CAN IT GET ANY WORSE? I found the controversy over KUFO accepting compensation to play specific records ("Radio Racket," WW, April 15, 1998) amusing. Where do people in radio get off thinking that they have been so pure up to this point? An article that you referenced in a recent Rolling Stone magazine ("Corporate Radio Still Sucks," April 1998) really says it all. Radio has become so homogenized that listeners can only wonder how it can get any worse. Maybe pay for play will get some quality, innovative artists some well-deserved airplay. This type of programming creativity is unlikely to come from radio program directors, most of whom refuse to take even the slightest risks (KINK's Dennis Constantine is a noticeable exception for returning creativity and diversity to KINK's playlist). The reality is that most radio stations are too market-research driven. How else can one explain two country stations in the same market with virtually identical playlists? So much for product differentiation. If you don't believe me, just try calling one of the stations and requesting that they play a song from one of the innovative alternative country artists featured on CMT as opposed to their Nashville assembly-line drivel. Pay for play a sellout? Corporate ownership pressures? The reality is that radio sold out a long time ago by programming to the lowest common denominator and have no one to blame but themselves. Todd Blickenstaff
Southwest Provincial Hill Drive RADIO RACKET IS HARDLY STUNNING Can the music industry actually pretend to be stunned by pay-for-play ["Radio Racket," WW, April 15, 1998]? Give me a break. How can anyone who is not asleep be shocked by the concept brought to fruition of advertising disguised as programming within an industry that long ago lost all ability to differentiate between the two? Sadly, commercial broadcasting nationwide broadcasts what essentially is Muzak, under various misnomers such as "Classic Rock" (make me puke) and "Alternative." No, this pay-for-play scandal may be disgusting and annoying, but it certainly isn't surprising or shocking. We already live in a society that has auctioned off 99 percent of its public media resources to the highest bidders so that they can sell our eyes and ears to their sponsors with police chases and half-hour paid advertising slots (which seems to me to be pay-for-play as well, with the important distinction that the sponsor has eliminated even the pretense of offering entertainment or information with its advertising). Personally I eliminated KUFO from my stereo's push buttons years ago when they and another Ptland rock radio station kept broadcasting nearly identical programs simultaneously. Apparently they had hired the same market-research firm to capture the same audience and were getting the same preprogrammed tape loops from the same Muzak company. KGON disappeared from my radio dial at the same time! Thirteen years back, living in L.A., I listened to a college station on the public band of the FM dial called KXLU. Their sets would mix early Genesis and Kate Bush with the early gangsta rap, Throbbing Gristle and Black Flag. They interrupted a song one afternoon to broadcast live a call-in from the DJ at the L.A. station that pioneered the "Classic Rock" format, KLSX. She was at work, going on air every 10 minutes to tell her audience how cool they were to be listening to KLSX, and all the while she's blasting KXLU on her own headphones and wishing she had that kind of freedom. The only thing KUFO could do that might leave me shocked or surprised would be to suddenly revert to a free-form format and let DJs share with listeners the music they actually listen to and think is important. Til then, a couple of hours of "Drinking from Puddles" on Wednesday nights will easily beat out a year's worth of Metal Muzak on KUFO, with or without ads from the Shane Company. In the meantime, I probably won't be listening when KNRK tries to beat the competition by broadcasting half-hour blocks of paid advertisements from US West and AT&T Wireless services. Neither will I be "stunned." Dane Wilson
Southwest Stewart Street THIS LAND IS THEIR LAND What is so goddam important about "science" examining the bones of Kennewick Man ["Bones of Contention," WW, April 22, 1998]? If the remains were found on a reservation, I believe the Indians would have simply reburied them with an appropriate ceremony. The thing is, this is ALL their land, or it was, before it was stolen by coercion and brute force. Native people have been here for a long time. How long? Well, if they don't care, why should Euro-Americans? Because, the archeologists and scientists are interested in their own résumés. There aren't enough academic jobs, and university funding of projects has evaporated, so it's contract work in a highly competitive market. The archeological field is about money and jobs. We're not talking about Indiana Jones questing for the Holy Grail. The "pagan" group claiming lineage from these remains are beneath comment. Indians are hanging onto shreds of their cultures. So, yes, this is a political struggle for Indian people. Peter Webster
Northwest 19th Avenue |
