12-6-2004Problem/SolutionThe Radio Makes My Ears BleedThere is a major problem these days in entertainment, and that isthere is such a lack of diversity in the music industry. Because of thisproblem, fewer bands will have the opportunity to go big, or get signed toa major record label.
Small, local bands will never be able to get thepopularity they deserve because every band is compared to one another. Thesame bands are played on the radio all the time, and instead of playing avariety bands, the same songs are looped and played all day long. Thiscreates a problem because people, who think its only cool to listen to theradio, only experience the same pop music from bands signed to majorlabels. As a result of this, all the money stays in the corporate, recordlabels. I believe the main reasons are that people don’t like change. Itshould be easier for listeners to access music of different genres.
Radiostations are a major contributor to the problem of this lack of variety. They are afraid that if they play music other than what is pop, they willlose money and listeners, but in fact I believe that their listeners willgrow if they expand their genres. There are several large, corporate record labels that basicallyempower all of the radio airwaves and MTV. I think that bands are afraid totry new styles also because once they get signed; they are controlled bytheir label and are influence by all the money that is tossed around.
I think that some ways to fix all of these problems start with radiostations. There needs to be a station that can be accessed from all overthat plays music from independent labels. I think that MTV needs to betaken off the air because the shows that it plays are all reality TV, andit no longer stands for what it was created to do, play music videos. Finally I think that another way to get independent music spread around isthat have more tours like Warped Tour. I think there need to multi-stage,multi-band concerts that travel the United States.
Clear Channel for example, is a company that owns of 1,200 radiostations, 37 T. V. stations, and 240 more investments in radio stationsthroughout the whole world. This is a great example of how all radio is thesame, and controlled by a large company. They are in 248 of the top 250radio markets, and control over half of all rock music stations. When onecompany owns more than half of our radio stations, you can understand whywhen flipping through different stations, you hear a lot of the same songs.
Randi West is an example of one of the popular clear channel DJ’s. Withtechnology these days, she can be the DJ on several different stations atone time, while interviewing stars on one stations, giving local weather onanother, and doing commercials on several others. WORKS CITEDFarhi, Paul. “Clear Channel: It’s crystal-clear who controls the nation’sradio markets. ” 23 June 2002: n-pag.
On-line. Internet. 8 Dec. 2004.
http://www. post-gazette. com/tv/20020623clear0623fnp3. aspKiesewetter, John. “Big radio airs the sound of sameness.
“19 March 2000: n-pag. On-line. Internet. 8 Dec.
2004.http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2000/03/19/fin_big_radio_airs_sound.html
