Mary and I went to the Nashville FCC hearing that was a part of the 2006 Review of the Media Ownership Rules. I went in part because I’m keenly interested in media ownership rules, which we’ve been discussing. But I also went to offer this testimony:

Commissioner Tate and the commission, thank you for this opportunity to comment.

My name is Freddie O’Connell, and, with Mary [who spoke immediately before me], I co-host a political talk radio show here in Nashville. Let me give you a lay of the land for political talk radio here. Our two most prominent talk radio stations are Clear Channel-owned WLAC-AM and WWTN-FM. Tune in to WLAC Monday to Friday, and you’ll hear Kevin Wall from 5-8, Steve Gill from 8-11, Rush Limbaugh from 11-2, Sean Hannity from 2-5, and Glenn Beck from 8-11. Tune in to WTN Monday to Friday, and you’ll hear Neil Boortz from 1-4, Kevin Miller from 5-9, G. Gordon Liddy from 9 to noon, Bill O’Reilly from noon to 1, Phil Valentine from 4-8, Michael Savage from 8-11, and Neil Boortz again to close out the day from 11 - midnight. Every single one of these shows and hosts is conservative. Of the 11 hosts, 4 are local.

Notice that I didn’t include my show in the list. Tune in to WRVU-FM on Monday morning, 7:00 - 9:00 a.m., and you’ll hear my show, which is *gasp* liberal. We are the only liberal talk radio program broadcast in the Middle Tennessee radio market on a full-powered AM or FM station.

When we’ve attempted to take our show to a commercial format, we’re told that the market isn’t interested in liberal talk radio. When we talk to potential investors (not advertisers), we’re told that they don’t want to take the risk. This despite the fact that for the past two years, we’ve consistently beat the local conservative talk show hosts in a local alt-weekly’s readers poll. We do the show as volunteers and have never paid for any sort of promotion. It’s difficult to gauge exactly how many people are listening, but through tracking usage of our website, podcast, and email newsletter, we know that we have a constant and growing listenership.

Democracy is forged in a marketplace of ideas, and currently our marketplace of ideas is filled with the echoes of 34 hours of conservative talk radio per day. That’s 170 hours per week. Compared with our 2 hours of liberal talk radio per week from a college radio station. How many ideas get to compete in a marketplace like this? I can tell you: not enough.

Political talk radio is influential, and the media ownership rules that already exist allow a single political viewpoint to be expressed for 34 hours per day. This borders on propaganda, and the half of the city that doesn’t share the perspective is counting on the FCC to ensure that we keep ownership of news and views local so that we are able to attempt to maintain a marketplace of diverse ideas on these, our public airwaves.

Thanks.

In case you couldn’t guess, I oppose big media. I was extremely grateful to be able to participate in this once-in-a-lifetime experience. I was also glad we got the opportunity to interview FCC commissioner Michael Copps.

This post was written by Freddie