Recently, I viewed
a video put up on YouTube by famed music producer and music industry expert
Rick Beato. For those of you who don’t know who Rick Beato is, he began working
in music recording and production in the mid-to-late 1990’s, and recorded and produced a few
bands that got airplay as late as the mid 2000’s, including much of Shinedown's first album in 2003. Rick is an accomplished
musician, and he also has a lot of vids where he talks about recording techniques,
music theory, discussions of the current state of music – and, last but not
least – he has had several videos where the discussion has centered on the
decline of the radio and music industries.
Here is a link to Rick Beato’s video. It is well worth watching. It’s maybe 25 minutes long, but he interviews a rock producer (Jim Barber -- a man with extensive experience in Radio and the Record industry), and the two of them basically list some of the key factors in the decline of Rock music, the music industry, and even Radio’s decline.:
Now, as any of my
readers know, I have discussed the decline of these two industries – Radio, and
the Music industry -- in detail, more than once, here on my blog. As I worked
in the Radio industry for 20 years, and still have online connections to people
in the industry, and as I have a few connections to people who were in the music
industry as well, I have always had my ear to the ground when it comes to the
Music industry and Radio.
As a
self-published author, I am also a content creator, so I have a pretty good
idea of how the internet content distribution model works.
Some of Mr. Beato’s
observations come from experiences I simply do not have. I have never recorded
a band professionally, nor have I seen record company politics (and corruption)
from the inside. For example, in his most recent video that I have seen, Mr.
Beato covered in detail how corrupt the record companies were from the inside.
YOU ALREADY HAVE DRUMS - BUT THEY MAKE YOU RENT THEM ANYWAY
For example, he
mentions how – when a band was recorded – instead of using the drummer’s own
drumkit, the producer often insisted that the drummer use one provided by the
studio, and then the record company would be charged a certain amount of money
each day for that drumkit’s “rental”, as well as daily "maintenance". An unnecessary “rental fee”, as it were –
which, ultimately, came out of the band’s cut of the CD sales proceeds. Mr.
Beato speaks as if – at least in the major studios – this was somewhat
commonplace. And he mentions, in some detail, other such "rentals" that were unnecessary, and merely padded the producer's pockets (or the pockets of the "producer managers") at the expense of the Record company, and -- ultimately -- the band being recorded.
Of course, during the glory days of recorded music -- the years 1992-2004 -- the peak years for music revenues, accounting for inflation -- there was money to spare. Unless you were a second or third tier rock band, of course. When revenues began to dive after ITunes kicked in, and then after the Great Recession of 2008, that the picture certainly changed.
Even so, in his video, Mr. Beato does not make a clear, direct connection between the internal record company corruption which he describes, and the overall decline of the Music Industry. While the corruption probably did not help the music artists, it doesn’t seem to have led to the decline of the Record companies. So, obviously, there are other factors at play that turned the big Record companies into has-beens and subsidiaries of 3 or 4 massive, entertainment conglomerates, and there must have also been other factors at play that turned Radio into an increasingly vestige and archaic, “legacy” industry.
Consequently, even though Rick Beato’s observations are insightful, and a few of them are spot on, he also seems to miss the mark slightly.
However, this blog post isn’t intended to correct his views – I sincerely doubt anyone who watches Rick Beato’s videos reads this blog. This blog’s readers mostly seem to be DXers and radio hobbyists, with a few musicians included here and there as well.
But I still feel that the decline of Radio and the Music Industry is important enough to everyone that I need to cover the decline of those industries in some detail, perhaps in a form that makes it a little easier for my readers to grasp. I do have extensive experience in Radio and have kept track of where it’s going, and I was trained as a journalist, so I have always looked at Radio’s demise from a journalist’s standpoint.
Here is another recent video by Rick Beato, featuring session guitarist Tim Pierce, where they talk about the decline in incomes for musicians, especially in the music industry -- both in Los Angeles, and elsewhere. They both mention Streaming in passing, as one of the reasons for the decline, as well as discussing advances in recording technology as killing some industry jobs. In fact, the rise of Streaming as the dominant music consumption form slashed record industry revenues by 40% between 2000 and 2020, and played a bigger part in this decline than either Pierce or Beato seem to let on in this video. It still is well worth watching, as these two guys are music industry veterans, and they cover a lot of ground concerning the decline of the industry.TECHNOLOGY, ECONOMICS, DEMOGRAPHICS, & POOR DECISIONS
There are maybe four major factors – divvied up into maybe 20-25 smaller factors
individually – all of which led to Radio’s decline, and most of those
same factors also led to the decline of the Music Industry, and the decline probably
would have happened regardless of decisions made by the movers and shakers
in those fields. If some decisions had not been made by key players, however, maybe the situation for Radio and Music would be a bit better. There is no doubt that some key decisions made by Radio and Record
companies sped the decline process along. It was like they removed the brakes, slammed their foot on the gas pedal and shouted “full speed ahead!"
The key factors that
killed Radio and the Music Industry (as we once knew it) are varied. But at their core, the key factors that killed radio and the music industry are
based on Advancements in Technology, Economics, Changes in Demographics, and Poor Corporate Decisions.
Let’s look at each
factor, one by one, at least somewhat chronologically, and it may give us a
clear picture of what is going on. Because in reality, all of these factors
created the Perfect Storm to kill Radio, and Records.
The factors I'm going to list aren't necessarily in chronological order -- they can't be. Because so many important changes were slowly developing concurrently since the late 1980's, and many of the new advancements in tech overlapped, time-wise, in their effect on Radio and Music, I can only list the factors themselves, and describe each one in some detail. One of the key factors, changes in demographic tastes, didn't come into play until the 2010's. Those changes in tastes in music and media are vital to what is happening to "Radio" today, but in the beginning, it wasn't so important to the existence of the Radio medium. The other factors kicked in earlier.
So, here we go.
1. First off, DIGITAL MUSIC TECHNOLOGY was introduced to the masses in the late 1980's, with the CD, and with DAT. The introduction of DAT especially -- which could copy a CD with no information loss -- scared the Record Companies, and they got Congress to write up some laws concerning the copying and propagation of Digital Media. Of course, CDs and DAT didn't kill radio. Nor did they kill the Music Industry. In fact, the CD boosted Music industry revenues, and became the new standard. But the Digital Music Tech advanced further beyond CDs and DAT to something more computer compatible -- and when combined with the next factor -- the development of the INTERNET -- Digital Music Tech changed the entire way music is consumed. This Digital Audio Tech factor underlies nearly every other factor that socked it to Radio and the Music Industry. On one hand, it was a boon, and revitalized both industries. On the other hand, Digital audio technology has made thousands of Radio jobs redundant, and Digital Streaming has socked it to Music revenues. Digital music, internet, and computer tech also is a prime reason why you can hear the same DJ on 50 different stations across the country, or radio stations sound the same no matter where you travel in the US.
