It's 2009 and I'm Still Bitching About Clear Channel Part One

Today I'm going to share with you part one in a three part piece about the Clear Channel corporation. Enjoy!

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Allisa Scanlon was a freshman in college in 2001. At that time she began an internship at a Grand Rapids, Michigan, alternative radio station. The station in question, WGRD, was an independently operated radio station at the core of a thriving local music scene. They booked the local venue, The Intersection; they played local artists on the air and lent their overall support to the Grand Rapids music scene. By the time she would start her sophomore year the station would have been bought by Clear Channel along with most of the other radio stations in the area. As a result of her experience Allisa would abandon her hopes of pursuing a career in broadcasting.

The entire idea of a radio station playing local artists and being involved in promoting local music is unfortunately an antiquated notion in 2009, much in line with beta-max and 8-track tapes. But not too long ago that’s what radio did. In the 1960’s you had garage rock bands scoring regional hits and releasing their records largely to their local audience. Sometimes these records would get picked up and a band would be given the opportunity for nationwide exposure. The entire system for artists to distribute their music and gain a following was a much more organic process. Record companies and radio stations still made money this way, and artists could develop the kind of followings and relationships needed for a vibrant and diverse music scene. Sadly this is no longer the case.

Clear Channel’s move through the Grand Rapids radio market was slow at first. They would acquire stations one by one, claiming that they would not be making any changes. And at first there weren’t any. Allisa recalled: “They waited. They waited until they owned enough radio stations. In all honestly they bought almost all the radio stations. So they waited until they had bought everything so no one would have another choice.” As a result those at the recently acquired radio stations were lulled into a false sense of security. Much of the staff at these stations had heard the stories and rumors from other markets that had been taken over by Clear Channel, but the lack of changes at the beginning made some doubt if what they had heard was true. They would soon learn this was not the case what so ever.

“Once they had control over everything it was like ‘here are the changes’. It was an iron fist. If you don’t like it you were removed that day from the office, you even remotely put up a fight, say you disagree with something. No more local music cds, no more money goes out the door to any local music productions, shows, nothing without approval. It was here are the bands you can play. So you took this organization, this community, that was so involved, and completely demolished it.”

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I’ve never been a fan of smooth jazz. I’ve always thought of it as boring, generic music. To me it’s just filler, grocery store background elevator music. For whatever reason, my dad used to listen to the smooth jazz station, WNUA 95.5, on his way home from work from time to time. Most of time his radio was tuned into NPR, but every once and awhile he would put on smooth jazz. Even at seven or eight I was bored out of my mind, more bored than if we had been listening to NPR.

Well, if I’m ever in the car with my dad in the future I won’t have to be worrying that he’ll be tuning into WNUA. That’s because Clear Channel has decided to switch that station’s format from smooth jazz/adult contemporary to a Spanish language pop station. This honestly makes little difference to me. I wasn’t listening to it when it was a smooth jazz station. I’m not going to listen to it now that it’s a Spanish pop station; the change has no affect on me. But I’m sure there are those out there who are really going to miss that station. Now, I know that this happens all the time, maybe a little bit too often these days. But this isn’t just a sign of trying economic times; this was a station that is owned by a massive media conglomerate. Here are some of the remarks that Tony Coles, the vice president of programming and operations for Clear Channel Radio Chicago’s six-station cluster; made in regards to the change-over. He was quoted in the Chicago Tribune as saying the following: “This is something we really struggled with. We’re fans of WNUA. So it was really tough to even have conversations about the end of that radio station.”

Something reeks of insincerity.

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