Media consolidation: Is 'more' really 'less'?

Vermont Business Magazine, Feb 01, 2004 by Kelley, Kevin

Vermont broadcasters and publishers agree that the national trend toward media consolidation has had an impact on the state's own television, radio and print outlets. But there's considerable disagreement as to the degree of that impact and whether it has been positive or negative.

What's not in dispute is that fewer radio stations in Vermont are locally owned today than was the case 20 years ago. In addition, only two Vermont-based broadcast TV outlets now maintain major in-state news-gathering operations.

The print media may present a somewhat different picture. Two newspapers one locally owned and one not - together dominate the market. But at the same time the state still boasts a large number of community-oriented weeklies as weft as a few smaller, independently owned dailies and a handful of specialized magazines and newsletters.

Does all this mean that Vermonters have diminished access to locally focused media content? And has the quality of that content declined?

Yes - at least in regard to radio, say Ken Squier and Paul Goldman, the respective owners of two small groups of Vermont-based radio stations.

Several years ago, Goldman recalls, "I could carry coverage of the Scholars Bowl held at St. Michael's College. I could put on announcements about missing dogs. I can't do that kind of thing today. On the FM station, at least, if I don't cater to mass tastes, I'm dead."

Goldman's Sison Broadcasting Co owns the Burlington area's WVMT (AM 620), which airs University of Vermont basketball and hockey games and carries a popular local morning talk show. Goldman's other station, 95 Triple X, plays pop music.

Changes in programming and growing competitive threats to his stations are due in part, Goldman says, to the arrival in Vermont of national radio syndicates such as Clear Channel.

"They make if much more difficult for the remaining independents. But there are still some stubborn local owners who refuse to sell out," Goldman says. The temptation is considerable, however, because, he adds, "I can make 10 times as much by selling than I can by operating these stations."

Like Goldman, Squier is carrying on a local radio heritage established over half a century ago by his father. Squier's Waterbury-based Radio Vermont group consists of WCVT (101.7 FM), a classical music station; WLVB (93.9 FM), a country music outlet; WDEV (AM 550 and 96.1 FM), which airs a mix of talk and music; and WVAA (AM 1390), which carried Vermont Expos baseball games last

season.

WDEV won the most first-place news awards among radio stations in the 2003 statewide competition sponsored by the Vermont Associated Press Broadcasters Association.

"Whatever modest success we have enjoyed is due to our focus on community service," Squier says.

"What we need now more than ever in our society," he adds, "is a meaningful onair dialogue that inspires young people to care about and become involved in our democracy. That's not a real concern for Clear Channel and all these other national groups."

Squier includes National Public Radio's Vermont operation in his criticism of broadcast chains. VPR has "very little local identity," he says. All of the Public Radio stations' Vermont news coverage is coordinated from Burlington and does not focus on individual towns, Squier maintains. (VPR won six awards in last year's broadcasters' competition one fewer than WDEV.)

VPR's President Mark Vogelzang said, "VPR has always taken a look at the larger regional Vermont community, and tries to bring listeners the stories that have a resonance across the state. For example, if a particular issue, like placing wind towers on mountain ridges, is being debated and discussed in the Northeast Kingdom, we think that folks in Montpelier and Londonderry and Addison also want to understand and be connected to that story. That's what our reporters, our interview programs, and commentators do every day.

We've heard from our listeners during these last 10- 15 years is that they want the state-wide perspective; a perspective that makes connections across the communities in a more substantial way.

"At VPR, we look at the themes that don't get as much play ... in fact, our regional position is complementary to the efforts of radio stations and newspapers that provide that in-depth local news."

Karen Marshall, Clear Channel's vice president for Vermont, takes a different view of the effects of consolidation on radio programming in the state.

Her company has actually widened the range of formatting choices available from the 15 radio signals it now operates in Vermont and in adjoining sections of New Hampshire, Marshall says. Clear Channel's acquisition of those outlets has also given listeners enhanced access to national and international news, she adds.

"Is what's coming out of the speakers better than it used to be for those 15 signals? Yes, without a doubt," Marshall declares.

Nationwide, consolidation of radio

properties has tended to preserve or promote a diversity of listening choices, not constrict it, she argues. A decade ago, Marshall says, 60 percent of radio stations in the United States were operating in the red. Many of those outlets would have been silenced altogether had they not been added to chains, she says.