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Hungarian billionaire and philanthropist George Soros has been blamed by so many cranks for so many different supposed horrors that his name is on par with Kleenex, Xerox, and Band-Aid: a product that has become shorthand for every version of that product. It’s become so trivially easy to blame Soros for whatever is happening in the world – from student protestors buying coffee to the supposed links between the “Albanian narco-state” and Tim Walz – that it’s essentially lost all its meaning as a right wing canard.
But every so often, the far-right crankery machine can get behind a new Soros conspiracy theory, and it’s happening right now. In this case, it’s the slightly true but mostly false story that Soros is “buying 200 radio stations” in a “fast-tracked” process that “nobody has ever seen before” as a way to “take over the radio market.” And Congressional Republicans are desperate to stop before it swings the election to the Radical Marxist Comrade Kamala Harris. Despite the story having been around since April, it’s really taken off in the last few weeks due to the FCC allowing the purchase (which is real) to go ahead.
As with almost all conspiracy theories, there are kernels of truth wrapped inside layers of lying. And of course, since it’s Soros, those layers are also chock-full of antisemitic lunacy and grandiose accusations. Take a guess as to what the first reply to Elon Musk’s tweet about the FCC “breaking the law” for Soros is:
Without getting into a long digression about the FCC’s complex rules for foreign ownership of US radio stations, some of this is true.
Soros Fund Management, which controls the bulk of the investments made by Soros’ Open Society Foundations, is buying a majority share of the debt held by radio conglomerate Audacy. Despite having 240 stations in more than 40 markets in the US, Audacy couldn’t keep pace with the changes in radio and podcast consumption, and its stock tanked. It declared bankruptcy in January, and re-emerged recently as a private company, with its debt held by various buyers, and its radio licenses in the process of being transferred to the new company
With the FCC approving a deal that’s been in the works since February, Soros Fund Management now owns about 40% of that debt, making his Fund the company’s biggest shareholder, and nothing more than that. He doesn’t personally own the radio stations under the Audacy umbrella – Audacy does. And since he doesn’t personally own the company, Soros will have no say in what the stations owned by Audacy put on the air. Their stations are a mix of news, talk, sports, and music that likely won’t change under a privately-held ownership – even one headed by Geoege Soros.
It’s not even outlandish for Soros to be making investments in radio and podcasting, since he’s already done so, buying stakes or making investments in multiple other major podcasting companies.
Such bankruptcy restructuring deals are the bread and butter of American business – as Donald Trump, the “King of Debt“, could tell you. Moreover, these deals aren’t at all unusual in the bankruptcy-ravaged world of terrestrial radio. Audacy competitors IHeartMedia and Cumulus both went through the same license transfer process and foreign ownership review that Audacy just finished after their bankruptcies in 2019 and 2018, respectively. With their debts bought up, both companies have been restructuring to cut costs and improve efficiency.
(Full disclosure, I’ve appeared as a guest on radio shows or podcasts on all three networks.)
The FCC has insisted that all three radio restructuring processes were the same, that their approvals were routine, and that, contrary to reporting from conservative outlets like the New York Post, there was no “fast track” or “shortcut” with Audacy and Soros. In fact, the FCC review process took longer because of demands for additional oversight from Congressional Republicans who were concerned about George Soros taking over the radio and pumping vulnerable American ears full of leftist filth.
So why are we doing this? Because it’s Soros.
Or to put it another way, do any of the right wing cranks screaming about “George Soros buying 200 radio stations” know or care who bought the bulk of IHeartMedia’s debt? Were there demands for accountability from Congress and right wing influencers? No, because the main holders of IHeartMedia’s debt are the asset management firms PIMCO and Franklin Advisors, not Soros Fund Management. Do you know who they are? Does Glenn Beck do hour-long specials about how PIMCO is the puppet master behind all wars? No, because they aren’t GEORGE SOROS, the “Money-Changing Globalist.”
These are routine transactions in an industry struggling to stay relevant and profitable. Except nothing is routine when dealing with Soros, who is said to be “tightening his grip” on US radio by “controlling 200 stations” in a “scary” move that is nothing less than “an attack of free speech.”
It should also be noted that the bulk of the accusations about the FCC creating a “Soros Shortcut” come from the New York Post, which has consistently attacked Soros with rumors and conspiracy theories for decades, including earlier this year, when they created a fiction about Soros and the OSF funding the student protests against the war in Gaza by buying everyone tents. It’s all nonsense to sell papers and get clicks.
Ultimately, the “George Soros is buying the airwaves” conspiracy theory is the same as all of the other conspiracy theories about him. It uses ancient puppet master tropes to attack one leftist Jewish philanthropist while paying no attention to the inherently evil corporate practices that allow rampant bankruptcies, the easy buying and selling of massive amounts of debt, and the layoffs that come with such massive movement of money.
Criticizing those things would actually require courage and honesty from the far right, not unhinged conspiracism and tired allegations. So don’t expect it to happen anytime soon.
Mike Rothschild 