Post by Tidyman on Feb 29, 2004 23:45:33 GMT -5
The latest edition Harpers magazine has a good article called "Big World - How Clear Channel programs America." I've posted before about Clear Channel radio and their stranglehold on the music industry in the U.S. Here are some excerpts from the article:
Some people complain about Clear Channel because they miss their old, independent stations, some because Clear Channel stations shrink playlists and recycle an ever smaller number of songs. Musicians say touring has become a cross-country hopscotch from one Clear Channel venue to another, each more sterile than the last; their agents and managers say that if artists don't play when and where Clear Channel says, they will suffer less airplay or none.
Chear Channel has put hundreds of radio veterans out of work, replacing them with canned broadcasts tailored to sound local and live. Consumer advocates argue that such robot radio is the only efficiency Clear Shannel has passed along to the public. In the last several years, they point out, the cost of "free" radio - in terms of time spent enduring ads - has spiked. Concert tickets have jumped from an average of $25 to more than $40, and radio advertising rates have risen by two thirds, pricing small businesses off the airwaves.
In the first six months of 2003, Clear Channel sold more tickets than the forty-nine next largest promoters combined; in 2001, it claimed 70 percent of the total live music take. The billboards that ring the stadiums, line the highways, clutter the skyline? Clear Channel owns most of those too.
The article introduces us to Brian Dilworth. Brian, a former independent concert promoter in Philadelphia was hired by Clear Channel to become one of their official "talent buyers."
Dilworth develops "baby bands" and filters the most marketable of them to the more lucrative venues he books as his alter ego, a Clear Channel talent buyer. Such a double role appears to be part of the Chear Channel business plan, in which the independents who should be an alternative to Clear Channel instead become the company's farm team. As a result, live music is following the route taken by radio. Songs that sound the same are performed in venues that look the same and even have the same name; identically branded venues, all controlled by Clear Channel.
One night, when Dilworth and I were in his office, he showed me his first gold record, awareded for a small role he had played in the success of the band Good Charlotte. A very small role, he said; gold records get passed around freely when a record company sees a future in a relationship.
"A down payment?" I said.
"Yeah, man, it's like a favor for a favor."
"What's the differnce between that and payola?"
Dillworth guffawed and looked at me like I was the dumbest kid in school. "It's all payola, dude."
"There's a lot of conference calling between cities," a booking agent named Tim Borror told me, "these former independents talking to one another, letting each other know what's going on." Another independent booking agent and Clear Channel talent buyer, neither of whom would allow themselves to be named, confirmed this practice, adding that such calls take place almost on a weekly basis. The calls can launch a band or flatten it. "At a certain point, there's only one place to go - Clear Channel - and it doesn't matter whether or not they make you a fair offer," Borror said. "And pretty soon, they don't have to make you a fair offer. And they can decide what band is playing and what band isn't"
The leather-clad lead singer of Cradle of Filth, a death-metal band from England, assured me that he would "never" say anything against Clear Channel. A punk-pop threesome called the Raveonettes at first said they hadn't heard of Clear Channel, then admitted that they had, then offered me a beer and asked if we couldn't please instead talk about rock-and-roll music. A record company agent clinked shots with me and said, "Rock 'n Roll!" but when Moreale told him I was writing about Clear Channel, he asked for my notes. "I'm going to need those," he said, trying to sound official. I would have said no, but since all I had written down was "Fred Durst," and the guy looked like he might cry, I tore the page out and gave it to him.
The next morning, I was driving around Denver listening to the radio when I heard a pre-recorded spoof ad for "Butt Pirates of the Caribbean." It consisted mainly of the DJ reading, in a sneering lisp, a list of actors he considered "homo." Which is to say, it was nothing unusual. I had been listening to Clear Channel radio all over the country and found that gay jokes ran second only to "camel jockey" or "towel head" humor. Such slurs, I began to think, were simply the comedic equivalent of the mannered rock "rebellion" in the musical rotation. Like the knee jerk distortion of a Limp Bizkit song, the fag gags of the local morning crew are there to assure listeners that someone, somewhere, is being offended by what they are pretending to enjoy.
From Denver, I went to Okalahoma City to meet with former congressman Julius Caesar "J.C." Watts, who had recently been named to Clear Channel's board of directors. During the hour and a half we spent driving around and listening to the radio in his shiny new black Cadillac Escalade, the congressman referred to Americans as " dogs" five times. He wasn't concerned about Clear Channel's overwhelming control of live music, he said, because "the dogs are eating the dog food."
