Only 10 Black owned TV stations remain

Editor’s Note: Since this original story was written Bryon Allen’s lawsuit was reinstated. However, the concerns addressed in the article are still very relevant.

Recently, a federal district court judge in California threw out media entrepreneur Byron Allen’s $20 billion lawsuit against Comcast and Time Warner Cable. The suit accused the cable giants of discriminating against black-owned media companies by creating and reserving just “a few spaces” for their channels at “the back of the bus.” A judge disagreed, dismissing the 71-page lawsuit in a snappy three-page decision.

But just because this particular case fell flat doesn’t mean minority exclusion from broadcast and cable ownership isn’t a problem. It is – a big one.

Minority owners are burdened by the legacy of racism. When the U.S. government first started giving away our airwaves in the 1930s, they were distributed exclusively to white, male owners. It mostly stayed this way until the 1970s, when the FCC tried to remedy the problem by implementing a “Minority Ownership Policy.” The measure offered tax incentives to people seeking to sell stations to minority owners.

The policy worked. Within two years of its passage, the country went from one black-owned television station to 10. Over its total 17 year existence, minority ownership increased five-fold. But it was struck down by the newly-elected Republican Congress in 1995 and since then, its success has been mostly undone. In 2013, minorities owned just 6 percent of commercial television stations in the country, 6 percent of FM stations and 11 percent of AM stations.