Communications giant Clear Channel, the largest owner of radio stations in the U.S., announced this week it will change its decades-old name to something a little more suited to the evolving tastes of the discerning contemporary millenial.

An anonymous "family foundation" has paid for nearly 150 threatening voter fraud ads to go up around the Midwest, often in predominately black and Latino neighborhoods (the one above looms across the street from a housing project in Cleveland). The ads, 85 of which have appeared in Milwaukee and 60 of which are now…

Remember how the newspaper industry was devastated by the fundamental shift in media consumption habits driven by the internet, and the music industry was devastated by the fundamental shift in media consumption habits driven by the internet? Yes, well. The radio industry is also being devastated by the fundamental…

Premiere Radio Networks, the radio syndicator that brings you Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, knows better than anyone that its audience consists almost exclusively of mouth-breathing illiterates. That can make talk radio, which theoretically relies on the ability of listeners to dial a telephone and speak coherently,…

Clear Channel, home to Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck's radio shows, passed on Sarah Palin.

In your confuseday Tuesday Wednesday media column: Newspapers crumble, Clear Channel layoffs, total confusion in Wisconsin, and the NY Sun is just messing around:

In your meaty Tuesday media column: rumors of coming layoffs (and a die-off?) at OK! magazine, a golf magazine is killed, advertising plummets, media companies may default, and Americans don't know a damn thing:

Mailing it in for Hamilton Nolan, who's, er, on assignment, I'm here with your post-inaugural, Nobama media column.

• The broadcast of yesterday's inauguration earned the highest ratings since Reagan took the oath in 1981. Early numbers from Nielsen indicate 29% of US households tuned in. That figure doesn't factor in the people who viewed it online, and the big event in DC yesterday set web traffic records, too. [THR, NYT]
• The …

Oakland-based custom online radio site Pandora, reeling from an increase in Web-radio royalty rates, could get purchased by national radio conglomerate Clear Channel. Expect your local alt-weekly to figure out a way to cry about the homogenization of programming on a site that creates custom playlists for users. […

The logo of a street artist in LA named Skullphone started popping up on digital billboards around the city owned by Clear Channel. Awesome! said the collective street art world. The kid has hacked into the big media monster Clear Channel's network! It's digital graffiti! It's culture jamming! It's the new media…

The FBI has made a deal with Clear Channel to put "most wanted" bulletins and "hot pursuit" alerts on digital billboards around the country. Predictable: The SiliconView digital billboard on the 101 was just the beginning. The future of outdoor advertising is digital billboards which can display different ads…

The Federal Communications Commission has voted to allow broadcasters in the 20 largest media markets to also own their very own newspaper. The decision overturns a 1975 ban that noted "it is unrealistic to expect true diversity from a commonly owned station-newspaper combination." Ah, so goes the final obstacle…