Life Inc., Publishing and Radio

I really enjoyed my conversation with Douglas Rushkoff, discussing his new book Life, Inc; How the World Became a Corporation and How To Take It Back. The first part of this interview is on this week’s edition of the mediageek radioshow.

I find that Doug is articulating very clearly a lot of ideas that have also been rattling around my ahead for the last decade or so, but he’s made the effort to research them and flesh them out in print both in his book and in a growing series of columns and essays. What I like about his analytical approach is his willingness to attempt to get outside our contemporary assumptions about daily life and try to figure out when and how something, like the corporation, was brought into existence. I also appreciate that he’s willing to continue prodding at a question even when the answers are murky, showing a willingness to accept there are some apparent conflicts in the messy reality of daily life.

He recently wrote a piece for Publisher’s Weekly arguing that the publishing business is very ill-suited to corporate consolidation. He notes that book publishing is a sustainable business, but not a source of tremendous year-over-year growth of the sort a large corporation needs. But he remains sanguine about the future of publishing because the expert editors, publishers and writers haven’t gone away and are ready to rebuild the industry, perhaps with new independent houses.

I see some parallel with the radio business, although radio has been far more decimated than publishing. The root problem is the same: the large consolidating companies treated radio as a commodities business, seeking unreasonable profit growth that the business could not sustain. Radio differs from publishing in the fact that stations must be licensed and are therefore inherently limited in number, whereas publishing houses can be more easily started with less capital and require no licensing of any sort.

If new independents could start radio stations without having to try and pry licenses away from the likes of Clear Channel and Cumulus, I think we’d already be seeing some innovative rebooting of the industry. Unfortunately, radio is more like a neighborhood where the landowners have all let their properties get run down but refuse to sell them because scarcity still keeps the going rate artificially high.

In some sporadic cases we see innovation happening in public and community radio, where license holders can keep their stations sustainable but don’t have to rake in enormous profits. I just keep hoping that Clear Channel will finally bite the bullet and need to start shedding stations left and right, giving an opportunity for smaller, local and independent owners to get back into the game. Admittedly, it’s a more distant hope than the reinvigoration of the publishing industry, since another smaller consolidator, like CBS Radio, might choose to pack its stables, outbidding smaller players.

That’s the problem with licensing, and, to an extent, why the founding fathers organized against the Stamp Act of 1765. As it was designed, radio pretty much needs to be licensed because it was premised on scarcity partially imposed by the technological limits of 1927. But it’s not necessarily an inherent fact about radio. Perhaps the future of wireless communications will render this period of licensing a short historical anomaly. It’s an open question and no better than a 50/50 proposition right now.

Doug has his own relatively new radio show, The Media Squat, on the great noncommercial station, WFMU. In the interview we talked about his program and our shared challenged of trying to do an original weekly program on a completely volunteer, non-profit basis. That part of the interview will air on the next edition of mediageek. You can listen to it live on Thursday, Sept. 10, at 9 PM Central time on WNUR 89.3 FM in Chicago and online at http://www.wnur.org. Of course, the program will be archived online next week.

Sometimes the Grassroots Wins: KRXQ Hosts Apologize for Defaming Transgendered Children

What a couple of weeks it’s been for Sacramento radio station KRXQ and its wacky morning show hosts Rob, Arnie & Dawn. Their travails in meeting the wrath of outraged supporters of transgendered adults and children ended this morning when the hosts apologized on air and engaged in an open conversation with transgendered people and advocates. But it took quite a bit of pressure to get them to see the light.

Last week I told you about their May 28 broadcast wherein Arnie States talked about how he would hit his son with a shoe if he found him crossdressing, as part of a half-hour discussion generally defaming transgendered children. When word of this disgusting broadcast started to get around folks like myself who found good reason to be outraged at the broadcast took aim at the station.

Of course, as I noted, there was nothing particularly illegal about the broadcast, failing to meet the standard of being indecent. So FCC action was out of the question. Instead folks took aim at KRXQ’s advertisers, asking them to listen to archives of the May 28 program and judge for themselves if that’s the sort of intolerant rhetoric they want to sponsor.

For a large portion of the station’s national sponsors, the answer was a resounding “no.” By June 4, about 4 days into national publicity of the program, major advertisers Chipotle Grill, Snapple and Sonic Drive-In pulled their accounts from the station in response to it. The count was up to ten lost accounts by the next day following a wholly unrepentant broadcast on June 4 when Rob and Arnie attempted to defend themselves by explaining that the May 28 broadcast was just a joke.

