"Godfather" Radio

[John FL]

Things have been a little on the slow side here. Here's a different spin as it regards the business of radio. I'm sure you all remember that scene in the Godfather movie saga where the "families" divide up the respective business territories ensuring everyone wins and no one competes directly with each other. Murdering aside, it's strictly business and they were/are effective business people.

With the Federal Government reaching more and more into the private sector, imagine if some Godfather type bureaucrat came to each market and mandated certain things such as inclusion of displaced listeners and spreading the weath among ownership so no one was the dominator. Imagine 3 radio "families" or owners who individually would only be authorized to present only 1 of the top 3 billing formats. So One "family" /owner lets' say would have exclusive rights to country, the other urban and the other AC. Remaining stations in the cluster would not be allowed to duplicate any other second tier format the other families/owners carried. Everyone would have exclusive rights in selling certain formats and realizing the greatest profits thereby increasing $$$ to the ultimate Godfather.

Realizing some of this is tongue and cheek, consider the profit potential for each owner. Let's say country can earn a 10 share in a market. Today, there may be 3 stations getting 3 shares across different ownership. Imagine if a company could keep that whole piece of the pie themselves. Likewise other formats in other ownership could realize the same potential. Imagine commonality of earning double digit shares and selling that!

Anyway, let's see how this subject flies. My mind gets a little crazy when things get a little slow. Seriously, it could be a profit alternative approach to radio so I feel this would be an appropriate post for the business of radio. Could it happen? I can't be certain of anything anymore.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Other people my age may remember history differently, but when I began broadcasting (circa 1956) we had something a bit like you are picturing. You application for a new station had to include information about what you would program. We were told that if you did not propose something new, but simply proposed to do exactly what others were already doing, the burearcracy would let you application sit there going through a composting process.

I was also assume that at the end of your THREE YEAR license, you had better report that you were programming what you promised to program in your application.

And at renewal time be very careful about proposing changes in what you program in the future.

Looking back on it, I would guess it was never quite that way in the eyes of the FCC and in the eyes of communications lawyers, but maybe much more like that than anyone today wants to believe. But as a practical matter the broadcasters out in fly-over country accepted that picture as reality and responded accordingly.

Back then Government was perceived to be the Godfather of radio.

Then we had a period where the "Rock n Roll Godfather and Billboard" were in charge.

Today the "Mentality of Wall Street" is the Godfather. And this current Godfather is one mean s.o.b.

 

[John FL]

GRC, I found your response very interesting on a personal level. I find I'm actually in conflict with myself - if that's even realistic to believe. On the one hand, I'm not for a lot of government intrusion but on the other I see where an almost do what you want to attitude has its drawbacks too.

The idea that stations had to propose something new - I'm trying to actually see in the end what is really wrong with that. For years - we the public - were always told radio was a public trust and the public owned the airways yadda yadda yadda. Almost this personal crusade I am on today involves so much duplication of format and how I don't see that as being good for the public at large. I'm all for competition - I think it makes radio stations better but when many markets have 3, 4, sometimes 5 stations playing much of the same music in their programming - I wish someone does actually step in and put an end to the madness.

When I was a kid I remember hearing very long announcements on the radio when the FCC license was coming due - apparently it wasn't some kind of slam dunk. There had to be accountability apparently. I guess I do believe in balance - effective regulation that's not intrusive. That may be practically impossible to really happen. Even a great business man like Don Corleone didn't have compromise skills.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

There has to be a lot of people participating in the radio business who are emotionally torn by the business pressures of the day.

But this is much bigger than a radio issue. We as a nation are having to reinvent our ability to think about our 200 year old experiment with self government. Think about the people in the banking industry today. Much of the philosophy about how a banks works and how you make money with a bank were invented during the horse and buggy days. Now we are in the space age, the jet airplane travel age, the computerized accounting age. The banking industry, and particularly the Investment Banking ( a.k.a. Wall Street) has to totally rethink: how is a bank supposed to work? What is ethical? What is legal? Should the laws be changed?

One can make the argument that the Christian religion was a major part of the foundation of our country... but think about the issues with "church". We promised ourselves something generally considered Freedom of Religion. At the time that seemed to mean could be Baptist or you could be Catholic or you could be Reformed... etc. etc. Can you say: it was the simple day of the horse and buggy? We never looked ahead to the day that it also meant: You can be Muslim, you can be Buddhist, you can be Shinto.

