XM, iPod can't touch that dial
Good old 'terrestrial radio' still reaches more than 90 percent of Americans age 12 and older, year after year.
from the February 23, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 3
"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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