A few weeks ago, one of the most popular radio stations in New York City — 98.7 KISS-FM — abruptly shifted gears. Without warning, it abandoned its urban programming and switched to a sports-talk format.

What happened? Disney took over programming for the station.

The departure of KISS-FM leaves the country’s most populous city with only one urban adult contemporary station (WBLS 107.5) and without two of the nation’s most popular African-American radio talk shows, the Tom Joyner Morning Show and the Michael Baisden Show.

Prompted by this sudden loss, yesterday a coalition of African American, media justice and public interest groups, as well as black media professionals and scholars, called on the Federal Communication Commission to study the state of black radio. Free Press was one of the signers.

The coalition wrote that the situation in New York City “speaks to a much larger crisis plaguing black radio and the radio industry” caused by the devastating impact of media consolidation. 

African Americans own just 3 percent of all full-power commercial radio stations in the country.

The coalition filed the letter with the FCC a day before the commission is scheduled to hold a public discussion on the market entry barriers to increased ownership diversity. That meeting will take place at 9:30 am on June 26th and will be livestreamed on the FCC’s website.

Photo by Flickr user Bernhard Benke