HFU HF Underground
General Category => General Radio Discussion => Topic started by: atrainradio on January 03, 2014, 0555 UTC
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To truly apply the 1st amendament
80-85 mHz- free unregulated radio with 250 watts or less
86-92- licenesed non commercial radio at any power
92-108- regular commercial radio
Tell me that couldnt work out somehow...
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Clearchannel wouldn't stand for it. 'Nuff said.
Peace!
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Clearchannel wouldn't stand for it. 'Nuff said.
I hate to say it , but your right. He who has the gold makes all the rules, ya know...
+-RH
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Clearchannel wouldn't stand for it.
This is sounding better and better. XD
I like the idea that all the lovely public radio stations get to keep their current assignments, save the handful above 92mHz, in this imagined setup. So says she in a state with what's been termed a crackerjack setup for public broadcasting. *biased!*
Just as a hypothetical, would noncommercial stations on frequencies above 92mHz be allowed to keep their places on the dial? I'm thinking of a local WPR station on 107.9 here, as well as a certain public radio outlet in Michigan on 104.1 that I can sometimes get from the marshland. Gotta love E-skip and tropo, eh?
Curious daydreamer is curious.
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<IMHO>
*sigh*
There are some services that should administrate NAFTA-wide ... our CRTC is one of them :-\
(hahaha, go ahead, try to buy or intimidate them like Bell did.... you'll be fined into the next century ;D )
</IMHO>
Peace!
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I know Clear Channel would hate it.They're out to for money, and they've turned the radio into a monopoly of horrible broadcasting. Clear Channel is more like the FCC now. But it'd be sweet to have the set-up here I think. Maybe someday, when the FCC/ Clear Channel aren't as tyrannical, we'll be able to do something like what I imagined.
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The biggest travesty that corporate radio has bestowed upon us is that, no matter where you go, all radio markets sound the same. With the exception of the proliferation of mexican music on AM, most market do sound the same. It has sterilized and homogenized the dial nationwide. And unfortunately for them, the listeners won't ever come back.
+-RH
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The biggest travesty that corporate radio has bestowed upon us is that, no matter where you go, all radio markets sound the same.
Too right!
If it wasn't for CBC here and NPR in the states, all that would be receivable in metropolitan areas is the top 40 Pop and the same Classic Rock hits over and over and over.... >_<
There have been several stations try and break the cycle, but they always go broke :(
Peace!
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The same top 40, classic rock, and either Christian religious adult contemporary (funny how you can tell that genre just by the music, even before the singer starts in, isn't it?) and sportscasters. Blurgh!
Thank God for the CBC, NPR, and local community stations. that's all I'm saying.
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-29/clear-channel-burning-cash-to-delay-reckoning-corporate-finance.html (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-29/clear-channel-burning-cash-to-delay-reckoning-corporate-finance.html)
"Clear Channel Communications Inc. is offering to double interest to push out maturities on some of the $4.3 billion it owes, just as the most-leveraged U.S. broadcaster suffers the first cash-flow deficit in four years.
The company said on Nov. 25 that it’s seeking to extend about $1.8 billion of borrowings due in 2016 by three years to five years, which Fitch Ratings estimates would boost interest costs as much as $55 million annually.
While the proposal gives Clear Channel more time to turn around a business that’s posted losses every year after Bain Capital Partners LLC and Thomas H. Lee Partners LP took control in 2008, it also raises the company’s risk of missing interest payments on $20.7 billion of debt, according to Moody’s Investors Service. After capital expenses, Clear Channel ran a deficit from operations in the year ended June, meaning the company had to eat into cash that’s declined more than 60 percent since the end of 2010 to $704.2 million."
So maybe, just maybe, there's light at the end of the tunnel? [Bain Capital, that rings a bell somewhere... ;)]
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The biggest travesty that corporate radio has bestowed upon us is that, no matter where you go, all radio markets sound the same. With the exception of the proliferation of mexican music on AM, most market do sound the same. It has sterilized and homogenized the dial nationwide. And unfortunately for them, the listeners won't ever come back.
+-RH
Second this.
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So maybe, just maybe, there's light at the end of the tunnel?
I'm surprised they didn't just tear a page out of Bell/Rogers/Chorus manual and just "acquire, acquire, acquire" their way out of debt and end up with 95% of the radio market to boot ???
Peace!
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My personal preference would be to have expanded the FM band when the DTV transition occurred. Re-allocate TV ch 5 and 6 to LPFM. Yes, most current radios would not tune it, but it would be easy to add to new radios. Don't some portables tune down there, because it's used for FM in Europe and Japan?
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Yes Chris, my Tecsun- PL 380 goes all the way down to 64 mHz. Never heard a single thing on it but an ocean of static.
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My personal preference would be to have expanded the FM band when the DTV transition occurred. Re-allocate TV ch 5 and 6 to LPFM.
That was a proposal from community groups the CRTC was considering, but they were waiting on the FCC to coordinate.
That was 2 years ago, so I think it's dead, dead, dead ::)
Peace!
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Christian religious adult contemporary (funny how you can tell that genre just by the music, even before the singer starts in, isn't it?)
I'm glad I'm not the only one that notices that!
