Re: The Fate of WEVD-partisan opinion

[Eliott Kahn <Elkahn...>]

>  But even purely commercial stations have some duties to
>the public, like doing community reporting and having a certain amount of
>"educational" programming, in order to renew their licenses. (This is often
>nominal, I'm well aware).

This was the main point I was trying to make previously. Thank you, Rokhl for 
saying it more eloquently than I could.

I'm all for free enterprise and the laws of supply and demand, but we do have 
anti-trust laws in this country and they were enacted in the early 
twentieth-century for a good reason--to break up huge, monopolizing cartels. 
I'm of the opinion that broadcasters' responsibilities to earn their licenses 
were severely watered down during the Clinton years and will be even further 
watered down even now. All I would ask is that broadcasters' perform a certain 
amount of community service--which I believe they promised to do after they 
were recently given for a very low fee digital broadcasting rights. 

In any case, I disagree with Winston that we are trying to tell a businessman 
how to run his business. The fact is that the stations are granted licenses to 
use certain frequencies. I believe these licenses are granted by board members 
of the FCC, who are appointed by our elected officials. If the broadcasters 
owned the licenses or the frequencies, I wouldn't be asking them for some 
community service. But they don't own the air--at least last time I checked, 
they didn't.

Eliott Kahn


>There is a second issue, an obviously much more subjective question which, as I
>stated up front, I am very opinionated on, that is, what obligations does the
>leadership of the Association have to us- the American/New
>York/Yiddishist/Jewish/take your pick/ community it serves. And I think this
>links to the third issue you brought up- the presumption that if there is a
>demand for a certain type of programming the market will supply it. Perhaps we
>will have to agree to disagree, but this just does not seem to be true. Again,
>in a business climate of unstoppable conglomerization, where it becomes
>prohibitively expensive to be an independent broadcaster, for example, because
>of the enormous price of a station license which now only huge corportations
>like Disney can afford, and the aggressive push against microstations, it is
>very unlikely that we will see a new station like WEVD. Because it is often
>financially impossible and just impractical to create new institutions,
>especially on the scale of a radio station, and one with such a connection to
>its audience, I question whether this move was the best way to fulfill the
>Association's goal to serve a certain community.
>
>I suppose the leadership of the Forward Association has decided that their 
>goals
>are newspaper related and/or they can be best achieved through newspapers.  
>That
>saddens me, and I guess the time to mourn was really when the bulk of WEVD's
>trademark programming was removed in favor of a news/talk format. But I keep my
>vote firmly in place for the side that recognizes the importance of 
>institutions
>and our connections to those institutions and which asks *community leaders*
>with a duty to the public to at least recognize that importance.
>
>-Rokhl
>
>
> >
> >
> >
> > -----------------------------
> > SORRY THERE ARE NO ISSUES HERE...i understand the dissappointment and the
> > sadness at the demise of wevd's jewish content.  I understand the loss to
> > the Jewish community.  BUT COME ON!!!! this is a private company that made a
> > decision for itself.  they have that right.  it is one of the preveleges of
> > ownership.  if there are enough who want that kind of programing, form a new
> > station.  obviously there were no longer enough listeners to get the ratings
> > for commecial support.  ECONOMICS 101.
> >
> > Winston Weilheimer
> > Host/OWNER
> > NUSACH INTERNET RADIO NETWORK
> > Nusach, THE ORIGINAL SOUL MUSIC!
> >
> > _________________________________________________________________
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> >
>

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