WHERE THEY CAME FROM
This broadcasting empire started with two well-connected Texans and $125,000. In 1972, Lowry Mays, a former Air Force officer and investment banker, and Red McCombs, a used-car salesman and future owner of the Minnesota Vikings, bought KEEZ-FM, then two years later scooped up WOAI-AM, a “clear channel” station, meaning it had exclusive control of the frequency on which it broadcast and could be heard hundreds, even thousands, of miles away. The company went public in 1984 and purchased its first television station a few years later. It boasted 43 radio stations and 16 TV stations by the mid-1990s.

WHAT THEY DO
The San Antonio company reaches 154 million people—or 75 percent of the adult population—and has a huge influence on what we hear. And see. In addition to leading the radio industry with 1,200 stations, Clear Channel also owns 40 TV stations, maintains a major presence in the outdoor advertising business with more than 870,000 display locations worldwide, and has a variety of other holdings.

WHAT THEY GOT RIGHT
A piece of laissez-faire legislation known as the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which expanded the number of radio stations a broadcast company could own in one market, pretty much did away with any limits on ownership nationwide. Free of restrictions, Clear Channel went on a wild shopping spree, spending about $30 billion and eventually garnering about 1,200 stations, including as many as seven in certain markets, and 60 percent of the rock radio markets in the country.

Clear Channel didn’t stop with radio; in 2000 it bought the leading concert promotion company, SFX, and folded it into Clear Channel Entertainment, which allowed the company to book thousands of concerts a year and gave it a new platform to cross-promote its holdings.

WHAT THEY GOT WRONG
Clear Channel is a company of conservative values expressed in very vocal ways, many times to the detriment of its public image. But the problems go beyond what Clear Channel actively supports to what it censors: anything critical of the Iraq war or the Bush presidency. After September 11, management sent out a memo suggesting a ban of more than 200 peace-related songs, including “Imagine” by John Lennon. Then there was the whole Howard Stern brouhaha; Clear Channel dropped him from six stations in 2004 on the grounds of profane language, but Stern countered to David Letterman, and anyone else who gave him the opportunity, that the real reason he was dropped was that he turned against President Bush just as the presidential campaign was getting going.

The list goes on and on, but Clear Channel’s rapid growth and aggressive attitude has prompted accusations of anti competitive practices that have led the likes of Don Henley to testify before Congress, insisting that the company has engaged in monopolistic practices through its radio and booking operations.

WHAT’S NEXT
Bain Capital Partners and Thomas H. Lee Partners are taking over the company as soon as a $26.7 billion deal announced at the end of 2006 closes. For now, founder Lowry Mays’ sons, Randall and Mark, continue to operate the company, but in a move that signaled the end of industry consolidation, the industry’s largest player will break up, with Clear Channel selling off almost one third of its radio assets. The company has also announced plans to seek buyers for all of its television stations and 539 of its smaller radio stations. —Carlye Adler