Black Radio-One Tycoon Runs Republican Game

Published on Black Agenda Report (http://www.blackagendareport.com)

Black Radio-One Tycoon Runs Republican Game

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

“Corporate predators like Cathy Hughes now claim to be the champions of small Black broadcasters.”

Early in George Bush’s first term in office, BET billionaire Bob Johnson ingratiated himself with the new president by convincing 48 other Black business people to endorse the Republican campaign against the Estate Tax. Although less than one-half of 1 percent of African Americans were wealthy enough to pay federal estate taxes, Johnson warned that the levy threatened to wipe out the first generation of Black millionaires, thus stunting the growth of capital in Black America. The claim was nonsense, but it gave “Black” political cover to the Right’s ancient jihad against what it called, the “Death Tax.” Johnson’s attempt to merge general African American interests with those of the rich white Right earned him the gratitude of President Bush, who would later commission Johnson as Black point man in the GOP assault on Social Security.

Johnson’s anti-“Death Tax” list was top-heavy with on-the-make Black media types, including Radio One founder Cathy Hughes, then a newly-minted member of the Black billionaires club. Hughes is currently running the old Bob Johnson/Republican game in an attempt to defeat the Performance Rights Act, which would require radio stations to pay royalties to performers of recordings played on the air. The legislation, co-sponsored by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), is a prime target of the National Association of Broadcasters, the immensely powerful radio and television industry lobby, and the Republican Party, which has countered with its own “Local Radio Freedom Act.”

The GOP characterizes the Performance Rights Act as a “tax” on radio, to be resisted like all other taxes – despite the fact that the royalties go to performing artists, not government coffers. But it is Cathy Hughes’ mission to give greed and right-wing politics a “Black” angle– just as Bob Johnson did with the Estate Tax and Social Security. In one of the most crude, down-and-dirty campaigns in Black radio history, Hughes charges that the Performance Act threatens to destroy Black radio. Through the megaphone of her 50-plus stations (she once owned 70), Hughes lashes out at Conyers’ colleagues on the Congressional Black Caucus who are co-sponsors of the bill (“these black elected officials continue to ignore the imminent danger to black media ownership”), Conyers’ wife (who has been indicted for illegal conduct in totally unrelated circumstances), and even Dionne Warrick (who “nobody is playing,” anyway, hisses Hughes).

“Cathy Hughes’ mission to give greed and right-wing politics a 'Black' angle.”

In a letter to station listeners (“my Radio One family”), Hughes claims Rep. Conyers’ (“our 80 year old African-American Congressman”) bill would “murder” Black-owned radio by putting “many black owned radio stations out of business. And force others to abandon their commitment to provide free music, entertainment, news, information, and money losing formats like gospel and black talk.” The message is a wonderment of sheer gall, wild hyperbole, and a kind of audience abuse and blackmail.

The relative pittance in artist royalties required by the Performance Rights Act would have virtually no impact on the solvency of Hughes’ radio empire, the fifth largest chain in the nation, which recently awarded Hughes’ CEO son, Alfred Liggins, a $10 million bonus. The legislation already delays and minimizes the effect on small radio stations (billing less than $5 million a year). Hughes' threat to withhold “free…news” is at once hilarious and profoundly dishonest. Radio One does not do news, just like its main competitor in the Black-formatted radio market, Clear Channel. In this regard and many others, the two corporations are identical. As products of feverish corporate consolidation unleashed through wholesale deregulation of the industry in 1996, both chains are responsible for the “murder” of local Black radio, as I wrote in a the May 29, 2003 article, “Who Killed Black Radio News?”:

“In the process, Black ‘stand-alone’ stations, typically operated by businesspeople with longstanding roots in the community, have been forced out - or have cashed out. News has most often been jettisoned in favor of 'talk' - the seductive format that ranges from quality syndications that do have value to a national audience but provide little to sustain local struggles, to vapid, 'barber shop'-type offerings, eclectic blocks of time filled with chatter, signifying nothing.”

“Hughes' message is a wonderment of sheer gall, wild hyperbole, and a kind of audience abuse and blackmail.”

It is laughable, and yet also deeply sad, that corporate predators like Cathy Hughes, who grew fat and arrogant by systematically snuffing out and buying up local Black broadcasting, now claim to be the champions of small broadcasters. (As do her Republican allies, with their “Local Radio Freedom Act.”) Hughes seems to threaten to pull out of “free” Black broadcasting if she has to pass on a small royalty to performers, as is the law in every other developed country. Folks need to call Hughes' bluff, and dare her to divest her Black radio interests, the source of her fortune. Black radio is a very profitable format, due largely to the unique loyalties of Black audiences. It is this loyalty that Hughes attempts to harness to her corporate, Republican-led campaign against the Performance Rights Act.

With a monopoly on the mass Black media microphone in many cities (literally), Hughes wields her broadcasting licenses as weapons to threaten Black congresspersons elected by citizens in “her” markets. Hughes has targeted Mel Watt (D-NC), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), Bobby Scott (D-VA) and other Black co-sponsors of the Conyers bill. If, as reported, Hughes has run negative commercials attacking Performance Act supporters on her radio stations and refused to sell airtime to proponents of the Act, she is in violation of not only Federal Communications Regulations but also federal restraint of trade laws. Sean Glover, a spokesman for Music First, a coalition of performer royalty advocates, told BAR that legal action is contemplated against Hughes.

