10.02.2002
Radio, Radio
Have you listened to the radio lately? I'm guessing that unless you are a big Talk, Sports, or NPR fan, probably not. Which is strange in my mind because the ubiquity of radio is really hard to beat as far as an entertainment medium goes. You can listen (virtually) anywhere, the ratio of advertising to programming is usually not too bad, and unlike TV, there is really no Taboo about radio in the workplace.
So why are less of us tuning in? The answer is amazingly simple, yet even the radio industry itself is loathe to admidt it. The formats of radio have become to rigid, too inflexible, too predictable, too boring. Now this has been going on for a long time, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that 20 years ago things were so much better, because this all started in that general timeframe, with the first relaxations of communications law that allowed corporate ownership to expand the number of staions they were able to own at any one time. The trend continued bit by bit until 1996 when the Communications Deregulation Act of 1996 passed (and BOTH parties are responsible for that fiasco so spare me the partisan bickering on this one), and the number of stations could own overall increased, and the number of stations that could be owned in a single market went through the roof. This would be akin to one guy owning every Wendy's McDonald's and Burger King in your town - they might have a slightly different feel to them, but you can bet that management would operate them day to day in a similar fashion, and with no competition keep an eye on cutting costs, and not retaining customers (after all where else are you gonna go?). So what we have now is a market dominated by Millenium Media, and Clear Channel Communications, and while they operate stations with numerous formats, in most cases they actually operate multiple stations out of a single physical space, sharing administrative and technical staff, and in many cases, even on-air personalities. It's pretty damned homogenized, much like the product they have developed under that system. Playlists have become even more repetitive (30 odd years of "Classic Rock" to choose from, yet they still play they same 4 fucking Who songs), Radio used to be a place where you could occasionally "discover" a band, but you can bet that anything making it onto the airwaves of your local commercial FM station has been scrutinized, analyzed, and sanitized in a very calculated fashion. These days you have a better chance of finding out about a cool new band watching a Mitsubishi ad (and that is a whole seperate rant). At this point I would normally tell you how you should call a congressman or senator, and bitch to them, but they are so deep into corporate media's back pocket they have no chance of responding to you in a rational responsible fashion. So turn the radio off, or move the dial to a local NPR station, or get an MP3 player, and control the music for yourself.
go and tell me all about it
Have you listened to the radio lately? I'm guessing that unless you are a big Talk, Sports, or NPR fan, probably not. Which is strange in my mind because the ubiquity of radio is really hard to beat as far as an entertainment medium goes. You can listen (virtually) anywhere, the ratio of advertising to programming is usually not too bad, and unlike TV, there is really no Taboo about radio in the workplace.
So why are less of us tuning in? The answer is amazingly simple, yet even the radio industry itself is loathe to admidt it. The formats of radio have become to rigid, too inflexible, too predictable, too boring. Now this has been going on for a long time, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that 20 years ago things were so much better, because this all started in that general timeframe, with the first relaxations of communications law that allowed corporate ownership to expand the number of staions they were able to own at any one time. The trend continued bit by bit until 1996 when the Communications Deregulation Act of 1996 passed (and BOTH parties are responsible for that fiasco so spare me the partisan bickering on this one), and the number of stations could own overall increased, and the number of stations that could be owned in a single market went through the roof. This would be akin to one guy owning every Wendy's McDonald's and Burger King in your town - they might have a slightly different feel to them, but you can bet that management would operate them day to day in a similar fashion, and with no competition keep an eye on cutting costs, and not retaining customers (after all where else are you gonna go?). So what we have now is a market dominated by Millenium Media, and Clear Channel Communications, and while they operate stations with numerous formats, in most cases they actually operate multiple stations out of a single physical space, sharing administrative and technical staff, and in many cases, even on-air personalities. It's pretty damned homogenized, much like the product they have developed under that system. Playlists have become even more repetitive (30 odd years of "Classic Rock" to choose from, yet they still play they same 4 fucking Who songs), Radio used to be a place where you could occasionally "discover" a band, but you can bet that anything making it onto the airwaves of your local commercial FM station has been scrutinized, analyzed, and sanitized in a very calculated fashion. These days you have a better chance of finding out about a cool new band watching a Mitsubishi ad (and that is a whole seperate rant). At this point I would normally tell you how you should call a congressman or senator, and bitch to them, but they are so deep into corporate media's back pocket they have no chance of responding to you in a rational responsible fashion. So turn the radio off, or move the dial to a local NPR station, or get an MP3 player, and control the music for yourself.
go and tell me all about it
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