Minorities Face Extinction in Broadcast Ownership. Will FCC Turn a Blind Eye or Level the Playing Field?

As Latinos in Information Sciences and Technology Association (LISTA) continues to combat injustice in the telecom and media space, we have seen that these industries do not represent the nation’s demographics, nor have there been meaningful discussions about how the Latinos’ lack of representation in these industries is undemocratic and morally wrong.

Currently, there are over 51 million Latinos in the U.S. (both native and foreign born). Latinos are the nation’s largest minority group, representing 16.4% of the U.S. population . Yet minority radio, television and cable ownership continue to spiral toward zero. LISTA research shows that as of 2009, only approximately 7.24% of commercial radio stations were minority-owned, and that only about 3% and 5% of full power television stations are owned by minorities and women, respectively. Moreover, Spanish language broadcasters are continuing to exit broadcasting due to a lack of capital investment. Thus many markets with high Latino populations have no Latino -owned stations. And that has consequences: many Spanish-only-speaking consumers could be deprived of emergency information regarding natural disasters, catastrophic events, virulent diseases and epidemics–putting the public safety, health and welfare at risk.