2. THE INTERNET. Although some form of the Internet existed as early as the 1970s (DARPAnet being an example), the Internet as we know it and love it today didn't really become a game changer in music, radio, and commerce until the mid to late 1990's, when more homes had PCs, and the World Wide Web came into widespread use. It wasn't long afterwards that various websites began to use the Web for commerce, including radio stations. At first, they didn't really know what to do with it, but by 2000, that began to change. Nearly every vital change that harmed Radio after 1996 is centered, in some way, around use of the Internet. Even song playlists, which were computerised as early as the 1980s, were not portable over the internet at that time. They were merely printouts telling DJs which songs they could play. With advances in computer tech in the early 1990's, those 'playlists' actually controlled the music and commercials being played over the airwaves. But after internet tech advanced, it changed further -- no longer would an individual station need their own Music Director to program the station. A central MD from the "Cluster" could compile the playlist (maybe getting one from Corporate), and send it to other stations in the cluster, via email. This cost jobs. As internet tech advanced, and stations became more automated, MDs could directly program the different stations' automation software via internet connection, or even a floppy. The company I worked for was heavy into automation, so I am well acquainted with this process. The internet made it easier for Radio companies to slash staff, and cut jobs, as one person could do the same job as five people previously, using LANs, computer technology or Internet technology. This also allowed for the homogenization of radio, as Corporate MDs would determine the playlists for stations all across the country (Mr. Beato mentions this aspect in detail). The Internet eventually led to more "voicetracking", eliminating local announcers and DJ's, and replacing them with voicetracks from DJ's and announcers up to 2000 miles away. Entire shows are 'voicetracked'. I have heard the same early morning Rock 'morning zoo' radio show on several different FM and AM rockers located in different cities -- all courtesy of Internet sound file distribution (the Internet also has killed radio in other ways which will be further examined below).
3. DEREG 1996, or "Telecom '96", was a bipartisan, US Federal law signed by President Clinton, which was intended to further open up Radio Station ownership across the United States -- and it definitely succeeded. By itself, this piece of legislation probably did more damage to the Radio Industry than any other decision or action taken by people in power. Further, it turned out to be a job killer. Before Dereg '96, Radio companies were limited in the number of stations they could own. After Dereg '96, that number of stations increased drastically. Today, the top three or four Radio Companies in the US own well over 500 of the 15K radio stations in the country. Other, smaller companies own stations amounting to the 100's. Not only that, these Radio Companies combined and bought each other out. When I was in the Radio industry in the 1990's and 2000's there were pages in the radio trade publications that were about all the "Deals" being made. It was as if music and programming was secondary to Wall Street financials. The largest Radio companies also got onto the NY Stock Exchange. For a while, money was flowing in, and big companies like Clear Channel (later IHeart) went into debt with their station buying sprees (and other financial factors). Soon enough, these same companies found themselves answering to shareholders and investors, and having to maximise whatever profits they could get -- often at the expense of programming quality, and at the expense of the Radio workers. In fact, Dereg '96 is probably directly or indirectly responsible for the slashing of tens of thousands of Radio jobs. Even today, the effect of Dereg '96 is being felt. This trend to slash jobs, combine operations, etc., increased after the next factor.:
4. The DOT COM BUST of 2000. When the Dot Com Bust hit, there was a small recession that followed, and this one really socked it to radio. I recall reading in the Radio press at the time how much advertising dollars were being reduced, and Radio in general was hurting. At the same time, consolidation was continuing in the Radio industry, both at the business and corporate level, and also on the technical and infrastructure level, as Radio companies combined operations into station "clusters". The Dot Com Bust, by itself, didn't kill Radio, but it accelerated the tendency for the big Radio corporations to combine operations and cut staff. This trend only accelerated further as the 2000's wore on. Another factor that the Dot Com Bust accelerated was the tendency for Radio to run more commercials. Because advertising revenues declined, Radio ran more commercials to try to make up for the loss. This, of course, started causing some tune-out. But, at the time, there were no real viable alternatives to Radio as a mass music and information medium. The World Wide Web at this time was still somewhat limited when it came to radio streaming, with the streams sometimes being jumpy with excess buffering and the like. But the growing ascendency of the IPod and MP3 after 2001, and the introduction of Streaming services like Pandora in 2006 and Spotify soon afterwards, began to provide many radio listeners a viable, decent sounding alternative to programming loaded with commercials.
5. The MP3 and MP2 (about 1995). The MP3 was actually a Godsend for music consumption. With the introduction of the MP3 (and its predecessor, which was widely used by Radio, the MP2), digital music became portable across computer connections, and with MP3 players, you had music playing devices with no moving parts: no more tapes eaten, no more skipping CDs, and no motors, tape heads, and lasers to wear out. With the MP3, people could suddenly send their favorite songs to friends using the Internet. The MP3 itself didn't kill Radio or the Music Industry, but the way it was used by those industries -- primarily in consolidation of Radio station operations, and in automation -- helped change many stations to what they are today -- an unmanned operation running out of a closet. The MP2, which many don't know about, is just as good for music listening as the MP3, and it began to be the dominant digital music file format used by Radio stations in the late 1990's, when MP2's were used by music automation systems (the biggest one probably being AudioVault, but there were numerous others) to play music over the air. As Radio got more computerised, using Music-On-Hard-Drive became commonplace, and the dominant format used by Radio for this purpose was the MP2. This portability of music made it easier for a station "cluster" in a big or medium size city to consolidate their studios, and they could even run an entire station from a closet. All they needed was a computer to run the MP2 music off the hard drives -- no people, no studios, no microphones, no cart machines, no tape players or CD players necessary. No DJs were necessary, as the announcements, liners, promos, and commercials were all on MP2 as well, and everything was automated via computer. Everything became a sound file, run by a computer app, which could be either reprogrammed via floppy (pre-2000), or directly via LAN or internet connection. Later on, stations changed over to WAVs, but the MP2 and MP3 were definite radio operations game changers. Even today, many stations are automated operations, probably running out of a closet somewhere. Today you can have several stations using the same automation programs. Many stations in diverse cities and regions run the same morning programs, or use voicetracked announcers, by downloading the sound files from the internet, in MP3 or WAV form. In 2021, the largest radio company in the US, IHeart, announced (after laying off a bunch of people) that they are looking into even more centralized operations -- potentially running hundreds of stations from just one location. This is all ultimately thanks to the development of the MP2 and MP3 -- and the ensuing ability to transfer those sound files over the internet -- which originally started to happen in the late 1990's. As for the effect the MP3 had on the Music industry alone, the MP3-single track download sale began a decline in revenues that continued through the Streaming era, and it also killed the album (see the next factor for more on that).
6. NAPSTER & ITunes (1999-2006). When Napster famously introduced itself to Internet music fans in 1999, the world changed. My own world changed. Previously, if I wanted to have albums of my favorite Australian band the Screaming Jets, I had to special order them from a record store in Bateman's Bay, NSW, Australia. I'd email their sales manager, and place an order, and then mail them a cashier's cheque via post, and several weeks later my CD's would arrive in the mail. With Napster, that changed. I could download Screaming Jets' tracks -- and other tracks by Oz bands whose albums and singles were never released in the US (like Buster Brown, live Rose Tattoo tracks, or Gangajang) -- within a couple minutes, using Napster. Being the music aficionado that I am, I bought the CD's anyway, but a lot of people didn't. Napster was eventually decimated by lawsuit and government fiat, and shut down in late 2001, but Napster made a point: internet music file (and video file) sharing was HERE TO STAY. Enter ITunes. The folks at Apple were watching the Napster debacle closely. They saw a market for MP3 single downloads, and they introduced the ITunes store and the IPod player in 2001. The IPod, and ITunes, took off quickly. Sales of MP3's began to overtake CD sales around 2006, and MP3 sales peaked during the EDM Pop era -- between 2011-2015. Then they dived, overtaken by Streaming. Even so, MP3 sales were a big deal in the Radio and Music industries, led by ITunes. Even radio was using ITunes. I know that my own employers were using ITunes when they couldn't get the CD singles from the Record companies quick enough -- which indicated that Record Companies held ITunes in very high regard. Record companies, of course -- seeing the potential sales, but forgetting to do the long term math -- jumped on the ITunes bandwagon, and soon enough, even other music retailers (like Amazon) were selling MP3 singles, and even some MP3 albums. The singles, of course, cost 99 cents on average. You didn't just buy MP3 hit single releases (like one could do in 45 RPM and CD Single days). You could also buy whatever individual song you liked -- even picking and choosing tracks from an album -- and forget about the rest of the album. And, consequently, MP3 single tracks were what sold the most. THIS KILLED THE CD. AND IT KILLED THE ALBUM. Instantly, album and CD sales nosedived, KILLING REVENUES. There is a chart on the RIAA website that shows US music industry revenues since 1972 or '73. If you use the "accounted for inflation" drop down, the peak years were 1999 and 2000. Then revenues dropped around 40% by 2020. This is why I maintain that the introduction of the MP3 single track sale killed the music industry (streaming later finished it off -- more on that later). The technology was user friendly -- no CD lasers to burn out, no boxes of physical media to carry from apartment to apartment, no moving parts to wear out over time. All you needed was your IPod and an internet connection. The MP3s were portable, and you could even play your IPod in a clock radio or other stereo device, or play the tunes on your computer. Later, you could store an entire library of your favorite MP3's on your phone. But the MP3 single download sale killed the Music Industry, and it also killed Rock music's dominance, as the Music Industry (and radio) -- now making less money -- sought out the quickest, easiest buck by promoting the top selling genres -- Rap, Pop, and Country -- over other musical genres. With 40% less revenues to play with, that seemed to them to be the logical choice. Radio, of course, went along with the trend. They had to. They play what the Music Companies give them.
