As someone who is at least somewhat interested in the music industry through my interests in music and business as well as the fact that I was once a college dj [1], I get a lot of blog posts in my e-mail inbox that discuss, debate, and bemoan the state of the radio industry as people wonder how radio can keep itself relevant in an age of rapid technological change. Some of us, myself included, have a rather sentimental tie to radio both through our own personal experiences as well as from our background and habits that often involve listening to the radio. That said, there are a few things that many radio stations can do a lot better to keep themselves more relevant and avoid losing listeners like I lose pens and socks. Since I’m the sort of person who likes to help others, I’ll provide my own unsolicited opinion on some things that radio could do a lot better that would not require drastic changes of infrastructure and technology, only some behavior modification (as if that was an easy thing).

This morning it took me an hour to get to work, on a route that usually takes me about 45 minutes in the morning (this is not during rush hour, mind you), and could take about half an hour if it was free from traffic. During that hour there was not a single mention of the traffic at all, as the radio stations seemed to presume that everyone had already started work. There was idle chatter, one interview with a young African-American author from the Portland area, as well as the usual dumb shilling for various companies, but not a single mention of traffic that was blocked for several miles along an interstate highway. This suggests one fundamental problem with radio stations, and that is that they only mention traffic during what they assume to be peak times, often without any context as to why the traffic may start rush hour bad or what problems (say, stalled calls or some police cars hanging out) that cause problems after rush hour is finished. It is as if traffic problems only exist during rush hour and there is no importance for even brief updates (perhaps once every half hour or so) during the rest of the day, simply because a majority of potential listeners may have a particular work schedule, suggesting that radio stations have a very narrow focus on engaging in the minimum amount of service necessary to meet the interests or needs of the bare majority of their listeners, when there is clearly the potential for providing more information that could be of use rather than endless idle chatter in between songs.

Let us also talk about the songs. Many radio stations are very narrowly focused by segments and play a very small and extremely repetitive playlist. Despite the fact that there is a huge amount of music available to choose from, whatever genre a radio station prefers to play, it appears as if program directors would rather play a narrow playlist that includes the smallest set of possible songs to play that are widely liked by the listening audience rather than a larger set of songs that would stay fresh for a long period of time, possibly indefinitely, and that would have good catalog value (something few people seem to value these days) [2]. Another problem is that a lot of songs start life on one format and then cross over to other formats over an agonizingly slow period of time as program directors wait for someone to make the first move and then jump on the bandwagon of some irresistibly popular hit. I do not begrudge the bands their just success for multi-format hits (quite the contrary), but it is extremely frustrating to listen to the same song being overplayed on multiple radio stations over the period of many months when someone has musical tastes that are broad enough to extend over several different self-described formats. To give some idea, my main musical tastes range from alternative to adult alternative (or AAA) to contemporary hit radio to hot adult contemporary to plain adult contemporary (and even to oldies and country and urban adult contemporary and smooth jazz and on and on). The amount of possible overlap between these stations is pretty serious and also often pretty irritating. As fragmented as radio formats may be, it is important for program directors to realize that their listeners may have much broader tastes than any of the formats offer, a fact that does not appear to be widely recognized.

Paradoxically, those stations which spread their playlists as widely as possible are likely to be seen as less influential in determining which songs are actually popular, because most charts look at airplay numbers based on spins or audience reach, meaning that a popular station that plays a song five or ten times a day seven days a week is likely to be of great importance in determining what a chart looks like, while that station which may be equally popular but only plays a song once or twice in a day and not necessarily every day is likely to be much less important in determining a chart landscape. That said, those stations with a much broader playlist do have a major and often unrecognized role in contemporary radio, and that is starting trends. A station with sufficient credibility within its format (even if it does not have a small number of songs on heavy rotation) can help to break a song by playing tracks early on, helping to build up some base of support for a song to give other program directors the confidence to test the song out and put it on a rotation. I have noticed, for example, that at least one radio station in Portland (which I listen to, despite its lack of frequent traffic updates) makes a point of playing deep tracks or somewhat obscure artists first (it happens to be a AAA format, which is a bit more tolerant of such an approach), and which can lead to artists being able to break through into the mainstream that would not otherwise have the chance, as has happened at least a couple of times so far in my time in Portland.

For radio to retain cultural relevance among a lot of competition, it will be necessary for radio to be leading and not merely following. Radio can survive and even thrive by providing a place for cultural conversations in areas that are neglected, and by providing timely information of local relevance to people whose lives are often deeply impacted by events in a fairly small area, especially while they are in cars and not idly surfing the internet. In order to perform roles of informing people about matters of local interest, providing a broadening influence as far as music and general culture is concerned, the radio industry will have to reverse some of its trends towards homogenization and develop a few more quirks and a bit more local color, even if the same few companies own most of the radio stations. In order to do this, those massive companies will have to show some bravery and some leadership and some creativity, all of which is in short supply in the music industry, at least as far as its business affairs are concerned, though.

[1] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/02/26/notes-from-the-underground/

[2] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2012/11/28/good-catalog-value/