tremendous, near-monopoly power in their markets. In fact, if the merger goes through, Univision's power in the Spanish-speaking world would dwarf what Clear Channel has achieved in the radio and concert business over the past five years.  Boehlert thinks that the merger will be allowed by the FCC, in spite of objections by Hispanic congressmen, thanks to political reasons. The Justice Department ahs already signed off on the deal, provided Univision drops a few of its television properties. But there will be considerable political pressure as the heads of both companies are major Republican contributors, and both Univision and Clear Channel are take-no-prisoners pro-Bush in their news programs and talk shows.  ClearChannel claims to be a silent partner at HBC, but Boehlert finds proof that the company is actually very active in HBC. Aside from political discourse, the merger is likely to continue Clear Channel's demanding oligopsony relationship to record companies, musicians, and to marketers. Some advertisers and music industry players, after having witnessed the radical changes Clear Channel has worked on the radio landscape, have a foreboding sense of déjà vu as they prepare for the Univision/HBC merger. "We've already seen this with the Clear Channel model," laments Liza Santana, who runs Creativas, a boutique ad agency in Miami. "It's basically a monopoly. If you want to buy outdoor advertising, it's Clear Channel. Radio, it's Clear Channel. Posters on bus shelters, concerts, event marketing? It's Clear Channel and it's their way or the highway." The big irony: neither the head of Univision nor of HBC are themselves Hispanic. The voices of the Latino culture in our country are controlled by Anglos. ¡Ay caramba!   9:33:26 PM

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