05-29-2003, 06:02 AM
Overall, what's being sold to us by radio and MTV is for the most part, crap, even compared to what was being played 5 or 10 years ago. It's all economics really. The Telecommunications Act of '96 severely loosened the restrictions that media companies could have on owning any number of stations in any market, so while there might have been 6 or 7 cool FM stations in your town 10 years ago playing different kinds of rock, pop, and dance music, today there are likely only 3 or 4, if you're lucky. Less competition means fewer stations, and fewer choices for the listener, and when there's no competition, stations have no reason to play anything except for market-tested crap rock and pop. It's not like listeners are going to go listen to another station instead, because they're playing the same songs.
It's only going to get worse. The FCC is considering loosening restrictions even more, which would give huge media companies like Clear Channel the right to own 45% of the media in your town. That means that you'll be hearing even less new music, and more crappier and biased journalism in the news, because there won't be any other competitors left to keep them in line.
The solution? Use the internet to find out about new music. Download some songs and try some new bands out that you've never heard of. Listen to internet and satellite radio. Turn off MTV. Music isn't getting worse. Actually there's more amazing stuff out there than there ever has been before. It's just not getting any attention. It's not going be be delivered to you like it used to be, you'll have to dig for it. But it's there.
It's only going to get worse. The FCC is considering loosening restrictions even more, which would give huge media companies like Clear Channel the right to own 45% of the media in your town. That means that you'll be hearing even less new music, and more crappier and biased journalism in the news, because there won't be any other competitors left to keep them in line.
The solution? Use the internet to find out about new music. Download some songs and try some new bands out that you've never heard of. Listen to internet and satellite radio. Turn off MTV. Music isn't getting worse. Actually there's more amazing stuff out there than there ever has been before. It's just not getting any attention. It's not going be be delivered to you like it used to be, you'll have to dig for it. But it's there.