Posted on 08/19/2006 4:16:04 PM PDT by summer
...The abrupt switch...left Los Angeles, the nation’s No. 2 radio market, with more than 10 million people, without an area-wide country music station, even as the genre remains a potent force on the Billboard sales charts. It joins New York, the biggest radio market, which has been without a major country station since 1996, and San Francisco, the nation’s No. 4 market, which lost a major country station in 2001.
Paradoxically, Los Angeles consistently ranks as one of the top two markets for country album sales (it accounts for roughly 3 percent of all country sales so far this year) and plays host to the genre’s biggest touring acts. Thursday marked the first night of a sold-out three-night stand by Mr. McGraw and Ms. Hill, country’s power couple, at the Staples Center arena.
But the station’s corporate parent, Emmis, which is based in Indianapolis, concluded that even having the city’s only country station — billed as “America’s most listened-to country station” — was no longer worth it, and that it could do better. The switch to what it calls “rhythmic pop contemporary” was dictated by economic common sense: a country station that draws predominantly white listeners aged 25 to 54 could no longer stay afloat in an ethnically diverse megalopolis. ...
“Country is a tough format to do in a market that is an ethnic melting pot,” said Rick Cummings, Emmis’s president of radio. “The appeal of the format is fairly limited when it comes to ethnicity.” In Los Angeles, he said, stations that cater mostly to white listeners are “playing for less than 25 percent of the marketplace on a good day.”...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
"http://clusty.com/search?input-form=simple-clusty&query=country+music+online+radio"
Thanks for the great address. Can you recommend a magazine that would help me get to know about country music?
"I suppose you could still argue that none of them is an "area-wide" station, since their patterns don't cover west L.A., Santa Monica, or Malibu. But, from a realistic standpoint, it wouldn't matter much because THE country music fan out there doesn't listen to the radio much, anyway."
Interesting comment. I am an old rock & roll guy who is thoroughly sick of rock and roll. We have no country music station in my city and they don't even carry country music magazines on the racks in the stores. Can you recommend a magazine?
Actually, "Hey, batter, batter" is very well written (pretty good allegory, words flow well, music is kickin'). Were you making fun of it or singing its praises?
Hip Hop is pretty darkish... from what I have heard and seen.
NO COUNTRY STATION IN PITTSBURGH??????
What's the world coming to?
I watched a blistering live performance from Tim O'Brien and the Oh Boys several weeks ago. We were several rows away from some trendy urban sophisticates who would periodically shout (quoting here...) "yee-haw" and wave their arms and clap their hands jezz like they wuz at the hoe-down presumably so they would "fit in" with the "rest of us".
geeze, what a bunch of embarrassing retards...
A magazine...
Search Ask.com for "country music magazine", and take your choice. There's lots to choose from.
Sounds like your situation is tailor-made for satellite radio. I'm using a Sirius receiver at home, and have several country channels to choose from, plus an extensive collection of decade-specific rock music including one for the seventies if I start having an attack of disco deprivation.
OK, thanks.
You may be interested in this thread.
Ain't Got No Cigarettes: Memories of Music Legend Roger Miller
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1702856/posts
I'm not suprised and I don't see the connection. Hosting "country" music awards in New York City would be like choosing the Yukon to host the annual hip-hop awards. NYC and L.A. is about as far away from "country" culture as you can get.
Oh really? Here are the actual lyrics of hit "country music" songs being put on heavy rotation here in Chicago:
“I'll stand barefooted in my own front yard with a baby on my hip' -- cuz I'm a redneck woman; I ain't no high class broad! I'm just a product of my raising I say, 'hey ya'll' and 'yee-haw' And I keep my Christmas lights on mah front porch all year long!”
- Gretchen Wilson, Female Country star of the year, 2005, "Redneck Woman"
“The body's a temple and that's what we're taught. Well, ah’ treated this one like an ole honky tonk! Greasy cheeseburgers and cheap cigarettes! One day they'll get me if they ain't got me yet. Because I've been livin’ in fast forward; Hillbilly rock star outta control!!”
-- Kenny Chesney “Livin’ in Fast Forward”
Name is Bobby Jo, meet mah twin sister, Betty Lou – an’ we're both feeling kinda wild tonight… I still hang out with my best friend Dave. Last night he had a few shots, got in a tight spot hustlin' a game of pool wit’ a couple of redneck boys. One great big bad biker man! I heard Dave yell across the room "Hey buddy, how 'bout a helping hand." I said, "Dave – I AIN’T AS GOOD AS I ONCE WAS!!”’
---Toby Keith, “Ain't good as I once was”
“Well we broke down in Greenville -- in the middle of a hayfield -- but a Bud Light truck pulled up and helped us out. So we then headed up to Philly, partied down like real hillbillies -- brought the Music Mafia and rocked it out!! YEEEE-HAH!!!… we’re comin’ to your cit-tah!!!”
-- BIG & RICH, “Comin' To Your City”
“It's allright to be a Rehdneck...It's all right to ride round in a dirty ol’ truck, catch a bunch of fish n’ shoot a bunch of duck!!! It's GOOD tah be a redneck!!”
--Alan Jackson, "It's allright to be a redneck"
Again, NYC, L.A., and Chicago hosting "county" music makes as much sense as choosing Yukon, Canada to do rap contests.
Excuse me for butting in, but has anyone seen any threads discussing Darryle Worley's new song "I just came back from a war"?
Country music is too white? Has the genius that figured that out also realize that rap music is too black. Am I a racist for saying that?
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