Corporate consolidation also marginalizes certain Americans in other ways. Commercial radio is dependent on advertisers, who have been known to assume, as the FCC has recently demonstrated, that Hispanic and African-American viewers and listeners are undesirable audiences. Because they cannot obtain advertising revenue for serving certain demographic groups, commercial stations frequently overlook these audiences. Corporate consolidation magnifies this problem because absentee owners are less likely to know the community they serve and thus are less likely to see beyond simplifying stereotypes when making programming decisions. Consequently, a listener will be lucky to find, in an entire week in any given city, more than a few hours of blues and jazz music, poetry rooted in a religious tradition, or foreign-language news.
Media consolidation weakens local communities.
As media becomes divorced from its local surroundings, the American people become more disenfranchised from our government and from our communities. Although the current community radio broadcasters are making tremendous and important efforts all across America, they cannot bring all the voices who wish to speak on the air, and, in many communities, no such stations have been established. Unfortunately, almost everyone who has an FCC radio license now. Besides arguing that the current system does serve the needs of the American public, opponents claim that low power will interfere with current licensees and steal their listeners. These claims are misplaced.