Slashdot Mirror
Why (FM, Not XM) Radio Sucks
wemmick writes "The Washington Post has an article "Can XM Put Radio Back Together Again?" which discusses the history of marketing FM radio, how XM could be different, and about Lee Abrams -- "the man who shackled FM radio to the tyranny of mass market research" and is now program director for XM."
ClearChannel killed the radio fan.
In my neck of the woods (northern Texas) it's almost impossible to find an FM station that isn't part of clearchannel's network. Lots of ads, nation-wide contests, clearchannel-approved news/propaganda. Et cetra.
Yuck.
Is a question that is raised in the article.
At first glance I thought "no way!". But then again, I thought the same way about pay-TV.
What do others think?
Don't be so pessimistic. There are still a lot of stations that play quality music. The problem is a dearth of good (and diverse) bands/groups.
Here in St. Louis, there's a great alternative station, KPNT 105.7. They regularly play good music I haven't heard before. On my drive home from work, a program called "The Pit" is on, that reminds me of Headbanger's Ball on MTV. True catharsis is blasting Static-X after dealing with ignorant jerks all day.
Like the state of popular music, radio is just starting to wake up after being knocked out by a blow to the head in the late 90s.
~D:
i used to be a radio DJ in Sri Lanka (TNL Radio) and i think that XM MAY be a good idea IF they can please people.. by offering 100 channels (like on cable) they are trying to hit the niche markets.. and i think that the niche markets may buy into it.. if only for a while.. people started to buy cable so that they could get stuff they couldn't get in the "regular" channels and now cable has a niche channel for everyone.. but radio is a little different.. like they say in the article "the commercial FM dial has been essentially reduced to six musical formats: Pop/rock, hip-hop, country, classical, Spanish-language and variations on the theme of "adult contemporary," "... lets face it the channels have been split into that because that is what's popular.. sure XM may allow people to listen to Inuit whaling songs or Apache chants.. but will there be a market for them? or will they just all deteriorate into variations on the 6 standard themes?.. with the RIAA not giving publicity to "non standard" artists and also will they actually have a chance to show up on these channels? i am not sure how good this guy panero is.. but i have had to geal with his fallout.. even here in Sri Lanka we had TNL, a station with a great reputation as a rock station, go downhill into britney spears-esque pop.. the owner decided there was more of a market for it.. (what could we do.. his car, his petrol)... but we lost a lot of fans.. and a lot of us (me included) walked off.. now i listen to stuff i download off the net..
i guess the point i am trying to make is this.. human nature being what it is.. XM will start off with a bang.. but soon deteriorate into yet another generic music station.. sure they won't have any advertising.. and maybe the choice will be marginally better.. but do you REALLY want to pay $150 + $9.99 per month to hear the Butts Treat Boys?.. remember MTV? and how they had to launch M2 so that people would play them for what they WERE supposed to deliver.. namely music?
learn from yesterday, plan for tomorrow, party tonight
or one out of three ain't bad
Let me represent a small bit of NYC. We have a handful of stations. This is all we have on the FM band off the top of my head.
107.5 - r&b
103.5 - "dance"
101.something - jazz
100.3 - "current pop" music, what kids like
98.1 - new skool r&b
97.1 - old skool r&b
96.3 - classical music
95.5 - adult contemprary
92.3 - "current rock"
There are also about 3 or 4 latin stations. 0 competition. It really sucks. Hopefully, XM will be able to kill off FM completely and switch to a cheaper than cheap brand of "good" music stations. Or at least plentiful ones. Our statiosn don't even compete against each other. *puke*
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
unfortunately, U.S. radio is dead, and XM is essentially U.S. Radio. Even if it doesn't suck now, it will soon enough. Program lists are chosen by consumer data, fed into computers and printed on 20lb white. Actually, they probably don't have to bother printing anything - feed the data and the machines will play it - humans just have to drop in the scripted patter from the cloned DJs every station manages to find. Anyways, record companies lean on the broadcasters for support, the broadcasters lean on the record companies for support, and they both end up not moving anywhere worthwhile, and besides they both like to play it safe. The result is playlists that have the same songs played day after day, month after month, from one city to the next. With very few exceptions there is nobody out there willing to take a leadership role, to break new ground, or *gasp* take any chances (chances are bad for business, after all) and not just take what the labels hand-feed them.
If you're interested, you can listen in online at CBC Radio (Radio One or Radio Two) or BBC (1,2,3,4, etc., etc.) and find out what radio that isn't tied by umbilical cord to Big Business can be.
RTFM; please, I beg you.
XM uses 96kbit and a propiertary codec to send programming to the XM receivers...why can't they or someone else use something like ogg vorbis (very acceptable stereo sound at ~45kbps) and peercast combined with 802.11x(b,g,whatever)/CDMA/WISPs?