So today people in the radio business and people in the "regulating of radio" business are no longer here to serve and meet the needs of a tidy little civilization that has every citizen getting their moral compass from a very young age from the same religious and philosophical well.

We are free, free,free like no people on earth have ever been before. And we are so busy making sure that everyone around us KNOWS just how free we are that we invent new ways everyday to demonstrate how unregulated we are as people.

How in the world do you create a logical plan for radio to broadcast to it's target audience: The nation of unfettered chaos!!!

 

[Stewy]

Enjoyable read. My two cents, balance. Too little regulation and too few make all the profits then begin eating each other and everything until it all crumbles. Too much regulation and everyone chokes to death with or without profit. Many people are having to rethink their position toward government after thirty or so years of deregulation. "Not too hot, not too cold, just right." No one economic model is always right or always wrong. The key is timing and knowing when which tools are appropriate.

 

[TheBigA]

imagine if some Godfather type bureaucrat came to each market and mandated certain things such as inclusion of displaced listeners and spreading the weath among ownership so no one was the dominator.

I assume by a "Godfather type bureaucrat," you mean a rep of the feds, not someone local, right? Because locals have no say over the regulation of broadcasting. The feds have no money to staff such an idea. They can barely police pirates on the airwaves, much less hold the hands of the licensees. But your idea sounds a lot like the drug lords who run countries like Afghanistan.

As I often point out, there isn't much difference between a broadcasting license and a drivers license. You get a license, and you can drive. As long as you don't break the law, you're on your own. This idea of the government controlling who does what is not the American system, and I can imagine a lot of 1st amendment issues. the government has stayed out of the programming business. If a station wants to duplicate the programming of its competitor, the gov't doesn't care. One benefit of deregulation, and one company owning six stations in a market is a limitation on format duplication. On satellite radio, where there is no competition, you have no format duplication. The problem in the broadcasting world is there are more stations in a market than there are viable program formats. No one wants to be forced to lose money.

 

[John FL]

The problem in the broadcasting world is there are more stations in a market than there are viable program formats. No one wants to be forced to lose money.

I wasn't high on the food chain when I was in the world of banking. Occasionally, I got an invite to those high in the sky business strategy meetings. I don't know many how many times I heard variations of "no one wants to be forced to lose money." Usually some course that I felt had unnecessary risk or treating customers like crap to extract some more money from them usually followed. My opinion about how to do grow revenue weren't fast enough or headline grabbing enough so I was usually the odd man out. But in the end, my way would have been the slow and steady course. After having seen what happened, I would suspect many out there would say I was right to buck and question what was regarded as the right course.

As I think of radio as a business I often think of all those corporate board rooms too where all kinds of strategies are mapped out where most get the biggest bang for the buck in the quickest time. But do we really know that is the right course? A couple weeks ago I started a string in my local board comparing similariites to 1978 and today in radio. I wonder too if the thought of a quick buck and the fastest return is what drove so many AM former music station to news/talk. While the merits of that format for a couple stations may have been OK to do - when virtually everyone jumped on board and many markets so upward of 4 or more AM talkers, can we really say no one wants to be forced to lose money doesn't cloud logic - at times.

In my former life, a lot of the tarnish of the financial world are there for all to see much like the emperor without clothes. The other day I couldn't help but just shake my head when one of the corp execs from Lehman Brothers stumbled when a senator asked if he thought they treated their customers fairly. When we lose focus on who we really serve, all those headlines about profit and market share and the glamour make me prepared for a bumpy ride in the future.

My opinion of radio are shared with a relatively few number on these baords. We have a lot to buck. When many radio companies are experiencing growth and increased revenue and satisifed owners and Wall Street execs, the status quo of delivering a radio product as we pretty much see it across the board and across the nation will not change - most are probably happy where they have positioned radio. But I see it as a dangerous strategy for the future.

When I hear the term "viable format" I think back on those AM days as well when I'm sure all the charts and graphs and pretty wrapped up presentations all showed talk to be the winner and not music. So many jumped in and did the same thing. The same thing happened with other formats. If there was a big leader and winner in CHR, others jump in etc. etc. Do you remember when even beautiful music did well in 25-54 that so many did it then as well.

I wonder too if any major radio exec is brought before the Congress to defend programming and if asked, "do you feel you are treating your listeners fairly"? I wonder if they would stumble as listeners appear to be way down the priorities list.

