by Gareth Hobbs

Created on: June 26, 2007

When talking about government control over the media one has to be careful about how much control we are talking about. Yes, I agree that guidelines should be put in place to control offensive content such as racial or gender prejudice or offensive language, but if the government wishes to exert complete control over talk radio, then they must be like everyone else and get their own station which can be as balanced as they like.

Part of the charm of talk radio is the fact that it is unbalanced. And you'll find that the more unbalanced the show is, the more popular that show becomes. One of the main reasons for this is that an unbalanced show promotes a lot more discussion about a topic. By presenting a polarised viewpoint, a lot more people will listen and agree or disagree with the topic at hand, creating a more interactive show. One of the greatest quotations about this topic comes from the Movie about the Howard Stern Show. They are discussing the listeners and the comment was "The average listener who likes Howard Stern listens for 1 hour. Reason given, to see what he does next. The average listener who hates Howard Stern listens for 2 Hours. Reason given, to see what he does next."

Talk radio will continue to remain unbalanced as the more controversial shows also tend to have the highest ratings and as a result can charge more for advertising space on the show. This makes more money for the radio station and in the capitalist driven state that we live in, makes the radio station want more and more unbalanced shows as these will generate more profit. As long as the shows follow the guidelines, there should be no problem with it.

The biggest problem with direct government control is where do you draw the line. If you allow control of a single radio station or style, you pave the way to allowing control of all radio stations. From there it is a small step to control of the television stations and the print media. Once there, do you become like china and only the sites allowed by the government can be viewed on the internet. It's not that difficult to imagine a situation like this.

The only way to safely ensure balance in talk radio is for the listeners to vote, either by changing the station, or switching off the radio altogether. However the chances of this happening are slim. After all, the tabloids are all still around and the ones that do the best are the ones containing the most scandal.

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