EstablishedOn Radio
(This is the second in a series of four articles responding to Stephen King’s EW piece)
King rightly points out that rock & roll radio is on “life support” — but he sees this as a bad thing. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t around for radio’s true heyday but it’s hard for me to see radio as anything other than a failed medium. By the 1980s, radio had already begun its march towards crass commercialism with tons of ads and executive approved national playlists. It has been a long time since DJs actually discovered and exposed great music.
King wonders “who’s going to find the great new artists to make the little girls scream?” To me, he is equating radio with the opinion leader role. There is no reason why ‘radio’ itself is the place where new music discovery must be channelled. I find it likely that future opinion leaders won’t be doing it as a job but as a passion. They may find some monetary compensation but that will probably be too small to be a career. It will also be much more niche oriented than broadcast has been.
With internet-based publishing tools being so inexpensive, there are already many music websites, blogs, podcasts and more helping music fans discover new tunes. The issue is that it is often hard to find these new outlets. Especially for older generations (such as King) that aren’t as in touch with new media. I don’t mean that as a ‘you’re old, get out of the way’ message. I see it as a legitimate problem that some enthusiastic entrepreneur should tackle.
But in the end, rock & roll radio is on the way out. It is too corporate and no longer works as a place for music fans to gather. New outlets are springing up and eventually the discovery problem will be solved. Listeners will be better served by passionate music fans than radio has been able to in generations.