Well in general XM would never be poised to kill radio. The basic fact of the matter is that radio is the way radio is, because most of the general public are lemmings. As the article states, the genres have gone to the crucible and spewing forth came 6-7 distinct flavors. These are there because the market for the programimg is.
For those that actually, fall in to those 6-7 categories of listeners, FM is just fine. They would have no need or desire to pay $10 a month for 100 stations of which 90%-95% fall out of their listening tastes.
XM really will find a niche in listeners who are disenfranchised by FM. I am sorry I cannot take another Creed song, less I go postal and slay all that I work with. My tastes sway a great deal and hardly ever fall in to a marketable segment. For me listening to FM is an utter waste of time. Just more time for the corporate masters to try and feed me marketing and lemming food.
The point of XM is to do something that could never be done on a local level, putting together niche entertainment for a small segment of consumers. The idea is that you reap in all the small segment audiences an in theory they will add up to a profitable number total listeners. This will in no way affect the general public's radio consumption, since they can get their fill on FM. It is a direct analogy to cable television. Cable was in no way a threat to free television. If all you wanted was CBS, NBC or ABC and you could already receive it; there would be no reason to get cable. Though if you wanted say an all science fiction channel, tough luck, because it would be impossible for a local television station, to produce a niche channel for such a small audience. With the advent of cable, you could have your cake and eat it too. You could get your CBS, NBC, and your all science fiction channel. Cable's succes is due to not its ablity to reach people that you could via the free method on a local level, it is about creating a large enough audience pool that you can support creating programming to reach the other people that are removed from the 6-7 most marketable genres. All in all, Cable has augmented television, even more so in the age of digital cable. XM has an equal capacity to augment and improve radio in general.
Local FM radio will always have its place. It most likely will change and adjust, but will never go away. What XM does have to compete with though is DMX and internet radio. Essentially FM is completely unphased by niche genre content provided for the reasons above, but XM is already competing with these other mediums.
The only, yet marketable component of XM when compared with the other two, is that it is portable (only in cars and hefty "boom boxes"). If they really want to have any chance at winning the niche genre market they need to produce a "walkman" sized receiver.
DMX is now provided by most digital cable providers as part of their basic service, so they may have a tough time dislodging them. Their best bet in the home market is to strike deals with cable providers to replace DMX with XM. With a deal such as that they could easily become a true household name and have a chance at getting the subscribership that they need to stay in business. All in all, FM is in no danger from XM, simply because they are pointing at completely different market segments.
Shameless self promotion : The Misadvetures of the in
Why? In one word: monopoly. Not that they control everything, just enough to reduce the competition that federal laws about airwave allocation were supposed to provide. Their competitors are now desperate, not inventive. Used to be, not only could you not own 8 radio stations in a city, or 1000 across the country, you couldn't own any if the FCC determined your station was not fulfilling its public service obligation. You actually had to get your license renewed.
Now Clear Channel themselves have claimed that owning more radio stations can allow them to diversify the genres more -- but this hasn't produced any interesting results in FM radio. In fact, almost everyone agrees FM radio has gotten worse over the last 5 years or so. So how is XM going to help things? It's great as another option, for those times there isn't anything good on FM. But forgive me if I don't see this duopoly being so hugely advantageous over a monopoly. They'll give you the music you "want" -- and not a note more. A triumph of marketing, a long-term serious loss for the listener.
XM will never be able to make up for another potential casualty of Clear Channel (and fundi religious broadcasters, who are eligible for bottom-of-the-band licenses and silently eat away at the reception of struggling college stations) - regionalism in radio is good. Part of why travelling is fun in this country is local culture, even in this age of mcdonald's everywhere. XM can't give me the beach-blues station I heard in coastal South Carolina, the bluegrass segment on a (commercial!) country station in rural Virginia, or the variety of ethnic folk music and avant-garde rock on hundreds of college stations across the country. It's worth noting that of XM's 100 channels, the Post writer picked one with good, but very familiar music -- and that may be what XM is good for. The beauty of independent, college, and regional radio is discovery of new music. Not that this means XM is bad -- just that it won't save us from Clear Channel.
You get out in Idaho on Highway 12 between Walla Walla and Missoula, and theres NOTHING day or night on FM/AM for 95% of the 200 mile trip.
I suppose if you went crazy with whips on the truck/car you could pull something down, but most mortals will hear nothing.
You get out in in Crow/Cheynne country between Hardin MT and Belle Fourche SD and you'll hear nothing on FM, and might if the atmo is right pick up KSL on AM an hour after dark, and might catch a skip from Oklahoma or Mexico for a few miles.
North out of Pierre on Highway 63 in SD and you might get lucky and hear some skips from Dallas or SLC.
