Clear Channel destroyed radio? Yep, author says

[Johnny Marchese]

Lets see this from the prospective of New Orleans radio, CC destroyed WRNO, the longtime "Rock of N.O.", running two R&B's, changing sports to gospel, etc.. But, good ol' Entercom does their part in finishing what Katrina started. Forever ruining historic WWL, losing longtime call letters WSMB, not one true Heritage/CHR (that was B-97), losing Rush, Coast-to-Coast AM, and maybe the Saints(Tom Benson getting into media). If he gets radio stations, would he let Enercom continue to broadcast his NFL team? I think not!

 

[SonoSational18]

I've read both books--the other one is called "Clear Vision" by Reed Bunzel and is the "authorized" company profile (this means they paid Bunzel to write a complimentary book about them). Since neither author is a radio guy, they miss the good stuff.

The good stuff is that Lowry Mays fixed the system from his position as Chairman of the NAB Board of Directors... wrote the draft legislation to eliminate ownership caps... and with the inside info blitzed the rest of us and scooped up 1200 radio stations before anyone else figured out the game. Then he stripped them down--getting rid of thousands of people--to create what looked like cash flow, cast aside the losers and sold the whole kit & kaboodle for $18 billion.

Too many radio guys are focused on how voice-tracking took their jobs away. The big picture is that Lowry screwed us all for megabucks and most of us haven't connected the dots, yet. He'll be dead by the time the manure hits the fan, and his grandkids will still be laughing at us from their yachts.

Read the books, then start connecting the dots.

You say Mays "fixed" the system (and I assume you are using the term in context of "unfairly rigged"). No doubt, Mays was part of the industry initiative to change ownership caps, but he was only one of many industry leaders who supported it. And don't forget, Telcom 96 had to pass through congress and be signed by President Clinton to become law.

There were may operators that scooped up radio stations in the late '90's... and most had their exit strategy in-hand at the beginning. Clear Channel (along with Cumulus, Citadel, Infinity/CBS, Entercom, Cox, Emmis, and others) at least had intent to be long-term operators. If you're going to point the finger at shamelessly cashing in, you should point them at groups like SFX, Evergreen/Chancellor/AMFM, American Radio Systems, Capstar, Jacor, and the like who were in it for the quick burn and turn. Clear Channel simply had the resources and the foresight to jump into the game early and energe a winner.

I've worked for about a dozen different broadcast companies in my career, running the gamup from literally Ma & Pa to a couple of publicly traded companies, including Clear Channel. Clear Channel is not the best company I ever worked for, but it is also not the worst. I've seen more layoffs and general "cheapness" in the smaller operators. Has CC screwed some things up, yes... but they're not the early ones.

I intend to read both books. I am partly through one of them and will read the other shortly. The book I am reading now definitely shows a bias. (But don't jump to conclusions as to WHICH book I'm referring to.) I suspect the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

PS---It wasn't CC that was paying me $1.25/hour... it was also about 35 years ago.

 

[YEKIMI]

still, that's 15 cents more an hour then I was getting at the time.

 

[gr8oldies]

Voice tracking may well have taken our jobs even with 12-12-12 ownership limits...the technology is still there and you don't think companies and individuals would be offering voice tracking services? It remains to be seen how mom and pop reeally would have withstood the onslaught of alternative media.

 

[BoredOp0930]

Last time I looked BAS was still locally staffed. I still see quite a few cars at their place which indicates employees. As far as satellite programming stations, any operator who buys a former Clear Channel station has to try and make that station operate within reasonable means since very few have CC's deep pockets. And the last time I checked music is music no matter where it comes from. The listening public makes the ultimate choice thus making a station successful or not. Live or local DJ's never make any of the music choices, nor do they choose what to say. And in large companies such as CC you can hear the same format and music choices in many different cities accross the US and sometimes the same DJ. Is that any better?

Fred-

EXACTLY!!

You've NAILED it right on the head. However, you've left out companies like BAS broadcasting, who buys up smaller stations and then proceeds to drag their you-know-what through them by gutting them, and spewing satellite garbage from the once LOCAL staffed station. Also, stations USED to listen to their LOCAL audience's feedback; now, they pay some consultant 3,000 miles away who knows NOTHING about the community that the station is at(This NEVER made one iota of sense to me, but what do I know-I'm just a board-op).

Horrible.

Hmmmmm, I'll bet not a ONE of those vehicles belong to a LOCAL, on-air personality.
As far as trying to "operate within reasonable means", what happened to using CREATIVITY instead of satellite puke to make money? Perhaps I'm under a false impression, but wasn't that what radio USED to be able to do? As much as "live or local DJs not making the music choices, or choosing what to say", that's ANOTHER reason this business is getting more and more like McDonald's. When did program directors get so afraid to let the DJs be themselves? Is it just some control issue?

And no, it's NOT any better when I can identify Clear Channel stations by their cookie-cutter sound, and music, OR when I drive down to Newark and hear "Hits and Favorites" all the way between Mount Vernon and Columbus. That's a poor excuse.

