XM, iPod can't touch that dial

Still, say proponents of independent radio, a lot of promising, low-profile talent – the type that is today more likely to be self-promoted on YouTube or MySpace – increasingly finds itself blocked from an old favorite avenue.

"As you get consolidation on the national level seeping down to the local level, what you get is a loss of local content," says Derek Turner, research director at Free Press, a Washington-based organization that advocates public participation in media-policy debates. "You don't have local artists being able to break through anymore because these stations are dictated a format and a playlist from the top down."

Phoenix-area band manager Nancy Stevens was a program director in 2001 when Hispanic Broadcasting Company bought out the indie station at which she worked and changed its format.

"Everyone was out," she says. "We were such a great family at that point and making a true name for the Edge, I couldn't let the brand die."

Ms. Stevens found a 50,000-watt station called Party 103.9. "[They were] playing anything they could get their hands on," she recalls. She met with the owner and was able to find work for her staff.

But four years later, when she was operations manager, came another buyout. Riviera Broadcasting moved in. (It would later pick up another Phoenix station.)

"Riviera's main gentlemen were straight from Corporate Radio and definitely brought the vibe along," Stevens writes in an e-mail. "[They] made a lot of changes in personnel, and we lost the independent vibe fast."

For Stevens, "Part of being a program director was to go out and see what my community was listening to and watching in concert," she says. "It gave me a great insight on where the music was headed.... Nowadays, I believe radio is in a lost world."

But if hometown airplay isn't helping local artists break out in the way it once did, local markets are hardly being ignored by big radio players, says a spokeswoman for Clear Channel, the 1,000-plus-station giant based in San Antonio.

At Clear Channel, "the business model is locally focused because of the nature of the business," she says. "The vast majority of advertising dollars are local, so it's all about local content." Clear Channel has program directors spread around the country, she points out.

The broadcaster's shows already include city-tailored offerings – live gospel talent in Atlanta, for example. "Live & Local" is a major category on the Clear Channel website.

And HD radio, she notes, will help broadcasters of all sizes to broaden programming, even within small local markets. "The market reality that you don't want to compete with yourself actually pushes diversity," the spokeswoman says.

"The beauty of HD is that you can send two and maybe three program streams simultaneously," says Dennis Wharton, an executive vice president at the National Association of Broadcasters. "A station in Boston that has an all-news talk station as its primary signal would be able to send a second program stream that might be a hip-hop station."

"There is a lot of experimentation going on," Mr. Wharton says. "We're evolving and responding to listener demands."

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