Global Journalism Review

Clear Channel poised for radio takeovers

by Nicholas Jones, London media correspondent

Commercial radio stations in Britain should have the resources to hire more journalists once the government gets Parliamentary approval for the Communications Bill. This confident prediction was made at a seminar in London by Roger Parry, European chief executive of Clear Channel, which owns more than 1,200 radio stations in the United States and is poised to make extensive acquisitions in the UK. The Bill, which has reached the House of Lords, aims to liberalise the rules governing the ownership of radio and tv companies.

Parry faced hostile questions at the Westminster Media Forum from broadcasters, journalists and academics who fear Clear Channel will buy up much of the British independent radio sector and destroy the identity of local stations by introducing syndicated news bulletins and standardised play lists.

He defended the government’s decision to allow foreign ownership and said he was confident it would lead to increased investment, more diverse programming and the opening of new stations catering for minority interests. He was convinced that the concentration of ownership permitted by the Bill would help large commercial operators run stations which were close to their local communities.

"If I owned two radio stations in Bath, Bristol and Bridgewater, I could employ a news team that could cover that whole area for each of the local stations. If I had only one station, I could only have half a journalist for that single station. So consolidation of size does allow you to do local things." Parry, who is also chairman of the Johnston Press regional newspaper group, said their most successful titles were those which were closest to their local communities and Clear Channel ran its radio stations on the same principle.

When challenged about the group’s future intentions in Britain, Parry refused to respond and instead turned his reply into an attack on the BBC’s director general, Greg Dyke, who in a speech the previous week had accused Clear Channel of using its staunchly pro-war stations to organise rallies in support of America’s attack on Iraq. Dyke said he had been "genuinely shocked" to discover that the largest radio group in the United States had organised "pro-war rallies" and he feared for the "Americanisation" of independent local radio if the deregulation proposed in the Communications Bill allowed Clear Channel to become a dominant player in UK radio.

Parry insisted that groups like Clear Channel did not have a political agenda. "I too was shocked that Greg Dyke made allegations based on no factual research. His office got that from reading one newspaper report. One talk show host syndicated in a hundred stations suggested some of his affiliates might like to organise rallies in support of the troops. A dozen stations owned by Clear held pro-troop rallies, no bad thing to do if the station serves a big US base."

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