Clear Channel retains more than 700 stations in 88 markets out of the top 100 ranked by size. Its private equity masters also have holdings in two other radio behemoths, Uivision and Cumulus. This allows them to own a number of stations well exceeding the caps imposed by the FCC. Sneaky? Probably. Damaging to diversity? Definitely.

I hate to sound like a damn shill all the time, but there’s tons more info about CC and radio consolidation here.

It is not difficult to find out what’s being played on the radio. In markets of any size, airplay is continuously monitored — by BDS/Nielsen, which uses a complex computer-footprinting model, and by Mediabase, which uses human monitors sitting and listening.

And, according to Mediabase stats cited by Clear Channel, CC’s stations in monitored markets (that is, most of them) are playing Magic. In fact, CC stations are playing tracks from Magic more than stations owned by any other broadcast group. Which may not amount to much airplay, but it does show the inaccuracy of Friedman’s allegation.

In the interest of full disclosure, Clear Channel owns Mediabase. But if anyone figures that means it would fudge the data to show nonexistent airplay — airplay that would quickly be revealed to be nonexistent by rival airplay-monitoring services that have no love for Mediabase — that person is 1) silly, 2) clueless about radio, and 3) vastly overestimating the significance of Bruce Springsteen.

At the very least, that CC has disputed (or more properly, refuted) Friedman’s claim should have been noted in this story.

[www.citypages.com]

perhaps, but it owns MANY stations within what are considered the “major markets” – these are the cities and stations tthat set the tone for the industry nationwide.

a cursory search yeilded these figures (from 2002, so perhaps a bit out of date):

Honolulu – 7 stations
DeMoines – 6
Ft. Myers – 8
San Diego – 14 (!!!!!)
[www.wired.com]

where I live (Pittsburgh), CC owns 5 FM and 2 AM stations. that’s a pretty sizable chunk of radio dial real estate.

to suggest that they don’t set the tone for the industry is laughable.

The ONLY station I’ve heard that still does the AOR thing is probably KLBJ in Austin. They always struck me as playing a pretty fair mixture of old songs and newer songs by older artists.

Can any Austinites back me up on that? I moved away almost two years ago, so things may have changed…

err…

I mean… awesome analysis, bro (chest bump)

Prior to the ’80s, there was one major rock radio format: AOR (album-oriented rock). Sure, what made AOR great in its heyday was that it played a deep variety of stuff; but across the country, the basic concept was the same — play “classic” songs by a selection of a couple hundred anointed rock acts, and then play current stuff by those same rock acts alongside the older tracks. A handful of totally new acts with some form of “rock cred” would get added to the mix. But by and large, an AOR station was playing current Pink Floyd next to old Pink Floyd, a Greg Allman song alongside an Allman Bros. classic, etc.

This format is distinct from that ’80s-invented, now-ubiquitous format, classic rock, which is basically the above AOR playlist minus all the current stuff. Once the public perceived in the ’80s that the “great” days of rock were behind it, the idea was that you could fill the day with nothing but the middle 15 years of rock history (roughly 1965-80) and ignore those acts’ current work — say, Robert Plant’s “Tall Cool One” or Fleetwood Mac’s “Little Lies.” Why play “Little Lies” when you’ve still got “Dreams” and “Say You Love Me”?

Flash forward to today. Simply put, AOR is now mostly dead. Very few stations play “deep album cuts,” and the format that Billboard now calls “Mainstream Rock” or “Active Rock” is a watered-down version of modern rock that eliminates all classic-rock songs before 1990, as well as what few bits of indie/gothy/femmy music remain in the Modern Rock genre. It’s bro-rock, or ballcap-wearer’s rock.

In short, there is literally no format for new Bruce music in 2007. Classic rock’s catalog has been updated to encompass the late ’80-early ’90s, but they’re still not playing anything current. Manistream Rock plays Foo Fighters and Puddle of Mudd, not Bruce. Modern Rock never played Springsteen. Adult Contemporary would play a new-model Bruce ballad like “Streets of Philadelphia” or “Secret Garden,” but it had better appear in the modern-day equivalent of Jerry Maguire. And Top 40 abandoned Bruce after 1993.

In short, Friedman’s an idiot (surprise, surprise): There is no conspiracy. Clear Channel sucks because radio formatting sucks, not because they’re blackballing the Boss.

Nobody, I repeat, nobody should be playing this song under any circumstance. I happened to come across the video for this song on VH1 and the song is just awful.