How does this have to do with Godfather Radio? I haven't a clue but what I would personally love to see are those in leadership roles stand up at their board meetings and really speak their mind. Doing the same thing in these so called viable formats is not the answer. But again, mine is the minority view.

It's not just in regard to radio but I sense a growing frustration among the John Q. Public that no one is listening. I dealt with it for years where I used to be and got out. I'm not as quick to give up on radio. I still see some pockets of at least by appearences putting listeners further up the priority list. If there are those few formats that earn money - I say fine but don't do the same thing the station down the street does. If you want to compete with a leading AC, well maybe go for a soft AC or a hot AC or gold based - whatever - just don't do the aame thing. I don't believe it's healthy for the long term prospects of radio. All the headlines about profits in radio don't influence my decision. The company I once worked for was for a long time a darling of Wall Street. Hmm, they had to take a bail out for making what was proven to be - wrong decisions.

I certainly hope I made my points even though I suspect many of you just don't share my view of radio.

 

[TheBigA]

You seem overly focused on corporate ownership, board rooms, quick profits, and increased revenue.

I'm talking about serving the public.

Contrary to what you say, a lot of John Q. Publics are listening. We find out how closely they listen every day. It has nothing to do with board rooms, profits, or ownership. It has to do with giving the people what they want.

A quick look at popular music, popular restaurants, popular stores, and popular entertainment will tell you exactly what the people want. You don't need to do a survey or hire a consultant. Just open your eyes and see.

You are not John Q. Public. You are in the disgruntled minority. Don't make assumptions that the masses want what you want. They want what you dismiss. You can try to convince yourself that the public really wants champagne and caviar, and only eat hamburger because they're brainwashed by TV. But the people really love their hamburger.

The thing most people miss is that audiences at most radio stations are relatively stable. Considering the explosion in new technology and alternate content sources, more than 239 million people still listen to bland and boring old radio. The only thing that's changed is advertising revenues are down. But the audience is still there.

This is not about Wall Street. Those people are all gone. They're now barking at the feet of Twitter and Facebook. For radio, it's about getting back to basics. That means playing hit music. That means making hamburger. Radio is by definition a mass medium. It's content for the masses. That's not for you. Anyone who programs a radio station knows you're not going to get everyone. You're not going to get the fans of the 13 Floor Elevators by playing Stairway to Heaven. But that's not the point. The point is to reach a mass audience. That's what radio programmers do, regardless of ownership, regardless of profit, regardless of economics. The folks in the board rooms aren't doing the programming. So don't get distracted by the side show. That has nothing to do with anything.

 

[John FL]

I will give you this BigA - I can't make assumptions about what people want but I can attempt to draw comparisons to what happened in the past and what is happening today.

For all the people who continue to listen to radio - we are still in the stage where although there are lots of alternatives, those alternatives don't represent complete availability. There are millions of people who are in a work place where some local radio station is in the background. In cars, if the driver isn't on the phone or texting/braking the law, they don't see the need to pay for a service like Sirius/XM. Active terestial radio listening in the house while doing chores etc. is what has taken a hit. That's a start. As you say, because of competition in terestial radio you have what you have. Satelite doesn't have it, hence more choices.

While on the subject of numbers of listeners, that's another part of the equasion because I'm not content with the just now. Really Big A, can't you at least admit that in my anaology to the rise of FM at the expense of AM that the AM Top 40 suits used the same argument that they had tons of listeners and domintaed the ratings compared to the alternative of the day FM.

We all know what happened. FM became more and more available in cars and once experienced, that song by Steely Dan "FM - no static at all" really rang true and there was no looking back. Ask yourself this - what will happen to typical radio listening when major car manufacturers work up some kind of deal with an alternative and more and more listeners can be engaged in something cool? Think about it this way. History has taught us that when FM offered hard rock, classic rock, Top 40, oldies, jazz, urban, still beautiful music and perhaps even a country format, listeners gobbled it up. The difference then was people stayed within the radio pie. Today, if they leave for an alternative because there are tons of formats, you have to wonder that mental picture that is going through their minds making that comparison.

You have to consider peer pressure as well. For all these young listeners the execs salivate to attract and keep, imagine when that day comes when a bunch of them are in a car and one says to the driver - "Man, you're still listening to radio, you don't have (fill in the blank.) Don't laugh, when I was young driving around in my dad's car we only had AM. I felt like the uncoolest guy on earth as I didn't have FM. Can that kind of scenario repeat? You all decide.

