Being that The Zone is a Free FM station...

[Radio_Realist]

Let me explain it better for you. I'll use short sentences.

corporateradiosucks said that the majority of people would not pay to hear the music that they like. I said that some people would pay if the price wasn't too high. I pointed out that Starbucks costs more than other sources of coffee, but people will still buy it. That's because even though it is relatively expensive compared to other sources of coffee, it's not all that expensive. The success of Starbucks doesn't prove that any other businesses will succeed. But it does prove that some people will spend an extra couple of bucks to get what they want.

And, for what it's worth, the failure of quadraphonic stereo in the 70's combined with the success of 5.1 Surround Sound for home theatre in the late 1990's only proves that in marketing, timing is everything. If anything, your use of that example simply proves why the statement "That's called 'having a record/tape/8 track/cd player in your car or home.' And it's been going on for quite a while now." missed the point.

 

[Boss Radio]

Let me explain it to you with a short sentence.

Two words, in fact.

 

[feeball]

Could the problems facing music formatted stations have to do with an oversaturation of the product? XM, Sirius, Myspace, and even HD radio is not helping the music formatted stations succeed.

XM and Sirius have stations that have gone overboard in the way of customizing their formats. Any satellite provider that has an all Elvis channel has grasped at straws to come up with a station to fill air time. An all 80's rock channel gets too monotonous after a while. Yes I like bands like Dio, Accept, Twisted Sister and others but I would like to hear them along with Tool, Chevelle, Soundgarden and other more recent groups.

And the really big issue with Myspace is that for every good group there is about one thousand horrible groups that do nothing but bitch and complain about why they are unsigned acts, why their friends won't support their recent work, etc. There are many "Myspace bands" that are nothing more than a jam band that should be playing the local bar circuit on a Saturday night. They are not even good enough for their local communities to consider them to be a local music act.

It will be interesting to see exactly how HD radio will be used by the industry in the upcoming years. Right now from what I have seen stations placing on their HD2 formats, it looks like nothing more than a dumping ground at the moment. Nothing ground breaking has come out of the HD arena as of yet.

I also wanted to say that I do not buy the iPod example used ad nauseum by every corporate suit to defend the decline of music formatted stations. Each market I have looked at over the years there is always at least two or three music formatted stations located in the top five in the ratings. If the suits would learn how to correct problems before they become catastrophic they would not have to use such excuses that nobody buys into.