President Bill Clinton. There was a notable lack of
public debate about the legislation, which was a ma-
jor overhaul of the Communications Act of 1934.
Media scholar Robert McChesney lamented the
poor press coverage and quoted one lobbyist as say-
ing, “I have never seen anything like the Telecom-
munications Bill. The silence of public debate is
deafening. A bill with such astonishing impact on all
of us is not even being discussed.”
Telecommunications spokespersons said that the
act would save consumers $550 billion and add 1.5
million jobs. The promised savings never material-
ized. Instead, cable and local phone rates rose, while
the telecommunications industry lost a half-million
jobs. Some critics, such as Kansas senator Bob Dole,
called the act a giveaway to the media firms. Not only
did the rates go up for the public but the consolida-
tion of the media created a monopoly threatening
the diversity of information as well.
Many public officials did not foresee the consoli-
dation of the media and the devastating results that
would take place. After the passage of the law, a wave
of media mergers and buyouts occurred almost
overnight. The Telecommunications Act of 1996
eliminated the national ownership cap on commer-
cial radio stations, and Clear Channel began to buy
up stations and reduce, if not altogether eliminate,
local news and other local programming.
By 2002, the changes brought by deregulation
had left ten companies controlling two-thirds of the
radio audience, with two companies, Viacom and In-
finity Broadcasting, controlling 42 percent of the lis-
teners. Despite promises by the major media compa-
nies to increase news programming, news staffs
shrank by 44 percent and part-time staff by 71 per-
cent. The promise to improve on the lack of minor-
ity ownership actually caused a decrease by 14 per-
cent.
Impact The Telecommunications Act of 1996 re-
sulted in the public paying more money for services
and a decrease in minority ownership. The passage
of this legislation by Congress created a media mo-
nopoly that has left the public stranded amid a sea of
mergers and takeovers by media giants, which was
not the stated goal of the act.
Further Reading
Aufderheide, Patricia. Communications Policy and
Public Interest: The Telecommunications Act of 1996.
New York: Guilford Press, 1999.
Cooper, Mark.Media Ownership and Democracy in
the Digital Information Age. Stanford, Calif.: Center
for Internet & Society, Stanford Law School,
2003.
Wexler, Celia. “Channeling Influence: The Broad-
cast Lobby and the $70 Billion Free Ride.”Com-
mon Cause, April, 1997, 20.
Denis MuellerSee also Business and the economy in the United
States; Cable television; Children’s Television Act of
1990; Internet; Television. Telemarketing
Definition Direct marketing practice of reaching
potential customers by telephone
Telemarketing in the 1990’s was becoming an increasingly
successful business tool at the same time that protective legis-
lation, of limited effect, was being introduced to control the
practice.
Telemarketing was part of the burgeoning direct
marketing industry of the decade. Its impact was
substantial, generating hundreds of billions of dol-
lars in sales annually. Throughout the 1990’s, U.S.
businesses steadily increased the amount of sales
they were obtaining through telephone marketing.
In 1990, those sales amounted to $272.8 billion, ac-
cording to the Direct Marketing Association (DMA).
Congress, in enacting the Telephone Consumer
Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA), offered a signifi-
cantly contrasting figure of over $400 billion for- According to the DMA, telemarketing sales in-
creased steadily, with a 7.2 annual percent growth
rate from 1990 to 1995. The rate increased to
around 9.2 percent annually during the second half
of the decade. Sales in 1995 were $385.6 billion; by
1999, they were nearing $600 billion.
Business-to-business sales generated the most
money, and a smaller percentage came from con-
sumer telephone marketing sales. In 1990, $117.2
billion in telemarketing sales to consumers were sur-
passed by the $155.6 billion in business-to-business
telemarketing sales. Similarly in 1995, $159.3 billion
in sales to consumers were surpassed by the $226.3
billion in business-to-business sales.
Of lesser importance than its effect on consum-
ers, telemarketing provided new employment op-
836 Telemarketing The Nineties in America