Merle Haggard Quotes

Radio is a really strange business now, too. There's a very narrow door and a very few people control what gets played.

Radio stations play what they believe is in, and they all talk to each other.

[Commercial radio] is owned by one or two corporations now, and they're not in the music business. They're in the advertising business.... So let's not kid ourselves. If you want to hear music, go buy a guitar.

Common sense tells us that this explosion of media sources should eliminate any concern over a lack of diversity of views in the marketplace and competition.

A city with one newspaper, or with a morning and an evening paper under one ownership, is like a man with one eye, and often the eye is glass.

Our founding fathers could not have foreseen that freedom of the press might eventually be threatened just as much by media consolidation as by government.

I have very strong views on TV. There's no diversity, there's no choice. Things are decided by committee.

This galloping concentration in broadcast ownership is unhealthy.

The American people should be made aware of the trend toward monopolization of the great public information vehicles and the concentration of more and more power over public opinion in fewer and fewer hands.

We are developing a media policy which would be about breaking up single ownership of too many sources of information so that we have a multiplicity of sources.

To be honest with you, I worry about concentration of ownership in media, where you have a handful of media conglomerates largely controlling what we see, hear and read.

The tough thing about radio is I've met a lot of people in it who like my music. But it's hard for them to figure out how to play what they like when there's somebody up above them yelling 'you have to play this.'

Well, many of us believe that excessive media concentration is a subject that ought to be addressed, and it is, of course, the intention of the majority party not to allow that to be discussed.

Hollywood used to control the distribution; now Silicon Valley does.

I think it's important to remember that music supervision is not just about a fantastic record collection or knowledge of music, although that certainly helps for aspiring music supervisors.

So you do shorter versions of the hits, or you take out a long guitar solo or things like that to make time for the hits and new music as well. But I don't think any of us ever get to do as much new music as we would like to.

“If the United States…can pass laws to block media cross ownership within one market to protect the diversity of voices, then we in Canada must ask ourselves why we do not seem to attach the same importance to that important principle.

The real problem ... is to get to this unfair [press] coverage.... Use the anti-trust division [of the Justice Department] to investigate various media relating to anti-trust violations. Even the threat of anti-trust action I think would be effective in changing their views ...

There isn't much room for an outsider point of view in print any more.

I love to offer a playlist to the world, almost like being a deejay.

I get tired of people trying to dog out the radio for not playing this or that. There are lots of people who like what they play - otherwise, they wouldn't play it.

We have more and more one-newspaper towns, and that troubles me.

We have to be very cognizant of the fact that 90 percent of the electronic media in this country is owned, operated, programmed, and controlled by conservatives. They made a concerted effort during and before the Reagan years that they were going to get the microphone.

There is no independent American print or TV media.

I wanted to be a disc jockey.