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April 25, 2006
Radio JACKasses and Hypocrisy | NAB
The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) industry conference is under way this week in Las Vegas. The well attended event is a big schmooze fest for the entire boadcasting, television, and radio industries. Proclamations are made, bold plans unveiled, and a few snippy remarks target the competition. The muck is freely tossed when preaching to the choir.
David Rehr, president and CEO of NAB had some unpleasant words for their satellite radio rivals.
"Satellite radio has supposedly 10 million subscribers total. But 260 million people listened to broadcast radio last week alone. Its (satellite radio) business model is bankrupt. And this is even before our own digital HD radio has kicked in," he said.
"Our localism, our connection to the community, is also an advantage, an irreplaceable advantage. Helping the community is obviously a social good. Helping the community is also broadcasting's business plan and, frankly, it is our brand. We must continue to be evangelical about our community service and about our community content."
While the numbers don't lie, the commitment to "localism, connection to the community" is a load of bull. More than ever, "local" radio stations are being distributed from a central location and distributed to affiliates. Call it the Clear Channel approach.
Example from Corpwatch article:
"Since Clear Channel came into our community and consolidated the stations there, [they] eliminated the local news department from those stations. Clear Channel now broadcasts news that originates from Baltimore over 100 miles away, and that centralized news agency has never had a reporter in our community," said Patrick Clawson, a Philadelphia reporter."We had a industrial plant accident in our area not long ago, where the plant manager called the stations at about 3 o'clock in the morning because they need to get the word out to tell the community about the accident and also to advise the employees not to come into work, but he was greeted with an employee [of Clear Channel] who said: 'Sorry, all our programs are delivered by satellite, and we can't anything on air until six in the morning.' With the elimination of local programming, how does this method of operation serve the public interest?" added Clawson.
I am not promoting Satellite radio (full disclosure - MS is a happy customer of Sirius Radio), though as I am employed by a large media company I pay attention to this stuff. Traditional radio people may trump their local roots, but they are starving their listeners of quality entertainment with draconian program rules and shitty programming. Is it even possible to listen to the radio these days without throwing up in your mouth a little?
Funny that JACK FM's "shuffle" format is one of the few bright spots in the free radio world. Take a look at the website, I count over 30 markets carrying the station format. The Marion Daily Republican in Marion, Mississippi, ran a story yesterday about their town's new JACK FM station.
The article states that the "station has no disc jockey, no weather reports and no talk shows." It also quotes Chad Elliot, Operations Manager at Mississippi River Radio Group, with what has to be the dumbest most obvious conclusion to a research study. Ever.
"A radio company which did a research project found that people wanted a radio station that played more music."
No shit? In other news, little kids enjoy playing with toys.
Read more about JACK FM at Wikipedia.
Tags: Radio, NAB, JACK FM, Clear Channel, David Rehr
Posted by Merry Swankster at April 25, 2006 01:25 PM
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