Saturday, June 4, 2005

Clear Channel gets caught

ANY company that tries to pull a fast one on an increasingly media-savvy populace should first consider the power of blogs.

Clear Channel, thought by its critics to be the best representative of the creeping corporate weaseldom that has brought on the ruination of commercial radio, tried to dupe radio listeners in Akron, Ohio, by posing as an anticorporate pirate radio station.

Via some audio trickery, Clear Channel made it sound as though pirate signals from "Radio Free Ohio" were bleeding into several of the other stations it owns. The "pirate" signals, and a Web site set up to promote the new station, lashed out at corporate radio.

Suspicious, someone using the handle "Turbo Ninja" looked up the Web site registration for radiofreeohio.org, discovered it was owned by Clear Channel, and posted the findings to the message boards on the Web site of the independent station WOXY.

"They're ripping corporate radio as a means of encouraging people to listen to a slightly different kind of corporate radio," Turbo Ninja wrote.

The posting was picked up by several blogs, and in turn by The New York Times, which quoted a Clear Channel executive saying, "There's a hole in the market here and we're going to fill it."
Go Ohio! Stay vigilant.

14 comments:

  1. can't you always listen to non-cc stations?

    let the market decide.....

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  2. The point was not that. And anyway, no, you can't always listen to non Clear Channel stations. They have a virtual monopoly on the market.

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  3. virtual or actual?

    you can always listen to non-cc stations via the www.

    does cc own them too?

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  4. I don't listen to the radio period. The music sucks. They never play the bands I like. I listen to new bands I hear about by downloading their songs and then buying the albums if I like them.

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  5. so why do you care?

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  6. a corporation deceives people? if you don't find something wrong with that, maybe you should go to Morality 101. Lying is generally not viewed in a favorable light except by about half the republican party.

    I don't like liars.

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  7. so we should outlaw all drama on television and in books. corporations generate these materials. these materials are not true. some people are deceived.

    you said:

    "a corporation deceives people?

    yes, it is called marketing.

    the only people who care are people who do not like cc for political reasons (talk about corporations deceiving, are the Dems incorporated?). the rest of the world yawns.....

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  8. p.s. the same people who are "concerned" about this are probably the same people incapable of casting a proper ballot.

    put the metal through the piece of paper ....

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  9. no, not for political reasons. for destroying good radio. for putting crap like britney spears and all of that 12 year old crap because the 12 year olds have nothing to spend their money on. i am a music fan and a fan of people who can actually play instruments and don't need technology to cover up the flaws in their voices.

    not all marketing is deception. when did honesty cease to be a quality in people?

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  10. so, because you do not like b. spears nobody else should be able to enjoy her?

    once again the left wants to impose their opinions on everyone else.

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  11. why not start your own radio station? if nobody wants to listen to cc their market will dry up and be transferred to the elitist status quo of coldplay and dave matthews (yawn).

    funny, coldplay's new drop came in second place to a mobile ringtone last week in the UK. lololololololol

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  12. why do these elitist bands worshipped by the left sign record contracts? why don't they play on the street corner for free.

    why do they take money from evil corporations?!?!!

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  13. I don't have a problem with people making money.

    Britney Spears is forced down our throats. I have to hear that crap wherever I go.

    Elitist = skilled and intelligent? Why do you have such disdain for the arts? Why are you an elitist if you actually have a brain?

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  14. it seems as though your musical tastes are in the minority. deal with it. stop trying to cram your garbage down our throats.

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