Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Time in a Bottle but Not on the Radio?

What's really wrong with radio?

So, I'm sitting on a Southwest flight to Tampa on a business trip, eating my traditional inflight Milky Way. Funny thing is I only eat Milky Ways when I fly or when I steal them out of my kids' Halloween bags. Before I turned my ipod on to watch some concert video of Clay Aiken, I browsed through the Southwest magazine known as Spirit.

I came across an article by assistant editor Mike Darling (and how many fights did he get in while in middle school with that name?). He was interviewing a guy named George Gimarc who used to manage a radio station in Dallas and who has a great idea about saving radio. His solution? Make the songs shorter.

Huh? Make the songs shorter? How about make the songs better? How about getting rid of the 2000's version of payola which may not involve straight cash for airplay but still involves things like a car giveaways and other perks.

His theory was that people tend to punch a new station in their car about every 2 and a half minutes and that overall song length has grown from years past. He figures by shortening the songs, you eliminate people changing stations and keep listeners longer and advertisers happier. He calls this SASS for Short Attention Span System and has even spent six figures to patent it as a radio protocol. (Note: the article wasn't clear if just the protocol was trademarked or the name as well.)

But here's the deal. Audience listening has dropped 30% and that means people aren't listening at all, not just station hopping. It's because, in addition to internet available music and portable music via ipods and mp3s, people are probably sick of the same old crap. When Clear Channel owns (or has owned) 8 of the top 10 top 40 stations and they play the same songs in rotation over and over by people who all sound alike, listeners simply get bored. In the book The Future of Music by David Kusek and Gerh Leonhard, they say
The Berklee Media division of Berklee College of Music conducted a study in June 2004 of radio airplay patterns across CHR/Rhythmic, Country, Urban and CHR/POP in multiple cities in the US. The study showed that the biggest stations in the biggest markets played the same songs an average of 58 times. When station owners were taken into account, the five top CHR/Pop stations owned by Clear Channel were playing the same songs 78% of the time.


And the songs? I asked my teenage daughter the other day as she assaulted the inside of my car with a Top 40 station "Do all male singers on the radio whine their songs?" Nan says that the women all sing in this kind of whispery voice as if they are trying out for a 1-900 line.

So is the real reason that people have short attention spans? I can still listen to the whole version of Hotel California.
Or is it because there is nothing worthy of keeping their attention. Is 2 minutes 45 seconds of crap really any better than 3 minutes and 45 seconds of crap? The article states that "shorter song lengths translate to a larger catalog of music, giving DJs more freedom to play tracks that don't normally receive mainstream airplay." Yeah right, is there anyone out there that still believes the DJs decide what goes over the airwaves?

I agree with Andrew Whiteman (lead singer of an indie Canadian band Broken Social Scene) who argues against this idea.
It's heinous. Music is not meant to be hook after hook.

Darling thinks the idea is refreshing. Hmmm, about as refreshing as Febreze. It covers up the stink but only for a short time. I think putting real singers with interesting lyrics and strong melodies would be more refreshing.

Gimarc hopes that with the pending sale of 400 of Clear Channel's smallest stations, that new owners might be more open to the idea. Just the fact that Clear Channel has 400 smaller stations to sell is appalling. I should go into how George Bush and TBTP of Clear Channel have done business deals together but this isn't a political blog. (Yet..wait until 2008.) I'd rather new owners be more open to playing new acts who can't afford the high cost of airplay or whose labels won't play it, so that the listening public can decide what they want to hear. Not some program director who talks to his liaison at corporate who is cutting a deal with the label's radio liaison. Gasp! A novel idea, I think I'll call it a radio protocol and patent it.


I'd rather they give the opportunity to real singers like Clay who should be all over the radio regardless of what his dinosaur label thinks. His new Grammy winning producer obviously knows what good music is, but it won't matter in the end if the label doesn't give in to the cost of a top 20 single. And it won't matter how long the song is either.




