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Network owns no Vermont stations, but plenty in ‘battleground’ states
by Casey Harper, The Center Square
The U.S. House Oversight Committee is investigating why the Federal Communications Commission fast-tracked a deal that allowed a billionaire Democratic donor to buy a wide swath of American radio stations just weeks before the presidential election.
The major radio company Audacy Inc. fell into financial straits, but through a complex business deal Democratic mega donor and billionaire George Soros has gained control of the stations. Deals of this size require FCC approval, but in this case the FCC expedited the approval process.
FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr raised concerns about the deal at a Congressional hearing, telling lawmakers that “… the FCC is not following its normal process for reviewing a transaction.”
“We have established over a number of years one way in which you can get approval from the FCC when you have an excess of 25 percent foreign ownership, which this transaction does,” Carr said. ““It seems to me that the FCC is poised to create, for the first time, an entirely new shortcut.”
Audacy doesn’t own any stations in Vermont, Maine or New Hampshire, according to Wikipedia. However, it does own WEEI, the Boston-based station that carries the Boston Red Sox games into all of New England, as well as several other Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York stations. Audacy does, however, own stations in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan, and other presidential ‘battleground’ states.
House Oversight Chair Rep. James Comer, R-Ky. and Rep. Nick Langworthy, R-N.Y., sent a letter to FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel Friday raising concerns about the deal.
“Despite the unprecedented nature of this action, the FCC majority has apparently decided to approve licenses on an accelerated timeframe for a company in which George Soros has a major ownership stake, and with stations in 40 media markets reaching ‘more than 165 million Americans,’” the letter said. “By all appearances, the FCC majority isn’t just expediting, but is bypassing an established process to do a favor for George Soros and facilitate his influence over hundreds of radio stations before the November election.”
Critics of the deal say it gives too much power to a heavily political, and liberal, billionaire just before the election.
“I have no idea why Soros would do this unless it was to manipulate the thinking of Americans and the information they listen to,” author and former member of the George W. Bush administration Mike Gonzalez told The Center Square.
“Conservative talk radio is huge, and there is no left wing talk radio because it’s just not interesting,” said Gonzalez, who is now at the Heritage Foundation. “Conservative talk radio is one of the few communications that conservatives have not a monopoly on but have a strong handle on, and he has bought stations that have Mark Levin and Sean Hannity and Dana Loesch and Glenn Beck.”
Critics also point out that Soros’ business partners in the deal include significant funding from sources overseas.
“The Audacy, Inc. deal, which will lead to Audacy, Inc. being partially ‘directly or indirectly controlled’ by foreign individuals or entities holding ‘more than one-fourth of the capital stock’ will require FCC approval to determine whether ‘the public interest will be served by the refusal or revocation of such license,’” the letter said. “In carrying out this statutory mandate under the Communications Act, FCC has years-long established processes and procedures for adjudicating broadcast licenses in such situations, most recently updated in 2016.”
Other wealthy media owners have faced scrutiny for potential abuse of their ownership power, such as billionaire Jeff Bezos when he purchased the Washington Post. However, Soros’ influence over so many radio stations may have even more influence over the country than one of the major papers, which Americans usually see as having a certain political leaning.
Soros is one of the most strategic and prolific funders of liberal organizations in the U.S.
“I don’t know why else he would plunk a pile of money this size unless it was to try to have influence over the thinking of Americans,” Gonzalez continued, adding that “this guy is committed to left-wing causes.”
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Categories: National News
If you control the media, you can control the people and there is nothing more the left wants, look what we have happening today……………………………………….pathetic.
Freedom of speech, yeah not so much and it’s only going to get worse !!
Republicans stand for freedom of speech and the free market, right? How is this any different from Australian Murdock’s sprawling Fox network of right-wing propaganda media?
Go do your research. Just about all media is quasi-government corporation subsidized propaganda and controlled opposition programming. Cointelpro and operation mocking bird has never “truly” ended. There is no such thing as a free market in this world bud. When government violence is for sale to the highest bidder, that is called cronyism.
Believe nothing your hear, and only half of what you see.
Fox news is owned by a left leaning entity. My solution is to reject all national media. They just try to appear more conservative.
The control of finance controls the people and the media job is to control the minds of the people. Was Murdock connected to Jeffery Epstein??????
This government is out of control and does not have the best interest of it’s citizens in mind. Trump is our only hope before we become BRAVE NEW WORLD, 1984, ATLAS SHRUGGED, ANIMAL FARM, DOCTOR ZHIVAGO, or any number of warnings out there.
If he (Soros) were the head of a foreign government trying to undermine the sovereignty of the United States by buying schills (spys) to do his dirty work, how would the government of the United States combat these efforts ? This man is a danger to our country. He deserves to be treated as any other enemy would be .
George Soros is a domestic enemy.
