Clear Channel & Others Headed for Disaster?

[jabba17]

Someone will make out like a bandit once one of these overleveraged biggies goes bust, buying successful, well-positioned stations on the cheap and running them properly, and leaving the dregs to someone else.

If you look at what happens when a company "goes bust," it's not a pretty picture. I've studied what happened to radio after 1948 and before the rise of rock & roll, and it was very ugly. You know what a foreclosed house looks like? That's what will happen. And "the dregs" will all just go dark. Actually, lots of them either already have, or have been turned into brokered religious stations, which is basically the same thing.

I didn't say that everyone would make out like a bandit...just the ones in position to buy the good signals. And, yes, some of the dregs will go dark. Some may "move back out" as quickly as they moved in. And some will go after local niche markets. Look at the AM dial.

I didn't say it would be pretty, but more people would end up making money in radio than the lemmings-over-the-cliff death match we have today.

 

[jabba17]

In other words, it's not the government's job to keep companies from overleveraging themselves through reckless borrowing, paying too much for assets, or biting off more than they can chew management-wise. You don't see, say, Cox or CBS going through these kinds of problems...

No, that should fall to the SEC, to police public companies and prevent them from making these horrific breaches of their fiduciary responsibility to shareholders.

The SEC doesn't police companies for fulfilling their fiduciary responsibility, or otherwise being a good investment--just that they aren't lying to you about their books and operations (committing accounting fraud a la Enron, etc.), and operate with a reasonable degree of transparency and reporting. It's the shareowner's job to do their due diligence as to how well a company is being run and whether they are a good investment. A lot of this has been missing. If a company doesn't fulfill their fiduciary responsibility and is forthcoming about it, you can 1) sell their stock 2) vote in different directors and/or 3) sue them. It's not an SEC matter (or criminal matter otherwise) and never has been.

 

[jabba17]

I think you'd still end up with five versions of AC, because that's the demo advertisers want. It has nothing to do with ownership.

You missed the point. You would have 5 AC's, but they would all be going all out to defeat the competition, resulting in the best product. Under one owner, they're being careful not to step on each other, and they don't have to be all that good.

But we had six AC's in ATL back in the mid-80s: 94Q, WLTA/Warm 100, Peach, WSB 99FM/B98.5, Fox, and Lite 106 (although Lite 106 was short-lived).

And each had a different owner and each was slightly different. 94Q had Jazz Flavours and leaned top 40; Peach was the softest; B98.5 was the hardest; Fox had a playlist that included 60s, 70s, and 80s. But everyone wanted a bite at that AC pie. Meanwhile, Z-93, the only true CHR had jumped the shark toying with "churban", and 96 Rock was going through one of its periodic weak spells before getting a wakeup call from a flipped Z93.

Interestingly, except for Fox and B98.5, all of these stations still have unique owners (although Cumulus did make overtures towards 94.1).

Of course, eventually they all changed course except for B98.5. But from 1985 until 1990, 94Q, Peach, and B98.5 were all duking it out.

 

[TheBigA]

Once internet access is installed in cars and WiMax hits full scale, the game is really gonna change!

And you can bet those who control WiMax, ISPs, and internet radio stations will find ways to increase charges and add commercials to what they do. There was a time when FM was similar to internet radio. Then it became popular, and everyone wanted to make money.

 

[BossJock1947]

I have opined here before that one of the most far reaching mistakes made congressionally was the deregulation of radio and television. The consolidation of media and it's inherent power into so few hands is dangerous - especially when you examine the character and quality of these individuals who are running these companies.
It is time for breaking up the monopolies - return us to the 7/7/7 limit. ClearChannel CAN profitably run 7 AM,s,7 FM's, and 7 TV's.....so can all the rest. Media companies were making tons of money before the 90's.....let's go back to a workable paradigm.
And Obama can bail out the Mays Boyz, Lew and Sumner with some good 'ol taxpayer money to make it all happen. All the corporate weenies keep their gazillion dollars and we get the media back........

It is time for breaking up the monopolies - return us to the 7/7/7 limit.


Ain't going to happen. What is likely to happen if Cc, Cumulus, Etc can't meet the bank note they will have a fire sale to raise enough capital to keep them afloat a few more months.

 

[gr8oldies]

Go to the Ohio board and follow a couple of threads about a company called BAS, that bought a cluster's worth of signals from CC. BAS is being blasted right and left for sattelite programming and firing (then rehiring) a sports director. There are air personalities who have bouight stations..and promptly turned them to the bird because they had to. 30 signals in the market I live in...maybe 6 would survive. What big company is going to buy 7 FMs in 7 different markets, build 7 sets of studios and offices, and no that if there's a ratings problem in one market it can tank the whole company. Yes, in the pre consolodation days, it wasn't unusual for there to be five duplicate A/Cs or beautiful music stations.

 

[RoddyFreeman]

Go to the Ohio board and follow a couple of threads about a company called BAS, that bought a cluster's worth of signals from CC. BAS is being blasted right and left for sattelite programming and firing (then rehiring) a sports director. There are air personalities who have bouight stations..and promptly turned them to the bird because they had to. 30 signals in the market I live in...maybe 6 would survive. What big company is going to buy 7 FMs in 7 different markets, build 7 sets of studios and offices, and no that if there's a ratings problem in one market it can tank the whole company. Yes, in the pre consolodation days, it wasn't unusual for there to be five duplicate A/Cs or beautiful music stations.