Technorati tags:

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,






9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I want to e-mail this to our local Radio Station that I keep requesting Clay on. Actually, today I heard ATDW. Thought I would drop over, then realized it was a request. Can't seem to do it on their own. How can I e-mail this?

Kathy

Anonymous said...

I agree with everything you said. And I would love to hear Clay on the radio but I'm not holding my breath. The music industry always talks about looking for the best new thing, but thats a crock of s**t. They just try desprately to find the same thing over and over. They have very narrow parameters for determining what is and isn't cool or acceptable. Anything or anyone who doesn't fit in their little box is just s**t out of luck. Clay is an anomaly, he just doesn't fit in their box. Not only can he really, really sing but he's very intelligent and funny. He's not a boozehound or a cokehead and he's never even been to rehab!!! My god what a travesty!! the guy will never make it! Clay isnt someone who will fit in easily in the entertainment field, at least from what I can see. But that doesn't mean he isn't going to keep doing bigger and better things all the time. People didnt know what to do with Elvis in the beginning either, but he found his way and so will Clay (hopefully with a better ending). Clay has had to take alot of criticism and ridicule from people who are either morons or are just downright mean and nasty. Did I get off the track? I think I did. Sorry. So yes radio sucks and Clay is an awesome talent.

Anonymous said...

Thanks .... enjoyed your perspective!!!!

Corabeth said...

Kathy, you have to email the link.

Anonymous said...

IMHO, Clay won't get played on the radio until

a)He puts out a song people love sooo much they clamor for it...by the tens of thousands....

b) The radio stations being hammered to play this new song by Clay start hammering on RCA...

c) Clay plays this new song on sooo many popular TV shows that the bigwigs at RCA get jealous they're not getting all the publicity and

d) Clay follows up that release with another smash hit that pulverizes RCA into the ground.

....and Clay will do it. It's just a matter of luck, good timing and .....another tiny tweak of the image...and, knowing Clay as well as we do, we know that tiny extra tweak could happen any second now.

Corabeth said...

That's very idealistic but not how it works. RCA hammers on the radio stations, not the other way around. Unfortunately, I don't htink they would get jealous of Clay playing the new song on TV shows, since they would be the ones having to approve him singing it on TV in the first place!
It's a matter of luck, timing, material and MONEY.

Anonymous said...

I agree about the part that radio stations play the same music over and over again, I always get that when I listen to the radio. Just like yesterday, I must've heard Fergie's Big Girls Don't Cry in five different radio stations while I heard LNM only once.

Anonymous said...

" Is 2 minutes 45 seconds of crap really any better than 3 minutes and 45 seconds of crap? The article states that "shorter song lengths translate to a larger catalog of music, giving DJs more freedom to play tracks that don't normally receive mainstream airplay." Yeah right, is there anyone out there that still believes the DJs decide what goes over the airwaves?
"
Rather than hearing a larger selection of music all shortening the songs would mean on Pop Radio is that we would hear the same artist 3 or 4 times in a 2 hour period rather than the current 2 to 3 times.

Anonymous said...

I myself don't listen to radio often anymore unlike when I was growing up. Maybe tune in to the oldies (70's) while getting ready for work. Quite frankly, none in my family listen to radio anymore.
In fact, have not heard any of them listen to the radio ever!
Even my 15 year old son is sick and tired of crap music coming from that piece of wood. Well, my 2 teenage kids have always been monitored as to what kind of music and TV shows they are interested in. They are aware that we do not allow loud and vulgar music in the house. None of them watched Simpsons and other vulgar shows on TV. So, they listen to good music and watch good and educational shows they can relate to. I just hope they continue to do so. Clay may not be all over radio now but I strongly believe that one way or the other, people will get tired listening to today's type of music dominating the airwaves. And that's when we will all hear that VOICE. It may take a little while but it will come. Besides, great singers do not fade away. Real singers are here to stay.