Across the sparsely populated prairie, radio signals connect people in far-flung communities to one another and the world outside. They carry valuable updates on weather, commodity prices and tornados as well as recipes and birth announcements. And for those who spend a lot of time outdoors doing things with their hands, radio is a medium that is taken very seriously.

Even as the radio industry has consolidated, station owners say that it remains one of the least concentrated media sectors. The nationwide leader, Clear Channel Communications, owns about 1,200 of the 11,000 radio stations in the country.

But here in North Dakota, where there are about 80 commercial stations, Clear Channel owns 23 of them. And through a quirk in the rules governing radio concentration, it owns all six commercial stations in Minot, the state's fourth-largest city, with a population nearing 37,000. (There is a public radio station, and a Christian station in the city as well.)

As the Federal Communications Commissions reconsiders media ownership rules for television and newspapers, many are examining the effects of the radio industry's consolidation, speeded by the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Opponents may try to drive the debate over media consolidation to the edges. Minot is one of those edges.