“Hughes wields her broadcasting licenses as weapons to threaten Black congresspersons.”

A recent issue of the congressional newspaper The Hill reported that the NAACP has called for a “truce” between Black Caucus members and Cathy Hughes (“Bitter feud between black radio, CBC over royalties,” July 27). The headline is somewhat misleading. At its national convention in New York, last month, the NAACP enthusiastically endorsed the Conyers bill, declaring:

"H.R. 848 is the only source of income for many older performers. They didn’t write the songs – but they brought them to life. Without the performers, these songs would be nothing but words on a page. And for many of them, radio performances are their only source of potential income. Therefore be it resolved that the NAACP endorses and supports H.R. 848, The Civil Rights for Musicians Act of 2009 and call on the NAACP units and members throughout the country to contact its Congressional members and Senators and the President of the United States to pass this measure into law so America’s performers can receive the respect they so long deserve."

In Detroit, where Radio One and Clear Channel battle it out with identical formats and a common non-news policy, local NAACP president Rev. Wendell Anthony called a news conference to demand Hughes “stop [her] dishonest attacks.” Rev. Anthony charged that “Conyers and other members of the CBC have been the target of a vicious smear campaign spearheaded by Big Radio corporations and CEOs who refuse to pay royalties to African-American musicians and performers.”

The supposed “split” among Black “leaders” over this issue is also an illusion, although one that calls into question the very nature of what passes for “leadership” in Black America. Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have sided with Radio One – or more accurately, with the commercial broadcasting industry and Republicans in Congress. Nothing could be less surprising. Jackson and Sharpton are radio performers whose radio shows exist at the whim of Cathy Hughes or her counterparts at Clear Channel and other corporate chains. The two media reverends have come to more resemble corporate products, captives of broadcast boardrooms, than popular leaders.

“Jackson and Sharpton are radio performers whose radio shows exist at the whim of Cathy Hughes or her counterparts.”

The road to the current Black political wasteland, where a broadcaster can bully the Black Caucus and align herself with Republicans with impunity – began with the gradual extinction of local newsrooms at Black radio stations. Thirty-five years ago, virtually every Black radio station employed at least one newsperson to cover local events. In Washington, D.C. in 1973, three Black-oriented radio stations fielded 21 reporters – a full-fledged local Black radio news corps. Black newsrooms identified and gave voice to new activists through a medium that reached virtually the entire community. In a sense, Black radio acted as an incubator of Black leadership.

Taking news for granted, African Americans invested their political capital in demands for increased Black broadcast ownership. It was simply assumed that more Black owners would naturally translate into more and better Black radio news and community services. But the impulse to cut news and services and join the corporate herd came much more naturally to many Black entrepreneurs. A few got rich, like Cathy Hughes, but Black people as a whole have been poorly served by this class. In the absence of local news on Black commercial radio, the political life of the community withered across Black America. We have now arrived at the pitiful state in which media-based “leaders” are compelled to line up behind a corporate boss woman to support a right-wing Republican bill that would deny royalties to Black performers.

“The impulse to cut news and services and join the corporate herd came much more naturally to many Black entrepreneurs.”

The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), as an institution, contributed to this sorry state of affairs, by its historical fixation on Black media ownership even as businesspeople like Hughes turned their holdings into news-free zones for private enrichment. Now the monster has turned on the Caucus.

The following CBC members are co-sponsors, with John Conyers, of the Performance Rights Act:

Yvette Clarke [D-NY]

Emanuel Cleaver [D-MO]

Marcia Fudge [D-OH]

Sheila Jackson-Lee [D-TX]

Eddie Johnson [D-TX]

Henry Johnson [D-GA]

Eleanor Norton [D-DC]

Bennie Thompson [D-MS]

Edolphus Towns [D-NY]

Diane Watson [D-CA]

We shall see how many members scurry to get out of Cathy Hughes’ way.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

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The Prime Minister says this.

There is a lot of focus on Cathy Hughes and Radio One. While I do not support the business practices of the media company. I think and agree that it is a good thing to hold Radio One accountable for it's programming practices. Malcom X said"The media's is the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses." I am happy to see that some in the community is paying attention to what is being aired.

While many are unleashing harsh criticism on Radio One, that too is being used against us. It's divide and conquer. The performance rights issue is being used as a wedge to split and fragment the Black community even more. While I sympathize with the performance rights issue. I do not agree with the creative community that radio should pay performance rights. My disagreement is not because of the cries of Cathy Hughes. I disagree because no one has come with the actual value of what it means to have music played on the air.

The performance rights issue a diversionary tactic to keep the focus off the real issue of media ownership. The public everywhere is dissatisfied with the role of radio. 96 percent of all radio stations are owned by "white males" who have a Republican agenda. This is bigger than Cathy Hughes. The media will not hold a mirror to itself. It's going to take people telling the FCC and the elected officials to make changes. The most important issues are "imposing" ownership limits in the local area. The present limits should be reduced to 1 AM and 1 FM in a market. Bigger media is not better media. Another important issue is reducing the term limits on the license of a radio station from 8 to 3 years. The public should not have wait so long to challenge a station that is not meeting the needs of the community. More diversity of ownership will bring better radio to the airwaves.

Our people need to be educated about the media and what we can do to change it. We do not have time to choose sides. The FCC media ownership review happens in 2010. What's up with that?