Not long thereafter KRXQ pulled its list of advertisers from the station’s website as more local and national sponsors got wind of not only how awful the May 28 broadcast was but how boneheaded Arnie and Rob were in defending themselves on air rather than thoughtfully considering the concerns of listeners, transgendered people and their supporters. Just like the June 4 show where the hosts were supposed to be seriously taking up the ramifications of their May 28 broadcast, pulling the advertiser list was another example of too-little, too-late, since lists of the station’s advertisers had been circulating freely across twitter, facebook and blogs for days.

Pressure got high enough that by Friday June 5 station management reached out to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) to try and find a resolution to the situation. On the following Monday, June 7, the Rob, Arnie and Dawn show didn’t air in its usual timeslot. Instead, Rob Williams, who actually owns and produces the show, posted a statement on the show’s and on the station’s website saying the program would be off air until today, June 11. In his statement Williams acknowledged, (in original all caps):

WE HAVE FAILED YOU. AS A SHOW, AS PEOPLE, AS BROADCASTERS, WE HAVE SIMPLY FAILED ON ALMOST EVERY LEVEL.

WE PRESENTED OUR OPINIONS ON A VERY SENSITIVE SUBJECT IN A HATEFUL, CHILDISH AND CRUDE FASHION; AND THEN, GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY TO RETRACT THOSE REMARKS, WE DEFENDED THEM. …

By the time Rob Williams and Arnie States publicly apologized on their show this morning, their dehumanizing statements and arrogant and ignorant attempts to defend themselves had cost the biggest station carrying their program over thirteen local and national advertisers. Their co-host Dawn Rossi owed no personal apology for the broadcast because she actively tried to both defend transgendered people during the May 28 show and made other reasonable on air arguments against Arnie and Rob’s defaming tirade and ignorant defense.

I’d like to hope that both Arnie States and Rob Williams have truly acknowledged the damage that their words inflicted, I also have no doubt that the financial strike of so many advertisers pulling their accounts did much to change their attitudes. In an era when the public service obligations of broadcasters is a lip-service joke rather than a real an enforceable requirement, hitting stations in the pocketbook is a very effective tool for making them acknowledge the rights of minorities of all stripes.

In the corporate radio world Rob Williams and Arnie States are tiny players. And while their forced about-face on the issue of transgendered children is a victory, it’s still a small one. Unfortunately other radio hosts who deal in hatred towards minorities like Michael Savage and Rush Limbaugh have a much stronger base of support both in terms of advertisers, listeners and mainstream credibility. But I don’t think they’re immune either.

Demonstrating just how vulnerable they might be, Rockstar energy drink has threatened Alternet with a defamation lawsuit for publicizing the hard-to-deny connection between right-wing insane hate-spewing radio host Michael Savage and his son, Russell Weiner, who is the founder and CEO of the company. It’s not just a father-son connection, however. According to Alternet, “Savage’s wife serves as director of energy drink company, and Savage Productions shares an address with Rockstar(!).”

Apparently at the behest of Rockstar, facebook took down a group encouraging a boycott of Rockstar, which recently established a lucrative distribution deal with Pepsi.

Seems like even Savage’s own son’s company is a little nervous about its connection to the right-wing violent hate spewed on the Michael Savage show. I wonder how nervous Pepsi might be with the connection, too?

KRXQ Loses National Advertisers For Broadcast Defaming Transgendered Children

Two days of contacting Sacramento rock station KRXQ’s advertisers regarding the station’s May 28 broadcast defaming and advocating abuse of transgendered children has gotten results. Chipotle Grill, Snapple and Sonic Drive-In have all pulled their ads from the station in response to the broadcast.

KRXQ general manager Jim Fox acknowledged to the Sacramento Bee that there have been some ad accounts canceled, but he wouldn’t say what the station would be doing in response. Well, one thing the station did was pull the list of advertisers that was on their website just a day ago. In this case, it’s Google Cache to the rescue (in case the cache expires, see the list after the jump).

I do have to thank Chipotle, Snapple and Sonic for doing the right thing by not ignoring this disgusting example of homophobia. But there are more advertisers who are still bankrolling this kind of defamation on KRXQ and elsewhere. And while these three companies decided to do the right thing, there is an economic element, too. My guess is that these three companies wisely realized that they would benefit by doing the right thing, earning or retaining more loyal customers. Perhaps more companies can be made to realize that continuing to fund hateful racist, misogynistic and homophobic programming on the radio will lose them customers and money.

