What are you proposing?
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FCC & Radio Ownership Limits
- Thread starter TheBigA
- Start date
What are you proposing?
I had several "heated" conversations with my last two "fulltime" employers. I think that identifying station ownership in IDs and promos simply distracts from the bonding of the station's name with listeners; it is confusiing and wastes time.
As I was known as the "agent of change" (a title Mac Tichenor gave me at one management meeting) I prevailed until I was gone. They then immediately put the corporate name into everything and their ratings are the worst ever.
So I agree with you entirely... you make very good points!
That ship already sailed.
What I don't get (and this has been brought up before) is the strange naming schemes the radio companies have come up with.
Audacity?
iHeart?
Their former names (Entercom and Clear Channel, respectively) may be more prosaic and corporate sounding, but maybe that's not necessarily a bad thing?
c
Audacity?
iHeart?
Their former names (Entercom and Clear Channel, respectively) may be more prosaic and corporate sounding, but maybe that's not necessarily a bad thing?
c
Unfortunately, your view doesn't match with what we're now seeing politically, both in the U.S. and internationally. People, especially young people, are replacing over-the-air media with media that both reflects, and cheerleads, their personal views of the world.
Hopefully sooner rather than later.FCC Commissioner Olivia Trusty addressed ownership limits today at the NAB convention. She is the swing vote on the commission, and usually is very circumspect in her comments on controversial issues. The fact that she seems to be in favor of loosening limits indicates it will happen at some point:
FCC Commissioner Signals Openness To Rethinking Ownership Rules.
FCC Commissioner Olivia Trusty, speaking at the NAB Show in Las Vegas, signaled openness to revisiting ownership rules, arguing legacy limits may no longer reflect today’s crowded audio marketplace. Shewww.insideradio.com
What's wrong with that? It's happening at a time when over the air media is being taken over by companies such as Nexstar.
The problem is that many of those sources don't even have reporters "on the scene" and have not process for verification.
Because the owners like Nexstar have fired them all.
I am talking about the "independent" on-line news sources, which was the context of that discussion.
They're called "independent" for a reason. Benjamin Franklin was an independent journalist too. He didn't use reporters. He just wrote what he believed. People who agreed bought his paper. Same with James Madison. It's a slippery slope when the government starts getting involved with the content and reporting of journalists. The people are adults and they can decide for themselves what is right and what isn't. They don't need the government to tell them.
My point is that many of those so-called independent web-based news "sources" do not have actual on-site, on the scene reporters and have, at best, a weak validation & verification procedure. Some are on person outfits that harvest news online and rewrite it a bit with no verification and even with no knowledge of the situation, location and persons involved.
There are no government rules about this, and any attempt to make them would be found to be unconstitutional. The government shall make NO LAW abridging freedom of the press. No law means no law.
In the meantime, there are in fact experienced reporters who are being prevented from attending pentagon briefings by a secretary who is breaking the law.
You don't think people care about what goes between the music? I'm not even going to entertain the idea of going to Apple, Amazon, or Spotify and complaining about programming because they don't control most of the programming. They are just platforms where users are. Most users either create their own playlists or find one they like. Those lists are often broader than what you get on radio. I don't have a subscription to any of them, I prefer downloading my music locally. I do however occasionally create my own playlists. Unless I'm trying to make my own take on a particular radio format, those lists are often more varied than what you'll get on a single station. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but radio can and should be so much more than just a playlist I didn't choose with promos between songs telling me to download your app or listen on my smart speaker, with content that can be recycled across any market. I believe, and Shawn Ross agrees, that content is king. I'm going to give you a listen even if I don't like every song you play if you have something between the songs worth listening for. A lot of today's radio does not do that.
You think people only listen to radio for music??? There are lots of other formats that are completely dependent on live & local humans.
