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SOUND AND IMAGES

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“You can’t stop technology, nor can you control it. The only winning strategy is to embrace it—and embrace it as early as you can.”1 So says Bob Pittman, the media executive who founded MTV in the 1980s and who became an executive at Clear Channel Communications, the largest radio corporation in the United States, in 2010.

Long before Pittman was hired, a profit-minded Clear Channel embraced technology by making drastic cuts to news and programming staffs at its local radio stations across the country and simulcasting much of the same programming (including prerecorded announcers playing as if live) across multiple distant cities.

This is how Clear Channel became the poster child for the success—and the excess—of media consolidation following the Telecommunication Act of 1996. Not only a radio giant, the company has long been one of the biggest live-music-event promoters and outdoor billboard owners, among its other media and entertainment enterprises. But the technologies of station consolidation and automation were not entirely a winning strategy for Clear Channel. From its peak of owning more than 1,200 stations in 2005, it sold off hundreds of stations a decade later, settling at about 850 stations. During that time, it earned a reputation as the company that killed much of local radio news, stifled deejays’ individuality and passion for music, and lost sight of the public’s interest.

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Under Pittman, part of embracing technology is the attempt to create a new reputation for Clear Channel. So in 2014, Clear Channel Communications became iHeartMedia, named to reflect the brand of its new streaming radio network, iHeartRadio. Although the majority of profits at iHeartMedia still comes from its AM and FM radio stations, iHeartMedia is banking on its 1,900 live broadcast and digital-only radio streaming stations for the future.

Whereas Clear Channel was distant and corporate, iHeartMedia is throwing its promotional energy into a number of national music events, including the iHeartRadio Music Festival, the iHeartRadio Ultimate Pool Party, the iHeartRadio Jingle Ball Concert Tour, the iHeartRadio Country Festival, the iHeartRadio Ultimate Valentine’s Escape, and the iHeartRadio Fiesta Latina. True to its word, the company’s professed strategy is “delivering entertaining and informative content across multiple platforms, including broadcast, mobile and digital as well as events,” and then delivering its audiences to “advertisers, business partners, music labels and artists.”2

Is this the future of radio? Other radio corporations and stations around the world are also part of the trend toward streaming audio content (see “Global Village: Radio Goes Local, Global, and Local Again” on page 176). But does streaming mean that the radio industry is running itself out of the local radio business? Pittman doesn’t think so. “In the most simple terms, what we added were more radios. We’ve always had radios in the car, radios by the bed and radios at work, and now we also have what are new radios to the consumer—digital devices—at workstations and in everyone’s hands,” Pittman says. “More ways to listen to the radio means more occasions for our listeners to connect to our legendary brands and our one of a kind personalities—and it’s a very good thing for us, our listeners, our advertisers and the music industry.”3

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EVEN WITH THE ARRIVAL OF TV IN THE 1950s and the “corporatization” of broadcasting in the 1990s, the historical and contemporary roles played by radio have been immense. From the early days of network radio, which gave us “a national identity” and “a chance to share in a common experience,”4 to the more customized, demographically segmented medium today, radio’s influence continues to reverberate throughout our society. Though television displaced radio as our most common media experience, radio specialized and adapted. The daily music and persistent talk that resonate from radios all over the world continue to play a key role in contemporary culture.

In this chapter, we examine the scientific, cultural, political, and economic factors surrounding radio’s development and perseverance. We will:

As you read through this chapter, think about your own relationship with radio. What are your earliest memories of radio listening? Do you remember a favorite song or station? How old were you when you started listening? Why did you listen? What types of radio stations are in your area today? How has the Internet made radio better? How has it made it worse? For more questions to help you think through the role of radio in our lives, see “Questioning the Media” in the Chapter Review.