Why Radio Sucks

Great article, despite the foxnews.com site it's posted on:

The internal memos from Sony Music, revealed today in the New York state attorney general's investigation of payola at the company, will be mind blowing to those who are not so jaded to think records are played on the radio because they're good. We've all known for a long time that contemporary pop music stinks. We hear "hits" on the radio and wonder, "How can this be?"

Now we know. And memos from both Sony's Columbia and Epic Records senior vice presidents of promotions circa 2002-2003 — whose names are redacted in the reports but are well known in the industry — spell out who to pay and what to pay them in order to get the company's records on the air.

From Epic, home of J-Lo, a memo from Nov. 12, 2002, a "rate" card that shows radio stations in the Top 23 markets will receive $1000, Markets 23-100 get $800, lower markets $500. "If a record receives less than 75 spins at any given radio station, we will not pay the full rate," the memo to DJs states. "We look forward to breaking many records together in the future."

Take Jennifer Lopez's awful record, "Get Right," with its shrill horn and lifted rap. It's now clear that was a "bought" sensation when it was released last winter. So, too, were her previous "hits" "I'm Glad" and "I'm Real," according to the memos. All were obtained by Sony laying out dough and incentives. It's no surprise. There isn't a person alive who could hum any of those "songs" now. Not even J-Lo herself.

When you've got record companies paying DJs to play music, instead of DJs finding and playing what fans want to hear, you end up with the audio-diarrhea that oozes out of virtually every radio in America these days.No wonder fewer and fewer people are listenting to the radio these days.

In other media-companies-are-screwing-us news, Matt Yglesias has a nice post about a la carte cable - basically the ability to subscribe to individual cable channels instead of buying packages of channels:

Yes, I speak once again of à la carte cable. Hard-core social conservatives like it. Liberal consumer groups like it. So, let's do it. The other thing is that if we had some decent broadband policy or reasonable spectrum management in this country, the cable industry might just feel enough competitive pressure to offer people meaningful choices.