Perhaps it’ll depend on what countries. Hungry and another will jail him if they get their hands on him. He’s destroying the US and it’s history (statutes), taking over radio stations for his crap. Can that be considered Marxist or what? Dems love the guy Piglosi had pics taken with him., so he won’t be deported to Hungry for disposal. His son Alex it’s reported is worse.
So the transformation of America continues–Soros, China buy land near military installations, Biden’s open border illegals,-criminals, gangs (taking over cities / towns. gun control, prostitution, lousy schools, etc. The sale of alcohol should be thriving and purchase of ammo (if the government doesn’t have it all.
George Soros is just this side of catatonic. The Soros organization bought the highest grade debt of the company that owns these stations, about $1.4 billion, for $400 million, and will sell off assets for massive profits. The average age of people who listen to these stations is 74 years. Is that really the threat to the republic you’re making it out to be?
that’s like saying its ok for ballot harvesters to go into assisted living places and help the elderly fill out their ballots, I’m 65 and I say its offensive to cast 74 as old and that its no big deal to sway political views on them, is Austin autistic or something, you sound it, it’s defiantly a threat to democracy and our republic, you sound stupid and you know they say, “you can’t fix stupid”.
William, I never said 74 is “old”. Methinks thou dost protest too much. As is the point of my comment in the first place. Better to clean your town’s voter roles than get your knickers in a twist over this.
Of course they will approve it, the CIA owes him for helping with all of the color revolutions around the world, certainly they should help him with one here.
Soros has sworn to destroy America. For that alone this transaction should be nixed, and all Soros assets should be seized for his already crimes committed against humanity.
The entire Soros family is a threat to the fabric and the very Constitution of this formerly-great nation. Their level of malevolence rivals that of Hitler, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Mussolini and Stalin, all rolled into one. Of course, this has only been possible through a systematic collaboration with the democrat party and ignorant progressives.
You know that Soros’s Open Society Institute/Foundations literally fought against Socialism in the former Eastern Bloc of Europe, right?
@jsled:
I did not know that, I assume they play both sides, but I would like to see proof on that one?
I looked into this and what I got out of it was that they pulled another color revolution to make and shape the former Eastern Bloc somewhere between socialism and capitalism. This may have been necessary to bridge the gap, or could have been done on purpose, I was too young to have paid attention then.
What ever way there is to make money, Soros will do it. He spends money (radio stations, rioters, etc). He’ll get his money back and is controlling more. Takes advertisers to keep a commercial station operational. If advertisers realize what their money is financing hopefully they will select other stations to advertise in. Look what they did to Elon Musk’s ‘X’ a group contacted companies not to advertise on ‘X’. Musk has sued them. Believe they are a European outfit.
> Look what they did
Who’s “they” here?
Because people organizing to boycott a company is … perfectly fine, last I heard. Literally free association!
Looking forward to your coverage of the Sinclair Media Group’s extensive ownership/control and right-wing programming of local news media throughout the country.
I’m not going to hold my breath, though.
But keep repeating “Soros” to bait people into being upset because “the joos!”, you disingenuous cowards.
Left wing, Right wing programming, it is a sham, one that you obviously keep falling for. It doesn’t matter if the television leans right or left, they are all lying to you and often in the same way. SBC ($1 billion) is one of those tools for sure (commands Fox, ABC and NBC networks simultaneously), as is Open Society ($25 billion) and George Soros ($7.2 billion).
I’d like to point out that SBC has been around a long time and you WERE correct, but look at who they donate to now that’s ironic considering:
-https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/sinclair-inc/totals?id=D000029062
Again it’s a sham that there is right or left leaning big media, they are two wings of the same bird so to speak. So you obviously lean more left, maybe center left but either way you would be led to believe that the issue is SBC when those that lean right think it’s Soros. Around it goes.
Just to be more clear and have more proof read these three articles and think of the timeline of investments:
-https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/freedom-house/
-https://abouthungary.hu/blog/freedom-house-sank-to-becoming-a-mouthpiece-of-the-soros–network
-https://freedomhouse.org/article/his-own-words-preoccupations-hungarys-viktor-orban
If you can’t read between the lines here and understand that Soros is a threat to any society then I don’t know what to tell you, it’s clear as day to me that Soros isn’t a bait for “It’s the Joos”, Soros himself is working color revolutions for the US government and in 2017 he (and in my opinion the US gov) clearly turned his NGO machine towards the US when he funded Open Society to the tune of 18 billion dollars.
Here’s some more proof that from Soros’s networks he commands far more control (and history shows he wields it well) than you may have realized (and yes some of the connections are weak, but even if it’s 10/20 it controls that body):
-https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2020/08/04/factcheck_sidebar_factcheck_sidebar_factcheck_sidebar_factcheck_sidebar__124710.html
If you want to find out how that could be affecting us in VT, look into Sarah George and Fair and Just Prosecution and the simularities to her and George Gascon (The reason for SF’s massive crime rate) and Marilyn Mosby (criminal in MD), look for funding sources for FJP and then think of how Burlington is compared to San Franscisco.