7. The GREAT RECESSION of 2008. The Great Recession, which hit in 2008 after the Housing market bubble crashed early in that year, slammed radio. And it also affected the Music Industry. My Radio job was eliminated on New Year's Eve, December 2006, because advertising rates were already dropping at many of the stations my employers served. When I went back to college during 2007, the writing was already on the wall -- there was tough sledding ahead, financially, for the country. When I tried to get a new job in Radio or Sound Production (my NAICS job code), there was nothing out there -- this was even before the Crash hit. The economics of post-Dereg '96 Radio and internet operations had already changed the nature of Radio and Music. Even large local recording studios had less staff. As the Recession kicked in full bore over the next 6-8 years, music consumers stopped buying CDs, and went for the MP3 single. Streaming also started up, causing many to turn to new Streaming sites such as Spotify and Pandora to get their music and "radio", because they no longer had to pay even the 99 cents for an MP3 single -- and there were few, if any, commercials. But these trends were only part of the picture. On the Radio front, during the Recession the advertising revenues dived, while consolidation continued. The company I had worked for was soon bought out by another company, who laid off more staff, and maybe 5-6 years later they got rid of the few programming staff left in the building. So, employment at my former employer went from around 35-40 in 1999 to zero in 2015. Only a couple of them still work in the industry. So, while the average Radio observer may not realise that the 2008 Crash was significant, it definitely accelerated the already non-Radio friendly tendencies. At one of the radio forums I go to, where the professionals hang out, some of them still maintain that Radio never got over the Recession of 2008. I believe them.
It's an example of Radio's post-1996, post-2008 mantra that "less is more". I.e., "Give the people less, and we'll make more money." How is that all working out, Radio?
In my view, it's helping to kill off the medium. In the opinion of many radio experts, however, it's just another day at the funny factory -- nothing to see here. We can't rock the boat or we'll lose money. That sort of thing. Little thinking outside the box. But hey, they helped build the box, so there's that.
8. THE PORTABLE PEOPLE METER, introduced 2008-2009. Many radio fans still probably don't know that the Portable People Meter, or "PPM" is, but it played a vital part in killing off many radio formats and killing jobs, and revenues, in the process. The PPM is also at least partially responsible for the homogenized formats and duplicate formats heard on FM radio in many markets today. When I was still working in the industry in the mid-2000's, Nielsen was still developing this device, which would measure radio audiences more accurately than the previous diary-based model. The Radio press was already talking about what effect the device would have on the industry. The PPM was rolled out in 2009 nationwide, and suddenly many programs, and whole radio formats, found their listenership disappearing into the ether. The PPM also showed that Radio itself had lost listeners. In 2000, the estimates were that 18-20% of all people, 12+, in any given metro listened to Radio at least once daily from 6 a.m. to 12 midnight (known in the Radio business as Persons Using Radio, or "PUR"). After the PPM data was analyzed after rollout, that "PUR" number dropped to closer to 12%, and today the PUR numbers have dropped to 5%, on average. Around 85% of Americans still use radio, generally (down from 94% in 2000), but they use it much less than before the PPM was measuring their use of it. This particular PPM data -- on the decreasing general radio audience -- didn't affect Radio, however, as much as the ratings data did -- entire formats like Smooth Jazz, Hot Talk (guys like Tom Leykis, Bubba the Love Sponge, Mancow, and the like); AAA and AAA/Alternative; Dance music; Americana, non-angry / non-political talk (think Dr. Joy Brown, Bruce Williams, that kind of talk); Liberal talk (similar to Air America); Beautiful Music and Standards; Oldies; and well known stations like News-talker KGO San Francisco saw their ratings dive precipitously and those stations either flipped formats or slashed staff -- or both (KGO held on to some form of talk until just over a year ago, however, when it went Sports Betting talk). The popular Delilah radio show -- which you could hear nearly anywhere on the radio at night -- saw her ratings dive, and she lost stations because of it. With the elimination of the formats mentioned above, there also were less formats that Radio wanted to program. Consequently, you saw a large city having 4 or 5 Adult Contemporary stations, and maybe 2 or 3 Pop/CHR stations and 2 or 3 Country stations, and maybe a couple Urban/Hip-hop stations (with slightly different, but nationally homogenous flavors of the same format). In other words, Radio -- and FM radio in particular -- became BLAH. The entire dial consisted of maybe 4 major formats and a couple minor ones. Rock stations, surprisingly, do OK even with the PPM. However, most of them seem to play Classic Rock, which does well among a wide range of demographics. Newer rock, not so much. But the main takeaway from the PPM is that not only is Radio more homogenized and bland, the PPM also showed that the listenership statistics are not good. Time Spent Listening is down. People Using Radio is down. Nothing is really UP. I suppose the introduction of a device like the PPM was inevitable, but its effect definitely wasn't a plus for the average radio listener -- especially when the PPM data shows that there are much less of them, and their numbers are still dropping. As for the lost formats, some were already in the process of 'aging out', but the PPM helped them on their way. Ultimately, one has to decide for themselves: is Radio better with less formats, or more? Under the pre-PPM model, there was more advertising money coming into radio. After the PPM, revenues for radio nationwide began to drop -- by 60% (when accounting for inflation), according to some radio analysts. The PPM helped Radio become more bland, which arguably drove off listeners and revenues, although there are admittedly no studies to prove a direct connection between the two. Either way, the business now runs primarily on the PPM model, and you can't make money if your format isn't gaining ratings, and the big advertisers don't want to advertise on your station. Radio is stuck in the economic realities of running it as a business, and if you tune across the FM band and hear just slightly different flavors of 4 formats, all blandly presented by the same voice-tracked announcers, you can at least partially thank the PPM.
