Though non-profit radio fought to set aside 20 percent of licenses for the public sector, the proposal was blocked by the corporate lobby. Given this historical and legal context, the colonization of the Internet by media conglomerates was no doubt inevitable. Many will argue that the Internet is radically unlike radio. Even the smallest organization, or any individual, can have a website, whereas radio requires significant capital investment. But this analysis overlooks the fact that a website is irrelevant if it can't find an audience.
Media concentration leads to the disappearance of local information in another way.
With the elimination of public-service documentation, broadcasters streamlined their operations by cutting local news staff. In 1983, for example, a major press conference in Asheville could attract reporters from three TVstations and four or five radio stations. Likewise, local TV stations WYFF and WSPA had closed their Asheville bureaus by the end of the decade. As a result, local broadcasters increasingly rely on news generated by corporate parents and other national news services. Local news is increasingly lifted from the local newspaper.