Re: the latest article about Clear Channel

[Mike Thomas <Nostatic@earthlink.net>]

I agree that radio has gotten away from being a local service, but 
unless there is re-regulation of the industry, I don't thihink it can be 
brought back.  No longer are operators answerable to advertisers and 
listeners, they answer to Wall Street.    Is it what the radio industry 
is used to? No., but that's the nature of corporate business, and it's 
not going away.  .   Major corporations constantly have  to protect 
their products and services, and many take a heavy handed approach.   
 While that's not the way radio historically has done business, it is 
how it's done in the corporate world, and as long as corporate owners 
control the industry, I don't know how the industry can escape it.    I 
will say that the incidences of sexual harrasment within CC were 
inappropriate.  It's inexcusable I agree, but I'm sure that if Salon and 
other  Clear Channel  critics did their homework, they'd find that it's 
an unfortunate problem that is common among a lot of major corporations 
both in and out of the radio industry.  They just choose not to because 
it detracts from their "Clear Channel is the Evil Empire" mantra.  

While there has been a decline in TSL in the last couple of years, radio 
is getting a slightly larger percentage of the advertising dollarthan 
before the Telcom Act, and rates are starting to creep upward.   
 Television and cable ratings are also on the decline as well, but no 
one seems to question their business ethics.  I think a lot of the 
declining TSL can be attributed to the emergence of the internet and new 
technologies like MP3's, DVD's, portable and auto based CD players and 
other media options that just weren't factors prior to 1996.  

I think in many ways local radio was destined to decline the day that 
harddrive based voicetracking  systems were finally "perfected."  Sure, 
Clear Channel was one of the first to start rolling out heavily 
automated stations, but even if consolidation never happened, 
voicetracking would have eventually worked it's way down to the local 
mom and pop owned stations.   Talk stations have largely been automated 
for many years, but why is it that when music stations finally got the 
ability to automate efficiantly that radio suddenly got tagged as no 
longer "being local?"  For every "good" local owner back in the day, 
there were at least two or three  who were more concerned with making a 
buck rather than serving listeners, and those bad apple would have 
jumped at the chance to run a station off the harddrive and can the 
airstaff to save money.  Why is today's corporate enviornment any 
different?  

Donna Halper wrote:

> I appreciate Mike's eloquent defence of Clear Channel, much of which I 
> snipped in the interest of brevity.  I never said (nor do I think Eric 
> Boehlert said) that CC is the ONLY villain in this piece.  But, just 
> as Enron and WorldCom have come to symbolise corporate greed, so I 
> believe some of CC's practises, while legal, were perceived as vicious 
> and heavy-handed.  You say in your post that they did nothing wrong.  
> I say they drove many good people out of the industry, and permitted 
> an environment of sexual harrassment at several of their stations, in 
> addition to expecting one PD to run 5 stations at no additional pay 
> and with no additional help.  Yes, they had a right to do what they 
> did, but was it right to do what they did?  I say not always.  And I 
> say that the destruction of local radio and the decline in time spent 
> listening, while not solely the fault of Clear Channel, has come about 
> because the conglomerates that bought up the majority of the stations 
> cared more about making a buck than serving the public.
>
> And Mike,  I am not being sarcastic in my praise for what you said 
> when you were defending CC-- I really do think you made some good 
> points, and I don't agree with everything in Eric's articles either.  
> However, it is facile to excuse a company's actions by saying "hey 
> this is how business is done today, so get used to it."  Radio is at a 
> cross-roads, it seems to me.  I hope the era of corporate greed is 
> replaced by prudent managers who know how to run stations effectively 
> but who also know that making a profit shouldn't mean you treat your 
> employees like disposable parts or ignore the needs of your audience.  
> Just my opinion, but of course I could be wrong...  
>
>