9. CONSOLIDATION IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY, 2003 and Later. In my lifetime, the Music Industry has always had major labels and smaller labels, some which had more 'pull' than others when it came to promoting artists to radio and record stores. There were record companies like Columbia, Geffen, Atlantic/ATCO, A&M, Island, Epic (a division of Columbia, actually), Capitol, Warner Brothers, Reprise (later Warner/Reprise), ABC/Dunhill, RCA, London, EMI (mainly in the UK), Virgin, Decca (mainly in the UK), Sire, Harvest, Phonogram, Polydor, Mercury -- there were a ton of labels, many of them associated with other labels, or subsidiaries of other labels, but they still held a certain amount of independence in signing and promoting artists. Today, it's a different picture. There are three major conglomerates that control 60% of all the music being released in the US -- Sony, Warner Music and Universal. In 2003 Sony bought BMG (which was a conglomerate at the time), and in the early 2010's, Universal bought EMI. Now, just because the music industry is controlled by three massive, corporate conglomerates doesn't guarantee that the Music produced and promoted is going to suck. And with the internet, the importance of ANY record companies has actually lessened. But, as Mr. Beato alludes to in his video, in the 1990's there not only were more independent Radio stations with independent Music Directors to pitch music to -- there also were more Record companies with more A&R people to sign artists, record them, develop them, and promote them. With the consolidation of the Music industry to three main players -- all based overseas -- the chances of some promising artist to be signed and then promoted are much slimmer than they were in 1991 when Nirvana happened. One radio pro said on a forum that the Big Three don't really care about Rock music, nor do they care about most genres aside from the three most popular ones, which is a reason why there is no new, exciting Rock music on radio. The record companies don't develop and promote Rock artists. The Big Three don't care about radio the same way they did in the 1990's, either. With Streaming, they have started to bypass radio. And being that there are primarily just three big conglomerates for Radio to deal with, it's led from a partnership of sorts to more of a master-servant relationship. Some observers in the music press believe that the dominance of the Big Three is part of the reason for the bland, homogenous sameness that pervades the charts and radio today. Reportedly, the Big Three control the Top Ten 90 percent of the time. Is that a good thing? Combine this with Big Radio's tendency to serve the public with the Lowest Common Denominator in FM music fare, it is no wonder that many music consumers are bypassing Radio and the Record companies' offerings, and just going straight to their favorite Streaming platforms instead, where THEY control the music they hear.
Here is an opinion piece in Wired Magazine that goes into further detail concerning the Big Three's influence on the music we hear and consume.:
Stores like these are closing, or otherwise not using external advertising. The Fry's store in this picture shut down in 2020. They stopped putting flyers in the papers during the late 2010's, because they were socked by online retail competition, the remains of the Great Recession, and tariffs on many of the products they imported to sell. There are other stores that either no longer advertise, no longer mail out flyers, or are also closed down, because of economic issues and internet competition. Instead, if a large store has an online retail service, they 'advertise' there.
Mass media like Radio, TV, newspapers and magazines depend on Advertising. But the Advertising world has changed, and the media that depend on Advertising either have to change with it, or they lose money.
10. DECLINE OF LOCAL STORES AND LOCAL RETAIL (1980's-2020'). As the massive box stores took over retail in many cities and towns across the US, the smaller businesses that advertised on radio lost business, and quit advertising on local radio. The big box chains that took over retail in these areas didn't advertise on local radio the same way the smaller, locally-based stores and chains did. This has been noted by many in radio to affect smaller stations, and standalone stations in major metros. Advertising has always been the mother’s milk for Radio. Without advertising, stations can’t stay on the air. The corporate owned stations in major metros got a lot of their advertisements from the big NYC ad agencies, which favored highly rated stations catering to certain key demographics, leaving out a lot of smaller stations in the process. This was always a factor, but after Dereg 1996 this factor accelerated as more stations were scooped up by corporate radio behemoths. These changes in advertising – as local chains and stores’ advertising dried up, made Radio stations more desperate to gain and/or keep whatever revenue they could make, and in many cases they simply cut staff, combined operations (with help from the internet), and they cut down their playlist size, hoping to increase ratings. And they also took other similar programming measures to try to keep the ratings up, targeting their programming to the lowest common denominator. The research told them what music to play, and corporate decisions took more precedence. The Pandemic’s killing off many brick and mortar stores only added to the problem. Right now, advertising revenues across the board are down -- across ALL media, online or Over-The-Air. In fact, since 2005, Radio has lost more than half of its advertising revenues, when accounting for inflation. Other media are also struggling with this advertising revenue problem -- online media included. Have you ever logged onto a news site or pulled up a magazine article on the internet, and been forced to scroll endlessly through a seemingly bottomless click-o-rama of numerous ads, which break the stories into tiny pieces, while having to endure more moving pop-ups and autoplay video ads than a 2005 virus attack? Now you know why. The ads -- just like the website -- are struggling for visibility, and they're all struggling to keep you 'engaged', so you'll click the ads. If you don't click the ads, the website still gets paid some, but there is more money in the clicking. This is why when you go to some websites it looks like an online version of carnival hawkers all screaming and shouting through megaphones, trying to get your attention. It's desperation. This is what the online advertising marketplace has given us. And it's decreased ad rates across the board, including radio. And it doesn't appear that it will change, because of two of the most basic laws of Economics: Supply and Demand, and "Price Elasticity of Demand". With the internet, the supply is infinite. Demand varies, and thanks to the infinite supply of content there is a fight for visibility. And Online Retail doesn't need to advertise anymore. They "advertise" in-house, on their own websites. The combination of there being less need to advertise, and the continuing fight for visibility won't change, unless most non-retail websites on the internet decide to geo-fence. You see that happening? It won't.
11. THE RISE OF MUSIC STREAMING (1998 originally, peaking 2015-present). Streaming of audio over the internet seemed to have fits and starts. Originally, it was a curiosity that had little financial value, but hinted at greater things in the future. I remember around 2000 when there was an internet Radio called the Kerbango, which apparently was introduced in 1998. The device, which looked like a combination between a tabletop radio and a small jukebox, would search and find Radio station streams. You'd plug it into an internet connection and it would do its thing. There also were some stations worldwide that began to Stream their broadcasts. I remember discovering Streaming Radio about this time. I would use the computer at work to stream Triple M in Sydney (with their "Veggies" afternoon show) and Triple M Adelaide, Australia, and a station out of Prague, Czech Republic, called Radio Jedna, which played pop and dance music. There also was a rock station out of Albury, NSW or a small northern city in Victoria (for the life of me, I can't remember which -- might have been Mildura or Swan Hill?) that played rock and pop and alternative. I remember them playing Never Let You Go by Third Eye Blind. This was in 2000 or 2001. You could just search the stations and see if they had a web stream. There were websites that specialized in listing radio stations with webstreams, too -- and for a while this appeared to be the future of Radio: INTERNATIONAL LISTENERS. But that was not about to happen. The money was not in international listeners. Advertising agencies do not care about international listeners. As Digital Royalties for song streaming kicked in, stations began to limit their listeners to local ones, through Geo-Fencing, the Radio version of the newspaper paywall. This also happened if you used large platforms like TuneIn for a while. It has improved slightly over the past decade, but a lot of stations have trouble paying the royalties just for local listenership. Anyway, the Kerbango, which sounded like a great idea, soon disappeared, as did most other Internet-only Radios. And Streaming began to take off in another form, bypassing Radio altogether -- with Pandora (officially launched 2005) and Spotify (started 2006, launched in the US in 2011). These two services quickly became immensely popular, and if one looks at the RIAA data, they can see how Streaming quickly became the dominant music consumption form after these services were launched. Other, similar platforms also copied the Pandora/Spotify model, and the Digital royalty rate structure ranges similarly, the average royalty payment per streamed song being around $.004-$.005. It's reported that Apple pays 52% of their Streaming revenues in royalties, and Spotify pays out around 70%. That said, the ability of people to share Spotify playlists with their friends quickly became a popular feature, and only led to the 'social media' aspect of these platforms' use. How did this affect Radio? It started its decline, basically. Listenership, which was already dropping from 1990's levels, declined further. Stations began to stream, but the costs are expensive. Some experts state that a station pays out 18 cents per streamed song, per listener. That adds up. The big companies like IHeart apparently were able to negotiate their own royalty deals with the Music companies, but streaming is no panacea for radio. And it definitely hurt the Music industry in the wallet, where it counts the most. The Music Industry lost revenues after 2004 or so, when CD sales began to slip, but revenues dived even further after 2014, when MP3 sales began to dive. Like the other factors listed here, Streaming was bound to happen, there was no stopping it, thanks to computer and internet technology, and the MP3. The issue is the way it took over as the sole means of people enjoying music. It changed the landscape, both for Radio and the Music industry -- and for any musician who wants to try to make money off marketing their music. The influence of Streaming is still happening, and the streaming marketplace is still developing. We probably won't know for another 15-20 years what Streaming will do to Radio, or to Music sales in general. We're probably at the Model T or Model A stage of the game. The V8 stage is a few years off yet. My personal opinion is that when the V8 stage hits, "Radio" as we know it won't exist, either on the airwaves or online. It will be replaced by the Streaming sites, which already have channels that play what Radio plays. I have Pandora on my smartphone. It has maybe 100+ 'radio' like channels, of every format you'd want. That's probably how the future will look. I think the days of local "stations" playing the hits with nationally based, voicetracked announcers and DJ's will come to an end.
