Good-Neighbor Radio

Garrison Keillor doesn't seem to realize that everything he claims to enjoy became possible because Ronald Reagan eliminated the Fairness Doctrine.

The deregulation of radio was tough on good-neighbor radio because Clear Channel and other conglomerates were anxious to vacuum up every station in sight for fabulous sums of cash and turn them into robot repeaters.

True enuf, and he seems to realize that in the longer run that will change, but he doesn't seem to understand that a free industry is a dynamic one, ever changing, and that that change and diversity are products of freedom, not of the Fairness Doctrine and other regulation.

UPDATE:I didn't make that post as clear as I might have: the consolidation in the radio industry was not, of course, due to the end of the Fairness Doctrine (which did lead to much greater diversity- Keillor's thing) but was due to greatly reducing restrictions on corporate mergers, including ownership of multiple news media in a single market. All part of the same deregulatory parcel tho.