An old fart radio guy has written a guest column for the New York Daily News that's called "Radio Filth Starts in Corporate Suites" but might as well be titled "I Need A Law So I Can Get A Job." After ripping the "lowlifes" like Star for being evil and horrible, he writes:
But, as repugnant as they are, these morally bankrupt millionaires can't be held solely responsible for taking the money and running (off at the mouth). The lion's share of blame must be placed at the feet of the broadcast industry itself.
The crux of the issue was captured in an editorial cartoon in these pages on the morning after the most recent jaw-dropping debasement. Two fat cat executives at Clear Channel Radio are having a private conversation. A computer screen in the background reveals a graph depicting soaring profits. Suit No. 1 says, "There's a lot of publicity about our hip-hop deejay threatening a little girl with sexual violence." Suit No. 2 responds, "So we can increase our ad rates?"
I know these guys. I worked for them. They would look the other way at any kind of perversion that helped them squeeze a quarter of extra profit between last quarter and this quarter. It's in their interest. But that is not what the framers of the Constitution had in mind, nor is it what the founders of Federal Communications Commission meant by the phrase "public interest."
All right, I wouldn't go with the "perversion" rhetoric- the Star thing isn't exactly representative of the kind of programming you'll generally find on radio. (And the cartoon's "truth" is undercut by the fact that Clear Channel fired Star) But Old Fart has a culprit in mind:
Here's the problem: Unregulated, uncontrolled radio makes so much money doing its worst that it simply can't afford to do its best. Since 1996, an orgy of consolidation has helped fuel a 34% decline in the number of owners, a 90% rise in the cost of advertising rates, and - not coincidentally - a rise in the number of indecent broadcasts.
"Not coincidentally"? The only measure of indecent broadcasting is whatever the FCC decides to prosecute. We've gone through stretches of heavy-handed regulation and stretches of hands-off treatment. How can O.F. say that it's worse now? Because nobody can prove it either way.
And rates were going up regardless of consolidation. In fact, they may still be too low. The driving factor there isn't consolidation, it's what the market- ad agencies- will bear. O.F.'s head would explode if he saw the rates newspapers, TV, and outdoor get.
And the public is complicit.
Ah, here comes the real trouble.
In the face of these trends, too many of us have turned down the volume on our own voices, settling for a kind of radio that, for the most part, replicates the industry view of what it should be.
In other words, the general public LIKES the "perversion." It's the PUBLIC's fault! If only they knew that they COULD be listening to obscure James Taylor album cuts introduced by O.F. himself- now, THAT'S radio!
It doesn't help that the FCC continues to be populated primarily by appointees sympathetic to the broadcasting industry and often employed by the broadcasting industry when they step down. Conflict of interest, anyone?
Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein, sympathetic? And Mr. Sympathetic, Kevin Martin, is the one, with Copps, leading the charge to screw broadcasters over indecency.
Rampant deregulation has created this mess - and only reregulation can get us out of it.
The liberal's answer to the public just not buying what they're selling- MAKE them buy it.
Proponents of the status quo claim that market forces can effectively regulate radio. But local radio run from the corporate suites of a few huge conglomerates inevitably plays to the lowest common denominator at the expense of those elements of society that advertisers aren't interested in reaching, most notably the poor and the elderly.
O.F.'s station is noncommercial. If there's a need for that programming, why isn't HIS station doing it instead of indulging old hippies? (And who said poor people don't like what's on commercial radio? Are elderly people only served by Glenn Miller records? Don't AM talk radio stations tend to have large audiences over the age of 65? They don't count?)
But not just the poor and the elderly. Consider this: at this writing, New York City, the supposed broadcasting capital of the world, does not have a full-time country, jazz or oldies radio station. That's serving the public?
Country hasn't worked in New York for years. Is a station supposed to lose a fortune so someone can hear a Dierks Bentley record? Jazz IS on the air- WBGO, one of the nation's premier noncommercial stations and a proponent of "real" jazz. Oldies left because the audience was shrinking. It's an option for a failing station, but, really, why is he defining "public interest" as "playing the same old Beatles, Beach Boys, and Motown records in tight rotation"? There's no full-time Gregorian Chant station, either- why not? Where's the Polka station? There are people not being served! It's big business' fault!
If we aim our fire at one loose cannon like deejay Star, we will fail to see the real problem: an insatiable media conglomerate swallowing up anything with a transmitter pulse in its path, with the implicit blessing of the governmental organ charged with protecting the public interest. Couple this with a sleeping, yawning, apathetic, politically inactive populace, and you get exactly the kind of radio you deserve: greedy, monopolistic, homogenized, irrelevant and - yes - obscene.
Translation: WHY CAN'T I GET A JOB ON THOSE GREEDY, MONOPOLIZED, HOMOGENIZED, IRRELEVANT AND- YES- OBSCENE STATIONS? WHY WON'T THEY HIRE ME? WHY DOESN'T THE PUBLIC LOVE ME?
Yes, terrestrial radio has major problems, and I will bow to few in my disdain for what bean counters, sales weasels, and clueless programmers have done to the medium. In fact, the trend towards cheap music formats and deemphasizing personality is likely to turn generations of listeners away from the medium. But this guy gets it very, very wrong, because he thinks that what the public NEEDS is what the public DOESN'T WANT. His style of radio's fallen out of favor, so he wants regulation to bring it back, assuming that the only reason he's not spinning Bruce records on WNEW anymore is ownership consolidation. It's more complicated than that, and he HAS to know it. But what kind of brilliant radio is he doing that ought to be all over the dial? From a New York Times appreciation of his show in 2004, here's a sampler:
After 40 years Mr. Fornatale's themes can be almost academically dense. Recent shows have included a tribute to great inventions on the 214th anniversary of the founding of the United States Patent Office.
The themes can also be on the facile side. An annual "Color Radio" show has the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine," Joni Mitchell's "Blue," Love's "Orange Skies" and so on.
A tribute to patents and a show about colors. Yes, yes, we need a law to bring that back.
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