Community Steeple Our Communication Starts Here

Joseph Haynes Davis

With the expansion of syndication in Urban Radio formats, there is no way that you can convince me that those syndicated radio programs have helped to serve the captive audience that those programs allegedly are supposed to serve. While there may be arguments for some redeeming "entertainment" substance (or what I call "intellectual Novocain") for that programming which is necessarily disconnected to the actual communities that those syndicated shows allegedly serve (because they are not local and cannot address local community matters), the expansion of syndication in Urban Radio formats, along with the utter destruction of the licensing purposes of those Urban Radio Formats, and utter destruction of the ancillary staffing and the destruction of employment opportunities for air talent and others (college educated journalists for example) has created a devastating employment fallout as well, resulting in a continued tidal wave effect on that format and business since the Telecommunications Act of 1996 passed by Congress.

In sum, the expansion of syndication in Urban Radio formats, do not and cannot, and never will adequately serve the communities that they allegedly are supposed to serve via the license that those stations hold.

And no one individual or group or organization ever checks or challenges those Urban Radio outlets on their commitment to those audiences as a result of the limitations of syndication in Urban Radio.

I have watched over time as a professional who was once part of that business as a programmer, air-talent, journalist, and political analyst. And, as I have monitored these developments in the Urban Radio business since leaving that business in 2004, I am saddened by the bad syndicated programming which is necessarily disconnected to the actual communities that those syndicated shows allegedly serve and I am numb while witnessing the so-called "influential powers" in those communities who continue to ignore this reality and I am appalled at those radio stations who continue to feed "intellectual Novocain" to their audiences and communities via the radio airwaves.

I'll wait for comments for discussion.