+-RH
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Don't blame Clear Channel (at least here in the States). Put the blame where it belongs: blame Congress and President Clinton for the Deregulation Act of 1996. That's what started it all.
I worked in the radio industry back then. I remember all the talk, all the news of radio mergers and buyouts.... it was all over the industry magazines -- it was a regular buying frenzy. Big radio companies buying out other smaller companies, merging like crazy, then doing their IPO and going public on Wall Street -- individual stations became parts of 'clusters' and with consolidated facilities, and then people were let go.
When one company bought another company, the new bosses would lay off people to either cut costs outright -- or they would lay off people because they already had people in another cluster that (thanks to computer networking) could handle the extra workload. Or they already had a division that handled that particular radio service (be it production, voice-tracking, programming, etc.), and they didn't need the redundancy.
It all started about the time of the dot com boom, and had the same kind of greed driving it: get those stock prices up, cut costs, buy another company or merge to try to make the stock look more valuable.
Over the next ten years maybe 50,000 radio personnel lost their jobs. Those jobs ain't ever coming back. Of course, de-reg isn't the only reason for the loss of those jobs. The internet, technology advances, and falling listenership all contributed to it... but deregulation was probably the biggest factor in the consolidation and homogenization of radio in the U.S.
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... *shudders* I say again, thank God for international, public and community radio. Really.
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But isn't the death of FM radio really due to the invention of the IPod?? iTunes, Pandora, Spotify, etc.? All the kids I see have their earbuds plugged into their music players.
As the lyrics from the song "Very Busy People" say ... I've got an iPod like a pirate ship
I'll sail the seas with fifty thousand songs I've never heard". I'm the only one here that listens to radio.
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Great point!
It depends on the market. In Vancouver, that's why cutting edge Inde rock stations can't work past one year not for lack of following, but lack of ad dollars. But in the interior where there's a more conservative mindset, there's all sorts of neat, legit low power and community stations playing anything and everything! William's Lake is a pretty good example. The little towns down the Washington state coast as well, so it's independent of national culture.
Peace!
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I think one of the problems with radio is too many stations just don't advertise. They don't promote their station, beyond liners included their own broadcasts -- which is sort of like preaching to the choir.
CMRadio: there's also that AM station in 100 Mile House (S. of Williams Lake, I think) that plays a mix of country and Southern Rock. Very interesting mix. KTKN in SE Alaska has a very wide range of music they play. Some stations in smaller markets that are run by individual owners seem to be able to get away with unique programming.
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Don't blame Clear Channel (at least here in the States). Put the blame where it belongs: blame Congress and President Clinton for the Deregulation Act of 1996. That's what started it all.
I worked in the radio industry back then. I remember all the talk, all the news of radio mergers and buyouts.... it was all over the industry magazines -- it was a regular buying frenzy. Big radio companies buying out other smaller companies, merging like crazy, then doing their IPO and going public on Wall Street -- individual stations became parts of 'clusters' and with consolidated facilities, and then people were let go.
When one company bought another company, the new bosses would lay off people to either cut costs outright -- or they would lay off people because they already had people in another cluster that (thanks to computer networking) could handle the extra workload. Or they already had a division that handled that particular radio service (be it production, voice-tracking, programming, etc.), and they didn't need the redundancy.
It all started about the time of the dot com boom, and had the same kind of greed driving it: get those stock prices up, cut costs, buy another company or merge to try to make the stock look more valuable.
Over the next ten years maybe 50,000 radio personnel lost their jobs. Those jobs ain't ever coming back. Of course, de-reg isn't the only reason for the loss of those jobs. The internet, technology advances, and falling listenership all contributed to it... but deregulation was probably the biggest factor in the consolidation and homogenization of radio in the U.S.
You have a good point there BoomBox... And You are correct...
I didn't listen to local radio in Maine much and much less here in Ohio. I did find 1 FM station I listen too here in Ohio tho... It's a Spanish station & it plays great music. 89.5 mhz.
Don't get me wrong, I'm an old buzzard 'hippie' but the Spanish tunes are really a good change for me.
The problem I am seeing is that regional culture is being lost and not just in the US but all over the world. Finding 'native' anything is getting harder and harder with each passing day. Sure there is different musical material world wide but a lot of it is being generated on the same tired 'formula' of US music.
Perhaps the shortwave frequencies could be turned over to the pirates... <sigh> as if that will happen. On SW I see 'Brother S' gaining and culture losing...
Sorry for the rant...
73 Vince
KA1IIC
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KA1IIC, I know what you're saying. Even in the 1960's and 1970's, radio stations would push the envelope a little bit to cater to their audience. There were regional variances even in 'national' formats like Top 40 and AOR.
In today's radio climate, where there's so much amalgamation and so many clusters, individual programmers are fewer, and some of them just look at the national charts and that's what they play. Even college stations have become more commercial in outlook and practice, with reduced airshifts, more paid professional staff, and one of the results is the difficulties for local artists getting played because of all the b.s. you have to go through.
Increasingly, the only thing missing from these "non-commercial" stations is the commercials.
Nirvana in 1989, for example, were basically unknown, and just dropped off a 45 at the college station in Seattle - and got played the same day. Chances of that happening today would be minimal, if not non-existent.