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To the average listener, Radio Free Ohio has all the earmarks of pirate radio.
For weeks, it sounded as if amateurs had been bleeding their voices into the broadcasts
of stations in Akron, Ohio, owned by Clear Channel, the corporate radio giant.
At the Web site www.radiofreeohio.com, there was a manifesto about "corporate-controlled
music playlists" that took potshots at several local Clear Channel stations.
But there was no information about who had posted the screed, or what exactly
Radio Free Ohio was.
But last week it came out that Radio Free Ohio was not a prank on Clear Channel
but in fact a prank by Clear Channel. Tomorrow, an AM station the company owns
in Akron will switch formats from sports talk to progressive talk, and Clear
Channel would very much like anyone suspicious of corporate media to tune in.
"Once we determined we were going to change the format, we tried to get
into the mindset of people who would listen to this new station," said
Dan Lankford, vice president and market manager for Clear Channel in Akron.
That mindset may involve a suspicion of Clear Channel itself, which has used
loosened rules on media ownership to build a radio empire.
That Clear Channel owned the www.radiofreeohioorg Web site was revealed on
www.stayfreemagazine.org, a magazine and blog about advertising and popular
culture. Stay Free's editor, Carrie McLaren, said that she had learned the information
from someone who had seen it on an Akron Web site. "In a way it's the heart
of the problem with Clear Channel," Ms. McLaren said of the manifesto.
" 'We're this huge corporation and we do everything to fake being local.'
"
Naturally, Clear Channel disagrees. "Clear Channel, as I see it, is dedicated
to entertaining radio and to getting results for our advertisers," Mr.
Lankford said, noting that the company owns both conservative and progressive
talk radio stations. "There's a hole in the market here and we're going
to fill it."
