* The top four radio station owners have almost half of the listeners and the top ten owners have almost two-thirds of listeners. This means that a handful of companies control what the overwhelming majority of Americans hear on the radio.
* The "localness" of radio ownership--ownership by individuals who live in the community--declined by almost one-third between 1975 and 2005.
* Just fifteen formats make up three-quarters of all commercial programming. Moreover, radio formats with different names can overlap up to 80 percent of the time in terms of the songs played on them.
* Niche musical formats like classical, jazz, Americana, bluegrass, new rock and folk, where they exist, are provided almost exclusively by smaller station groups.
* Across 155 markets, radio listenership has declined over the past fourteen years, a 22 percent drop since its peak in 1989. The consolidation allowed by the Telecom Act has failed to reverse this trend. In fact, it may well have caused the trend to accelerate.
I wonder if Nikola Tesla could have imagined this sad state of affairs for radio. Few American recognize his name, but Tesla is probably the single most important figure in the history of wireless communications. Many were involved in the invention of radio, but in a key 1943 patent dispute, the Supreme Court decided in Tesla's favor. (Yeah, I know that Wikipedia isn't always the most reliable source.).
4 comments:
I always think of Marconi when it comes to radio. Tesla had so many other things going on.
Anyway, the state of music is sad, sad, sad, sad. All the way from the mainstream artists, to the recording industry, to the distributors, to the radio stations. It's a cartel. While the Clear Channels of the world shut down local stations, the RIAA tries to lock down the free flow of information under the guise of copyright protection. Meanwhile, the artists, if they're any good, are getting screwed on royalties. Now the RIAA wants to lower royalties further.
It's just rotten. I'm happy to live in a place with a decent independent station, even if it has to be supported by the university and not the community. And I guess there is WOCT, which I haven't sampled yet, but it looks like I should, judging from the program schedule.
We need to ween ourselves off the music industry machine and start supporting operations like Magnatune so that we can enjoy our music without restriction, and the artists actually get a fair share of the money.
One final point in my disjointed little rant here...
While I am happy to see more and more people going on line for more independent options, this may actually hasten the demise of real community radio.
Oh, and one more final point. The FCC should loosen restrictions to allow more low-power fm "garage" stations with affordable licenses, because at that level of the game, it doesn't matter if Clear Channel is in town. You don't need much revenue to keep things running.
Don't worry, Tony...
For Tesla, it's getting better every day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wftWDPXnAx8
Great band. In fact, the band Tesla's "Great Radio Controversy" album in the last 1980s was the thing that introduced me to the inventor Tesla in the first place. Who says you can't learn anything useful from rock and roll? :-)
Little Suzi, Modern Day Cowboy...
Tesla and Queensryche were the tops of hair metal.
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