090909 was a time machine

Three items happened in the past week that made me think that I stepped out of a time machine rather than the bus.

1. The Beatles had their albums reissued on CD
2. The iPod Nano update included a FM radio
3. The Chevy Volt electric car will now include a hitch so that it can be pulled by horses

OK, one of those things is silly. The other two are just bewildering.

The Beatles catalog of albums was reissued on 090909. [Yes, clever, Revolution No. 9]. This is of interest, from my perspective, for two reasons.

First: In the late 1980s, the Fab Four's albums were all issued on CD, just like all of the other rock giants - Elvis, the Stones, etc. And there was mixed response. That was fairly early in the world of the CD; people were starting to get the hang of properly mastering for the medium. Prior to that, things were mixed and mastered with LP or cassettes in mind, leaving the CDs sounding thin compared to the old LPs everyone was used to hearing.

The record companies and artists [or their estates] realized this, and reissued the entire catalog of other major selling artists once again, twice, or even three or four times over. While working in a record store in college, I witnessed on a few occasions complete reissues of all of the albums of both Miles Davis and KISS [to mention a couple of disparate examples]. Add a bonus track, add a new set of liner notes, better the sound, and you have money in the wallet. Easy peasy. Not so with the Beatles.

The Liverpool Lads had to wait for quite some time before the catalog was given a more just edition. The audiophiles and Beatlemaniacs will be buying these, and folks that missed them the first time around, but there is another group that will not. THE KIDS.

We have talked about it here in the past, and album sales reinforce this time and again. Kids consume tons of music. Kids aren't lining up for CDs anymore. Kids will, however, buy the video game that features those songs. Smart move with the Rock Band thing.

Even Apple is feeling the heat when it comes to the decline in music sales. In a bid to remain relevant, they announced, also on 090909, that the iPod Nano would now include an FM tuner. I thought it was a nice feature on the Zune, when it rolled out. I am sure it was a selling point for the seven or eight people that bought Zunes. But for the newest iPod? Seems a little late for the party.

Paid Content ran a piece about this very situation, citing a Forrester study.


I am well aware that the user base for the iPod Nano is larger than non-CD-buying teens, but Apple is a company that has staked its claim on the cutting edge.

All of this leaves me as bewildered as if Chevrolet would have actually put a horse hitch on the Volt.

The Beatles catalog should have been reissued properly years ago. And the iPod should have included an FM tuner from the start. The question remains -- why now?
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Clear Channel tries social networking

Mark Ramsey at Hear 2.0 points out that media juggernaut Clear Channel is launching a social networking service on some of their large-market youth-oriented radio stations. They are doing this via a white-label social network provider.

As you can see in the photo above, there is now a user by the name of Superfly on the Clear Channel Top 40 Hits station KDWB in Minneapolis, one of the stations in the beta group. They are calling it KDWB V.I.P. You can ask me to be your friend, if you sign up...

This is a variation on the venerable MySpace concept in both thought and execution. It is all there, profiles, photos, friends, etc. OneSite.com, the provider, has given them a very basic setup with some templates and features. It looks passably effective, but is that enough to sustain a community?

There are fewer users [about 90 signed up so far, but it launched only yesterday], and those numbers are going to be limited primarily to local users. There is an advantage for the station inplacing the DJs and on-air personalities prominently. After all, this is taken on by Clear Channel not as a charity but as a promotional vehicle. That level of promotion would be a more labor-intensive project on one of the existing social networking sites; creating a universe of your own eliminates that. That's good for the station, but does it translate into a sustainable community?

If there were a way to connect these members with the members of users at other stations in other cities, this would have a greater chance of success. If there were a content base outside of the 3 minute pop songs they play, they might have a chance. Are the local talents and remote events enough to sustain a community?

Is Clear Channel over-estimating the brand loyalty of their Top 40 Hits stations?

Am I missing something?

I think even NBC's upcoming social networking venture has more of a chance. At least they have some content, be it produced or distributed.

Otherwise, this looks to duplicate the efforts of the existing communities out there.

Online Radio Troubles

[image via Modern Mechanix ]

Teh internets are all a-buzz today with the news of a decision from the Copyright Royalty Board [CRB].

As we discussed before, the CRB determined that a royalty rate hike on songs played by internet radio streams was in order. There is a fine article at the BBC that lays out the details once again.

Yesterday's decision by the CRB states that they will not overturn their previous decision to significantly increase royalties paid on each song played on an internet radio station. There was hope that there would be some leeway and a compromise could be reached, but this decision sinks that hope. Now, the only action left is to conduct "negotiaions" via litigation in the court system.

Musician David Byrne has taken a stance on the issue, and it makes for good reading. It is especially relevant, being that Byrne is both a musician and internet radio broadcaster.

The advocacy site SaveNetRadio.org put together this video, in the style of your average campaign commercial:

Radio Consolidation Ten Years After

The Future of Music Coalition released a report detailing the effects of radio consolidation ten years after the signing of the Telecommunication Act of 1996. [For the super eager, you can read the full Act right here.]

It should be noted that the Coalition likely has a stake in the outcome of such a study, but its findings were interesting nonetheless. The hard numbers can be surprising, as evidenced by this graph, showing the ownership of station by the top 50 owners:


Other salient points are made, many of which one can deduce by simply turning on a radio [lack of format choice, similarity among the formats available, overlap of formats in single markets].

It would have been interesting to have the perspective of some of the consultants that work with these mega-owners that actually agree with many of the findings. They, too, would have chimed in to say, "It didn't really work."

Many other songwriters and musicians in Nashville got together to bemoan consolidation, reports the Tenneseean.

WNET's Bill Baker has an eloquent post about this on his BLOG thirteen.

Even the country superstar George Jones' wife was getting in on the discussion in Nashville. She started a row on air with a host at one of the Clear Channel-owned stations. Mr. Jones himself must have been too busy cooking the sausage to chime in.
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Ofcom is prolific & controversial

[ image courtesy of smagdali / Flickr ]

Ofcom, the UK's equivalent of the FCC, issuer of immense reports, and water branding mavens [?], has had a busy week.

First, they issued a statement that stopped just short of whacking the last coffin nail on AM & FM in the UK. They argue that the spectrum should be used elsewhere, such as mobile TV, digital radio, and other data services. This appears a bit more drastic to these US eyes, likely because the UK is about 10 years ahead of the US on the digital radio front. Red Herring details this in depth.

On a related note, Ofcom has released another massive report detailing the international communications market in 2006, aptly titled "The International Communications Market 2006." Sink your eyeballs into all 221 pages here: full report, in .pdf format. For radio fans, point your browser to the radio only section: 21 pages, .pdf. It details where some of the Western countries stand, relative to each other, in terms of penetration, sophistication, and obfuscation of communications.
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