Zach said:
Mass ownership has brought more formats to cities, more professional sounding operations (in some cases) and more stations to choose from, even in smaller markets.
I see it very differently. Consolidation brought no new stations. Consolidation was the effect of Docket 80-90... the aftermath of the Bonita Springs case whereby moveins, upgrades of class, changes of COL, etc. no longer were major applications requiring hearings and allowing strike applications. That was followed by 80-90 which so overpopulated the FM dial in most small to medium markets nobody was making money. This was all that investors needed to request changes in the ownership rules based on the supposed economies of clusters of stations; in 1995, half of US stations were, in fact, losing money.
In both cases, doing so has made the owners shedloads of money. And, in both cases, the towns have lost some of their local character in the process.
When, to take one market as an example, Lake City, FL which had 3 stations suddenly has 6 with the same revenue base, nobody makes money. Consolidation did not help, but Docket 80-90 destroyed many station's ability to do local news and service.
People just don't care enough about what plays through their radio anymore to have the kind of loyalty that they did "back then". The ones that still do care have defected to the alternatives, and it appears they (we) are not that big of a sector. If we were, satellite radio would be a serious threat and the hype surrounding wi-max and internet radio'd be as big as it was with that garbage iPhone. Instead, XM and Sirius are trying to merge to save their ships and the only ones I know who are anxious about wi-max and streaming radio anywhere are computer and cellphone nerds like myself. No one else cares, and they won't until today's kindergartners are fully grown adults. (That's my prediction and I'm sticking to it.)
When I fell in love with radio, I could count the stations in my hometown (a top 15 market at the time) on the fingers of my hand and had two left over. There were 3 TV stations, and I knew the nightly lineup almost from memory. There were three daily papers and a weekly shopper. That is it for local media. Now there is on declining paper, a dozen TVs, hundreds of cable or sat channels, 30 radio outlets of siome significance, multiple weekly papers, the web and so much more. When there is so much variety it is easier to be a casanova in media usage than being faithful to one outlet. No one medium is vitally important, as there are so many alternatives.
The problem is considering distribution channels to be media outlets. WiMAX is not radio, it is a channel, just as FM transmitters on big towers, buildings or hills are channels. The radio station is the content, not the medium. We will see a change in distribution, and WiMAX will be the heart of it. we are seing AM dying as the main format, news talk, moves to FM... AM and FM are not media, they are channels. The format is the medium and it will go where the sets of ears are.
