It’s called localism, and it’s dangerous.  Since FCC rules require stations to serve the local community in order to keep licenses, groups organize to make complaints against local stations for objections to syndicated programming.  Since most conservative talk shows are syndicated, these tactics scare stations into dropping them for fear of losing FCC licenses because the FCC takes complaints very seriously. 

The FCC has leeway to define “serve the local community” as it wishes, and it can impose any rules it wishes with three of five members’ votes.  The negotiation has already begun to come to some agreement on the definition, but the FCC has been a bit overbearing by telling stations to “do it our way or else.”  If the Sirius / XM merger is any indication, it’s going to involve a lot of “minority” programming hours as well as local programming rules.  Many smaller stations will find the new rules difficult to follow since they rely on syndicated programs to keep ad dollars coming in so they can serve the community at all with bare-bones-staff-required news breaks.