|
|
This topic comprises 7 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
|
|
Author
|
Topic: what is wrong with the radio industry?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
|
posted 06-30-2012 03:42 PM
Adding a foreign perspective, from a technological point of view, radio ain't good here, either.
Digital radio (using the DAB system) was launched in the late '90s in Britain, and ever since the government and the BBC (without wanting to get into politics, they're basically one and the same thing as far as this issue is concerned) have been pushing hard for DAB to replace analogue FM/MW/LW broadcasting. What's interesting is that while digital terrestrial TV has now almost completely superseded analogue (using the DVB-T system), the consumer market has proven very resistant in the case of radio.
The reason why is that basically, DAB is shite.
People who just listen to radio for background noise aren't willing to buy DAB because it isn't worth the extra money, and people who listen to classical music etc. on FM aren't going to either, because the sound quality isn't good enough. So it's never achieved a critical mass that is big enough to make winding down analogue radio viable. Crucially, IMO, no car manufacturers (as far as I'm aware) are selling cars with DAB radios in them as standard - if you want DAB in your car, you have to pay several hundred pounds extra, either as a factory option or aftermarket.
Stupidly, I was an early DAB adopter. The branch of Richer Sounds close to my workplace in 2004 had an option on a Cambridge Audio DAB tuner for £130. So I was seduced and bought it, and for the first few weeks it was lovely, especially for the classical music station Radio 3, and Jazz FM. Then the BBC throttled the bitrate for 'minority interest' stations - R3 went down from 192kbps to 64 - with the result that the subjective sound quality went down from better than FM to worse than AM. A colleague of mine bought a used car in around 2007 that the previous owner had fitted an aftermarket DAB tuner to, and reported that the signal was so weak that the thing was virtually useless.
So DAB is clearly a fundamentally flawed technology, and/or the powers that be are not willing to subsidise it to the same extent that they are digital TV. I went back to FM about a year after getting that tuner, and I don't think I've even used it for the last 3-4 years now.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mike Blakesley
Film God
Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99
|
posted 07-02-2012 07:05 PM
I suspect besides the commercials, another cause is the fragmentation of the music audience. 35 years ago, if a new Bachman-Turner Overdrive album came out I would order 25 or 30 copies of it (in the various formats) and they would be gone within days. In this town of 2000, we might have sold 70 or 80 copies before all was said and done. 10 years ago, before downloading became the norm, if a new 2-Pac album came out we might have sold a couple or three CDs of it, even with about the same number of music fans in town. Now, we're lucky if we sell one copy of almost anything. It's to the point where we hardly stock any new stuff anymore. We have yet to sell one copy of the latest Lady Gaga album, which was a huge #1 hit.
So I guess to answer the question, what's wrong with the radio industry? The main answers are:
1. Fragmentation of the audience
2. Local talent costs too much for stations to afford
3. Downloading + portable players has reduced people's need to listen to radio for their entertainment
4. People get sick of hearing 20 minutes of commercials in an hour's time
Radio guys are putting all the blame on satellite radio, but it's really not satellite's fault. It's a variety of factors. Satellite is only one, and not that big a one. Not everyone has satellite and you'll never have the portability with satellite that you do with terrestrial. It's just that people don't need radio like they used to.
| IP: Logged
|
|
Martin McCaffery
Film God
Posts: 2481
From: Montgomery, AL
Registered: Jun 99
|
posted 07-02-2012 09:59 PM
quote: Ron Funderburg
Martin local stations do pay for the use of the air waves have checked out what license for radio station is? Well let me tell you can't afford it if you work in theaters. You pay the government for the use the customer doesn't pay to listen and we have a free market economy as in freedom to market, sell, provide not that what you provide is free to you.
I have no idea how many mom and pop radio stations still exist, but I imagine the bulk of the stations are owned by the giant corporations that were allowed to consolidate ownership in the last 30 years. Unless they are paying substantial royalties based on their revenues, they are getting a subsidised service from the taxpayers. The greatest is the mini-monopoly they get with exclusive use of the airwaves. They gov't grants them the use of the frequency. They get to use it and I don't, and the gov't is going to enforce it. That's not a "free market." It may be the best way to do it, depending on your definition of best, but it's not a free market. There is no market competition for the use of the airwaves.
They are free, as you say, to market, but they are still marketing within the confines of a heavily requlated quasi-monopoly.
My larger point is because this system is not a free market,but a gov't controlled system, the congress and/or FCC, can pass a law to make all radio local and or locally owned, which would clearly not be a free market for anyone involved, but is still, theoretically, currently within the power of the government.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
|
posted 07-03-2012 09:08 AM
The reasons are numerous on why terrestrial radio is failing. Some of those reasons are self-inflicted.
The music industry isn't in great shape. Ultimately radio survives on music content, right? Too much of newly released pop, rock and dance genre content is basically the same flavor of stuff we've been hearing for 20 years. The crap isn't selling nearly as well as it did in the past. But the mere handful of giant media corporations who strictly control what kind of music gets distributed to radio, iTunes, etc. are so terrified of change that they're willing to keep selling the same old crap until they fail. The music industry was always at its best when radical change could and would happen every few years. That happened on the back of many smaller record labels who could live or die based on that change.
One has to consider the "edited" versions of songs OTA radio must play. SiriusXM has an advantage in that it can play music that doesn't have all the foul language bleeped out of it. People have vast collections of music stored on smart phones and portable music players. Apps like Pandora provide all sorts of variety via user-generated "stations."
Big corporations bought up radio stations all over the place. The first thing they did was cut costs. Eliminate as many live DJ positions as possible at any given radio station to save labor costs. They did that either by using automation or subscribing to a national syndicated DJ show. If the radio station still had any live disc jockeys left those employees have often been limited on what kind of material can be played. Here in Lawton Z94 is our local rock station. Its parent company has changed hands three or four times in the last decade. One of the owners deleted a huge amount of the rock station's music library, confining them to a limited number of tunes they selected. They dictated the playlist (some of it based on music industry payola), but in doing so made the station indistinguishable from any other AOR station.
In order for a terrestrial radio station to succeed, it needs local personality. That means disc jockeys that are worth a damn and music that's worth a damn. The audience is very fickle. If the big company only wants to save money and pack in those commercials the listeners will be only too happy to defect to satellite radio, smart phone apps and their own music libraries.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
All times are Central (GMT -6:00)
|
This topic comprises 7 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
|
Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classicTM
6.3.1.2
The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion
and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.
|
Home
Printer-friendly view of this topic