A, I totally disagree - radio programming in one form or another is decided in the board room. When even LPFMs are programmed under the same 3 format umbrellas, it reinforces my belief that it's not really about the listener. Simply, I believe that is a dangerous practice. One day, it will bite a lot of movers and shakers on their butts and it will be 1978 all over again. Maybe I'm wrong but if I am, it would mean radio continues just as it is over the next decades. Deep down inside, I would suspect that even those who disagree with me would have to at least acknowledge - I could be on to something.

Radio has a histroy of not giving much in the way of choice to listeners and it has survived. I always ask, could the business of radio had turned out differently? In the case of AM, no one has the answers because there were so many variables. Tastes change, AM stereo never happened and the band in effect became 1 or 2 formats. There were many in the business who trusted good judgment to guide the radio ship of statement. Yes, I do have lots of issues with corporate radio and it's simply - i don't trust or respect their decisions and their motivations. Maybe that's something I need to work on to grow and be even more objective. But I'd also like to see some growth and objectiviity in the board room too - and so many of us wait.

 

[John FL]

While I was out doing yard stuff, I thought about what I wanted to talk about in the first place - and that is a Godfather type as it applies to radio. I'm not looking for some government half wit to start dictating courses of action based on all the wrong reasons.

In the rank and file of radio itself, there are those who imagine a different strategy. One of the posters responded to me recently with a concept of break what is not broken. That has stuck with me more than any response anyone has given me in all the years I have posted.

There is a lot of copy cat methods that go on in radio. When a company or a station is met with success - others jump on the bandwagon. But imagine if you will someone in the business who has earned the respect of others and has a proven track record. Someone who can influence others and break the mold of what exists virtually everywhere to do that certain something that results in radio successfully competing. Not everyone is a yes man or woman. If anything, godfather types are pretty strong in their convictions and radio needs that badly.

It's not outside of reality that let's say Sirius/XM decides to offer a really good deal to the fine citizens of Kansas City MO - like free service for a year. Suppose many take up the offer. While in this dream state, just imagine someone in the business of radio who counters with creating a need to stick with a station or those in the cluster. While we would expect Sirius/XM listening to go up in KC, if radio can still hold its own in those circumstances, wouldn't you think that would be an option to ensure survival? You have to wonder how the so called business people of the day literally saw the value of their properties drop like a rock because they were too set in their ways. These things take time to happen- especially for the old mighty AMers of the day. Today, there are a handul that do well with syndicated conservative talk. But there is also a lot of real estate dying on the vine. Could that happen to FM? No one knows the answer. Strong, influential and ballsy people who not only understand the business of radio but who still recognize advantages good old fashioned radio offers are needed to make those great offers no one with half a brain should refuse.

 

[gr8oldies]

There were plenty of duplicate formats in 1978. There were markets with 6 A/C stations. Some had multiple country formats and at times and places there were more than one top 40 or AOR. It sounds like you are proposing a Canadian style system, with the FCC licensing formats. Canada once insisted on hit/nonhit ratios and lots of talk on FM. They would not permit CKLW to put their CHR on FM.
Nothing would have saved AM music radio in 1978. Many made valiant efforts but floundered. The talk revolution didn't happen overnight as part of a grand strategy. Some gradually added talk in the evenings, some went oldies or Music of Your Life. The new generation of talk wasn't in place until the 1990s.
There are people, especially on this board who are of the mindset "I will not listen, even for a ten minute drive to the store, to anything I did not personally download and preferably play guitar on". That's very few people and even if you played 10000 obscure songs, you wouldn't get them. So we concentrate on everyone else.

 

[TheBigA]

Ask yourself this - what will happen to typical radio listening when major car manufacturers work up some kind of deal with an alternative and more and more listeners can be engaged in something cool?

It already happened, and it's called Sirius XM. So what?

Sure, I read all the stories about internet in cars and the potential for people to listen to Del McCoury instead of endless repeats of old Whitney Houston hits. What I see is that right now, when it comes to internet radio, you have Pandora (which is musical anarchy) and then you have CBS and Clear Channel. They are dominating internet streaming. So what?

