Is This The Future Of The Radio-Records Relationship?

Katie Dean's regular Friday "Mercury Radio Report" email to programmers contained this offer from the label: if you'd like to listen via stream to the new Jamey Johnson that debuted last week on the CMT Awards telecast, you're welcome to hear the single with a click, but if you'd like to play it on the air for your listeners, it's going to cost you $1.29 at iTunes or 99 cents Amazon.

You can't blame them for trying something a bit different - and making a few bucks along the way - while hopefully building a downloads story for the August launch of Jamey's huge new album.

If their strategy works, what will you choose to play if/when you have to pay for every song you consider adding to your radio station?

Quality stuff only, I'm betting.

.. which just might make radio even better for both listeners and our advertisers.

The Most Unique, Special Hotels Are Seldom Near The Airport

Vacationing in Central Mexico and pondering Seg’s view of history and the future referenced in my last post, which is based on his worry that the lack of adventuresome music discovery by cheerleading air personalities is a good portion of what’s making radio less interesting (to music pros like him) made me realize: I vacation a lot like he listens to music.

Great spots like Valle de Bravo, Taxco and Malinalco are off the beaten track. To get to them you must fly into Toluca (the home of my favorite Top 40 station in Mexico, btw), Cuernevaca or Mexico City and put a few miles on a speedometer.

Conveniently located hear airports: Cancun, Acapulco and all the beachfront resorts with all of the major brand name hotels.

I’d much prefer to find my destinations in Lonely Planet, written for travelers like myself who disdain the crowded and the commercial.

If you’re into hearing music that no one else knows, being the first to turn your friends onto country music they’ve never heard before, I am willing to be your personal guidebook to "Cancon country," songs and artists (like the amazing Emerson Drive, who Americans think is a one-hit act, but Canadians know is incredible live and are prolific hitmakers.

Same with Paul Brandt.

Americans wonder what happened to him. He continues to own his own work, very much a superstar at home.

Terri Clark is also very active, as her amazing new duet with Johnny Reid - “You Tell Me” - indicates.

Deric Ruttan’s “Up All Night” is a big hit in Canada, and it certainly might be one in the USA too. George Canyon is a lot more than a former Nashville Star contestant as his latest “I Believe In Angels” proves.

Those artists and their great songs are like boutique hotels in locations few tourists will ever visit, amazing discoveries that will make you want to come back again and again.

In Canada, Jason Aldean is relatively unheard on the radio and Chris Young and Luke Bryan are also largely missing, at least so far.

You won’t hear them on most country music radio stations for the same reason that I happened to be the lone gringo booked for a night at Malinalco’s Casa Limon, while the Marriott, Hyatt, Hilton et al right at the beaches and next to the airports are filled to capacity.

Most country stations can play between ten and 14 songs an hour.

There are only so many slots at a time when our listener on both side of the 49th has “A-D-D” and expects to hear “the hits” (aka their favorite songs)

Folks, in general, pick the safe, the comfortable, the familiar when given a choice between those things and greater risk of the unknown, even when paired with a possibility of a higher reward.

That’s why, according to the second annual CMA “Fan Tracking Study,” released at the 2010 CRS, 93% of country music fans listen to the radio, UP from 79% one year ago.

Yes, I stay at airport hotels myself and enjoy their convenience on almost a daily basis - even though I do search out the unique and special during vacation periods when I have time to spare.

Maybe that is why I feel much more bullish on radio and music’s future than Segarini appears to be.

A Little (Somewhat Biased) History

I am sure that it's always a bit painful for record executives to read how their business looks from a radio geek like me who has only seen their industry from the outside looking in, and the same goes for radio when viewed by a music professional.

It's easy to say "he just doesn't understand."

However, it's hard to disagree with a lot of what Bob Segarini has been blogging about the last three weeks in his columns "When Radio and Records Ruled" in Canada's "FYI."

Tragically, the great arbiters of taste, the men and women of radio and records who listened for us and chose the music we were exposed to, are no longer in place to help us separate the wheat from the chaff, the good, from the bad, and the ugly. These long respected and trusted ears are no longer there, and current dictates from on high to assure a consistent and familiar sound relies more on focus groups, computer analysis, and format restrictions. Even the voices of the fans no longer reach the ears of the people in charge, and the ears that did listen to the listeners have been sadly (and wrongly) dismissed.

The legacy and import of radio and records will always be remembered fondly by those of us that grew up with them, but I am doubtful if it will ever rise to those heights again. Even so, there may be surprises ahead.

Only time will tell.

I like to hope that some courageous ones still exist in the country format on both sides of the promotion/programming job divide and I would even start to name names and radio stations if I wasn't fearful that I'd forget to mention someone.

It's time for a rebound, isn't it?

Some stations are doing particularly well right now in the latest trends. I think those are the ones worth studying, while listening with an open mind to what is exciting the folks we want to spend more time on their FM and AM radios. That is, and always has been, a powerful catapult

Bob's entire series is online, grit your teeth, know that whether you're in records or radio, it's gonna hurt a bit, you won't agree with everything, but you'll have to admit that there's a lot of truthful perspective in Seg's views.

The Rock Files: When Radio and Records Ruled the World Part 17: What happened, and The Epilogue. Part 16 and links to 1-15 can be found here.

PS: “The Iceman” Segarini was in the bands The Family Tree, Roxy, The Wackers, The Dudes, and The Segarini Band and nominated for a Juno for production in 1978. He also hosted “Late Great Movies” on CITY TV, was a producer of Much Music, and an on-air personality on CHUM FM, Q107, SIRIUS Sat/Rad’s Iceberg 95, (now 85), and now provides content for radiothatdoesntsuck.com with RadioZombie, The Iceage, and PsychShack. Along with the love of his life, Jade (Pie) Dunlop, (who hosts and writes “I’ve Heard That Song Before” on RTDS), continues to write, make music, and record.

A Refund I Plan To Frame

It looks like the folks at Billboard/Nielsen/Radio & Records are not just timely in sending out renewals and bills, but they have been equally quick in refunding pre-paid registration money for the fall convention.

I got mine the day after we all learned that the publication was no more.

My first radio convention was R&R in 1974. I paid my own way and by employer at the time let me take the time off without counting it as vacation time. I learned so much that I did the same thing the following year with CRS.

My first thought when I received this was a hope that NAB would honor these registrations in Philadelphia. Then, when I realized how many great experiences I've had at R&R conventions over the years, how formative they have been for my career, I'm now glad that they didn't do that.

This credit slip belongs in a frame on my office wall, as a memorial to "Chunky Leader" Bob Wilson's genius and vision. The publication on that closed its covers a very long time ago, sadly.