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Steve Rivers commentary

Holy hell. First of all, is Steve Rivers the last person on the country to know that EVERY drunk sleeping on a park bench claims to be an ex-Marine? (Or ex-Seal, ex-Green Beret, ex-Ranger, ex-Viet Nam Vet?) Even panhandlers understand marketing and you're going to get more handouts playing to the patriotism and guilt of the well-off than by saying you're a bum who simply made too many bad choices in life.

And then he somehow makes the leap that the relationship of society to the homeless is analogous to the relationship between radio companies and ex-jocks? Friggin' brilliant.

Then, Mr. Rivers, naively talks about how the bean counters are ruining radio. Now there's an original thought! What he and legions of other nostalgic types fail to realize is that radio has always been about making money. David Sarnoff didn't get into broadcasting because he longed to run PSA's you know. And sure, Bill Paley threw a lot of money around at "The Tiffany Network". Not because he was such a much better person than anyone else, but because his company was part of a such a flush, legally-protected oligopoly, it was EASY to run CBS that way.

Rivers is also naive to believe that Smulyan wants to take his company private to "protect his employees". Not that he may not want to, but in case you haven't noticed, his stock price went into the crapper. Smulyan may well have the idea of doing what so many others have done in other businesses: Take it private on the cheap and reap another fortune when he again goes public at some future date. These kind of "round trip" maneuvers can be extremely lucrative. I'm not knocking Smulyan, just saying that taking his company private is not an excercise in altruism.

If radio is screwed, and it may well be, it's not because of Clear Channel or any other company. It's because we are prevented by regulation from doing much technical innovation (DE-regulation? Has anyone noticed we're still HEAVILY regulated?) and there are too many people in the business who wring their hands hoping and waiting for the return to The Good Ol' Days.
 
I agree that anyone's who may be obsessed with returning to the Good Ol Days could qualify for the Section 8 discharge Mr. Rivers referenced in his commentary.

However, if radio companies want to get out of the current mess there in, and prepare for the future, they need to find a way to step away from the current demands of the stock market. I know, easier said than done. Radio is at a crossroads, and if radio is going to remain relevant as new technologies emerge and ease access to distribution platforms, immediate action needs to be taken to create relevant, entertaining, and perhaps local content. Because of the post-consolidation financial challenges, too many companies are left with no choice but to cut staff, and dilute content.

As I said, Its definitely easier said than done, but short-term pandering to the stock market, will ultimately ruin radio's long-term hold value. This is something which the entire industry needs to recognize.
 
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