More reading: dir.salon.com/ent/feature/2001/04/30/clear_channel/index.html
Some people complain about Clear Channel because they miss their old, independent stations, some because Clear Channel stations shrink playlists and recycle an ever smaller number of songs. Musicians say touring has become a cross-country hopscotch from one Clear Channel venue to another, each more sterile than the last; their agents and managers say that if artists don't play when and where Clear Channel says, they will suffer less airplay or none.
Chear Channel has put hundreds of radio veterans out of work, replacing them with canned broadcasts tailored to sound local and live. Consumer advocates argue that such robot radio is the only efficiency Clear Shannel has passed along to the public. In the last several years, they point out, the cost of "free" radio - in terms of time spent enduring ads - has spiked. Concert tickets have jumped from an average of $25 to more than $40, and radio advertising rates have risen by two thirds, pricing small businesses off the airwaves.
In the first six months of 2003, Clear Channel sold more tickets than the forty-nine next largest promoters combined; in 2001, it claimed 70 percent of the total live music take. The billboards that ring the stadiums, line the highways, clutter the skyline? Clear Channel owns most of those too.
The article introduces us to Brian Dilworth. Brian, a former independent concert promoter in Philadelphia was hired by Clear Channel to become one of their official "talent buyers."
Dilworth develops "baby bands" and filters the most marketable of them to the more lucrative venues he books as his alter ego, a Clear Channel talent buyer. Such a double role appears to be part of the Chear Channel business plan, in which the independents who should be an alternative to Clear Channel instead become the company's farm team. As a result, live music is following the route taken by radio. Songs that sound the same are performed in venues that look the same and even have the same name; identically branded venues, all controlled by Clear Channel.
One night, when Dilworth and I were in his office, he showed me his first gold record, awareded for a small role he had played in the success of the band Good Charlotte. A very small role, he said; gold records get passed around freely when a record company sees a future in a relationship.
"A down payment?" I said.
"Yeah, man, it's like a favor for a favor."
"What's the differnce between that and payola?"
Dillworth guffawed and looked at me like I was the dumbest kid in school. "It's all payola, dude."
"There's a lot of conference calling between cities," a booking agent named Tim Borror told me, "these former independents talking to one another, letting each other know what's going on." Another independent booking agent and Clear Channel talent buyer, neither of whom would allow themselves to be named, confirmed this practice, adding that such calls take place almost on a weekly basis. The calls can launch a band or flatten it. "At a certain point, there's only one place to go - Clear Channel - and it doesn't matter whether or not they make you a fair offer," Borror said. "And pretty soon, they don't have to make you a fair offer. And they can decide what band is playing and what band isn't"
The leather-clad lead singer of Cradle of Filth, a death-metal band from England, assured me that he would "never" say anything against Clear Channel. A punk-pop threesome called the Raveonettes at first said they hadn't heard of Clear Channel, then admitted that they had, then offered me a beer and asked if we couldn't please instead talk about rock-and-roll music. A record company agent clinked shots with me and said, "Rock 'n Roll!" but when Moreale told him I was writing about Clear Channel, he asked for my notes. "I'm going to need those," he said, trying to sound official. I would have said no, but since all I had written down was "Fred Durst," and the guy looked like he might cry, I tore the page out and gave it to him.
The next morning, I was driving around Denver listening to the radio when I heard a pre-recorded spoof ad for "Butt Pirates of the Caribbean." It consisted mainly of the DJ reading, in a sneering lisp, a list of actors he considered "homo." Which is to say, it was nothing unusual. I had been listening to Clear Channel radio all over the country and found that gay jokes ran second only to "camel jockey" or "towel head" humor. Such slurs, I began to think, were simply the comedic equivalent of the mannered rock "rebellion" in the musical rotation. Like the knee jerk distortion of a Limp Bizkit song, the fag gags of the local morning crew are there to assure listeners that someone, somewhere, is being offended by what they are pretending to enjoy.
From Denver, I went to Okalahoma City to meet with former congressman Julius Caesar "J.C." Watts, who had recently been named to Clear Channel's board of directors. During the hour and a half we spent driving around and listening to the radio in his shiny new black Cadillac Escalade, the congressman referred to Americans as " dogs" five times. He wasn't concerned about Clear Channel's overwhelming control of live music, he said, because "the dogs are eating the dog food."
More reading: dir.salon.com/ent/feature/2001/04/30/clear_channel/index.html