What is so bad about the clear channel radio channel and its relation to MUSIC?!
Question: Years ago I heard a presentation about how bad and evil clear channel radio is. I was living in LA but spent a lot of time in San Diego and I noticed how shitty san diego radio (clear channel) was compared to LA. However I live in Albuquerque now and the radio is pretty good (clear channel) so I was wondering whats so horrible about clear channel and music?
Answers: Years ago I heard a presentation about how bad and evil clear channel radio is. I was living in LA but spent a lot of time in San Diego and I noticed how shitty san diego radio (clear channel) was compared to LA. However I live in Albuquerque now and the radio is pretty good (clear channel) so I was wondering whats so horrible about clear channel and music?
Clear Channel does a lot of surveys in order to find what the majority of the population would like to hear... the popularity vote wins... underground stations never make it to clear channel (because no one knows about them) People would rather hear Brittney Spears vs. upcoming bands... that is until they get that number 1 hit and then they qualify to play for a Clear Channel radio station. Why do you think that most Christian radio stations are listener-supported?!? Clear Channel doesn't seem to care about playing anything else but POP, Rock, Country, Hip-Hop and Oldies (since we still have a lot of baby-boomers hanging around, LOL). Even though there are five different genres... each genre only plays the HITS. Popularity cliques... who says its only for High school?
I have clear channel station in my area (Southern Wisconsin) and it's pretty good! Maybe people say its evil and bad because it is a huge corporation and has a habit of buying up smaller stations.
iuuno
Mandy gives a well-thought answer, but misses the point. Clear Channel, love 'em or hate 'em, is a public company and have a duty to their shareholders to make as much money as they can. This is an argument that's been around since I started in radio in the late sixties. Play the hits, or what you think is good up-coming music?
Play the hits will win, because when people turn on the radio they want to hear their favorite songs. Most people don't listen for long periods of time, so they probably hear their few faves then go elsewhere. I plead this in many of my answers, radio must be consistent to win - and that means playing the hits.
So, though CC is not my favorite company for other reasons. I can't fault them for their music policies - and you will find newer music on some of their stations (their Alternative stations especially). It depends on where you live
-a guy named duh
There has been some good answers here. But what's wrong about Clear Channel in most respects is that it's cookie cutter radio.
Clear Channel is, as Duh said, a publicly traded company who's goal is to make money for it's shareholders thru radio service as well as Billboards in major markets.
What people complain about is that the company has cookie cutters who will lean out what it determines is unnecessary employee and make the remaining pull the weight of the one that is gone. So we have people putting quantity over quality in this respect.
We also have a few main people deciding what to air on the stations in the form of music that is handed to the local people to schedule up and play in instances. In a lot of cases, no one is at the local station. One of the local clear channel stations in my area for instance is actually Voice tracked all the way (meaning Djs from other areas thru the magic of the internet and pre recording air in 2 or more markets a day.)
The music ran at their major market outlets are found to be running on the safe side (in other words nothing that isn't proven thru testing thru many ways including ratethemusic.com (hint on where Clear Channel decides what to air) whereas their smaller markets I find are actually the better produced stations as no competition to worry about so the people are allowed a little more breathing room.
The unproven acts and contemporary Christian market is not aired usually by Clear Channel as most people will not want to listen to something that isn't gradually given to them to absorb (that's why only 1 or 2 songs come out a week for to radio usually)
Actually Clear Channel has found some formats that work (for instance Praise and worship in cities in the south with heavy African American populance under the brand name Hallelujah FM) with ratings higher almost any station in the market in some cases... however advertisers didn't want to buy on those stations and/or wasn't sold properly and a few were either shoved to some Am station that Clear Channel owned or taken off in that market for something else like Active Rock.
So depending upon where you live and if you want to work/work/have worked in radio is how you see CC