Clear Channel seeks to mend image

NEW YORK -- In the past 12 months, Clear Channel Communications has been accused of everything from monopolizing and homogenizing the radio industry to banning the Dixie Chicks and being a right-wing mouthpiece.\nThe negative publicity has meant the largest owner of U.S. radio stations spends a great deal of time defending itself against what it says are lies spread mostly by critics, competitors and people who have lost jobs amid changes in the radio industry the past few years. But Clear Channel, which denies any wrongdoing, says the bad PR won't change the way it does business, or stop it from buying more stations.\n"I'd be kidding you if I'd say the scrutiny hasn't had an effect. We have to do a better job of communicating our position, telling our story," said John Hogan, chief executive of Clear Channel's radio division. But "we don't program the stations based on what Washington has to say or what The New York Times has to say. We program them on what our local listeners want to hear."\nStill, the critics are hard to ignore. Consumer groups ranging from the Center for Public Integrity to the Consumer Federation of America have accused Clear Channel of stifling local voices and diversity on the radio. The radio conglomerate has also been attacked for promoting a Republican agenda and using the influence of its 1,200-plus radio stations to decide what gets on the air; playing the music of artists who do business with its entertainment, advertising and TV divisions, while punishing those who don't.\nEven louder is the reproach from Washington. In June, federal regulators relaxed overall media ownership rules but more tightly restricted radio ownership. The fate of those rules is now uncertain because of moves by the courts and Congress against the TV and newspaper ownership changes, but Clear Channel still has other problems. The Justice Department is investigating the company and, though it won't say why, the speculation is the inquiry is about alleged anticompetitive practices.\nThe controversies illustrate what a magnet for criticism the company has become.\n"They were an easy target. Clear Channel started out as a very small company and it grew really fast," said Katy Bachman, a Mediaweek senior editor who covers the company. "They were unprepared and the radio business was unprepared for all the attention. They had no idea people would get upset and there have been a lot of things perpetuated about them that are just not true."\nClear Channel is now trying to repair its reputation by meeting with reporters and correcting what it calls myths: The company says it did not ban the Dixie Chicks from airplay after one of the group's members criticized President Bush and the war in Iraq (that was rival Cumulus Media, and the temporary prohibition only applied to its country music stations.) Clear Channel also says pro-war rallies held by some stations during the Iraq war were the work of individual radio hosts and managers, rather than a corporate directive.\nClear Channel has also made some corporate changes, including hiring for the first time a vice president of corporate communications and a Washington lobbyist. Last October, the company launched www.clearchannelnewmusicnetwork.com, a forum for new music artists to share their music. So far, some 6,000 bands have signed up -- a showing the company hopes will allay detractors who contend Clear Channel's size and focus on profits has made it easier for more established artists to get airtime, while newer ones, who are considered less certain to please audiences, struggle to be heard.\nThis summer, the company cut off dealings with independent promoters after accusations that the relationships promoted "pay for play." The promoters are paid by record companies to tout their recordings to radio stations, and some lawmakers had alleged the practice influenced what songs got on the air.\nA key complaint has been Clear Channel's ownership of radio stations. The conglomerate owns about 9 percent of the 13,000 total U.S. radio stations. But the concentration is much greater in some markets. For example, Clear Channel owns 13, or about 24 percent, of the 53 broadcast stations in the Lexington, Ky., area, according to the Center for Public Integrity, a consumer advocacy group.\nHogan says the company has done nothing illegal, and that he won't let critics hinder Clear Channel's growth.\n"If there was more inventory available in terms of stations and the pricing was more attractive and it was the best use of our free cash flow, we'd be all over it," Hogan said. "I'm certainly aware of the interest that various politicians have in us, have but I'm very, very comfortable with our position and opportunities going forward."\nCompany founder and chief executive Lowry Mays declined to be interviewed for this story. But earlier this year, Mays told Fortune magazine, "We're not in the business of providing news and information. We're not in the business of providing well-researched music. We're simply in the business of selling our customers' products."\nClear Channel's critics say that attitude is the whole problem. Although the conglomerate's actions appear to have all been legal and it is not the only media company to have multiple stations in some markets, they say the company should be more sensitive to public opinion.\n"There's a public responsibility to those who use these airwaves and if you just completely ignore it and say 'I'm just in it for the money and just in it for the shareholders,' the way their CEO has, you're going to get yourself in trouble and you're going to deserve it," said John Dunbar, director of the telecommunications project at the Center for Public Integrity.\nClear Channel has come under further scrutiny for its uses of technology, such as voice-tracking, which allows a disc jockey, for example, to prerecord a broadcast that then plays in another market. Critics don't like voice-tracking because they say it gives the illusion of that DJ being local, when in reality he or she may be hundreds of miles away. Clear Channel says less than 9 percent of its programming uses this type of technology.\nThe Mays family's involvement with the Republican party -- Lowry Mays has been a big financial backer of President Bush-- has also caused concern, despite Hogan's assertion that mixing politics with business is bad business, and that the company would never do it.\n"If you have a politically active CEO who is of a particularly ideological bent you become worried that if they control entire markets, which Clear Channel does, that ideology might make into some of the coverage," Dunbar said.\nEven Wall Street thinks Clear Channel might need to keep a low profile for awhile. Earnings have slipped in recent quarters because of a slump in radio advertising. The stock is currently trading in the low $40 range, after trading as high as $50 and as low as $30 in the last 15 months.\nAlthough profit margins remain high in its radio business -- around 40 to 50 percent by most estimates -- few on Wall Street expect many high-profile moves from Clear Channel anytime soon.\n"Congress is looking at these guys with a microscope," Edward J. Atorino, an analyst with Blaylock & Partners L.P., said. "They're pretty much stuck. I don't think they can make more acquisitions without incurring the wrath" of Congress.