Back to your rise of FM, the companies that dominated AM were also involved in the growth of FM. I'm talking mainly about ABC, Metromedia, and RKO, at least in the major markets. So in New York, WABC went from a 20 share to an 8. But at the same time, the same company had WPLJ. WOR also lost a lot of audience on AM, but the same company had 99X. In DC, WMAL was a monster, but the same company had WRQX. That's what we're seeing now. The smart companies are seeing the rise of internet and mobile streaming, and they're going there. These traditional radio stations are building beachfront property on the internet, and it’s working.

Today, if they leave for an alternative because there are tons of formats, you have to wonder that mental picture that is going through their minds making that comparison.

But even if there were tons of choices on FM, they mainly went to one or two stations. Having the availability of a jazz station didn’t mean the 16 year old kid listened to John Coltrane. They’re not attracted to “tons of formats,” just as that isn’t the attraction for satellite, but the chance to hear their favorites. So ultimately it becomes a technological change, not a programming change. It’s the same old wine in a brand new bottle. I go to one of those trendy brew-bubs near me that offers 100 micro beers on tap. Then I look around the room, and just about everyone there is drinking Bud and Coors. What does that tell you?

A, I totally disagree - radio programming in one form or another is decided in the board room. When even LPFMs are programmed under the same 3 format umbrellas, it reinforces my belief that it's not really about the listener..

The guys in the board room don’t care about what’s on the air. They subcontract that part out. They don’t even have board rooms at LPFMs. So obviously the motivation is something else.

I’ll tell you my motivation. Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to program to mass audiences. And you don’t reach the masses with bluegrass. If you go back to 1978, as the technology changed from AM to FM, you’ll see the bulk of the audience went to those same 3 formats. If FM had stayed the same sleepy backwater it had been in the 50s, it would not have attracted the numbers it did in the 70s. What brought the big numbers was not obscure music, but the hits. Tom Donohue may have been the grand daddy of progressive rock. But what made him a legend was when he applied the lessons he learned in Top 40 to album rock, tightened his playlist, and focused on the hits.

Get back to the hamburger analogy. In my neighborhood, there is every form of fast food imaginable. There’s also a sushi stand. Guess which one gets the business. Choice does not lead to a broadening of taste. It just reinforces that you win with hits.

One day, it will bite a lot of movers and shakers on their butts and it will be 1978 all over again. Maybe I'm wrong but if I am, it would mean radio continues just as it is over the next decades.

What you hear on FM now is mostly what AM sounded like pre1978. I believe very strongly that in ten years, the internet will sound like FM does now. So yes, it will be 1978 all over again, and people like you will be angry about what happened to the internet, as you’re now angry about what happened to FM. And internet radio will continue to be dominated by CBS and Clear Channel, just as FM was dominated by the major AM companies in 1978.

Yes, I do have lots of issues with corporate radio and it's simply - i don't trust or respect their decisions and their motivations. Maybe that's something I need to work on to grow and be even more objective. But I'd also like to see some growth and objectiviity in the board room too - and so many of us wait.

Meet the new boss…same as the old boss.

 

[TheBigA]

There is a lot of copy cat methods that go on in radio. When a company or a station is met with success - others jump on the bandwagon. But imagine if you will someone in the business who has earned the respect of others and has a proven track record. Someone who can influence others and break the mold of what exists virtually everywhere to do that certain something that results in radio successfully competing.

There is no better way to influence others than to have success. Success breeds influence. No one wants to emulate a failure. You want to lead? Create a success, and better yet, do it on your own dime. Then the world will beat a path to your door. But don't expect Clear Channel to drop the Lite FM format from their stations in NY and Chicago to play a bunch of unknown bands from Austin. Allan Freed had to start somewhere, and it was on a brokered 5K station at 11PM at night. He bought the airtime, and sold it to a local record store. The rest is history.

 

[adma]

What you hear on FM now is mostly what AM sounded like pre1978. I believe very strongly that in ten years, the internet will sound like FM does now. So yes, it will be 1978 all over again, and people like you will be angry about what happened to the internet, as you’re now angry about what happened to FM. And internet radio will continue to be dominated by CBS and Clear Channel, just as FM was dominated by the major AM companies in 1978.

But there is a difference: there's far more to the internet than "internet radio". Internet or not, radio's a far smaller pea in the media/cultural pod than it was in 1978--and at least when it comes to the commercial side, skewed differently, too, t/w the lower-hanging "available audience" fruit. There are actually fewer angry people now because they already have alternatives that couldn't have been foreseen in 1978, back when any beholdenness they had to radio was an accident borne out of scarcity of alternative options. Today, many of those who once might have complained have effectively abandoned such radio to said lower-hanging fruit--and if they do complain at all, it's about the deeper cultural issues re the pernicious influence of conservative talk, rather than the trivial "crap music/limited playlist" issues of yore.

