Could Clear Channel Sell?

I've said it before and I'll say it again. For the most part radio sucks. You have people in charge that are so out of touch they can't program a VCR, much less the music we are all supposed to like.

Top 40 has turned in to sex soaked lyrics rapped to an irritating beat that sounds much like the last 39 songs that played. The DJ's sound like they are in 9th grade and talking to other ninth graders in a locker room. The personality and the soul of radio is pretty much dead and gone. Bean counters are in charge, not real radio folks.

Radio got too big an arrogant. They figured if they controlled what you saw and heard and had a lock on concerts they could force feed you garbage and you would smile and write the check. What they forgot is people don't often feel obligated to lay down and die.

Enter, ipods, Napster and all the other downloads sights, burn your own cds, listen on your camera phone or plug in to satellite radio. It'a called competition and it shows you just how good (or bad) you really are.

The amount of time people tune into radio over the course of a week has fallen by 14 percent over the last decade. Over the last three years, the stocks of the five largest publicly traded radio companies are down between 30 percent and 60 percent as investors wonder when the industry will bottom out. For me the end can't come soon enough. That's strange coming from a guy who works in radio but these greedy fellas have destroyed something that was great.

According to the New York Times Clear Channel Communications, the nation"s largest radio operator, is now considering selling some of its 1,200 stations in smaller markets after years of acquiring everything in sight, according to industry analysts. The did the same thing recently and now says it is looking at further station sales. The Walt Disney Company struck a deal this summer to get out of the radio business altogether, and in May, Susquehanna Broadcasting, the nation's largest privately held radio group, was sold to another broadcaster.

CBS (formally Infinity Broadcasting) flipped formats at 27 of its stations since last year.
They intoduced the "Jack format", which has no on-air host and sounds like someone hit "shuffle" on an ipod. Why do we need that? Just get an ipod. In the first six months of the year, the operating income of CBS's radio business fell 17 percent. That's no Jack.

Amid so much uncertainty, it is little wonder that sessions at next week's National Association of Broadcasters radio convention in Dallas advertise things like: "Learn to steal money from your local newspaper" and "Harnessing the power of blogging." How about we try doing good radio for a change?