Re "Fox News duped its audience with falsehoods and bile" (Viewpoints, Nov. 12): According to Nielsen and Talkers Magazine, conservative talk radio's audience dwarfs Fox News. Sean Hannity has 2.5 million viewers on Fox, but 14.25 million listeners on radio. Rush Limbaugh's radio audience alone is greater than the entire Fox News primetime lineup combined.
Unlike cable, radio is a private/public partnership; licensees own the equipment to broadcast over frequencies that the public owns. They're licensed only if they "serve the public interest."
Local public interest groups met with Clear Channel management asking if they were comfortable during the campaign putting nine hours a day on each of their three Sacramento talk stations, exclusively promoting Republican candidates, but zero promotion of alternative candidates. Management said that was just fine.
They've duped us, yes, into thinking the corporations own radio. We the people do, and we have been absentee landlords too long.
-- Sue Wilson, El Dorado Hills
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