SPECIAL REPORT
Courtsey of "THE GUARDIAN" -London,England
The station masters
Relaxation of radio ownership laws means that foreign companies will soon be able to control more British stations. One of those likely to be bidding is Clear Channel - which some say is responsible for the decline of radio in the US. Should we be worried?
David Teather
Monday June 16, 2003
The Guardian
The singer Tom Petty claimed he was banned from many US radio stations at the end of last year for a somewhat unusual reason. It wasn't because of the salaciousness of his latest lyrics, an incitement to hatred or violence, or even an unpatriotic slighting of President Bush. It was - in a "you couldn't make it up" kind of way - because he wrote a song critical of how dull American radio had become. The song had lamented the passing of "the last DJ/who plays what he wants to play/who says what he wants to say".
In an interview published in Rolling Stone, he was defiant: "I don't really give a flying fuck about any of it. I've tuned out. But I was elated when my song was banned . . . It's fascinating, you know. Like, what are you afraid of? No record has ever been made that was more pro-radio. I remember when radio meant something."
Laments for the death of American radio have become increasingly loud, and are heard more frequently than new music in many US cities where stations still think that Bruce Springsteen and Pat Benatar rule. The New York Times last week carried an editorial complaining that anonymous corporations and the rapacious demands of Wall Street for ever higher profits had sapped the life from radio, leaving a withered corpse that is "bland, repetitive and laden with ads and promotions".
The poster child for the criticism levelled against those in charge of radio is Clear Channel, a company still relatively unknown in Britain despite being the biggest player in outdoor advertising with the Adshell and More O'Ferrall brands. It also owns many famous venues such as the Carling Apollo in Hammersmith and a smattering of radio stations, including 50% of the Ministry of Sound station. Its management group, SFX, represents 700 or so celebrities including David Beckham.
But in America, the name is well known, and often held solely responsible for the cultural malaise that has choked the airwaves. The company, with 1,200 radio stations - around 10% of the market - is five times bigger than its nearest competitor. It is also the biggest venue operator, a concert promoter for the likes of Madonna and U2, and the largest outdoor poster site owner. The business model is that the company can keep revenues within the family and cross-promote heavily.
Mutterings of bully-boy tactics by Clear Channel have sent shivers down musicians' spines. "If you don't want your artist to be promoted by them, then you might find it difficult to get airplay," says Peter Jenner, the former Pink Floyd manager who now looks after Billy Bragg. "Similarly, if they are promoting your artist, then they want you to use their venues. Otherwise, what's the point of them being in the same company? And it is such a big company that is very hard to avoid."
Rocker Don Henley testified before Congress that artists are "shackled by the anticompetitive practices of the conglomerates", and Clear Channel is being sued by a Denver concert promoter called Nobody in Particular, which alleges that Clear Channel threatened to pull its artists from its stations - allegations that the company denies.
When a diverse range of advocacy groups, from the National Rifle Association to the Writers' Guild, wanted to demonstrate against the recent relaxation of media laws in the US, it wasn't News Corporation offices they chose to protest outside, but those of Clear Channel.
After all, it was Clear Channel that, some have claimed, ordered its radio stations to stop playing the Dixie Chicks after singer Natalie Maines said she was ashamed to come from Texas, the same state as President Bush. And was it not Clear Channel that issued an edict to its presenters to whip up a pro-war fervour among listeners? Was it not the boss of Clear Channel, Lowry Mays, who said, now infamously, that Clear Channel is in the business of "selling Fords, burgers and toothpaste"? Questions have also been raised about the issue of illegally taking "pay for play". These are the allegations that have left a rather battered Clear Channel as a company more widely loathed by the public than any other in the American media industry.
"People are flocking from radio in droves," says Michael Bracy, director of government relations at the lobby group the Future of Music Coalition. "So many people have become disenfranchised that they simply don't listen anymore. Smaller local artists are being freezed out by centralised programming. It's very damaging to the culture. There is a climate of fear surrounding Clear Channel. People will say in private, 'They did this or they did that,' but they won't speak out because they have to do business with them."
The bad publicity has made Clear Channel a political pariah. While other parts of the media industry are enjoying the relaxation of ownership laws, in radio, they were tightened up last week, despite the company hiring well-connected Washington lobbyists and appointing a former US congressman to the board. "The Federal Communications Commission chose politics over the public interest and American consumers will be the ultimate victims," said Clear Channel's chief operating officer Mark Mays.
