Sucking the Life Out of Radio

I just finished up reading Bob Edwards's autobiography. I had the opportunity to meet him last spring at a university event, and I'm not a NPR listener but I found his story very intriguing. I appreciate what he says in his book about satellite radio and how it doesn't just give Howard Stern and Opie & Anthony license to shock with impunity, but it also gives journalists like Edwards a chance to do what they want to do in order to tell us the stories they want us to hear. I for one have no interest in subscribing to satellite radio, but that isn't because I don't like what they're doing. To ignore what they offer listeners and talent alike is to be in denial about the state of terrestrial radio today.

And that state is not good... the life continues to be sucked out of the medium. I find it sadly ironic that for all of the consultant and expert bluster about how, with the rise of new media, broadcasters are not in the "radio" business so much as they are in the "content" business, and yet they continue to get rid of or constrain those who CREATE THE CONTENT! Tim Moore, a former station owner, gets it... he thinks that radio has completely taken itself out of the talent development business in the last decade by spreading PDs and talent so thin (due to layoffs) that they can't work together to improve. Nope, sorry, don't have time to coach my young talent, so I better just give them liner cards to read and be done with it. A radio legend like Lee Abrams gets it... if you're going to have DJs on your station, they need to SAY SOMETHING. But first, you have to actually ALLOW the DJ to say something, that is, besides what's written on the liner card. I know, the PPMs might drop if the DJ talks for more than 5 seconds at 7:45 on a Tuesday evening between a Tool song and the latest from the Chili Peppers... but I've already said my piece about the overuse of raw numbers in this blog. Suffice to say, number-crunchers lose the debate with people like Lee Abrams and Tim Moore on argument, but it doesn't end the debate.

And we continue to have the debate about the value of localism in radio. The latest big name to stick his foot in it is John Garabedian, the man behind the syndicated "Open House Party" program. Garabedian pretty much stated that localism was always an ideal, but listeners don't really care if their DJ is a local person talking about things of local interest. OF COURSE he would say that... he makes his money on displacing local content with his SYNDICATED program. The young audience certainly cares about the DJ actually being there in the studio, because it wasn't that long ago that the thing to do was to call your favorite DJ and request a song, or try to be goofy and get on the air. And before you think that I'm into some old-timer "get off my lawn" rant, I'm not talking about the golden age of Top 40 radio, I'm saying nighttime DJs were live and local as recently as 5 years ago.

Those who still try to do something local at night have found ways to incorporate new media into their presentations, most notably by letting listeners pick the music. Two rock stations here in Philly did variations on this theme. WYSP, before it ceased to exist last fall, joined other stations across the country in using the listener-driven system Jelli to determine what they would play next. Radio 104.5 does something similar called "Majority Rules", where they put out a theme to the listening audience (including those who are on Facebook and Twitter), and ask listeners to choose the next song that fits that theme. For instance, the other night they did "friend songs", and the choices were "Friends of P" by the Rentals, "My Friends Over You" by New Found Glory, or "My Friends" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Things like this allow a station to break away from its standard 300-song gold category and actually play songs the listeners never hear on the radio. What a concept!

Unfortunately, these events are becoming fewer and farther between with the constant downsizing by the likes of Clear Channel and Cumulus, taking away those local voices and those outlets for the listeners to feel that they are truly a part of the station. I could point to several media sources who in recent months have decried the trend away from localism and listener connection (and by throwing a bunch of hyperlinks in that last sentence, I guess I just did). More and more, it just seems like these stations are little more than brand names with budgets, and your favorite DJ is just a line on a balance sheet that might need to get crossed out so that inevitable bankruptcy can be forestalled a little longer.

And this trend, unfortunately, also applies to the online outlets for these stations. By subsuming all of its stations under the iHeartRadio banner, and adding other companies like Cumulus and Greater Media to the app, Clear Channel gets to further de-localize those stations. They are just choices under the brand name of "iHeartRadio", and therefore Clear Channel. Stations that create their own individual apps get to stand out among the pack, as the smartphone equivalent of radio presets, in the words of radio consultant Fred Jacobs. Therefore, they retain their local identity and stand on their own. Others have found iHeartRadio preferable to the individual apps because they can get lost in the shuffle if a listener downloads several of them. I find that to be a weak argument. Do I use iHeartRadio? I probably shouldn't, as anti-CC as I am, but I do. I also use other radio apps such as Nobex and Tune-In, because they carry stations from other companies, but I only know that because I read up on this stuff, and because I like to listen to a variety of stations from a variety of different cities. The average local listener does not; he/she has his/her local favorites and wants to listen to them only. Therefore, it would likely be more to their advantage to just get the individual station apps on their phone.

I know it seems like all I am doing is banging my head against the brick wall of Corporate Radio by blogging about this every so often, but at the very least, I'm getting it all out there. You have my opinion, the opinions of those who matter, and then you have the people continuing to run their companies (and the radio industry) into the ground. Do with that what you will.