musicNEWS:
Feds Look At Clear Channel For Anti-Trust
08-04-03
antiGUY
.
Clear Channel, the largest owner of radio
stations in the U.S. is under investigation by the Justice Department for
possible anti-trust violations.
R. Hewitt Pate, assistant attorney general
for antitrust, told a House subcommittee last Thursday that there is an
investigation into Clear Channel.
In his testimony, Pate stated that the
department had interviewed individuals who referred to them by Rep. Howard
Berman, D-CA., that have complained of coercive tactics by Clear Channel.
Rep. Berman became involved in 2002 when
he wrote to the Justice Department and Federal Communications Commission
about his concerns over the consolidation of entertainment and media industries
and how that consolidation may be hurting artists, fans, advertisers and
others.
After his letters were sent, Berman said
that he received a large number of complaints from various people in the
entertainment industry. "Virtually all decried the evils of consolidation
in the radio and concert industries," he said.
AP reports: Among the complaints were
allegations that Clear Channel punished artists who didn't use the company's
concert promotion arm by denying, or threatening to deny, radio airplay
for their songs, he said.
Clear Channel publicly does not seem that
concerned over the current investigations by Federal authorities. They
said in a statement that the Justice Department "has evaluated, on a routine
basis, nearly every acquisition that Clear Channel has made and approved
each one.
"When you run a big company, engaging in
complex transactions, inquiries of this sort become fairly routine. We
are cooperating fully with all DOJ requests and we are confident the DOJ
will find, as it has in the past, that our company is managed with the
highest degree of integrity."
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