 

[RF Man]

That is a bet you would lose according to the WCPZ/WLEC website as Randy Hugg, Steve Shoffner, Mark Fogg
and Randy Evans among others still broadcast live everyday. Creativity in the broadcast industry these days has as much to do with the business side of things as it does the DJ or the music. Except that without a solid business plan you cannot fund creativity. Also what radio "used to do" and what it does now are 2 completely different things thanks to CC, Cumulus and other large corporations. To have the hope of creativity in live DJ's and listener driven music in the future you must start by by returning stations to local ownership and then give them time to come back to what used to be. If not it may continue to be "McDonald-esque" for quite some time to come.

Hmmmmm, I'll bet not a ONE of those vehicles belong to a LOCAL, on-air personality.
As far as trying to "operate within reasonable means", what happened to using CREATIVITY instead of satellite puke to make money? Perhaps I'm under a false impression, but wasn't that what radio USED to be able to do? As much as "live or local DJs not making the music choices, or choosing what to say", that's ANOTHER reason this business is getting more and more like McDonald's. When did program directors get so afraid to let the DJs be themselves? Is it just some control issue?

And no, it's NOT any better when I can identify Clear Channel stations by their cookie-cutter sound, and music, OR when I drive down to Newark and hear "Hits and Favorites" all the way between Mount Vernon and Columbus. That's a poor excuse.

 

[BoredOp0930]

That is a bet you would lose according to the WCPZ/WLEC website as Randy Hugg, Steve Shoffner, Mark Fogg
and Randy Evans among others still broadcast live everyday. Creativity in the broadcast industry these days has as much to do with the business side of things as it does the DJ or the music. Except that without a solid business plan you cannot fund creativity. Also what radio "used to do" and what it does now are 2 completely different things thanks to CC, Cumulus and other large corporations. To have the hope of creativity in live DJ's and listener driven music in the future you must start by by returning stations to local ownership and then give them time to come back to what used to be. If not it may continue to be "McDonald-esque" for quite some time to come.

Ok, I owe you 5 dollars. Where do I remit? A bet's a bet.

All kidding aside, if what you say is indeed true, maybe I'll stick around in this Titanic. Because, I DO have hope for this business that I have always wanted to be a part of since I was young. I'm taking your word on this...

 

[74WIXYGrad]

All kidding aside, if what you say is indeed true, maybe I'll stick around in this Titanic. Because, I DO have hope for this business that I have always wanted to be a part of since I was young. I'm taking your word on this...

Danny, you are one of the most persistant people I have the pleasure of knowing. I gave up years ago...

 

[kirkiefan]

Docket 80-90 was intended to bring more localism.

The '96 telecom act destroyed it making it a loophole for greed.

Aside from oldies,public broadcasting and what (little localism) is left, I started turning off the radio more when I realized that clustering by Jacor and the others was the beginning of the end of radio as we knew it and what it was meant to be.

Frankly...terrestrial radio is going down like Enron!

"We have met the enemy and it is us."
Pogo

 

[gr8oldies]

80-90 brought so much localism that no one could make a living, so these hapless stations were satelite programmed and spots rates tumbled o less than a dollar a holler. Most of these stations would be gone if it wasn't for clustering.

 

[FredRichards]

If 80-90 brought so much localism, then why are there so many county seats and areas without local radio.

Part of the answer is that the stations that resided in these areas were gobbled up in consolidation and moved to bigger cities in the scope of clusters.

It's a shame (sham) that so many areas of the county don't have a local service.

 

[amfmxm]

I've read both books--the other one is called "Clear Vision" by Reed Bunzel and is the "authorized" company profile (this means they paid Bunzel to write a complimentary book about them). Since neither author is a radio guy, they miss the good stuff.

The good stuff is that Lowry Mays fixed the system from his position as Chairman of the NAB Board of Directors... wrote the draft legislation to eliminate ownership caps... and with the inside info blitzed the rest of us and scooped up 1200 radio stations before anyone else figured out the game. Then he stripped them down--getting rid of thousands of people--to create what looked like cash flow, cast aside the losers and sold the whole kit & kaboodle for $18 billion.

Too many radio guys are focused on how voice-tracking took their jobs away. The big picture is that Lowry screwed us all for megabucks and most of us haven't connected the dots, yet. He'll be dead by the time the manure hits the fan, and his grandkids will still be laughing at us from their yachts.

Read the books, then start connecting the dots.

You say Mays "fixed" the system (and I assume you are using the term in context of "unfairly rigged"). No doubt, Mays was part of the industry initiative to change ownership caps, but he was only one of many industry leaders who supported it. And don't forget, Telcom 96 had to pass through congress and be signed by President Clinton to become law.

There were may operators that scooped up radio stations in the late '90's... and most had their exit strategy in-hand at the beginning. Clear Channel (along with Cumulus, Citadel, Infinity/CBS, Entercom, Cox, Emmis, and others) at least had intent to be long-term operators. If you're going to point the finger at shamelessly cashing in, you should point them at groups like SFX, Evergreen/Chancellor/AMFM, American Radio Systems, Capstar, Jacor, and the like who were in it for the quick burn and turn. Clear Channel simply had the resources and the foresight to jump into the game early and energe a winner.

