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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Skywatcher who wrote (426326)	7/13/2003 10:08:44 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 769669

Due to the popularity of the Survivor shows, Texas is planning to do its own, entitled "Survivor-Texas Style." The contestants will start in Dallas, travel to Waco, Austin, San Antonio, over to Houston and down to Brownsville. They will then proceed up to Del Rio, on to El Paso, then to Midland, Odessa, Lubbock, and Amarillo. From there, they'll proceed to Abilene, Ft. Worth, and finally back to Dallas. Each will be driving a pink Volvo with bumper stickers that read: "I'm gay...I love the Dixie Chicks...I'm a vegetarian...I voted for Al Gore...George Strait Sucks...Hillary in 2004!...and I'm here to confiscate your guns!" Good one! They'll never make it out of the Dallas city limits! LOL!

To: Skywatcher who wrote (426326)	7/13/2003 10:10:38 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 769669

Dixie Chicks' radio ban on Senate panel hit list By Brooks Boliek WASHINGTON (Hollywood Reporter) - They may have been thousands of miles away, but the members of Dixie Chicks were the stars of a Senate Commerce Committee hearing Tuesday examining the effects of consolidation in the radio industry. Senators used the femme trio as an example of what can go wrong when a single media company controls hundreds of stations across the United States. The country group was banned from radio stations owned by Cumulus Media Inc. and Cox Communications after lead singer Natalie Maines told an audience at a March concert in London that the band was "ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas." While Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said he disagreed with Maines' sentiment, the fact that giant radio groups could ban a group's music because of a political statement was an "incredible, incredible act" that serves as an example of how radio industry consolidation is causing the "erosion of the First Amendment." What troubled McCain and several of the other senators is not that a decision was made to keep the band off the air but rather that the decision was made in a corporate headquarters miles away from the station to stop playing the group's music. "If a local station made a decision not to play a particular band, then that is what localism is all about," McCain said. "But when a corporate decision is made that (a company's radio stations) will not play a group because of a political statement, then that comes back to what we're talking about with media consolidation." The committee has approved legislation sponsored by McCain that includes language that would force many of the big radio groups to sell some stations. Cumulus chairman and CEO Lewis Dickey Jr. defended the radio group's action, telling McCain that the decision to stop playing Dixie Chicks was not made unilaterally. The decision was made only after program managers at the 50 country music stations the company owns reported a "hue and cry" from their listeners. "This was no censorship by Cumulus," he told the committee. "The listeners did this." But even as Dickey attempted to paint the company's 250 radio stations as a "confederation" of independent operators, he was forced to admit that the decision to keep the Dixie Chicks off Cumulus' 50 country stations was made in the company's headquarters. "Our program directors knew what they wanted to do," he said in an interview after the hearing. "They were looking to us for guidance, so we put in a framework to make the decision." Even so, Dickey said the decision would not be made in the same manner if a similar situation came up again. "It would not be done the same way," he said, adding that the decision to air or not to air the music would be handled by the local program directors. The Dixie Chicks' manager, Simon Renshaw, said the radio group's actions were a disturbing reminder of the power the industry has amassed since the Telecommunications Act of 1996 removed national ownership limits. "Even the perception of a radio network using power in this way clearly demonstrated the potential danger of a system of unchecked consolidation that ultimately undermines artistic freedom, cultural enlightenment and political discourse," Renshaw said. "What happened to my clients is perhaps the most compelling evidence that radio ownership consolidation has a direct negative impact on diversity of programming and political discourse over the airwaves." While the Dixie Chicks controversy made headlines, Renshaw said the big radio groups exercise control in more subtle ways. "I personally have never been put in the position where an act was required to do something or not do something in order to get airplay," he said. "However, it is clear that if you scratch their back, they'll scratch yours. These are unwritten rules. They are understood." Reuters/Hollywood Reporter 07/09/03 05:14 ET Copyright 2003 Reuters Limited.