The centralization of radio media has led to lack of local control

It has been clear that diversity of programming has suffered greatly since the a few companies have bought up so many local stations and placed them into chains with lock-step national programming. Here is what Amanda Terkel at Think Progress has written about the situation:

Approximately 91 percent of weekday talk radio programming is conservative, and just nine percent is progressive. However, “43 percent of regular talk radio listeners identify as conservative, while 23 percent identify as liberal and 30 percent as moderate.” Much of this imbalance was created in the wave of consolidation after the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which “removed the national limit on the number of radio stations that one could own.”

Central control of the media is inherently anti-democratic. The conservatives are desperate to keep it that way.