Radio companies are not in the free music delivery business. They do it as a means of attracting people for advertising. For now, it works. But it's not the future. Bonneville sold its entire San Francisco cluster because it only had music stations. For them radio is about live & local talk. That's what they do in Seattle with KIRO.
With declining advertising revenues, radio companies have to decide how to spend their money. Right now, they see growth in podcasts and other off air content. That's where they're investing their money, and why they use their air signal to divert your attention to their other platforms.
You need to broaden your view of what broadcast radio is. There will come a time when broadcast radio plays no music at all.
The day there's no music of interest to me on the radio will probably be the day radio becomes a secondary for me. That said, I'll probably keep broadcast around for sporting events and local news, as those aren't things that can easily translate to podcast. All of the talk I listen to I do so in podcast form already, with the exception of the talk show that's on after the morning news on the station I wake up to. If I miss a day of that, I'm not complaining, as it's basically filler for me. If I were really loyal to that show, it would have gone into my podcast feed a long time ago. Then again, with the way things are going, even local news isn't guaranteed to be around in the future either. The news station in my market is basically a right-wing talker outside of drive time. The only news after 7 is network, and even that's uncertain after the end of May when CBS shuts down. The market I used to live in has an all news station, but has flirted with talk outside of drive time off and on for years. They used to proudly state that the news never stopped and neither did they. Now, it's Bloomberg in late nights. I'm not sure when that starts, but it could be as early as 7, and could go into the morning as deep as 5. Weekends are a mix of paid and long-form network programs. I'd have to check and see if they have any news blocks on weekends anymore. There are still local and national updates at least once an hour if not twice. While I'm on this topic, what has annoyed me about them for years is that during their local paid programming, they insist on keeping their traffic on the 4s. If I were running talk programming on that station, I'd make a standard clock for a talk program, with a traffic report at every commercial break. That doesn't take away from the position as the market's traffic authority, but preserves program flow better.
So then you're saying you really don't care what happens between the songs. As long as they play the music you like, you listen.
I'm not sure where you got that impression. What goes between the songs is what makes radio radio, no matter what form it's delivered in. Pretty much all of what I listen to is on FM somewhere in the country. The stuff between the songs isn't something that generally goes into podcasts, those are for longer form pieces. Broadcast radio does have its place, but the exceptions to the following rules are becoming fewer and fewer:
1. What goes between your songs isn't compelling. This is probably the hardest one to explain in a few sentences, because there are so many variables. I'll try to break this down into a few sub-points though:
A. You could have the best music mix in the world but terrible imaging. I may come back to you in the future to see if this has improved, but you likely won't be a regular listen after a while because I can make my own playlist of the music you play. Fortunately, this is actually pretty rare.
B. All you talk about is generic stuff that doesn't relate to the market. If I'm physically in the market and you have a decent mix, I'll listen, but you have to go beyond just halfway decent for me to tune you in when I get home. This is what the station I referenced a couple posts ago does well. Their mix is good, imaging is well produced, and they even surprise me from time to time. Over time their flaws are starting to add up, but I've been listening to this station regularly for about nine months now.
C. Recycled content across markets and shows. This is probably the hardest thing to actually change without some creative thinking as this stuff works, but why does every CHR morning show have to follow the same template? Every one of the major syndicated morning shows has some combination of War of the Roses, Second Date Update, Phone Taps, horoscopes, and/or off the wall news stories. Why? I'll listen to this stuff because it's entertaining, but it doesn't make your station stand out from the other CHR that's running the exact same type of content. If your station is running Anna and Raven in mornings, Seacrest mid-days, something else in afternoons, and Liveline at night, I'd probably give that a listen if that was the market's only CHR, especially if running AT40 on weekends, but again, outside of possibly Liveline, there's nothing about that station that stands out. If I'm seeking you out as a station to listen to online, it's unlikely I'm going to listen to your station over the other one I already know about that's also running Liveline.
