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Foreign Ownership of radio stations

I feel it should be a reciprocal arrangement with select countries. In other words, countries allowed to have more than a 25% stake in ownership of a US federally licensed broadcast operation, should have the same arrangement with the country on the other side. Hypothetically speaking... Let's say a Norwegian company wants to own/license a radio station in NYC? Then a US broadcaster would also have the right to do so in Norway.
 
RadioPatrol said:
In this case its referring to the ownership of Regional Mexican stations in Arizona and California that the article is pointing to.
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Each of those stations is a fully miserable rimshot, licensed to a location with nearly no population.

The FCC's decision was based as much on preserving two stations that would, likely, have gone silent as it was a part of the tentative move towards opening up ownership by non-citizens.

There are plenty of countries that allow considerable foreign ownership. Mexico allowed Clear Channel to own 50% of Grupo Acir. Argentina let Emmis own nearly 100% of Mega 98.3 and Radio 10. Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, Panamá, Ecuador, Colombia, Chile and the Dominican Republic own Spanish media giant Prisa to own half or more of significant groups in those countries. Saga owned stations in Iceland. Emmis also owned in Hungary. Metromedia had stations in Latvia, Germany and Russia. And on and on.

The US is among the more restrictive nations in regards to foreign ownership of stations. Heck, the FCC even revoked KRLA's license in LA because the owner was a Canadian.
 
Kelly A said:
I feel it should be a reciprocal arrangement with select countries.
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I'm not aware of any foreign country that forbids US ownership of a broadcast operation. A number of US companies own radio stations in European countries, as does the US government. AFAIK, the US was alone in it's restrictions of foreign ownership of broadcast. I mean, North Korea and Russia might have such restrictions. But the US government owned a radio station in Baghdad, overseen by the Broadcasting Board of Governors. Would the US allow the government of Iraq to own a radio station on US soil? No. Even the current rule that permits 100% foreign ownership is subject to specific approval.
 
The US government PAID for those facilities in the form of foreign aid to those countries. Sri Lanka had THREE SW facilities on the island at one time- BBC, VOA, & Radio Nederland. But last I heard the US buys time on local (private?) stations around the world pretty much like Brother Stair does.
 
kf4rca said:
. But last I heard the US buys time on local (private?) stations around the world pretty much like Brother Stair does.
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By "government," I'd also include the Armed Forces Radio stations that are owned throughout the world.

BTW the Baghdad station I mentioned earlier closed in 2011.
 
kf4rca said:
The scariest thing about owning property in a foreign country is that the country can "nationalize" the property at the whim of an unfriendly politician. And certainly, broadcast facilities are no exception.
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Such incidents are very rare as investors in foreign nations generally look at things such as "rule of law" before committing money.

There will be cases where a government is overthrown or it migrates to totalitarianism or communism where investments are lost. Most of those countries in the past did not have commercial radio, such as Libya, Iraq and Iran. In our hemisphere, we have just the cases of Cuba, some 60 years ago and present-day Venezuela as well as Mexico roughly 90 years ago.

There have been isolated cases, such as the American owner of a group of radio stations in Ecuador in the 60's who was allied with the wrong political party and was told to leave the country by guys with rifles but that is a unique situation that I lived through.

Most countries where one would want to have radio or TV are prosperous places with well established laws and protections for capital. How many US investors would want radio stations in Burkina Faso or Paraguay?
 
kf4rca said:
The US government PAID for those facilities in the form of foreign aid to those countries. Sri Lanka had THREE SW facilities on the island at one time- BBC, VOA, & Radio Nederland. But last I heard the US buys time on local (private?) stations around the world pretty much like Brother Stair does.
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Sometimes those VOA outlets involve more than just foreign aid, it includes land rentals or purchases and the employ of local labor forces, both skilled and non-skilled.


The BBG does indeed have some monetary relationships with some broadcasters around the world - that is, some of the affiliate broadcasters are paid to run BBG programming during some parts of the broadcasting day. This payment may be cash or in some cases, it involved equipment which is granted to the station.

Other affiliates simply have an airing agreement where the station carries BBG provided programming, under the terms of an operating agreement. Since the satellite downlinks are not encrypted, anyone with a compatible receiver can pick up BBG programming and broadcast it as they wish.

There are other broadcast facilities which are essentially owned and operated by BBG, carrying BBG programming 24/7. Some are licensed to the BBG or BBG grantee organizations, a few are licensed to a local broadcaster but are still running BBG programming 24/7.
 
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TheBigA said:
By "government," I'd also include the Armed Forces Radio stations that are owned throughout the world.

BTW the Baghdad station I mentioned earlier closed in 2011.
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AFRTS outlets generally operate under status of forces agreements (SOFA), although the early days of AFRTS in Iraq might have been essentially an application of eminent domain, as there was no Iraqi government in place, until the Coalition Provisional Authority turned control of the country over to Iraqi authorities. and there was some agreement in place for that continued operation.

The programming from Bagdad was uplinked to the AFRTS satellite system and was the audio on at least one AFRTS transmitter in Kuwait prior to that 2011 shutdown.

There were (or are) two BBG FM transmitters in Baghdad, from summer of 2003, one running VOA English and the second was running Arabic and perhaps some Persian for Iraq. Several other BBG transmitters were installed in a few major cities across Iraq, with a language feed appropriate to the coverage area of these transmitters.

The AFRTS operation in Iraq had no connection with the BBG operations in Iraq, other than both being US government operations.
 
kf4rca said:
Did you hear about this?
https://www.voanews.com/a/burundi-suspends-voa-bbc-broadcasts-before-referendum/4377480.html
This affects brokered broadcasts on local stations. SW and broadcasts from neighboring countries are not affected.
These are government thugs at work.
Hearing the stories from migrants from Mexico and Central America arriving here, their whole country is run by thugs.
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Each nation is different. Costa Rica is one of the oldest uninterrupted democracies in the Americas, and is a lovely, stable country. Panamá has risen above the problems of the Noriega era and is a finance and investment hub for the region. Nicaragua is pseudo-socialist, with a strongman at the head of government. Honduras, El Salvador, and to some extent, Guatemala are close to being what President Trump so anatomically described. Mexico is a working democracy, but it is severely harmed by the drug activity, the root cause of which is the incredible demand in the United States.
 
RadioFan2J3 said:
The AFRTS operation in Iraq had no connection with the BBG operations in Iraq, other than both being US government operations.
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The point of my posts was in response to an earlier post that any foreign ownership in the US should be reciprocal. My view is we seem to have the toughest rules about foreign ownership.
 
TheBigA said:
The point of my posts was in response to an earlier post that any foreign ownership in the US should be reciprocal. My view is we seem to have the toughest rules about foreign ownership.
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Agree.

We had pretty much this same discussion back in December, 2017, and I agreed with you then.

Considering the number of facilities outside the United States which carry BBG programming for the country where the broadcast operation is located, we don't understand the concept of reciprocity very well.
 
TheBigA said:
But the US government owned a radio station in Baghdad, overseen by the Broadcasting Board of Governors. Would the US allow the government of Iraq to own a radio station on US soil? No. Even the current rule that permits 100% foreign ownership is subject to specific approval.
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Actually I'm very familiar with the stations you mentioned. They were started during the first Gulf conflict during the period of a provisional government in Iraq. They are a combination of an AM in Kuwait, and several small 1kW FM's around the country. Since then, the ever-changing the government has been trying to shut them down. In some instances, they've started allowing other transmissions to cover the BBG stations.
 
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