I totally agree that companies need to own multiple stations in a market to make money and afford good programming these days. And if the predicted happens and the CC's of the world are forced to sell stations, it won't be due to any legislation; so it's unlikely the rules would be changed. But I still think the radio world would be better if just a few companies did not own the great majority of the stations nationwide.

My radio blog: www.atlairwaves.blogspot.com

 

[jabba17]

Once internet access is installed in cars and WiMax hits full scale, the game is really gonna change!

And you can bet those who control WiMax, ISPs, and internet radio stations will find ways to increase charges and add commercials to what they do. There was a time when FM was similar to internet radio. Then it became popular, and everyone wanted to make money.

WiMax (and competing technologies, such as the GSM equivalent) will be the game changer, much more so than satellite ever was or could have been. Satellite is like cable--few packages of a lot of channels, and you have to pay for a separate service. WiMax could be piggybacked onto an existing cellphone data or ISP account, and could even supplant a wireline ISP (including DSL or cable) much the same way that some have dumped POTS landlines for cell phones. You could use a WiMax account with a desktop computer, smartphone, laptop, or mobile dedicated Internet radio.

Then, you could have nonprofit stations supported by voluntary donations, hobbyist stations (live or automated), stations running just enough ads to keep the lights on, stations underwritten by a single advertiser, "regular" stations with a conventional spot load to make a decent profit, or pay-subscription stations secured with a password or device ID number--all on the same device.

The Achilles heels are coverage (which will improve over time, but won't be nationwide for a long while and there will always be some dead zones--but then again, satellite has dead zones too resulting from line-of-sight issues, and terrestrial radio has its own thin spots), and the potential for a wireless ISP to give preference to certain media channels over others. I don't see this happening, especially with the Obama administration's preference for "net neutrality"--even being a free-market libertarian, I still consider "net neutrality" to be important.

The big strength of Internet radio is that, literally, anyone can play. No limited number of channels. No concerns about same/first adjacent/second adjacent/third adjacent interference. And nobody will be able to control that.

 

[caller10]

Video killed the radio star. Long live radio.

 

[TheBigA]

The big strength of Internet radio is that, literally, anyone can play. No limited number of channels. No concerns about same/first adjacent/second adjacent/third adjacent interference. And nobody will be able to control that.

The strength is also a weakness, because if anyone can play, no one can make money with it. There is no exclusivity. And you end up with 300 million radio stations, each with an audience of one. You can't sell that.

However, with regards to control, the current debate with the telecoms and the FCC is over control. So I'm expecting the future will bring regulations, controls, and new costs to the internet. When the government talks about net neutrality, they're not talking about themselves.

 

[jabba17]

Video killed the radio star. Long live radio.

And MTV killed the video star in their quest for higher ratings--apparently "TV you use like radio" didn't get them into enough Arbitron diaries or Nielsen "time spent watching". And music has sucked ever since.

MTV needs to drop the "Music Television" from its name and just become a non-abbreviation, similar to the Columbia Broadcasting System becoming CBS, Inc.

 

[caller10]

Actually I mean to say in my prior post "Internet Killed The Radio Star. Long Live Radio." I must remember the order, caffeine first, then posting. Not the other way around.

 

[Inside your head]

Video killed the radio star. Long live radio.

And MTV killed the video star in their quest for higher ratings--apparently "TV you use like radio" didn't get them into enough Arbitron diaries or Nielsen "time spent watching". And music has sucked ever since.

MTV needs to drop the "Music Television" from its name and just become a non-abbreviation, similar to the Columbia Broadcasting System becoming CBS, Inc.

VH1 has the videos. kind of pointless tho, u can get it all on youtube

 

[jabba17]

Video killed the radio star. Long live radio.

And MTV killed the video star in their quest for higher ratings--apparently "TV you use like radio" didn't get them into enough Arbitron diaries or Nielsen "time spent watching". And music has sucked ever since.

MTV needs to drop the "Music Television" from its name and just become a non-abbreviation, similar to the Columbia Broadcasting System becoming CBS, Inc.

VH1 has the videos. kind of pointless tho, u can get it all on youtube

VH1 Classic has videos, if you get it on your cable system. VH1 does not.

 

[agentUrge]

There's been a plan for free nationwide wifi for a while. As of November, the plan was to auction off the airspace that has been used by current OTA TV broadcasters, to the highest bidder with the assurance that a percentage of it (25%, if I remember correctly) would be used for the nationwide wifi. This, however was really designed for the rural areas that are too far out to get broadband connection. Though, I don't know if that falls under the wimaxx category.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

There's been a plan for free nationwide wifi for a while. As of November, the plan was to auction off the airspace that has been used by current OTA TV broadcasters, to the highest bidder with the assurance that a percentage of it (25%, if I remember correctly) would be used for the nationwide wifi. This, however was really designed for the rural areas that are too far out to get broadband connection. Though, I don't know if that falls under the wimaxx category.

Except the channels that are being vacated by the DTV conversion have already been auctioned off, mostly to cell companies. ???

 

[jabba17]

There's been a plan for free nationwide wifi for a while. As of November, the plan was to auction off the airspace that has been used by current OTA TV broadcasters, to the highest bidder with the assurance that a percentage of it (25%, if I remember correctly) would be used for the nationwide wifi. This, however was really designed for the rural areas that are too far out to get broadband connection. Though, I don't know if that falls under the wimaxx category.

Except the channels that are being vacated by the DTV conversion have already been auctioned off, mostly to cell companies. ???

The cell companies are the ones who are planning on rolling out WiMAX. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wimax