2. Radio is there to keep you up to date in emergencies. Broadcasters love to promote this as why radio is still important, but give me as much of that localism as possible on a random Thursday. Case in point, an aircheck I was listening to from 2017. At one point, they promote that they're the station you tune to when bad weather hits. In the 90 minutes I heard on a calm Friday night though, they're replaying bits from their morning show with their music. Where's the information in that? I keep my radio on the news station on weekends because it's too much of a pain to change the station when I'm barely awake as I'm getting ready in the morning, but that station could be providing me with much more local information than it is.
3. Sports broadcasts. This is a less extreme version of #2, and something that radio still does well. Many stations still provide sports broadcasts over the air for free.
I'm assuming there will be bright spots in the industry for many years to come, but even now, the industry is getting really boring to watch, and my default stations are changing less and less frequently because there's really no reason to change stations anymore.
1. What goes between your songs isn't compelling. This is probably the hardest one to explain in a few sentences, because there are so many variables. I'll try to break this down into a few sub-points though:
A. You could have the best music mix in the world but terrible imaging. I may come back to you in the future to see if this has improved, but you likely won't be a regular listen after a while because I can make my own playlist of the music you play. Fortunately, this is actually pretty rare.
B. All you talk about is generic stuff that doesn't relate to the market. If I'm physically in the market and you have a decent mix, I'll listen, but you have to go beyond just halfway decent for me to tune you in when I get home. This is what the station I referenced a couple posts ago does well. Their mix is good, imaging is well produced, and they even surprise me from time to time. Over time their flaws are starting to add up, but I've been listening to this station regularly for about nine months now.
C. Recycled content across markets and shows. This is probably the hardest thing to actually change without some creative thinking as this stuff works, but why does every CHR morning show have to follow the same template? Every one of the major syndicated morning shows has some combination of War of the Roses, Second Date Update, Phone Taps, horoscopes, and/or off the wall news stories. Why? I'll listen to this stuff because it's entertaining, but it doesn't make your station stand out from the other CHR that's running the exact same type of content. If your station is running Anna and Raven in mornings, Seacrest mid-days, something else in afternoons, and Liveline at night, I'd probably give that a listen if that was the market's only CHR, especially if running AT40 on weekends, but again, outside of possibly Liveline, there's nothing about that station that stands out. If I'm seeking you out as a station to listen to online, it's unlikely I'm going to listen to your station over the other one I already know about that's also running Liveline.
2. Radio is there to keep you up to date in emergencies. Broadcasters love to promote this as why radio is still important, but give me as much of that localism as possible on a random Thursday. Case in point, an aircheck I was listening to from 2017. At one point, they promote that they're the station you tune to when bad weather hits. In the 90 minutes I heard on a calm Friday night though, they're replaying bits from their morning show with their music. Where's the information in that? I keep my radio on the news station on weekends because it's too much of a pain to change the station when I'm barely awake as I'm getting ready in the morning, but that station could be providing me with much more local information than it is.
3. Sports broadcasts. This is a less extreme version of #2, and something that radio still does well. Many stations still provide sports broadcasts over the air for free.
I'm assuming there will be bright spots in the industry for many years to come, but even now, the industry is getting really boring to watch, and my default stations are changing less and less frequently because there's really no reason to change stations anymore.
From this quote in your previous post:
All you seem to care about is you get the music you want for free. The day that stops, radio becomes secondary.
That's a very common view. That seems to be what most people want from radio. That's why the presentation is of lower importance.
Listeners have no skin in the commercial radio game. They aren't subscribers, they aren't members, they don't need a username or password. They just show up and listen. If the music's good, they stay. If not, they leave. Easy peasy.
I think there will be. By and large they will be non-commercial stations that are funded primarily by the listeners. When the listeners are the ones paying, they get to decide the content. However, since the government has pulled out, it's created an even greater need for funding from the listeners. When that stops, you can quote Jim Morrison's prophetic song: When the music's over, turn out the lights.