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ClearChannel Communications has been on my “first against the wall when the revolution comes” list for almost ten years now. As of today I’m debating if I should bother waiting for the revolution. Back in 1996 the FCC did something that theoretically should have helped the ailing radio industry. They deregulated and allowed companies to own more than 2 stations in a market area. Unfortunately a few large companies started to buy up as much as they could until you were left with little in the way of independant stations, since the little stations had difficulty competing. In some cases this was just a case of capitalism. In other cases it was a due to lowballing, advertising, and (unfortunately) temporary flashes of competance from market researchers. Soon ClearChannel owned a third of all stations nationwide, and over 50% in my area. This in and of itself isn’t a horrible thing… stations always have to be owned by someone, after all. My problem with ClearChannel is how they manage these stations. Numerous times over the last few years I’ve hit a station preset on my radio and been confused about the music coming out of the speakers. Invariably they change the station format to one that is already oversaturated in my market, and then end up changing the format again later when it turns out another top40 or talk radio station isn’t what was needed. The loss of radio variety and request shows really seemed to hurt something too, since every station had a set play-list that was determined by an unreal entity at a corporate office. Yesterday they hit a nerve though. I turned on what I thought was going to be my favorite alt-rock station and heard a song about a woman that ran away to vegas in her white pickup truck and broke her momma’s heart. The song was country, complete with steel guitars. My market already has at least EIGHT country music stations. I was confused… I could understand that the alt-rock station probably had ratings that were lower than the ideal. What I couldn’t understand is why there had been no on-air announcements or news anywhere about the format change. Further, why pick a format that is so heavily saturated already? I called some contacts I had, and they sympathized and offered to dig up what they could. In the meantime I decided to cut out of work and drive over to the local ClearChannel offices to make my complaints in person. When I arrived at the office and got in line at the receptionists desks I noticed that the receptionist had obviously been crying. You could tell she dreaded answering the phone and took a deep breath before every call. Soon my turn for attention came and I stated simply “I’ve got a few questions, and I’d like to make a complaint”. She rested her face on her hands for a few seconds and then said “Here, let me find some paper and you can write your complaint down. Make sure you include your phone number if you want a call back.” Then she proceeded to tell me the answers to what she assumed my complaint was. “The station wasn’t getting high enough ratings, so they changed formats at midnight last night. Nobody that worked at that station knew until they came in this morning.” I started to write my complaint, and eavesdropped on several conversations going on around me. They were all conversations about the change to “Star Country!” and none of them were very positive. At one point someone asked the receptionist how her day was going and she replied “See this pad? This is how many people have screamed and yelled at me today. I cried at lunch. I actually broke down and cried over lunch. That gentleman writing the note over there is the first polite man I’ve had up today” Unfortunately I didn’t see how many marks she had made on the pad. Still, I felt sorry that this woman had to take the brunt of some poor marketing decision at a corporate office somewhere. The decision to suddenly turn off a station without notifying anyone (including its employees) and then replace it with an oversaturated format was probably not made by someone local, after all. I finished my note, signed it and included a phone number, and handed it to the receptionist. I got back to work and called up the contacts I had asked questions to earlier. They informed me that they had sent some emails to people they knew at the local ClearChannel office and gotten a reply that I’ve paraphrased below:

“We’re happy to hear that you and your friends were loyal to the station. Unfortunately you were some of the few. The alt-rock format is dying nationwide, and even on XM its the lowest rated format. We recommend that if you want to listen to new rock you try WZEE (local top40) or WJJO (Metallica/AC-DC/Ozzie).”

Great. So if I want to listen to new rock I’ve got to deal with 50% of the music being Metallica/AC-DC/Ozzie or with every other song being something by Avril Lavigne, Kelis, or the Backstreet Boys. God help me if I hear the “Milkshake” song one more time I’m going to find a blender large enough to turn my stereo into one. On a whim I went to the old website for the radio station. It redirected me to here… where they are tauting their new “10,000 song music marathon”. Well, of COURSE they are having a music marathon since when they sneak in and change formats they dont have time to sell advertising or hire new DJ’s! Even more upsetting was that they had a full website designed ahead of time, but no one working at the station knew about this format change. As I go through the rest of my radio presets I realize that the only thing I’ve got left to listen to is classic rock and oldies… both of which are mostly playing Christmas music at the moment. I’m considering satellite radio. At least I’m going to need a CD player to get through these dark days. I have a theory that the reason that CD sales have been dropping over the last 5 years (depending on which biased research you read, of course) is that no one hears anything original on the radio anymore. The Wall Street Journal actually reported last week that they think the reason that holiday CD sales haven’t hit their mark is because of a lack of good bands this year… and thats the first time I’ve ever seen such speculation in print outside of the internet. In fact, it was because of that article I dug up some research by other parties and found the following: Future Of Music Coalition Study on Radio Deregulation Thanks ClearChannel! You’ve actually managed to piss me off enough to make me consider paying for my radio! I never would have considered that a few years ago…