These results may well reflect the inefficiency of the prior era of regulation, in all of its glory, including the national ownership limits. I do not know what will ultimately happen to the radio industry, which new technologies will drive markets, which combination of assets are valuable and which are not, or which firms will succeed and which will fail. None of these issues is clearly within the scope of the FCC's governmental interests. But I do worry about markets, and about the effects of excessive government regulation on markets. Free markets and competition are a consumer's best friend.
Regulation is an impediment to markets.
And excessive regulation, frankly, destroys markets. You know, some folks worried about the effect of deregulation of the ownership caps on format diversity. That worry was not necessary, as time has told. After all, it makes little business sense for an owner of several stations in one market to program them identically. Group owners have every incentive to direct their programming at different market segments and use each station to aim at specific demographic groups, thereby maximizing the group's total audience reach.