Now some in the British music industry are trembling. The company recently moved its international team into a specially commissioned building in Cromwell Road in west London and is poised to take advantage of the planned relaxation of the British media ownership laws.
Few would dispute the statement that American radio is generally of very poor quality, with its incessant advertising, rigid playlists and eyebrow raising news coverage. Another disturbing recent trend is for radio stations to use new technology to make it appear that a DJ is "local", when in fact he or she is producing a single programme, broadcast in a number of locations and spliced with the odd piece of colour. Local bands and talent, critics argue, are being stifled, and regional music styles - of the sort that gave birth to Motown in Detroit and grunge in Seattle - are being flattened into a homogeneous mush.
According to the US ratings service Arbitron, Americans are spending 10% less time listening to radio per annum. Radio listenership in the US is at a 27-year low. But is it right to pin the blame on Clear Channel?
It is perhaps the speed with which Clear Channel has grown that has shocked so many both inside and outside the industry. In 1996, Clear Channel had just 43 stations. But suddenly, when radio ownership rules were torn up, they could own eight stations per market instead of two, with no national limit.
The company started life in 1972, when Lowry Mays, an investment banker, lent the money to a friend to buy a station in San Antonio, Texas, where the company is still based. The friend backed out and Mays inadvertently found himself a budding media mogul. He recruited a friend, Red McCombs, a local car dealer, to help him run it. It now controls 20% of US radio advertising revenues.
The company certainly has its fans on Wall Street, where assessments are a little more dispassionate. Fortune magazine ranked it the third most admired media company in America last year, behind Disney and Viacom, but ahead of AOL Time Warner and News Corporation. Shares in the business have outperformed all of the key indices on Wall Street.
Clear Channel argues that, far from killing American radio, it has been its saviour, buying struggling stations and diversifying formats. Its supporters contend that consolidation actually forces more diverse programming to prevent overlap in a single market. "The bigger the radio groups, the better they can serve advertisers, and more resources are then available to invest in output for the benefit of listeners," said Mays in a lecture at Cambridge last year.
Mays made his "Fords, burgers or toothpaste" quote at the beginning of a long speech about why a radio company cannot sell more without great content (it claims to spend $500m a year on programming). Paul Sweeny, an analyst at investment bank CSFB, told Fortune that Clear Channel has "one of the best-managed teams in broadcasting".
Clear Channel also maintains that it sent no edict to its DJs in the run-up to the second Gulf war, and that the rallies - most of them under the umbrella of a series of "Rallies for America", organised by talkshow host Glenn Beck- reflected only the points of view of individual stations. It also denies the charge that there was any order to ditch the Dixie Chicks. The most famous incident - a public CD-smashing - was organised by a different company. But it is easy to see why Clear Channel's political affiliations are scrutinised. Mays is a supporter of the Republicans and his links with the Bush family stretch back a long way. In 1998, vice-chairman Tom Hicks bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a deal that made Bush a millionaire.
Bracy argues that whether orders were sent out from head office to send pro-war messages or not is irrelevant. "It's about a corporate culture that is coming down from the top, whether there was an edict or not. The music situation is bad enough, but what is really scary is the use of the radio to communicate political issues. With more concentration, you have less diversity of views."
According to Roger Parry, who runs the international division of Clear Channel, fears that the company is about to hoover up British radio are premature. "If the price was right - and at the moment we don't think it is - and if there was a friendly deal on the table, then we'd look at it," he says. "But it's not something that is high on our agenda. My role is to look at investment opportunities outside America, and if I had $500m sitting around, there are probably better things to do with it than buy radio stations in Britain."
If the company did invest more widely in British radio, it would not import US management techniques and models, adds Parry: "You make money as a media owner by understanding and serving the needs of a local audience."
But it remains difficult to convince the industry that Clear Channel is the benign force that it would like to present itself as. "It would have been a lot harder if Billy Bragg was starting out today," says Jenner. "Stations used to have alternative programmes and we used to be able to go in and do interviews ahead of a gig. If you are a corporation, what do you do? You centralise things and take costs out. But central programming rips the heart out. Everything is done by research, which might mean a 30-second snatch of a song played down the phone. So people go for the familiar. You don't have a chance to get to like something new.
"It's creative death, it's standardisation - McDonaldisation. Creativity requires diversity. If you introduce free markets without regulation, you are prescribing monopoly. The only upside to all of this is that it gets so bad that things start to develop underground on the internet or satellite radio. That's what happened with the Floyd."