Here's a link to Radio Jedna, in Prague. I'm not 100% certain it's the same exact station, but they play alt and dance music, which is what I remember hearing back in 2000-2001. Call up the link on your browser and hit the "Spustit Radio" orange button.
Heres'a a link to Triple M Sydney. Triple M is a network of Rock stations in Australia's capital cities. Each station runs their own programming, although Triple M is the brand, and they all play Rock. I used to listen to MMM Sydney a lot back in 2000.
12. MTV's Decline as a Music Delivery & Promotion Service. You may ask: "MTV? What does MTV have to do with Radio?" Actually, plenty. MTV's introduction in 1981 started a revolution that affected and revitalized the music we all heard on the Radio during the 1980's, 1990's, and the early 2000's. There was the New Wave genre, which MTV helped propel into the mainstream, and soon became a large Radio format. A lot of Rock acts got on the video bandwagon, and used MTV to help promote their music. A lot of Nirvana's initial success was thanks to their video, for Smells Like Teen Spirit, which got played on MTV. Then, there were shows like 120 Minutes (1986-2003), and -- more importantly -- Headbanger's Ball (1987-1995, 2003-2008), on which one could see all sorts of Metal acts, from Fear Factory to Pantera to Probot. There were live shows, like the GNR live show in 1988 that was broadcast all over the country on MTV. There was Woodstock '99, which had a solid lineup of great Rock and Rap acts, from Korn to Creed to Kid Rock to Jewel to Metallica to Everclear to Godsmack to the Offspring to Buckcherry to Lit to Ice Cube to Rage Against The Machine to Limp Bizkit to 20 or 30 other acts of various tiers of popularity -- and MTV (along with a couple other TV satellite and cable channels) broadcast via pay-per-view (and/or covered) much of that festival, as well as heavily promoting it. This sort of thing energised Radio, because Radio played rock and alt and pop acts that were popular, and the two forces -- MTV (TV) and Rock and Alternative (Radio) kept rock music vital and popular. When MTV stopped emphasising Music on their channel, it reduced the media available for record companies to promote Rock and Alt acts. By decreasing the playing of music videos, MTV reduced the size of the Rock music biosphere, and -- in my view, anyway -- it reduced the standing of Rock music as a relevant, viable art form in the eyes of the public. The fact that Rock radio experienced a decline about the same time period indicates that the lack of Rock promotion on MTV had a negative affect overall. "So what?" one may say. "That's just Rock -- one genre." However, Rock music made the Radio and Record industries a LOT OF MONEY. When the Music industry allowed Rock to falter, they lost money by letting that happen. And although the Music industry couldn't tell MTV what to do, anymore than they can dictate what Radio can play over the airwaves, MTV's decline as a music promotion tool harmed Radio and Record companies accordingly.
13. KEY DECISIONS (mostly Corporate, but some made by Congress) That Were Poor Decisions in the Long Term. (2000-present). The killing off of Radio and the Music Industry may have been inevitable, given that a lot of technological and societal changes are inevitable. After all, this has happened before. The death of Feudalism after the Black Plague wiped out 30% of Europe was inevitable. The changes to society after the Industrial Revolution hit Europe, the US, and then the rest of the world in the 19th and 20th Centuries were inevitable. Similarly, the changes to Radio, Records, and other media after the Internet hit were inevitable. But did the changes have to be as devastating to these industries? Maybe not. The first obvious and poor decision was made by US Congress -- the Telecom Act of 1996, which started the greed-filled radio station buying frenzy, combined with the rush to place Radio on Wall Street, which ended up homogenizing radio nationwide, and killed thousands of Radio jobs in the process. If Congress hadn't allowed radio corporations to buy up stations by the hundreds, combine operations, and lay off thousands of people in the process, perhaps Radio would be a more vibrant and relevant medium today. The second obvious and poor decision was made by the record companies, when they wholly embraced the sale of the single MP3 track as the primary music product to sell to the public. This killed the album. Many, if not most, MP3 sales were done through one store, ITunes, placing just one company in a dominant position to sell recorded music, taking more leverage away from the record companies. Now, ITunes was probably a great idea -- especially for Apple and anyone who owned an IPod. But for the greater industry? I'm not so sure about that. One only needs to look at the music industry's revenues after ITunes took over to see a disturbing trend. Couldn't the record companies have worked out a different deal, where perhaps only entire MP3 albums were sold (along with hit singles), instead of individual album tracks being available for 99 cents? Such a deal might have kept the album viable, and kept revenues up. However, the music industry agreed to the ITunes method, which allowed albums to be piecemealed out, and it killed the album sale. Couldn't anyone in the music industry see what this would do to album sales, and revenues? A third poor decision was made by the record industry, when they wholeheartedly embraced streaming. Maybe when Streaming became popular, they felt their back was against the wall -- which is understandable. But even today, the music industry is a multi-billion dollar industry. You gonna tell me that a multi-billion dollar industry, run by millionaires, has no ability to negotiate better deals, and has no bargaining power? Either way, these three decisions were just a few of probably hundreds of missteps taken by Records and Radio -- decisions that ultimately decimated their industries. Last but not least, I think the Madison Avenue based Advertising Industry has made poor decisions over the years in their almost single-minded quest to only reach the "prime demos" and leaving out the rest of the people, leaving money on the table in the process. It's a willing blindness to the value of potential customers that they completely ignore because reaching out to them might cost them more money. It's an open secret in Radio that the big advertising firms don't care about certain demographics in the slightest -- and this group of undesirables includes poor people, older people, and many ethnic minorities as well. By concentrating their attention to just the richest, and highest-spending demographics in certain age ranges, Big Advertising has helped kill Radio, because Radio, dependent on Advertising, follows Advertising's lead in only chasing the easy money and catering to the richest demos. And one side effect is that these single-minded decisions -- all based on their blessed Research -- are also helping kill the advertising industry as well. As people leave mass media like Radio and TV for the internet, the power that Madison Avenue has is lower and lower with each passing year. Madison Avenue doesn't really care about radio. News Flash: The internet doesn't care much about Madison Avenue. Most of the ads you see flashing at you on internet websites are not from the big Advertising firms. Most of those ads are done by much smaller, independent firms -- and sometimes advertising firms are bypassed completely, with the ads done by the proprietor, thanks to advancements in video and home media production technology. Big stores bypass Madison Avenue as well. When you go to Amazon, for example, do you see any advertisements? Not really. It's an example of the decreased importance that Big Advertising has today. And Radio and TV, which are the remaining standouts in traditional media, and which still depend on advertisements, are being left in the lurch by Big Advertising. Big Advertising is treating one of its remaining viable platforms -- Radio -- like a redheaded stepchild. No wonder it's on the way out. Unfortunately, it's taking Radio with it. And, here is the 'kicker': Those big advertising agencies based out of NYC that are helping choke off Radio's viability by ignoring many demographics, concentrating on chasing only wealthy wage earners, and pushing Radio to target the lowest common denominator? They're not doing all that well, compared to 2000. Just like with Radio, Big Advertising has seen revenues stuck at the 2012-2015 revenue level, when accounting for inflation. There are charts on Statista that prove this. And just like with Radio, there was a lot of consolidation in the industry over a period of maybe 30 years, as agencies were bought up by holding companies, and they laid off staff and only sought the bottom line. See a pattern here?
