General:

Clear Channel owns over 1,200 radio stations and 37 television stations, with investments in 240 radio stations globally, and Clear Channel Entertainment (also known as SFX), one of their more well-known subsidiaries) owns and operates over 200 venues nationwide. They are in 248 of the top 250 radio markets, controlling 60% of all rock programming. They outright own the tours of musicians like Janet Jackson, Aerosmith, Pearl Jam, Madonna and N'Sync. They own the network which airs Rush Limbaugh, Dr. Laura, Casey Kasem, and the Fox Sports Radio Network. With 103,000,000 listeners in the U.S. and 1,000,000,000 globally (1/6 of the world population), this powerful company has grown unchecked, using their monopoly to control the entire music industry.  (clearchannelsucks.org)

Links between Clear Channel and the Military Industrial Complex:

JC Watts, Jr. is the newest appointee to the Clear Channel governing board.  Mr. Watts is a former member of Congress -- a representative from Oklahoma.  While in Congress, Mr. Watts held the position of Conference Chairman for the House

Republican Leadership in 1998, the 4th highest-ranking position in his political party. He also served on the Armed Services Committee and as a member of the Military Personnel and Procurement Subcommittees.  As a member of these committees, Watts was partially responsible for providing ten billion dollars in 'contingency funding' to the US government for the 'war on terrorism', and supporting the Patriot Act.  In a statement he released as the House Republican Conference Chairman on the 2002 anniversary of the September 11th attacks, he said, "America is a stronger nation today.  Our military is demonstrating its might in the pursuit of freedom."  Great hire, ClearChannel.  (from www.gop.gov)

Links between Clear Channel and the Bush Administration:

There are close ties between the company and President Bush. The Vice Chair of the company is Tom Hicks, a member of the Bush Pioneer club for elite (and generous) donors. The relationship between Bush and Hicks goes back even further, however. The two were embroiled in scandal when Hicks, as University of Texas Regent, was responsible for granting endowment management contracts of the newly created (under legislation signed by Bush) UT Investment Management Co. (UTIMCO). The contracts were given to firms politically connected to both Hicks and Bush, including the Carlyle Group - a firm which has the first President Bush on the payroll and had the second one on the payroll until just weeks before receiving this lucrative business. The board of UTIMCO also included the Chair of Clear Channel, L. Lowry Mays. In addition, Hicks purchased the Texas Rangers from George Bush, making him a wealthy man through a deal that was partially sweetened by a shiny new taxpayer financed stadium, which included valuable land obtained at below market rates through the use of eminent domain. (from www.takebackthemedia.org)

From www.bushwatch.com:  Nationwide Pro-War Rallies Sponsored by Media Giant, Major Contributor to Bush Campaigns.   "Some of the biggest rallies this month have endorsed President Bush's strategy against Saddam Hussein, and the common thread linking most of them is Clear Channel Worldwide Inc., the nation's largest owner of radio stations....The San Antonio-based broadcaster owns more than 1,200 stations in 50 states and the District of Columbia...."I think this is pretty extraordinary," said former Federal Communications Commissioner Glen Robinson, who teaches law at the University of Virginia. "I can't say that this violates any of a broadcaster's obligations, but it sounds like borderline manufacturing of the news." Clear Channel CEO L. Lowry Mays, whose company syndicates Rush Limbaugh, also has a long-standing interest in politics, backing candidates seeking everything from the San Antonio mayor's office to the White House. While governor of Texas, President Bush appointed Mays to a state technology council in 1996. Mays contributed $51,000 to Bush's 1998 gubernatorial campaign. Clear Channel also contributed $106,000 to the Republican National Committee during the presidential election cycle, with Mays and his wife, Peggy, donating an additional $37,000 to the party. And the Justice Department's current antitrust chief, Charles James, formerly headed the antitrust department at the Washington law firm that represented Clear Channel when the company sought regulatory approval of its purchase of radio broadcaster AMFM Inc. in 2000, when it also purchased concert promoter SFX."

These rallies were promoted by Glenn Beck, a right-wing radio pundit syndicated primarily by -- you guessed it -- Clear Channel.

Oh, and Clear Channel is GENERALLY EVIL, SELFISH, MONEY-LADEN BLACK HOLE:

Clear Channel is a huge, unwieldy, clumsy company that looks for quick fixes -- and

while firing its staff, they lie about their earnings.  Let's start with a board member previously from a company with bad accounting habits:

Phyllis Riggins is another Clear Channel board member.  Just before she joined, she was the Bank of America Securities-Media Group Head.  Riggins was added to the board at the same time as Clear Channel was suffering from $500 million dollars in debt, and was looking for new ways to boost its stock holdings.  (www.insideradio.com)  Bank of America is Clear Channel-esque in its structure -- it was a merger between NationsBank and BankAmerica -- a FAILED merger. 

A journalist in finance watch journal The Street said:

"While several of its competitors are flourishing, the Charlotte, N.C.-based institution has been showing weakness in its large consumer and commercial divisions. First-quarter results, released last week, showed these trends clearly. And investors have continued to vote against the merger: Bank of America shares are off 35% over the last two years, compared with a 10% decline in the KBW Banks Index, which tracks the nation's 24 largest banks."  And, as Enron and WorldCom famously did this past year, Bank of America "restated its earnings" to make itself look more profitable.

"There is a kind of bank that tries to obfuscate deteriorating trends by restating how data is presented; we most recently saw this occur at Bank One (ONE:NYSE - news)," says Charles Peabody, banks analyst at New York-based Mitchell Securities, which rates the bank a sell and has done no underwriting for it.  Phyllis came to Clear Channel as they obfuscated their own fundraising inconsistencies -- releasing a statement swearing that the SEC wasn't interested in them, and that they had been lowballing their earnings for decades.

They'd REALLY been lowballing -- and hiding their true financial health from their investors, their competitors, and from the employees they fired while treading water. From Ad Age: "Radio broadcaster Clear Channel Worldwide reported widening fourth-quarter losses -- while taking a pre-tax charge of $15 billion to $25 billion after changing accounting practices involving goodwill from acquisitions -- but said it expects its radio division to rebound with a strong first quarter… The pre-tax charge of $15 billion to $25 billion follows a change on accounting for goodwill from acqusitions that stems from new guidelines from the Financial Accounting Standards Board. The new rules, which went into effect Jan. 1, state companies can only take the write off until the acquisition is no longer worth the initial purchase price."  So Clear Channel, after acquiring hundreds of radio stations, billboards, promotion firms, ticketing agencies, and concert venues, was forced by the federal government to tell everyone that these toys weren't worth as much as they were claiming.  Even worse -- from the same article -- "The company spent $80 million in the fourth quarter, higher than consensus estimates, due to significant one-time, non-recurring costs related to layoffs of 2,000 non-sales personnel and the hiring of a "stronger" sales force."

Other Tidbits:

Eller Media, the outdoor advertising wing of Clear Channel, fought the city of Oakland to be allowed to put billboards encouraging alcohol use in neighborhoods with young children. Oakland did fight back.  After the ordinance went into effect, Plaintiff Eller’s available billboards for its alcohol-based clients wishing to rent a billboard dropped from 788 to 54 (Eller Media Company and Infinity Outdoor v. City of Oakland; C 98–02237 WHA).  Eller Media also publishes charming good-values Christian billboards by the Foundation for a Better Life.  (www.oaaa.org).  Major advertising groups like them don't, however, take well to traditionally progressive billboard clients: http://stacks.msnbc.com/news/872684.asp