Behind the Curtain at Clear Channel
Are you one of those music fans who wonders how mainstream commercial radio came to suck so badly? As many hardcore music fans know, Clear Channel is the company that has emerged as the lightning rod for fans complaining about bland repetition on their local radio dial.
For those who haven’t seen the film, one of its most compelling lessons revolves around Clear Channel’s history and business practices. While this is nothing new for many hardcore fans, we continue to hear from many music lovers that this portion of the film was indeed a revelation…finally an explanation for why they continuously hit the Seek button in a frustrated search for exciting new music. For those who weren’t up to speed on Clear Channel before seeing the film, they now understand why mainstream radio (with few notable exceptions) is such an empty, impersonal experience for so many fans.
Despite what some might assume, B4MD’s Clear Channel commentaries - and even it’s now famous “sexy pop star” segment – aren’t a rant against any particular type of music or taste (pop can be great too!). Instead, we think it’s important for people to understand the corporate forces that are steadily eliminating all but the safest material on mainstream music outlets.
What to do now that you’ve seen the truth? Follow this link: http://www.clearchannel.com/Radio/StationSearch.aspx and enter your city or zip code - Clear Channel will tell you which stations they own in your area. Many are being sold off as listeners increasingly vote with their call button selections… but Clear Channel is strengthening its presence in its “Top 100 Markets”. Check out those stations and listen for yourself… and think about your call button settings… have you really given your great local independent and college radio stations a chance? Listened to Internet or satellite radio? Explored the abundant music sites online? Visited the live music venue down the street in the last month or two? In this age of exploding access to great new music, know this concrete truth: you don’t have to settle for bad radio anymore…
For the most part, you guys are right on–but I have to comment on what you said here: “have you really given your great local independent and college radio stations a chance?”
There are some “college” radio stations who claim to be about the music (like KEXP in Seattle, for example), but in reality they only play music that has a connection or an affiliation to the majors–directly or indirectly. It’s one big sorry clique. College radio stations that operate in this way do a great disservice to the listeners they serve, because they are deciding for the people what they should hear, and not letting the people decide for themselves whether they like or dislike a certain song, artist, or band; irregardless of a major label affiliation. It’s not enough to say “independent music” anymore, because an “independent label” backed by a major label is not truly independent. Their major label backing gets them a hall pass to the airwaves, the media, and it brings down market-entry barriers for them. An example of such a barrier can be found at CBS, which has been known to discriminate against true independent music. This was revealed in an e-mail from the program director at their San Diego radio station KYXY, “Our parent company CBS Radio has set strict guidelines which do not allow our stations to accept or air product distributed by any source other than recognized major labels.” I noticed that a person from CBS is speaking in this film. I find it a bit odd that a person from CBS would even be in this in this film unless they were a disgruntled past employee; which it appears this person is not.