Here is a Statista chart, showing advertising revenues 2004-2021.:
Here is a link to the Bureau Of Labor Statistics' CPI Inflation Calculator, which calculates the real value of the dollar from year to year. It's easy to use.:
If you right click on the chart and open it in a new tab, it should be easier to read.
Here is the link to the article, which is fairly extensive.:
15. THE SMART PHONE (2006-present). The introduction of the smartphone in 2006 (some non-Apple touchscreen phones were introduced in the EU that year) and the introduction of the IPhone on January 9th, 2007 (just nine days after my last official day working in Radio), brought about a massive revolution in personal audio and visual technology. The introduction of the Smartphone was a massive game changer in numerous respects -- instantly making redundant all sorts of other devices and interfaces, changes that are still taking place today. For example, the smartphone replaced the IPod, MP3 player, Walkman cassette, boombox and portable CD player -- and all the other portable audio devices before it. It replaced the handheld calculator, as all smartphones already have one. It replaced the businessman's daily planner, the calendar, as well as the 'Rolodex' (every phone has a "contacts" list). It replaced the wristwatch, wall clock and alarm clock, as every cellphone has a clock (and alarm) and that clock is much more accurate. It replaced the wireline phone, naturally, more or less finishing that technology off completely (a prime example is the disappearance of the payphone). It made redundant many two-way radio technologies (like the pager), as businesses and agencies use cell phones instead. It replaced the SLR digital camera and the digital snapshot camera. It replaced the video camera, and as smartphone tech increased over the next two decades, it is even making high quality video cameras redundant. The Smartphone is replacing the eReader tablet and print book and magazine. And -- most important to the radio industry -- the Smartphone replaced the Radio. Some flip-phones had FM radios built in. They worked poorly, but they at least worked. Whether any flip-phone users actually listened to FM on their flip-phone is a good question. But Smartphones avoided FM radio completely, for the most part. My old Alcatel smartphone (circa 2015 technology) had an FM radio, but it was difficult to use. My newer, 2020 TCL Android has no FM radio. Instead, it has YouTube Music and Pandora. I don't think any smartphones have FM radios in them today. This is because increasing numbers of younger people DO NOT USE RADIO. Period. They don't use it on their Smartphone, or anywhere else. They don't need to. Their phone will stream Spotify and Pandora off the internet, via the cell system. Some may use the big Radio streaming platforms, like IHeart and TuneIn. Compared to the big 2 or 3 (Pandora, Spotify, and YouTube), their numbers are smaller, though. In fact, IHeart's music platform has less than half the listeners of YouTube, Spotify, Pandora, and Amazon Prime Music, according to marketing research firm YouGov, and the numbers are WORSE for the younger demos -- just 8% of 18-34's use IHeartRadio, compared to 45% using Spotify and 53% using YouTube (see chart above). Some folks may still have MP3's on their Smartphone. Most probably don't. They use Streaming on their phone for all music listening, unless they are streaming music on their laptop computer, using computer speakers. Of course, many folks use Smart Speakers (late 2010's technology) for their music listening and audio entertainment. On a Radio industry forum I go to frequently, the pros always say "no one buys standalone radios". By "standalone radio", they mean the boombox, clock radio, kitchen radio, or any of the numerous radios I talk about and review on this blog. And those guys are right -- the numbers of radios sold in the US are very low when compared to the numbers of Smartphones used for audio entertainment and streaming. There still are millions of radios used in the US and overseas, however. Millions and millions of them. But younger people often do not know what a "radio" is. And they increasingly don't listen to "radio stations" on their Smartphones, either (see the above chart). The PPM data, mentioned previously, also bear this out. Young people don't use a "radio", and they don't use Radio. They listen to Streaming and Podcasts on their Smartphone. They don't a radio device -- they just press an app icon on their Smartphone screen and listen to music, podcasts, and streaming sites on their phone. For news they can use their phone's browser, and access a news aggregator like Yahoo or MSN, or access social media like Twitter (X), often via phone app. For TV and even movies, they can use their phone. Older demographics, age 40 and over, still use Radios and TVs, and some of them may still use SLR cameras and CD players. But the younger people use their phone for all audio and visual entertainment, unless they want to see a movie or popular TV show on a bigger flatscreen. And with Smartphone speakers improving in quality, phones have sidelined Smart Speakers, reducing the Smart Speaker to a replacement for the kitchen radio in the home. However, the rest of the time younger demos use the Smartphone for EVERYTHING.
14. CHANGES IN DEMOGRAPHIC TASTES in Media and Music (2000-present). As mentioned in the previous paragraph, Radio is being killed off, wholesale, by changes in tastes, primarily among people younger than ages 35-40. I have some of these younger demographics as cousins, and they don't listen to Radio much, if at all. For example, my cousin Xavier (he's 26 years old) drove me to my extended family's Thanksgiving dinner, a 40 mile round trip. He also drove me to Christmas dinner on Dec. 23rd (my car was laid up -- dead gas pump -- and waiting for parts both times). At no point during the trips to and back from the dinner did Xavier have a radio station playing in his car. Instead, he had his Smartphone bluetoothed into his car's soundsystem. The music he was playing was from a Streaming site, which I think was Spotify. First trip was some trippy electronic music, probably from his Spotify playlist. The second trip was death metal and Nu-metal -- Slipknot and the like. All off Spotify. Now, sure, this is just one guy. But my neighbor from across the street, Tony, is in his 30's, and he told me he listens to music off Amazon Music and YouTube, as well as Spotify. He once mentioned listening to a morning show on local pop station KQMV 92.5 FM, because the show was "funny", but I don't think he listens to that show anymore. There is a country station in Seattle I think I've heard blasting from his truck's soundsystem (KKWF The Wolf, 100.7 FM), but mostly I hear Streamed music when he's working on cars in his garage. And then there are the PPM and other data. For Millennials and Gen Z'ers, Radio has lost its appeal as a music and entertainment medium. All of these younger folks use their phone for everything. And it's much easier to hit the Spotify app than it is to seek out a Radio streaming app, and deal with the long blocks of commercials -- many of which are repetitious (sometimes I hear the same commercial 3 of 4 times in an hours, on FM as well as AM stations). Then you have the language issue. A lot of young people enjoy rap and hip-hop, music which has a LOT of cuss words. I know, because I got into Rap in the early 1990's, and Ice-T and Ice Cube definitely cussed on their records -- I still have the CDs to prove it. :-) And one of my jobs at Radio was to eliminate cuss words from tracks that were intended for airplay. Radio generally does NOT allow cuss words over the air. This is because of FCC rules, primarily. But on Spotify and Pandora you don't have to worry about that. It's the same with Satellite radio, too. Howard Stern can cuss all he wants on Sirius/XM and not worry about it. It's the same with podcasters on YouTube and other streaming sites. If younger people want to hear their favorite Rap or Hip-Hop Pop tracks unedited -- they're going to listen to them on Spotify and Pandora. Finally, you have the familiarity issue. The last generation that saw Radio, broadcast TV, Cable TV, and print media as "normal media" were the oldest of the Millennials -- generally those who turned 20 in 2001-2004 -- when FM Radio still ruled, and everyone listened to an FM station; CDs were still a popular music platform; MTV still had music videos; Cable TV networks had popular channels -- from History Channel to Discovery to SyFy to HBO to Ion to Starz to ESPN -- all of which had millions of nightly adherents; when Newspapers still had more than 8-12 pages, and had ads and flyers in them; when "phones" were still these bulky, half-pound pushbutton devices connected to a system by wire, or were these little flip things that were handy for calling or texting; when MP3's were merely used for convenience on your computer, or if you were able to load an MP3 player with music; when people took digital snapshot cameras to pubs and parties and other events to capture images of the fun, and perhaps printed them at a drugstore kiosk; when millions of people went shopping in actual malls and brick and mortar stores, and actually went to movie theaters -- all this OUTDATED technology was still considered "normal" in 2001, when the oldest Millennials turned 20. Today it is definitely a different era. Everything -- whether video or audio -- is Streamed, and most of it you can get on your phone. Now, I still use my radios. I still like to buy a real newspaper now and then. I'll get one the few times I go to a Starbucks and get a latte and a bagel. I wish I could use my CD player in my big stereo, but both of them are broken, and any repairs have been put on hold. So I get my news, and musical entertainment on my laptop computer, or sometimes my phone. Websites for news, and YouTube (and sometimes FM) for music. If I need to take a photo of something I see while out and about, or on my bike, I use my smartphone camera. I don't take my digital snapshot camera with me unless I really want to get some higher quality pictures. So, I get it. I understand the new era, and how things operate now. It's a non-TV, non-Radio, non-Newspaper, non-Book, non-CD, non-Stereo, non-Mall shopping, non-Movie Theater era.
