Clear Channel's not been good for the radio industry, by and large, and you could say so whether you're referring to programming or sales, but since 1997, they're not the sole entity to blame for the lousy programming, the generic national playlists, the piped-in non-relevant non-local voices, rates that are a fraction of what they were (even counting for inflation) since 1997. Whether they LED, with staff-slashing and rate-cutting, in their markets or not, others followed, even in markets where they don't exist.
Today, we're faced with a medium that is still functioning on a business model contrived in the FM heyday, instead of forging ahead with innovation; club DJs can spin and segue from mp4 (videos) using their own (or club's) imaging and yet you don't see radio stations moving ahead to do the same (what an incredible online presence this would be - never MIND how it could facilitate a local cable channel (remember when you could see music videos on TV?) - another revenue source possibility. Some stations and companies aren't actively embracing mobile potential either; not all sales departments know how to sell (or even bother trying to sell) stream spots on TOP of terrestrial, or weaving in text capabilities to lower spot loads by getting clients to reduce their :60s to :30s and :30s to :15s by pushing the listener to "text" for more info. The possibilities are endless, but you don't see "radio" trying to innovate, as a medium, really.
Actually, the "big guys" (CC, Cumulus, Entercom, Citadel) DO employ some of those methods, but not all. The "old way" is driving off listeners, so who cares about "ratings" when the ratings we're getting are a read of a smaller audience? Getting 20% of a demo isn't the same AMOUNT of people if the amount of people, overall, is dwindling, slowl.
Between Pandora, iPods, iPads, other internet entities, radio has to figure out how to continue doing business, pushing client-to-consumer, and with OUT running the consumer off because we INUNDATE them with 5-6 minute commercial breaks. We in the INDUSTRY like scanning the dial during prolonged commercial breaks - so then how do we presume the listener doesn't> And if we KNOW the listener doesn't stick around, then how do we send our sales people into a client's place of business to sell commercials to them KNOWING if their spot's the 34d or 4th or 5th spot in a break, the listener's tuning it out?
The radio "industry" needs to convene - together - and map out the future of this industry. I don't profess to have all the answers, but there ARE solutions if these big guys, and the smaller guys, too, will admit that "the way it IS and the way it's BEEN" is going slowly kill the medium, and decide to change it.