While this broadcast of the Rob, Arnie & Dawn in the Morning stands out as particularly egregious because the target for the abuse was children, how many of the same advertisers sponsor Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage and Glenn Beck, to name just a few? How uncomfortable can their advertisers be made?

It’s fundamentally a commercial system. But when we demonstrate that we won’t buy what the commercials are selling when they sponsor the continuation of on-air bigotry, maybe it won’t be so profitable.

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Some Great Radioshows Coming Up

On Friday I recorded a phone interview with Jerry Del Colliano who is furiously documenting the death throes of commercial radio at his blog, Inside Music Media. However, that’s a shallow characterization of what Jerry is up to. As you’ll hear on the June 11 mediageek radioshow, Jerry has been way ahead of the curve not just on the destructive effects of consolidation, but also in seeing the need for radio to adapt to the new networked world and the generation that grew up taking the ‘net for granted.

I really enjoyed talking with Jerry. The man has a deep love for radio, but such an instinctive bullshit detector that he can’t also help but see that the medium is on the downslide. You should not miss this interview on June 11.

But first we’ll be laying some of the groundwork on June 4 with an interview with Alec Foege, author of Right of the Dial: The Rise of Clear Channel and the Decline of Commercial Radio, now out in paperback. I’ve discussed Clear Channel quite a bit here on the blog and on the radioshow over the last seven years, but Alec’s research into the history of this once-little Texas broadcast company really helps illustrate the wrong turn the entire commercial radio industry took.

On this Thursday’s show, May 28, I’m glad that Diane Farsetta from the Center for Media and Democracy will be joining me again. We’ll be talking about some of the recent lowlights perpetrated by the public relations industry, and how the industry is salivating at the opportunities it has to take advantage of the current crisis in journalism.

The mediageek radioshow airs live every Thursday at 9 PM Central on WNUR 89.3FM in Evanston-Chicago, IL, streaming live at wnur.org. The program is available every Monday for streaming and download at radio.mediagek.net and is heard on 13 other affiliate stations across North America.

“Integrity” as Marketing Bullshit, the Case of Indie 103.1

The big commercial radio story making the rounds this week is news of Los Angeles’ Indie 103.1 going off the air to being online only in order to “save” its “integrity.” While it’s romantic to believe the notion of a commercial radio station suffering for its art (a la FM), it’s a fantasy.

Indie 103.1 was a commercial alternative rock station that attempted to break out of the typical mold by hiring DJs who actually chose some of the music they played and having close ties to the alt rock community. For instance, former Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones had his own show for a while, as did Henry Rollins and Rob Zombie. But the station sort of stuck out like a sore thumb in owner Entravision‘s portfolio, given that the company is a mid-size player specializing in Spanish-language radio and television stations.

I’d listened to the station once or twice online since the format went live in 2003, and I will have to admit that it was refreshing compared to most commercial radio, but hardly freeform or revolutionary compared to most college or community stations. Still, now the dream is over, as the station is off the air and exclusively online.

But the hook that the transition online is some sort of play to preserve the station’s integrity in the face of ratings pressure is pure bullshit. I don’t doubt that ratings played a part in the station going off the air as Indie 103.1, but the reality of the transition to online is that the internet incarnation will bare little resemblance to the FM signal. According to the station’s music director, “None of the primary DJs or music programmers at the station are involved in the website and it’s not being run by people who ran the station.”

That quote was published last Friday, the 16th, and just a while ago on the 19th I checked the Indie 103.1 website and there’s a new message declaring that many of the station’s DJs actually will be doing shows:

In true Indie fashion, these DJs have offered to continue their labor of love and host their shows on-line. …

While some might view that as a victory, resulting from a public relations backlash, I say it’s still an example of consolidation in action. Sure, fans of Indie 103.1 will still be able to listen to some of their favorite shows online, but only while tethered to their computers–not yet on the go, in their cars or anywhere they don’t have a persistent internet connection. Furthermore, on the internet Indie 103.1 simply isn’t that special. The lower cost of entry means there’s hundreds of stations playing eclectic alternative rock that’s got more “integrity” than Indie 103.1.

What made Indie 103.1 special at all was the fact that it survived as an actual broadcast commercial radio station in the nation’s second market playing a less repetitive and not strictly playlisted format that still allowed DJs a hand in picking the tunes. If it had integrity, that’s where it was. There’s no indication that the staff and management were give the choice of go mainstream or go off the air. Rather, they were told they were going off the air, and their only outlet would be online. The whole “maintaining integrity” line is marketing bullshit, pure and simple.
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