There's no putting the genie back in the bottle. It's a new phone-based and online-based reality.
WHAT IF?
I'll summarise all of this by venturing into the unknown: did it all have to end up this way? I think that some of the changes and factors I listed would have happened anyway. The Internet was going to happen. The MP3 was going to happen. Internet commerce and Internet stores, which don't advertise on Radio, were going to happen. Streaming, undoubtedly, was also going to happen.
But there were key decisions made along the way, by people in power -- both in business and in government -- that helped to destroy Radio. Dereg 1996 did not have to happen. There could have been more regulation over the number of Radio stations owned in various markets, allowing true competition to continue as it had for the 76 years that Radio had existed before 1996.
Also, there could have been more limitations on the number of stations allowed on the airwaves, instead of letting "market forces dictate", flooding the airwaves with hundreds of stations and FM translator "stations" that struggle to stay afloat. Allowing the consolidation of the Record Industry into three major conglomerates didn't have to be approved by the Federal Government. ITunes didn't have to be the CD killer that it turned out to be, but the Record Companies went along with it whole hog, despite the fact that any kid with a dollar store calculator could tell you that replacing an $18 CD album with a 99 cent, single MP3 would slash revenues. The record companies had already shut down Napster. They could have worked out a different pricing scheme with ITunes. But they went along with it, and although unit sales climbed, revenues dived.
It's the same with Streaming costs -- the Record companies agreed to allow the Streaming services to stream their songs for incredibly low rates. 1,000,000 streams of a song bring in $4,000, whereas 1,000,000 single, 99 cent MP3 sales brought in $990,000. That's quite a difference. Didn't any of these multi-millionaire, music company CEO's know how to use a calculator or do simple math?
The incredible show of Greed as the big Radio companies bought up stations like candy, and then combined operations and slashed staff did not need to occur the way it did. The homogenization, which helped drive away listeners, didn't have to happen. In fact, it wouldn't have, except for Dereg 1996.
Many in the radio industry maintain that Dereg 1996 saved Radio. They believe that the combined operations saved a lot of stations -- stations which would have disappeared thanks to the 2008 Recession and changes in listener habits.
While they may have a point, I don't agree. It's a fact that tens of thousands of radio jobs were lost solely due to consolidation. And the job losses continue today, 27 years after Dereg 1996. About 80% of the commercial, FM Radio Stations in the US are owned by maybe 15 companies. Yet they still are laying off people. Stations are going off the air, with some former FM powerhouses being sold to non-comm religious organizations like EMF for pennies on the dollar.
Obviously, when one looks at the big picture, Dereg '96 didn't really save anything.
Naturally, the reality is that Dereg happened, the Internet happened, Streaming happened, Consolidation of Radio, and Records, all happened, and this is the new media model. But it didn't have to turn out exactly how it did.
But, as I've said many times before, there's no going back to the way it was. Humanity has adapted numerous times before. We are doing it again.
IN SUMMARY, IT SUCKS BUT IT'S REALITY, AND WE LIVE WITH IT
Despite the
well-intended thoughts and statements of many radio and music aficionados -- that Radio could be somehow fixed if there were more small owners, or it would be fixed if there was a return to the days of "live and local" and more variance in formats and playlists -- there is no turning back the clock, and there is no putting the genie back in
the bottle. No amount of changes to radio, or the music industry, will bring us
back to radio being a vital music delivery and discovery service, and no amount
of changes will bring back the recording industry to what it was when bands
like Led Zeppelin flew in their own jetliners and bands like Nirvana changed
the world.
Those days are
gone. They’ve been replaced by the New Era of non-linear, non-curated, low
revenue, non-physical format, digital music delivery and consumption.
But it’s not all
bad. It’s just not really good right now. If you like radio, you’re
hearing the same homogenized hits and classics, served up with way too many
commercials and PSA’s, and in many cases, no friendly DJ’s – just corporate
slogans and brain dead liners. Yes, there are some morning shows that are
original, even if you hear the same one in 50 different radio markets across
the country. If you are a musician, you’re making lunch money from your music –
if you’re lucky. In 2000 chances are high that if you were a third or fourth tier musician, you would have been making absolutely zero.
So, there are some pluses. And with the New Model, you can hear any music you want to hear,
for cheap, or free. You can see live footage of your favorite artists without ever having to buy a $500 ticket or spend several thousand dollars flying to a festival. I just saw Fear Factory play a Festival in Spain in 2015, after I saw them do the song Replica at Ozzfest in 1996. I saw Korn's entire set at Woodstock '99, in full stereo. Even during the VHS and DVD years between 1985 and 2010 or so, having access to so many live shows was a non-starter.
And I can listen to any rock band I'm interested in. No more CD purchase costs. And if you’re a musician, with digital streaming, you at
least have a chance of being heard. The playing field for all forms of
audio and visual entertainment and information has been completely levelled
– for all intents and purposes, there are no gatekeepers.
The downside of
the New Model is that there is infinite competition, and market
saturation in nearly every form of media, be it TV, Radio, Music
consumption, Books, Newspapers / News sites, Magazines, and even Movies – the internet
has made them all equally available, and consequently, for most content
creators, the money is minimal.
But at least you
have a chance to be seen, read, or heard.
And Radio, in
particular, is beginning to suffer from the effects of all this. But the
changes were accelerated by some poor corporate and governmental
decisions, as well as technological and other changes beyond those corporations’ or governmental
controls.
And that is the reality. It is what it is.