Get out in Montana/Wyoming, eastern Oregon, south Utah, north Nevada and you'll be out of luck for much of anything.
One time I was driving I-90 from South Dakota west and in Montana I set the radio on AM to seek. It went for 2 hours without finding a signal to lock on.
countrycountrycountrycountry-pop/country-countryco untrycountrycountrycountrycountry-pop/countrycount rycountrycountrycountrycountrycountry-pop/country- countrycountry
We have three stations that play a different style of music:
102.9 the Buzz-Basically, pop-rock, emo, and eminem; like the article says, what all the teeny-boppers are listening to
105.9 the Rock: A pretty cool station. They play classic rock, and by that I mean ACDC, Guns n Roses, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, that kinda stuff. The kinda stuff that you and your parents can listen to together without embarrassment.
101.1 the Beat: They say they're a rap station, but mostly R & B or piss poor Djs trying to spin R & B.
All three of these are owned by ClearChannel btw
All in all, not a lot of selection. So most of my time is spent on webradio, like digitally imported, or the local Vandy station, which occasionally plays electronica. I play CDs in the car, but sometimes you really do wanna be surprised by whats played, so I like radio, but, sadly, there is no such thing a electronica radio.
Thats why the first thing I'm doing when I get a new job is getting an XM receiver. I wanna be doing 100 Mph down the interstate and hear techno I've never heard before. I wanna hear ICP and other psychopathic records artists, and I wanna hear badass, shoot ya just to watch you die old country and classic rock. Hell yeah people will pay. I will.
Mod Points: Helping you keep your opinion to yourself.
Interesting post, and I agree with almost all of it, but just one point: if you think that NPR is "extreme liberal", then you haven't been paying very close attention.
This is a big, big world with a huge spectrum of political thought, but it doesn't take much effort to be "left" of whatever the most popular view in the US is. Americans talked about how "liberal" Al Gore was, while the rest of the world shook their heads in disbelief. Heads up people: there are no nationally known politicians in the US who are on the "extreme left".
If you think NPR is "extreme left" then I advise that you never leave your home state or visit your local communist bookstore because, honestly, NPR ain't shit.
I travel a lot - my preferred mode of vacationing is to drive somewhere - usually about 2Kmiles/trip.
As a result, I keep my car in top trip-ready shape at all times - tire tread a bit thin? Replace it. Keep the glass clean, keep the cooler chest ready, have a set of toothbrush/hair brush/deodorant/etc. ready to save on packing. Have trips planned out so that if an opportunity presents, I roll.
One of the TOP items on my list is maintaining my car's MP3 player - 30G of (legally owned and ripped from my own CD's/tapes) music, books on tape, stories, comedy routines, etc. There have been times when it's been down, and I've had to travel, or when I've had to travel without it (by train, plane, or rental truck).
I forget just how bad broadcast radio is until I have to travel without my music. Then I am shocked back into reality.
It's not just the fact that the DJ's seem to think the reason we listen to the radio is to hear them - if I wanted to hear self-important idiots blather, I'd listen to children's band (chicken band, or CB). If I wanted to hear a station claim "... KRAP, bringing you another 90% music hour...." (which they do by overlaping the songs enough to have 54 minutes of songs played in 30 minutes of wall-clock time), or if I wanted to hear commercials... well, a 9mm Hydroshock to the roof of the mouth would be a preferable "cure" to that brand of insanity.
I have a saying - "Anytime the consumer and the customer are not one and the same, you are going to get crappy quality." Dogs don't buy dog food, so the actual flavor does not matter - can you convice the owner to buy the food? The consumer of broadcast radio is the listener, but the customer is the advertiser. Advertisers don't care about the quality of the music, only that the station in question has a listenership, which you can get by being a monopoly as readily as by being a quality station.
My advice to anyone is:
1) Get some form of portable, hard drive based MP3 player - a Neo, an iPod, roll-your-own, whatever.
2) Load it up with your music, but even more importantly, with non-music stuff - buy the HHGTH series on CD, and rip that. Get your old Bill Cosby/George Carlin/* albums, and rip them (and for voice comedy, you can rip to a pretty low bitrate). Get books on tape/disk, and put them on. Hell, record the audio off old Star Trek (TOS, not TNG/DS9/Crapager) - ST-TOS was more like a radio show with pictures than TV.
3) Get a weather band receiver for weather reports, a chicken band or amateur receiver for road conditions (for the latter, be licensed if you are planning on transmitting).
4) Mentally present the "digitus impudus" to the radio stations you see advertised along the side of the road.
www.eFax.com are spammers
See this excellent article at Salon.com
the article is wrong when it says "tyranny of mass market research" caused radio to suck; two things happened A) as always, the soul has been sucked out of a vibrant social institute (Radio) by Profit-Motivated-Corporations. B) Payola facilitated this soul-sucking.