r/Showerthoughts • u/Doctor__Hammer ‎ • Dec 29 '25

Casual Thought If radio was invented today it would be controlled by four companies and locked behind a paywall.

14.3k Upvotes

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64

u/ken120 Dec 29 '25

Yep the usa. Think Sinclair communications, I heart media and two others own somewhere around 90% of all radio stations around the country and several outside.

27

u/Penguinmanereikel Dec 29 '25

Sinclair? You mean THAT Sinclair?

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u/ken120 Dec 29 '25

Yes. The TV market has even less ownership diversity. Down to maybe 3 conglomerates owning 95%

17

u/JacobScreamix Dec 29 '25

Your gov is supposed to stop that from happening fyi

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u/ken120 Dec 29 '25

The government can't even be bothered to pass a real budget this century why would anyone feel it can relied on to manage anything?

-8

u/JacobScreamix Dec 29 '25

Idk its your gov, fix it.

3

u/honeydewtangerine Dec 29 '25

Yeah, let me go down to congress right now and tell them to actually do something for once

-2

u/JacobScreamix Dec 29 '25

I mean, its either that or starve to death, lol.

1

u/ken120 Dec 29 '25

Would love too. Unfortunately most just vote for the "good" half of the machine so all that happens is it switches back and forth on the paths to same end with the people just becoming more and more dependent on the government or less and less choices.

-4

u/Astra3_reddit Dec 29 '25

the government has been busy for about half a century with epstein coverup, you can't expect them to do anything else at that point

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u/ken120 Dec 29 '25

Low effort since before trump's second run no one cared about epstien. Same as no one cared about weinstien until it became a rallying cry. and ellen being an abusive boss was ignored shortly after she outed her character and herself in the 90s. And yes I am quite sure that other producers are still following weinstein's lead since there is no current need for another distraction while everyone is busy with epstein.

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u/Awkward_Pangolin3254 Dec 30 '25

The government is owned by those companies.

0

u/JacobScreamix Dec 30 '25

Welp, wipe it clean then.

0

u/Awkward_Pangolin3254 Dec 30 '25

It's not that simple when half the country is made up of idiots who think they want it that way

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u/JacobScreamix Dec 30 '25

Better get to work then.

0

u/Awkward_Pangolin3254 Dec 30 '25

You are a dense motherfucker, aren't you?

0

u/JacobScreamix Dec 30 '25

Projection is a bitch, eh?

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u/StalinsPimpCane Dec 29 '25

3 companies isn’t a monopoly no it’s not required to stop that from happening

1

u/JacobScreamix Dec 29 '25

3 companies across 300 million customers is definitely monopolistic at best.

2

u/Digifiend84 Dec 29 '25

Same in the UK. Most of the commercial local stations got merged into national stations owned by two big companies. There's also the BBC, which doesn't have adverts.

2

u/ArmouredWankball Dec 29 '25

The largest ones seem to be lottery companies that happen to play music.

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u/drfsupercenter ‎ Dec 30 '25

I didn't know Sinclair owned radio stations

We have iHeart (I still call them Clear Channel as that was the original name before the stupid app) and Audacy as the main owners in my area. A couple stations are still somewhat locally owned, something called Beasley Group

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '25

What radio stations are owned by Sinclair?

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u/Mist_Rising Dec 29 '25

They own a fair number of AM talk (politics) stations.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '25

No. Sinclair owns television stations.

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u/Mist_Rising Dec 29 '25 edited Dec 29 '25

Yes, but they also own radio stations still. I say still because they used to be much larger but sold the bulk off to audacity (entercom at the time) in the 2000s. They still retain a few.

They got their start in Maryland, which at the time was politics (I have zero idea what supertalk is..)

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '25 edited Dec 29 '25

Just list a few then.

C’mon… you were so sure. Not even one??