Courtsey of "THE GUARDIAN" -London,England
The station masters
Relaxation of radio ownership laws means that foreign companies will soon be able to control more British stations. One of those likely to be bidding is Clear Channel - which some say is responsible for the decline of radio in the US. Should we be worried?
David Teather
Monday June 16, 2003
The Guardian
The singer Tom Petty claimed he was banned from many US radio stations at the end of last year for a somewhat unusual reason. It wasn't because of the salaciousness of his latest lyrics, an incitement to hatred or violence, or even an unpatriotic slighting of President Bush. It was - in a "you couldn't make it up" kind of way - because he wrote a song critical of how dull American radio had become. The song had lamented the passing of "the last DJ/who plays what he wants to play/who says what he wants to say".
In an interview published in Rolling Stone, he was defiant: "I don't really give a flying fuck about any of it. I've tuned out. But I was elated when my song was banned . . . It's fascinating, you know. Like, what are you afraid of? No record has ever been made that was more pro-radio. I remember when radio meant something."
Laments for the death of American radio have become increasingly loud, and are heard more frequently than new music in many US cities where stations still think that Bruce Springsteen and Pat Benatar rule. The New York Times last week carried an editorial complaining that anonymous corporations and the rapacious demands of Wall Street for ever higher profits had sapped the life from radio, leaving a withered corpse that is "bland, repetitive and laden with ads and promotions".
The poster child for the criticism levelled against those in charge of radio is Clear Channel, a company still relatively unknown in Britain despite being the biggest player in outdoor advertising with the Adshell and More O'Ferrall brands. It also owns many famous venues such as the Carling Apollo in Hammersmith and a smattering of radio stations, including 50% of the Ministry of Sound station. Its management group, SFX, represents 700 or so celebrities including David Beckham.
But in America, the name is well known, and often held solely responsible for the cultural malaise that has choked the airwaves. The company, with 1,200 radio stations - around 10% of the market - is five times bigger than its nearest competitor. It is also the biggest venue operator, a concert promoter for the likes of Madonna and U2, and the largest outdoor poster site owner. The business model is that the company can keep revenues within the family and cross-promote heavily.
Mutterings of bully-boy tactics by Clear Channel have sent shivers down musicians' spines. "If you don't want your artist to be promoted by them, then you might find it difficult to get airplay," says Peter Jenner, the former Pink Floyd manager who now looks after Billy Bragg. "Similarly, if they are promoting your artist, then they want you to use their venues. Otherwise, what's the point of them being in the same company? And it is such a big company that is very hard to avoid."
Rocker Don Henley testified before Congress that artists are "shackled by the anticompetitive practices of the conglomerates", and Clear Channel is being sued by a Denver concert promoter called Nobody in Particular, which alleges that Clear Channel threatened to pull its artists from its stations - allegations that the company denies.
When a diverse range of advocacy groups, from the National Rifle Association to the Writers' Guild, wanted to demonstrate against the recent relaxation of media laws in the US, it wasn't News Corporation offices they chose to protest outside, but those of Clear Channel.
After all, it was Clear Channel that, some have claimed, ordered its radio stations to stop playing the Dixie Chicks after singer Natalie Maines said she was ashamed to come from Texas, the same state as President Bush. And was it not Clear Channel that issued an edict to its presenters to whip up a pro-war fervour among listeners? Was it not the boss of Clear Channel, Lowry Mays, who said, now infamously, that Clear Channel is in the business of "selling Fords, burgers and toothpaste"? Questions have also been raised about the issue of illegally taking "pay for play". These are the allegations that have left a rather battered Clear Channel as a company more widely loathed by the public than any other in the American media industry.
"People are flocking from radio in droves," says Michael Bracy, director of government relations at the lobby group the Future of Music Coalition. "So many people have become disenfranchised that they simply don't listen anymore. Smaller local artists are being freezed out by centralised programming. It's very damaging to the culture. There is a climate of fear surrounding Clear Channel. People will say in private, 'They did this or they did that,' but they won't speak out because they have to do business with them."
The bad publicity has made Clear Channel a political pariah. While other parts of the media industry are enjoying the relaxation of ownership laws, in radio, they were tightened up last week, despite the company hiring well-connected Washington lobbyists and appointing a former US congressman to the board. "The Federal Communications Commission chose politics over the public interest and American consumers will be the ultimate victims," said Clear Channel's chief operating officer Mark Mays.