The way you're portraying it, the internet in 10 years will be back-to-the-future, to an AOL circa 1995 model--yeah, sure.

 

[TheBigA]

The way you're portraying it, the internet in 10 years will be back-to-the-future, to an AOL circa 1995 model--yeah, sure.

Oh there will be an alternative internet, just as there are pirate terrestrial radio stations now, but the additional government regulations, additional fees imposed by the music and telecom industries, and then a whole new layer of crap that we can't even anticipate will dramatically change the appearance of the popular aspects of the internet in less than ten years. Everyone already wants to get a piece of it, and guess who pays? What has driven AOL almost to the brink of extinction was the inability to charge for its services. Everyone used to pay $19.95 for dial up. Now, they bypass AOL, and the money gets sucked up by AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast. Meanwhile, AOL is a shell of what it once was.

 

[gr8oldies]

That is exactly what the net neutrality issue is over. Comcast, Time Warner, Verizon etc would like to sell you tiers of web access. Top 200 websites for one price but eBay is the next higher tier. Premium packages for sports websites, etc. So I wouldn't be surprized at an old AOL model

 

[TheBigA]

Not to mention extra charges for high users of bandwidth. That means those who stream a lot of internet radio, download a lot of music and video, and do a lot of file transfers. At some point, it will be cheaper and more efficient to transmit files that size using transmitters and towers.

 

[adma]

But ultimately, who's going to put up with even that? It might as well be incentive for higher-operating yet thrifty consumers to bail from the downloading and even consumption rituals--almost by way of an "it's not worth it" epiphany.

Maybe the big secret to all of this is how, esp. over the past generation or two, the profit-making end of "mass entertainment" has focused much more upon the lower-hanging fruit, because previous targeting was more inexact and higher-operating audiences were increasingly fickle. (It might also relate to how political jurisdictions have become increasingly dependent upon lotteries and in certain cases casinos as means of beefing up the governmental bottom line. Ultimately, so much feeds into the dependency-upon-mass-stupidity-and-gullibility that has fueled the financial crises of recent years...)

 

[TVradioguru]

I think the bottom-line is; just like TV had with cable, radio now has competition from niche' sources like streaming. The problem is streaming or Internet Radio will never reach the audience numbers like local radio, even with world wide access.

NBC Nightly News, even though only thirty minutes in length, still draws millions of news viewers domestically every weeknight, or more than double the audience of many of the nightly cable new programs, including FOX, combined over several hours, not just 30 minutes.

Internet radio has a huge monetization problem. Because of all the various niche' formats, advertisers would rather put their money into guaranteed mass-appeal aural or visual media, whether that be on the Internet or traditional radio or TV. Yet the problem is that legally-operating Internet radio stations have more ASCAP/BMI fees for the music they play to (in theory), worldwide, but a much smaller audience. A worldwide audience also won't bring an advertiser business for a region or demographic when played all over the world.

Cable TV wants to play more competitively in regions where local TV sells, but hasn't made great strides at doing so. Internet radio will have an even tougher time selling advertising.

BigA speaks the truth. Radio listening is up, WAY up. The reason is the masses, given the choice, will take free music and entertainment over subscription any day. The 1.3% of penetration by Satellite radio has already proven that concept.

 

[adma]

BigA speaks the truth. Radio listening is up, WAY up. The reason is the masses, given the choice, will take free music and entertainment over subscription any day. The 1.3% of penetration by Satellite radio has already proven that concept.

Yeah, sure, if this is your benchmark for "the masses". By which we might assume that illiteracy and stupidity is up, WAY up as well. The Simpsons have three kids; the Spucklers have dozens. It adds up

And as usual, you're configuring things in terms of "free" terrestrial vs "paid" satellite, as if everything else the internet and whatever else have to offer which has nothing to do with radio and which didn't exist a generation or two ago wasn't part of the equation. Remember that satellite didn't wither because it was no match for terrestrial obsolescence it was meant to "remedy"; it withered because it was in turn rendered obsolescent by iCulture.

Oh, in terms of "the masses", radio may still "rule" in a certain sense--but in the same way that the Powerball lottery does...