Has Clear Channel lost it’s little rigid, corporate mind?
The Ft. Worth Star-Telegram’s Cary Darling (great name!) has an interesting article on a local radio station with went from the old tried-and-true classic radio format to an alt-country mix, an example playlist contains the Drive-By Truckers, Johnny Cash and Robert Earl Keen, coupled with a low-key PBS style of corporate sponsorship instead of the hyper-audio-effects whiplash-inducing commercials that make most terrestrial radio hard to take seriously. Even thier web-site shows images of Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, Stevie Ray Vaughn and Tom Petty. Nice!
XM and Sirius satellite radio and it’s more niche formatting (think radio in the 70s) has displayed enough relative success at pealing off listeners that Clear Channel is throwing the dice and taking some calculated chances. D.js. are seen as more than playlist parrots and more like the musical authorities with their own crates of vinyl they schlep to the station and with tales about the music and the artists.
I still think Clear Channel is an example of everything wrong with a corporate media giant, but I will take my hat off to them for treating listeners and the music with respect and not simply a spreadsheet list of product and consumer.
Lone Star 92.5’s Commercial Featuring Wille Nelson
I was going to post and ask if anyone had listened to the station and if they had an opinion, but then I figured out that they stream live on the web.
Pretty tasty stuff, I gotta say. I’d pretty much lock my radio there if I lived in Texas.
Timmy, you can allways lock your web site to the stationa and see if they walk the walk. I sure hope that the station’s aim of an audience that has diverse tastes pans out.
I left the metroplex for Austin last year, so I was surprised to hear Uncle Tupelo on 92.5 a couple of weeks ago as I was headed north through Hillsboro. SRV followed, along with with Drive By Truckers, Lucinda Williams, and Grateful Dead by the time I got to Fort Worth. And no commercials. I’m so happy for this change in format and for one of my favorite bands (DBT) to finally be on the airwaves. New Braunfels now has a similar station (KNBT) that we can pick up in deep south Austin, but no similar stations in Austin proper yet. Yeah, 92.5 is a CC station, but hopefully this format and business model (no long commercial breaks) will prove sucessful and spread to other markets.
Spencer – It’s a much needed move. Radio is dying or dead and people just don’t care anymore. The talent is there it’s just not moving the millions of product to land them on a very short playlist. I’m hungry for the FM radio I grew up with (in Dallas) where you were actually SUPRISED by what came next.