Back in Grand Rapids there are some signs of hope. A few years ago some students got together in a store front and start hosting shows. They dubbed themselves the DAAC; the Division Ave. Arts Cooperative. They inhabited a store front in a part of Grand Rapids that was undergoing an “urban renewal” i.e. clearing out the crack houses and the gang activity. Down the street was Skelatones; a coffee house hosting local shows. Slowly things were coming back to life.
One of the aspects of our current predicament is that it forces a community to go back to the long held ideal of DIY. When all the outlets are in the control of one hand, musicians and fans are forced to seek out some way to get there music out. Embracing the basements and coffee houses, college radio stations and the internet as a means to get music out there and bring people together creates a more immediate and personal experience. When I think back to the best I’ve been to or have played it’s inevitably some cramped, sweaty space with scores of kids brought together for a single purpose. By creating our own alternative media outlets we have the ability to control the content, we don’t need to force-fed what some marketing people think is the next big thing. How much longer does broadcast radio have anyway? We live in an ever changing world; with new technologies being developed every single day, radio is a dinosaur at this point, doomed for extinction. Maybe we should just let the vulture pick at the rotting corpse.
But the reality is that for the time being the majority of people are still going to listening to broadcast radio. That means that most people are going to be exposed to a limited range of artists, a limited range of sounds. As far as I’m concerned what Clear Channel is doing is basically tantamount to brainwashing. Maybe their entire goal is to get people to stop listening to music.
I want our airwaves back; plain and simple. There used to be enough room for everyone to have their little piece of the pie, there’s plenty of frequencies on that dial. But now that pie is getting smaller and smaller. If we let this continue one day there won’t be any left at all.
For the first time in my life I wish I could turn on a smooth jazz station in Chicago.
One day everything changed over at WGRD. They had been owned by Clear Channel for several weeks, but it happened all at once. In the interim Clear Channel had systematically taken control of virtually the entire market. The sole exception was KLQ, a local hard rock station that had been operating with a strong “profit first” mentality. They resisted being bought out because the owner thought he could make more money than Clear Channel had offered him. It was now time for Clear Channel to set its plans in motion. (Isn’t it a bit odd that the actions of Clear Channel sound like the machinations of some Saturday morning cartoon villain? The more I write this the more I feel I’m describing the actions of Lex Luthor and The Joker on an episode of Super Friends. If only Batman were here to save us from shitty radio.) The change was abrupt and immediate. They issued an approved list of artists and songs to be played. People lost there jobs and an entire local scene lost its support system.
It’s truly disheartening to watch all this happen. It just illustrates what a precarious position are national airwaves are in. When a single corporate entity can come in a seize control of an entire industry such as Clear Channel has it hearkens back to the days of the robber barons and oil tycoons. Are we really so nearsighted? Didn’t we learn these lessons? We’re only about thirty years out of the break up AT&T’s monopoly over the telephone industry. (Although if one looks at the way AT&T has expanded over the past several years we’re edging closer to a repeat. Maybe were in the middle of a Timequake. [For those unfamiliar with Timequakes, check out Kilgore Trout’s excellent memoir, “My Ten Years on Auto Pilot”]*). As our current economic crisis illustrates allowing corporations free reign does nothing but doom us all. Maybe Marx had it right. (That counts both Karl and Groucho.)
Grand Rapids lacked a strong college radio presence, WGRD had been so supportive of local music there hadn’t really been any need for one. In Clear Channel’s wake local venues often had to move locations, some flat out shut down. The entire scene was in disarray. Those who remained at WGRD did what they could to try and fight back in whatever meager way they could. Since they were limited to what music they could play (it had to come off the afore-mentioned list) they played Beach Boys songs and other artists who you wouldn’t hear on an alternative rock station. “The goal was if we run this into the ground, what are they going to do? They’re not going to want to own us anymore. That wasn’t the case at all. They could give a fuck; they had all kinds of money coming in from left and right.”
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So all this has been going on for over a decade at this point. All across the nation entire broadcast markets are controlled by a single corporate entity. This mass now dictates what the majority of the country listens to. It’s 2009 and an exec at Clear Channel is claiming to care about music. It sounds like a lot of doublespeak to me. If all of the actions of your company are devoted to a Napoleonic take over of America’s radio industry, when you employ tactics that would make Machiavelli cringe, how can you really claim to “care about the music”?
So what do we do? The reality of the David and Goliath face-off is that 9 times out 10 Goliath is going to win. Clear Channel controls the industry and there’s little that can be done, that is unless someone out there has the money to buy up stations before Clear Channel, if there are even any stations left. For a little bit of background it was during the Clinton administration that the FCC first lifted their restrictions on the number of stations one entity could own in a given market. The Bush administration further loosened these restrictions at the beginning of the millennia. Now as far as I’m concerned Clear Channel has clearly become a monopoly at this point. It goes further than merely the radio stations though. The same corporate entity owns venues, billboards, and various other outlets. This means that only certain artists are able to play at Clear Channel controlled venues. Some artists, such as Bright Eyes, have made their feelings on the matter very public, refusing to play at any venue that is owned by Clear Channel. That’s a start. Look, we sit at a very interesting point in history in regards to the entire music industry. We have a corporate monopoly going unchecked over our airwaves, major record labels are unable to turn a profit, and the entire thing is in shambles. But all this really means is that it’s up to us. We, musicians, fans, independent promoters and venues really need to come together and carve out our piece. We are looking at, no, we have seen, the last days of business as usual for the music industry. If we are able to come together now, while majors are scrambling to restructure, we can create a vibrant, diverse and challenging musical landscape. You know what else? Maybe we can even figure out a way of making this sustain itself. Maybe if people were offered music that they could connect with, that was real and immediate, maybe than they might be more likely to part with some cash.
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*Actually, you need to read Timequake by the great Kurt Vonnegut
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.”
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