No Urban Dictates

This is really not news; or new to me, this issue has been going on for a long time. I can remember my god-sister talking about this years ago when it was happening at the Urban Radio Station in Miami where she works. However, Warren Balentine, Radio Talk Show Host on 102.5 Grown Folks Radio in Atlanta was talking about it today, because it still exist and the fact that the FCC has finally decided to step up to the plate and do something about it.

On December 17, 2007, FCC adopted a proposal to eliminate a “No Urban Dictates” (NUD) advertising practices.

At The Federal Communications Commission monthly meeting in December took what is being called an historic step to address the discriminatory advertising practice that exclude black-oriented and Hispanic-oriented radio stations from receiving a fair share of advertising revenues.

The the use of the “No Urban Dictate” policy, as it’s called, occurs when advertisers and their agencies intentionally by-pass urban and Latino stations, supposedly because the advertiser client has dictated that its ads not be placed with those outlets. African-American broadcasters have long said the unspoken policy existed. The issue was first brought to the FCC by the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters (NABOB) 23 years ago.

The existence of the NUD policy was openly revealed in 1999 when a memo was leaked from the Katz Radio Group, an advertising rep firm, that expressly instructed its account executives not to conduct business with urban-formatted stations.

The new order adopted by the FCC “requires broadcasters renewing their licenses to certify that their advertising sales contracts do not discriminate on the basis of race or gender.” Proponents of the order say it will change the nature of contracts between advertisers, agencies and media, and that they expect the FCC to be vigilant in enforcing the new policy.

This historic civil rights action should spell the end of written and unwritten ‘no-urban’ and ‘no-Spanish’ dictates,” said a statement from David Honig, executive director of the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council. The group had aggressively pushed for the policy to be adopted.

“Based on the FCC’s own research, MMTC estimates that the FCC’s action should produce a 5-10% increase in revenue for Black and Spanish radio stations. Henceforth advertisers – as well as agencies and rep firms – must place nondiscrimination clauses in their ad sales contracts with broadcasters,” Honig said.

The MMTC in its statement also concluded that “the parties must observe these nondiscrimination clauses, just as they would observe any other terms of an advertising sales contract. The practical effect of this provision is that Black and Spanish stations’ account executives can no longer be denied an opportunity to bid for an ad buy, and such a bid can no longer be rejected because of what amounts to racial discrimination against the stations’ listeners or viewers. MMTC expects and anticipates that the FCC will enforce its advertising discrimination ban scrupulously.”
(Source: harlemworldblog.wordpress.com)

I would like for all my savvy sisters to start listening to the advertisments on your favorite radio stations and see if the stores or companies that you spend your money with are advertising with them, if not, stop spending your money with companies that don’t value you as a person. Or get those companies to start advertising with your favorite radio stations by telling them you are going to stop spending with them if they don’t.

I would also like to start a list of these companies that are not advertising with us. Send your comments or E-Mail TheIcon with names, let’s call them out.

Posted in: Did You Know???, Say What