The local radio landscape in Grand Rapids is pretty bleak. As with most radio markets in the United States, there has been a massive consolidation in station ownership ever since the 1996 Telecommunications Act. One of the negative effects of consolidation of radio ownership has been a decreased availability of local news on radio. The majority of radio stations in Grand Rapids belong to three large radio conglomerates, Regent Communications, Citadel, and Clear Channel. Only one of these stations, WOOD 1300 AM, provides any local news coverage. As far as to the quality of WOOD 1300's news coverage, a quick examination of their daytime schedule of Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, and Sean Hannity gives a hint as to the station's bias. The public radio stations do not provide any significant local news coverage either, relying mostly on programming piped in from NPR. Nor do the few other local commercial stations or the publicly funded WYCE run any locally produced news.
As to variety, the post-telecommunications act consolidation has led to the further homogenization of the music played on the radio. Also we have seen an increase in obnoxious syndicated morning shows, the commercial cooptation of rock/punk and the disappearance of rap/hip hop from the Grand Rapids airwaves. The most egregious example of the rebel ethos of rock and punk music being warped into vehicle for promoting sexism, militarism and commercialism would be WKLQ's Ron and Don show. Their morning show and website basically consist of a very limited variety of corporate rock, "support the troops" style militarism and soft core pornography.
What you cannot find on the airwaves here in Grand Rapids is Amy Goodman's Democracy Now . We here at Media Mouse would encourage people to contact the local Public and publicly funded radio stations and demand both more locally produced news and Democracy Now.