THE FUTURE WILL SUCK EVEN MORE FOR RADIO
I personally hate what has happened to Radio and to Music. Part of it is probably my own nostalgic feelings for days gone past -- I mostly enjoyed the 1990's, 2000's, and the 2010's. I enjoyed hearing good new artists on local Rock and Alternative radio in the 90's and 00's, and I enjoyed hearing the great pop music on the CHR/Pop stations in 2012. But those day's ain't coming back.
You take the best of what you can get.
I probably will write another article on the state of the radio industry some time in the future, especially if any new Radio news crops up. After all, I was in the industry for a couple months shy of 20 years, and I still follow what goes on there, and I always will keep an interest in the industry I used to work in. The main reason I wrote this particular article was Mr. Beato's video piqued my interest, and I have never encapsulated, or outlined, for my readers every major factor that got us to where we are today.
And there really aren't that many articles available on the internet that really list every major factor that affected both the Radio and Music Industries -- such articles generally were only partial -- blaming Dereg, or Spotify, or similar things. As we can see, the real picture is a bit more complex than that.
Right now the MW/AM band I still enjoy listening to is starting to feel the effects of the Demographic changes mentioned previously. In fact, the MW/AM band has been feeling the effects of the Demo changes for more than 15 years. But now we are seeing AM stations actually go off the air.
Some few experts and aficionados say Good Riddance. But -- if I were them, I wouldn't be dancing on AM Radio's grave any time soon. FM's demise is also around the corner. The mad rush to all things internet and digital is never going to stop. And Radio's demise, as an industry, actually is also around the corner. The corner is a bit further away, but it's there.
The Future:
15,000 INTERNET RADIO CHANNELS WITH NO ONE LISTENING
There are presently 15,000+ Radio stations in the US today. There is no way whatsoever that in 2045 or 2050 there will be 15,000+ viable, successful, and profitable independent streaming radio sites and streaming radio channels. The advertising dollars won't be there to support the Digital Royalties and other costs, like actual staff, especially for an independent 'radio station' stream. All one has to do is look at the state of online newspapers. Even with subscriptions, they're struggling, and failing. The Los Angeles Times, arguably one of the top 5 newspapers in the United States, recently laid off another 20% of their employees. Reportedly, they have lost tens of millions of dollars annually since 2018.
And all you have to do is look at the Streaming ratings chart halfway up this article. The most popular music sites are YouTube, Spotify, and Pandora. Only 8% of 18-34's listen to IHeartRadio, the Radio streaming website. You really think that percentage is going to go up as the antennas get switched off? I sort of doubt it.
Maybe with AI replacing all radio staff, some stations will survive online. But still -- as any indie author can tell you, online marketing of content is all about the visibility, and indie authors don't have to worry about paying Digital Royalties on top of other costs. There was an article a couple years ago in a publishing periodical. The average author makes around $6,000 a year from writing. That's it.
In 1985, most authors probably made more money from writing. But there were less authors, because there was no Internet Publishing. It's the same situation with any Online media, basically. It's a free for all, and you instantly have thousands, if not millions, of people you are competing with, driving revenues down for everyone.
As I've said elsewhere in previous articles, Internet Media is a completely different animal from Over-The-Air media, and other "traditional" and "legacy" media. There is infinite competition, and the market for music streaming is already saturated. Radio appears to be gearing up for Online, but Online isn't gearing up for Radio. In 2045, the AM band will be spare, the FM band will have less viable signals and will be in decline, and most Radio stations will not have viable streams, and job losses in Radio will make Dereg 1996 look like a birthday party.
The writing is on the wall. There is some tough sledding ahead, but until then, I can still switch on a radio and hear stations on the AM and FM bands. So I'm fine with that.
2045 can take care of itself.
FROM THE INDUSTRIAL MISTS OF SEATTLE'S VAST 'SOUTH END',
here's MONDO BANDO
And with that, I'll close this article, as has been my custom (more or less), with a video!
Welcome to 1976, where independent rock started to rage in the southern Seattle suburbs (affectionately known here as the South End): the band here is Mondo Bando, originally from Spokane, WA, later moving to the South End, where my songwriting buddy Dave Simpson met and tried out for this band. He told me they were into Kiss and Queen, and played heavy music through Marshall stacks.
Well, he wasn't wrong.
I managed to find this particular Mondo Bando vid by accident, as it appeared on my YT sidebar. I guess the 'Tube figured out I'm a hard rock muso, and that I'm in Seattle. The video here is a pro, demo recording that Mondo Bando recorded at Rain Studios in 1976. Mondo Bando were a four piece group that lasted a couple years (they had troubles finding gigs because they played original rock, and that wasn't cool on the Seattle scene until the punk/grunge years in the late 80s), and they played gigs here and there whenever they could.
Their music actually was quite good. Even ahead of its time, when you look at some of the elements that made Grunge bands famous later on -- the Melvins' sound, for example, wasn't much different, at least in guitar tones. But in Seattle in 1976 it was covers bands or nothing. Even the bigger Seattle area bands -- who put out albums of original music, like Striker, Rail & Company (later known as just Rail), Chinook (later known as Kid Blast), One Ton Tomato (a.k.a. Moxee), Sorceror's Apprentice (a.k.a. Russia), and Child -- were primarily covers bands when playing local gigs, or -- at the very least -- included lots of covers in their sets. Even Heart went north to Canada to get known.
It was just the way things were done here, until the local punk/punk-metal/grunge boom of the late 1980's made original rock music more acceptable. So one could definitely say that Mondo Bando were at least 10-12 years ahead of their time.
Mondo Bando's guitar player, Moshe Mayim (a.k.a. Mark Maye), is a personable guy and still chats a little with the commenters under the several Mondo Bando vids he has placed on YT. For guitar heads, he's playing a Gibson (a modified Melody Maker? I'm not sure which model) with humbuckers, going into a 50 Watt Marshall cranked to 10, through a 4 by 12 box. If the guitar sounds similar to that of Alex Lifeson's guitar on the first Rush album, it's probably not that much of a coincidence, as Lifeson recorded most of that album with a similar setup.
The song here is called Black Noise.
Enjoy.
Black Noise, by Seattle proto-heavy metal band Mondo Bando, 1976.
Here is another track from the same recording session, apparently. A hard hitting riff rocker, Anybody's Lover.
Mondo Bando, 1976, Anybody's Lover, recorded at Rain Studios.
Rock on, brothers and sisters.
Peace.
C.C., February 1st, 2024; Sunday, February 4th, 2024.
Please excuse any glitches in the formatting. Blogger's word processing and text editor sometimes exhibits glitches. Some of it may be my browser of preference, Edge. Sometimes you attempt to change it until your keyboard or mouse breaks from trying to use the dropdowns at the top of the text editor... and it might work... and sometimes nothing works. So be it.
Please excuse any glitches in the formatting. Blogger's word processing and text editor sometimes exhibits glitches. Some of it may be my browser of preference, Edge. Sometimes you attempt to change it until your keyboard or mouse breaks from trying to use the dropdowns at the top of the text editor... and it might work... and sometimes nothing works. So be it.
Feb. 6th: I added three sentences to the "Streaming" paragraph, to finish off my closing thoughts, and made a couple small corrections. I also added the links to Radio Jedna and Triple M Sydney. Peace.
Feb. 20th.: Prompted by a 2001 Saliva concert I saw on YouTube, I realised that Island records was a big player in the music industry during the Rock era, so I added their name to the list of record labels in the "Consolidation of the Music Industry" section. I also added a few clarifications here and there concerning the MP3 single replacing the album.
Hit singles were always sold during the Rock and record/CD era. The difference that occurred after ITunes hit the scene is that consumers could buy just one or two album tracks and ignore buying an entire album, and this made album sales nosedive and also reduced the selling power of actual albums.
I don't think I made that clear enough in my original article.
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