Quote:
Originally Posted by OldRightHander
Clear Channel has absolutely ruined radio for the most part.
Well, I think over the air radio has declined drastically across the board, even the stations not owned by Clear Channel. Years ago I used to do some volunteer work with WAKW, a Christian station in College Hill. Back then they had a mix of music and syndicated talk programs. One of the times I was in there one of the DJs showed me their music library and it was quite impressive. He was also picking out whatever he wanted to play, just putting CDs in there and picking whatever songs he wanted to play.
Now they've even gone to the point of the commercial stations. They're part of some larger group and they play the music they're told to play, basically the songs that are released for radio, and all the talk and teaching programs are gone. It's really gone downhill in my book. I pretty much just listen to XM or whatever I have on my iPod.
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I was in radio for nearly 20 years. Started interning as a kid...got my first weekend shift when I was 16 and was a PD by the time I was morning sidekick by the time I was 20...my career progressed and I made it into middle management with a LARGE RADIO CORPORATION.
All that to say, I agree with you...to a degree. The wheels were set in motion in the late 70's with Jimmy Carter and then the rails were greased by Ronald Reagan and his deregulation's. It was actually the FCC appointed by Reagan that waived the requirement for station owners to
1) Be Local by operating their stations from their city of license for a minimum of 15 hours per week minimum.
2) Not have a controlling influence over local media...usually (not always) this meant that there was a weighted evaluation given to each media in a city including print, tv and radio.
All of that is true but the reality is that media is changing. Nobody goes to radio for new music anymore..they go to the net...nobody goes to the newspaper anymore for news...they go to the net. Clear Channel knows this is the truth which is why many of their stations are nothing more than glorified promotional vehicles for their IHeartRadio App...that is they way they are going to go n the next 10 years...they will need to start selling off their properties because they bought high and now those debts are coming due.
I read recently that they (Clear Channel) have to increase revenue by 4% each of the next 5 years in order to meet their debt requirements which is why the cockroach of the radio industry changed from the traffic reporter to the sales rep.
While Clear Channel SUCKS and is the DEVIL they are no worse than the other operators out there like Radio One, CBS, Emmis and on and on. Radio is dead, local radio nobody cares if there is a local radio anymore and that is why they can fill the stations with a steady stream of nothing but syndicated and voice tracked crap.
I LOVED radio but it is dead...I left in 2002 because it just wasn't fun anymore being a computer programmer more than a radio programmer.