And they've got to be held accountable; our broadcasting system has to be made accountable; and unless it is, it's going to be very hard to change anything else for the better in this country.
- Robert McChesney Quote

And understand that scarce spectrum is used today for example for cell phone operators, they have to pay for the airwaves they use, for their services.
- Robert McChesney Quote

Basically what they're saying is, if you want to be on TV, if you want to be a credible candidate, you've got to buy ads. And if you're not buying ads, you're not a credible candidate, we don't cover you.
- Robert McChesney Quote

Because Hightower's problem, among other things, is that advertisers would be a lot less interested in his show than in Limbaugh's, even if they have similar ratings, because of what Hightower is saying.
- Robert McChesney Quote

But having said that, there's also a sea change in attitude towards media.
- Robert McChesney Quote

But having said that, what's happening with campaign finance reform and our political culture is devastating.
- Robert McChesney Quote

If you're running for reelection in the House of Representatives race, you know, it's very important to you that you be on fairly good terms with the local affiliates in the largest market in your area. I mean you don't want to antagonize them.
- Robert McChesney Quote

Local television news, on both radio and television, is so appalling. Makes print journalism look like the greatest stuff ever written.
- Robert McChesney Quote

One survey that I saw that was published I think in Variety or Electronic Media within the last three weeks says that now the average hour of radio in the United States has 18 minutes of commercials.
- Robert McChesney Quote

Our existing media system today is the direct result of government laws and subsidies that created it.
- Robert McChesney Quote

So that what you tend to see is someone like a Rush Limbaugh, he's the classic case because he's the most successful, he didn't sort of like come out of his mother's womb with the highest ratings in the country.
- Robert McChesney Quote

So the system we have in radio and television today is the direct result of government policies that have been made in our name, in the name of the people, on our behalf, but without our informed consent.
- Robert McChesney Quote

The cost of congressional and presidential campaigns has been leaping every two or four years. I think this year it will be 60 percent more than 1996; well over twice as much as in 1992 in the presidential and congressional races.
- Robert McChesney Quote

The number one lobby that opposes campaign finance reform in the United States is the National Association of Broadcasters.
- Robert McChesney Quote

The public gets not one penny from them in return for those airwaves.
- Robert McChesney Quote

The whole process of getting licenses to broadcast, which took place decades ago, was done behind closed doors by powerful lobbies, and wealthy commercial interests got all the licenses with no public input, no congressional input for that matter.
- Robert McChesney Quote

What I've found is that there is a tremendous interest in these issues, across the political spectrum, sort of left-right terms we used to describe people don't really hold here exactly.
- Robert McChesney Quote

When the government picked companies and gave them monopoly rights to frequencies in San Francisco and Los Angeles and New York and Chicago, it was picking the winners of the competition; it wasn't setting the terms of the competition.
- Robert McChesney Quote

Which is supposed to mean they're doing something in their broadcasting they would not do is they were simply out to maximize profit; if they were really public service institutions, not purely profit maximizing institutions.
- Robert McChesney Quote