Half Of Our Radio Stations example essay topic

12-6-2004 Problem / Solution The Radio Makes My Ears Bleed There is a major problem these days in entertainment, and that is there is such a lack of diversity in the music industry. Because of this problem, fewer bands will have the opportunity to go big, or get signed to major record label. Small, local bands will never be able to get the popularity they deserve because every band is compared to one another. The same bands are played on the radio all the time, and instead of playing a variety bands, the same songs are looped and played all day long. This creates a problem because people, who think its only cool to listen to the radio, only experience the same pop music from bands signed to major labels. As a result of this, all the money stays in the corporate, record labels.

I believe the main reasons are that people don't like change. It should be easier for listeners to access music of different genres. Radio stations are a major contributor to the problem of this lack of variety. They are afraid that if they play music other than what is pop, they will lose money and listeners, but in fact I believe that their listeners will grow if they expand their genres. There are several large, corporate record labels that basically empower all of the radio airwaves and MTV. I think that bands are afraid to try new styles also because once they get signed; they are controlled by their label and are influence by all the money that is tossed around.

I think that some ways to fix all of these problems start with radio stations. There needs to be a station that can be accessed from all over that plays music from independent labels. I think that MTV needs to betaken off the air because the shows that it plays are all reality TV, and it no longer stands for what it was created to do, play music videos. Finally I think that another way to get independent music spread around is that have more tours like Warped Tour. I think there need to multi-stage, multi-band concerts that travel the United States. Clear Channel for example, is a company that owns of 1,200 radio stations, 37 T.V. stations, and 240 more investments in radio stations throughout the whole world.

This is a great example of how all radio is the same, and controlled by a large company. They are in 248 of the top 250 radio markets, and control over half of all rock music stations. When one company owns more than half of our radio stations, you can understand why when flipping through different stations, you hear a lot of the same songs. Randi West is an example of one of the popular clear channel DJ's. With technology these days, she can be the DJ on several different stations atone time, while interviewing stars on one stations, giving local weather on another, and doing commercials on several others.

Bibliography

Farhi, Paul. 'Clear Channel: It's crystal-clear who controls the nation's radio markets. ' 23 June 2002: n-pay.
On-line. Internet. 8 Dec. 2004.
web John. 'Big radio airs the sound of sameness. ' 19 March 2000: n-pay.