Now some in the British music industry are trembling. The company recently moved its international team into a specially commissioned building in Cromwell Road in west London and is poised to take advantage of the planned relaxation of the British media ownership laws.
Few would dispute the statement that American radio is generally of very poor quality, with its incessant advertising, rigid playlists and eyebrow raising news coverage. Another disturbing recent trend is for radio stations to use new technology to make it appear that a DJ is "local", when in fact he or she is producing a single programme, broadcast in a number of locations and spliced with the odd piece of colour. Local bands and talent, critics argue, are being stifled, and regional music styles - of the sort that gave birth to Motown in Detroit and grunge in Seattle - are being flattened into a homogeneous mush.
According to the US ratings service Arbitron, Americans are spending 10% less time listening to radio per annum. Radio listenership in the US is at a 27-year low. But is it right to pin the blame on Clear Channel?
It is perhaps the speed with which Clear Channel has grown that has shocked so many both inside and outside the industry. In 1996, Clear Channel had just 43 stations. But suddenly, when radio ownership rules were torn up, they could own eight stations per market instead of two, with no national limit.
The company started life in 1972, when Lowry Mays, an investment banker, lent the money to a friend to buy a station in San Antonio, Texas, where the company is still based. The friend backed out and Mays inadvertently found himself a budding media mogul. He recruited a friend, Red McCombs, a local car dealer, to help him run it. It now controls 20% of US radio advertising revenues.
The company certainly has its fans on Wall Street, where assessments are a little more dispassionate. Fortune magazine ranked it the third most admired media company in America last year, behind Disney and Viacom, but ahead of AOL Time Warner and News Corporation. Shares in the business have outperformed all of the key indices on Wall Street.
Clear Channel argues that, far from killing American radio, it has been its saviour, buying struggling stations and diversifying formats. Its supporters contend that consolidation actually forces more diverse programming to prevent overlap in a single market. "The bigger the radio groups, the better they can serve advertisers, and more resources are then available to invest in output for the benefit of listeners," said Mays in a lecture at Cambridge last year.
Mays made his "Fords, burgers or toothpaste" quote at the beginning of a long speech about why a radio company cannot sell more without great content (it claims to spend $500m a year on programming). Paul Sweeny, an analyst at investment bank CSFB, told Fortune that Clear Channel has "one of the best-managed teams in broadcasting".
Clear Channel also maintains that it sent no edict to its DJs in the run-up to the second Gulf war, and that the rallies - most of them under the umbrella of a series of "Rallies for America", organised by talkshow host Glenn Beck- reflected only the points of view of individual stations. It also denies the charge that there was any order to ditch the Dixie Chicks. The most famous incident - a public CD-smashing - was organised by a different company. But it is easy to see why Clear Channel's political affiliations are scrutinised. Mays is a supporter of the Republicans and his links with the Bush family stretch back a long way. In 1998, vice-chairman Tom Hicks bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a deal that made Bush a millionaire.
Bracy argues that whether orders were sent out from head office to send pro-war messages or not is irrelevant. "It's about a corporate culture that is coming down from the top, whether there was an edict or not. The music situation is bad enough, but what is really scary is the use of the radio to communicate political issues. With more concentration, you have less diversity of views."
According to Roger Parry, who runs the international division of Clear Channel, fears that the company is about to hoover up British radio are premature. "If the price was right - and at the moment we don't think it is - and if there was a friendly deal on the table, then we'd look at it," he says. "But it's not something that is high on our agenda. My role is to look at investment opportunities outside America, and if I had $500m sitting around, there are probably better things to do with it than buy radio stations in Britain."
If the company did invest more widely in British radio, it would not import US management techniques and models, adds Parry: "You make money as a media owner by understanding and serving the needs of a local audience."
But it remains difficult to convince the industry that Clear Channel is the benign force that it would like to present itself as. "It would have been a lot harder if Billy Bragg was starting out today," says Jenner. "Stations used to have alternative programmes and we used to be able to go in and do interviews ahead of a gig. If you are a corporation, what do you do? You centralise things and take costs out. But central programming rips the heart out. Everything is done by research, which might mean a 30-second snatch of a song played down the phone. So people go for the familiar. You don't have a chance to get to like something new.
"It's creative death, it's standardisation - McDonaldisation. Creativity requires diversity. If you introduce free markets without regulation, you are prescribing monopoly. The only upside to all of this is that it gets so bad that things start to develop underground on the internet or satellite radio. That's what happened with the Floyd."
posted by steve @ 12:03 AM
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