Rock, Rolling Over (another radio station flips from rock to Spanish)

Washington Post ^ | Tuesday, January 18, 2005; Page C01 | By Paul Farhi

[weegee]

...The latest casualty turned up last week. WHFS-FM, the "alternative" station that pioneered free-form rock radio in Washington in the 1960s and '70s, abruptly pulled the plug on rock and began carrying Spanish-language pop. The move by WHFS's owner, Infinity Broadcasting, left the Washington region -- a radio market of more than 4 million people -- with just one area-wide station, DC-101 (WWDC-FM), playing contemporary rock.

In economic terms, the move made perfect sense. So-called urban -- black-oriented R&B hits and hip-hop -- and ethnic formats have been the radio industry's growth engine. Among these, Spanish-language programming has been the fastest growing of all over the past five years, according to Arbitron, the audience-research company.

[snip]

But for stations specializing in rock alone, the market may be evolving into something akin to daily newspapers: One to a city, with little room for a second competitor.

[snip]

"People who run stations can't make the music better or more mass-appeal. We are, ultimately, in the business of distributing what the music industry produces, and we can't take a mediocre product and make it sound great."

But album sales figures show a somewhat more ambiguous case. Although only two albums by rock acts -- Evanescence and U2 -- were among the 20 bestsellers of 2004, rock's share of overall album sales has actually grown during the past five years from 16.1 percent to 19.8 percent of the total, according to Geoff Mayfield, senior analyst at Billboard, the music industry magazine. At the moment, for example, Green Day has the fastest-selling album in the nation...

[stands2reason]

Los Straitjackets are actually some musicians from Nashville.

I know. :-)

[weegee]

The Big Boys/Poison 13 in turn inspired Green River/Mudhoney (and out of them a side project called Monkeywrench was formed). The Seattle sludge comes from this.

Of course Poison 13 covered songs by 1960s Pacific Northwest band, The Sonics (songs like Strychnine and I think Psycho).

In an era (mid 1980s) when punk was going to hardcore, thrash, and speed metal, it was really radical to play SLOW songs (like Blank Generation and When I Was Young) and blues covers (Spoonful...).

[carumba]

Please, that is too close to CBS.

[seastay]

"Just imagine what the sales would be if critically acclaimed new country music..."


Si, música del gringo mucho mejor para la economía;

"Country Music Sales Up 12 Percent in 2004" http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/entertainment/10583102.htm?1c

[weegee]

Much of the "problems" associated with the flux are because of wrongheaded decisions and a bullheaded insistance on defining the market rather than following it.

I was looking at the back of a 1982 British REISSUE of James Brown Live at the Apollo (from 1962) and there is a little "Home taping is killing the industry" logo. They are still making billions every year; nothing died.

Resale of OLD albums (I bought that one 'used') "kills" the industry as well because they don't see a dime off of those sales.

[seastay]

"defining the market rather than following it"


good observation