Radio says: "Help us from ourselves!"

A funny story came across the Web the other day when one of the V.P.'s of the major radio consolidators stated that new rules needed to be written regarding the number of stations that any one consolidator would be allowed to own. For those who may be unaware, the face of radio essentially changed forever when Congress passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which allowed any one entity (read "corporation"), to own more stations in a single market than they had previously. Ever wonder why your radio sounds the same no matter where you go? Thank Congress. Without the diversity of multiple ownership that we had for since radio was conceived, you basically wind up with the same formulaic, predictable programming nationwide. Corporations loved it because they thought it would allow them to control all music outlets and essentially have a monopoly on what the public could listen to. Apparently, it's not working out quite as the big consolidators had planned and they are losing money :-(

So, now the consolidators are going back to Congress to try and get the rules changed to adding even MORE stations to the number they can own in any one market; up to 12 stations in markets with more than 75 signals and 10 stations in markets with 60 to 74 signals. Essentially, they want to increase the monopoly and further limit the choices you will have as far as free commercial radio. (And maximize their profits as well).

So why doesn't commercial radio make money? Turn it on and listen! There's very little effort to draw an audience with new artists, new musical genres or anything that is even remotely cutting edge...It doesn't fit into the "formula", the focus group-based system that the radio stations use to program nation-wide with few variations, this corporate structured programming allows for very few variations system-wide, the result being top 40, Adult Contemporary, Urban, Oldies, and Country among others that sound exactly the same no matter where you are in the country.

So what happened? The American public stuck their heads out of the window and screamed, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!" Of course, technology helped out with iPod's, downloadable mp3's, satellite radio and podcasting/webcasting in all of it's forms, but radio is equally culpable by taking a medium for artistic expression and turning it into a corporate loss leader. The public listened, and responded with the big middle finger to the radio stations. And now they say they are losing money, go figure.

Can radio come back? Quite frankly I think the horse is already out of the barn and it would be very difficult to get them back. I am certain that the solution is not in more radio consolidation, I think enough damage has been done in that area. The stations need to be brought back to the levels of the artists and the DJ's who tap into local talent and who know a good sounding group when they hear one. Eric Clapton once said, "When we wrote songs we wrote music we liked, we didn't care whether it sold 1 million units or not we just wrote songs we liked to hear", that's the attitude that "new" radio would have to develop, play the music that on-air talent enjoys and eventually people will tune in.

Personally, I feel the corporate entities will get their wish and then the airways will get real quiet as the corporations fail to learn any lessons from past history.