A big part of that is also because of the consolidation of the music industry. There are only three major record labels and they control most the music in the world. There are far more radio companies than record labels.
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A big part of that is also because of the consolidation of the music industry. There are only three major record labels and they control most the music in the world. There are far more radio companies than record labels.
In today's economy, fewer and fewer small groups or individuals want to risk buying a radio station. The industry has little growth perspective in the AM and FM area, and streaming means competing with thousand of other streamers (none of whom have been able to design a profitable way to stream music formats).
Our critical poster does not understand that free radio supported by ads is a declining and that, in real dollars it is off by over 60% since 2000.
And the few people who try to buy radio stations in local markets find that financing for single stations in single markets is nearly impossible... so if there is any "blame" for consolidation, it belongs with the banks and other lenders.
That "corporate crap" coming from the larger radio companies is actually just their response from spending money to ask listeners what they want to hear and what they don't want to hear on the radio.
And when radio began, nearly all listening was to nationally networked shows and talents. That's nothing new. It has to do with giving listeners everywhere in America the kinds of programming that most people actually like.
Back in the 20's there were few stations, and many only operated a few hours a day or shared their frequency with various other stations. If you were in most smaller cities or rural areas, you had no local radio. So you listened to stations at night from more distant locations that had radio service.
They were not "DXing". They were simply trying to find entertainment from stations that served their area at night.
DXers took it one step further and tried to hear many different stations, even ones from other nations. They did not listen for content, but for the overall station count.
And in the 30's and 40's, most of the bigger signal stations were affiliated with a network and did, in fact, broadcast the same thing.
I know that " station count" is kind of a badge with dxers, but diversity must be some kind motivating factor. The Sacramento area has been diverse in it's radio past from top 40 pioneers like KRAK, KROY, and KXOA and R&B KJAY as well as freeform KZAP and KSFM and 103.5 " The Bomb". I Would like to see a station that is profitable for it's owners but reflects the eclectic tastes of the area.
It's not the 70s any more. The profit margin on a lot of these stations today is no where near what it was in the 70s.
You're talking about something better suited to the non-commercial world, where the community itself supports the station.
Dxers generally are disappointed when they get re- logs more often than not. Of course, every Sparodic Es opening is an opportunity for new stations, but those who've been at it for several years will begin to notice a trend of more re-logs. I don't think it really deters a Dxer, but it can bore them. I'm realitively new to the hobby, so I haven't gotten to that point, but a friend of mine in Northern Virginia has been at it since the 90s, and he has those down times.
As so far as station diversity goes, we do prefer that stations have their own flavor, but we're just glad to pick up any new stations. However, getting national networks can be annoying because they won't identify themselves for an hour or longer. (They are, however, useful if you have a local affiliate that you can refer to to see if the E-skip station is that comany. As a Dxer, my favorite type of station is one that has a branding, local ads, and interesting music. Also, when you can hear a Home Depot ad anywhere, the local shop can be a slam-dunk way of narrowing down the location. This is is how I discovered a station from Kansas during tropo. Several mentions of a town's name, area code, and local stores I could google, all without needing to wait for a Legal ID while the station possibly fades away.
The problem is that there is no single "eclectic taste". There are dozens of eclectic factions, and none can sustain an ad supported radio station.
That's not what I said David. The people I'm talking about are the executives in the top offices of Cumulus, Audacy, and I Heart and my friend you know exactly who these people are. So quit being so blind.
It belongs to President Bill Clinton, you know the guy that signed the bill back in 1996 that allowed for all the consolidation.
David please tell me something that I'm not well aware of already.
He signed it, but it passed the Senate by 81-18 and the House by 414 to 16. Overwhelming bi-partisan support. He would have been crazy to veto it. They had enough votes to override a veto. To blame this bill ignores a lot of what happened in the 80s.
Plus the new technology that was starting to become available was really the bigger problem. The public wanted to download songs, they wanted to create their own playlists, and program their own stations. That's the real problem here.
The 80-90 docket! I'm well of all that went on in the 80s and 90's again tell me something I don't already know. He also said he wouldn't have signed it if he had been aware of the damage it would cause. Then like you said congress may have overriden his veto and then all the damage would have been on them.
But presidents don't write those bills; this is what BigA has just said, too. Look to the House and Senate who wrote and sent the bill to him to be signed. The bill had huge bipartisan majorities on the Hill, so "everyone" thought this was the way to go.
And this was before the general public had "the Internet" or apple MP3 players or smartphones; some of those were more than a decade away.
This is the most active I seen the Sacramento Forum ever
Excellent point.
I still believe that the legislation that allowed radio consolidation was due to studies showing that the majority of radio stations were not profitable and that had to do with just two things: the deep recession in about 1980 to 1982 and the effects of Docket 80-90 that increased the viable station count in many smaller and medium markets by 100% to even 200% (Austin, TX, Tallahassee, FL, Palm Springs, CA are examples) so that nobody made money.
In 1995 we did not have streams and online playlists. We had CompuServe and Prodigy and the incessant CDs in the mail from AOL. They were dial-up services and charged by the minute. I used to have $200 to $300 a month bills when I was in Puerto Rico and used Compuserve.
Napster did not launch until 1999, and iTunes came as a product of faster Internet and Apples iPod to carry music around. Again, not in 1995.
What led up to the allowing of consolidation in 1995 was the pure product of too many stations and no large revenue growth coupled with many owners, unable to justify small radio/TV divisions of 7/7/7 sold out. Yet corporations were consolidating through mergers and buyouts and found that little radio divisions were a waste of management time.
So, it took entrepreneurs like Lowry Mays to push for expanded ownership, not GE or the networks to make radio into a new consolidated industry.
Combined with the replacement of local retail with national chains. National chains didn't buy local spot radio.
So all of a sudden, local stations didn't have local department store seasonal advertising anymore. That was a big loss.
Everybody enjoys format speculation, and the fact that this will be an entirely new station due to the frequency having been vacant for a few years just adds to the anticipation.
One notable exception is auto parts/tires/repair chains.
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