I've worked for about a dozen different broadcast companies in my career, running the gamup from literally Ma & Pa to a couple of publicly traded companies, including Clear Channel. Clear Channel is not the best company I ever worked for, but it is also not the worst. I've seen more layoffs and general "cheapness" in the smaller operators. Has CC screwed some things up, yes... but they're not the early ones.

I intend to read both books. I am partly through one of them and will read the other shortly. The book I am reading now definitely shows a bias. (But don't jump to conclusions as to WHICH book I'm referring to.) I suspect the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

PS---It wasn't CC that was paying me $1.25/hour... it was also about 35 years ago.

Let's see... where to start.

"Unfairly rigged" isn't too far from the mark. As "Clear Vision" confirms, Lowry Mays was not only one of many industry leaders who supported killing the caps, he was--like his fellow Texan Ken Lay--an evangelistic champion of complete deregulation within the NAB. And from his position as a longtime NAB board member and Chairman of the NAB Board during this critical time, he actually wrote the draft legislation that became the radio section of the '96 bill. That's as inside as it gets.

Yes, many other broadcasters scooped up stations during the years before-and-after the '96 trigger, but only two--Mays and his Texas pal Tom Hicks--had the kind of Wall Street connections stemming from their professional background as investment bankers--to tap the billions involved. Kindly note that of those firms you mentioned, SFX, Capstar, AMFM, Chancellor (not to mention little ol' Hicks Communications) were all Hicks projects that all eventually got rolled up into Clear Channel, in which Tom Hicks emerged as the largest stockholder.

And, yeah, some of the others--ARS, Patterson, Paxson come to mind--may have been conceived and executed completely as "burn & turn" pass-through companies. It would appear as though CC had lined up around 30 companies to gather around 40 stations apiece (or was it 40 companies to gather around 30 stations each?)--about half through Hicks (as AMFM in its final breath) and about half through CC, making certain to minimize market duplication and to cover as many of Arbitron's top 250 markets as possible with as close to a full cluster as market size allowed.

When viewed from a dozen years later, one realizes that it couldn't have "just happened" that way, with all the pieces falling into place so (nearly) neatly--and so quickly.

It was an inside job. They won, and everyone else lost. Very Enronesque.

 

[jackandcoke]

And has anybody ever noticed that no other radio outfit ever came within 900 stations of Clear Channel? In 2004 the body count was 1,207 for CC at #1... and WAY back at #2 was Cumulus with a whopping 268 radio stations.

Why couldn't anyone else do what Clear Channel did?

This whole thing was all about one company, one family, and one guy: Clear Channel's Lowry Mays and his idiot kids. They got rich and left the industry in shambles.

(Disclaimer: I've continued to make a great living in radio, so my observations aren't driven by anything personal. It's just a shame what these guys did to a once-great business)

 

[gr8oldies]

CC wanted to buy everything in sight whether it made sense or not (presumably to engineer move-ins), and the others took a more conservative approach.

 

[amfmxm]

CC wanted to buy everything in sight whether it made sense or not (presumably to engineer move-ins), and the others took a more conservative approach.

"Whether it made sense or not?" Last time I checked, they're going to walk out of this with $17.9 billion (with a "b") in their pockets and the Mays boys will be off the hook, financially--now they're using the bankers' money--but still running the show.

Sure made sense for them.

 

[rick bell]

Clear Channel loaded the virtual gun, many small companies like BAS broadcasting pulled the trigger!

 

[RF Man]

What other companies? How many do you own?

Clear Channel loaded the virtual gun, many small companies like BAS broadcasting pulled the trigger!

 

[gr8oldies]

Don't get the BAS comment..they bought a handful of stations from CC. Which proves the point that it doesn't matter who owns stations..board posters would still be complaining.

 

[amfmxm]

Don't get the BAS comment..they bought a handful of stations from CC. Which proves the point that it doesn't matter who owns stations..board posters would still be complaining.

Yeah... I don't see where BAS fits into this, either, unless they're one of the many shell companies CC set up around the country--like Concord Media--to stash "overflow" stations. But I'm not aware of any connection between BAS & CCU.

Clear Channel has taken radio through a period not unlike the "bubbles" we've seen recently--in housing, dot.coms, and now oil--effectively manufacturing an illusion of increased value (1996-2003) that "popped" and left the industry in ruins. That doesn't mean radio won't continue, but--like housing & dot.coms & (soon) oil--the other side of the bubble is full of problems. This is life after the bubble.

 

[sunset77]

Please Rick Bell...what the heck are you saying...you've made some silly comments in the past about BAS but this one tops them all....I agree BAS does not belong in the same conversation as Clear Channel or Cumulus...my goodness they own 8 stations and live in Fremont, Ohio...a far cry from owning 1200 or even 268 stations...the rest of the bloggers are right on target....and it is sad!
However lifetime broadcasters who have made this our career have to dig in...we small broadcasters can make a difference, with a good attitude. If you think your day will suck...it will! If you think radio sucks..it will...and it you think that...please get out...you're ruining it for the rest of us who still love it!