Matt C. of The 9513 Country Music blog has written a very interesting article on the effects of the consolidation of radio ownership. He makes some very strong points in favor of consolidation of America’s media outlets, in regards to the proposed merger of XM and Sirius.

From a musical perspective, I’d agree that approving the XM-Sirius merger, is not going to have much of a negative effect on the musical end of radio programming. Given that each company has several channels of programming within a specific genre of music that appeal to a wider range of listeners, compared to their terrestrial counterparts and their extremely limited and narrow play lists.

While I agree that the XM-Sirius merger could be a win win situation for the music listeners, based purely on continuing the same strategy of multiple channels within a genre. IE:a bluegrass channel, a traditional country channel. etc.

That said I think one of the major downfalls of terrestrial radio that has rippled into the downfall of “music sales” is completely a product of media consolidation.

Taking all the local media owners out of the market and receiving your play lists from the corporate office has limited the music industries ability to market anything, new, credible and daring to the masses. Thus, a mere handful of labels have only a handful of acts that can get airplay.

Then, the establishment thinking prevails and the handful of acts that do make it on the radio end up sounding more and more like each other, as the powers that be chase some sound or image that got airtime last week, instead of finding and promoting actual artists that have new ideas, different sounds and influences.

With the consolidation of radio station ownership the airwaves have extremely limited slots to work a new artist into the mainstream and instead of developing artists that have integrity and talent, Joe Public ends up with another “act” willing to bend any which way, to get “the deal” and who can blame them. If they don’t bite, there’s a hundred people waiting in the wings for their chance.

If you get a chance I highly recommend reading The 9513’s story.

Last year, several country music artists… lobbied against increasing consolidation of radio ownership, arguing that the emergence of radio conglomerates has limited the ability of traditional artists to receive radio airplay. They’re right, but condemning ownership consolidation on those grounds demonstrates lack of imagination and economic understanding. Within a single market, radio consolidation means more, not less, radio diversity.

Suppose that Clear Channel Communications buys every station in a market with 20 licensed radio stations. …There’s no reason for Clear Channel to launch 3 top-40 country stations because Clear Channel would be competing with itself… Conversely, suppose that Clear Channel only buys ten of the 20 stations in market X and rival Cumulus Media snaps up the other ten… Cumulus and Clear Channel are likely to launch stations of similar format and compete with each other. …local media competition more often leads to multiplication of content than diversity.

You’ll find four to six country music stations on each Sirius and XM, but what you won’t find is substantial duplication of content from one station to the next,… I expect the country music fan should be able to listen to top 40 country, traditional country, outlaw country, bluegrass, Americana and other subgenres with little to no presence in over-the-air radio markets. Matt C. - The 9513 Country Music Blog

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