[ We're baaack.... take back the airwaves for democracy... stop
Clear Channel ! ]
In a court case that has dragged on 3 years, the jury in a U.S. District Court has found against Clear Channel Entertainment, awarding $90 MILLION in damages to Chicago promoter Jam Productions.
This is the first antitrust lawsuit to have been successfully fought against Clear Channel.
the Chicago Tribune has an excellent summary of the details.
Mar. 17--When Clear Channel Communications Inc. lost its bid to promote motorcycle races at stadiums across the country, a company official came up with a plan to get back at the sport's sanctioning agency.
He would ask disc jockeys at two of the company's radio stations to tell listeners that the American Motorcycle Association and Jam Productions Ltd., the promoter who won the bid, were destroying the sport.
"...Get the on-air talent to start taking about how the AMA and Jam are [expletive] up the sport of supercross," Charlie Mancuso, president of Clear Channel Entertainment-Motor Sports, wrote in an e-mail.
The e-mail was one of several coarsely worded exchanges from Clear Channel officials that attorneys for Chicago-based Jam Productions displayed for a federal jury Wednesday in closing arguments of an anti-trust case filed against Clear Channel.Jam is suing in federal district court here, accusing Clear Channel of maintaining its hold on supercross by intimidating stadium operators and the motorcycle association, using its market power to pressure stadiums not to host competing events.