Anotherwpgguy wrote:As a stand-alone independent, CHNR came out of the box with a 5.5 share, enjoying excellent audience support and strong allegiance to the brand. However, the chain stations often approached CHNR's clients as soon as they hit the air, and offered them excellent deep discount off-rate-card deals to go over to them in exchange for immediate cancellation on CHNR.
I wasn't aware of that but my father was faced with the same kind of
legal extortion in the 1960s. In his case, a large multinational forced him to sell the company he co-owned by threatening to underprice him in his local market. Part of the deal required him to sign a 2 year no-compete clause which almost sunk him when he was forced out of the multinational by the jealous and lazy local manager.
This makes one want to blame this extortionist behaviour on the clustering of radio stations and wish for the days of true limits on ownership. Yeah, you could own an AM and an FM in the 1960s, but who cared about FM back then?
A little more thought and I realized that there were individual AM stations in major markets with that kind of clout back in the 60s, too. Dunno if they pulled off those kind of stunts but it wouldn't surprise me.