Global Policy Forum

By Laura M. Holson

Radio listeners want local disc jockeys to have more control over programming, and they oppose federal laws that encourage more consolidation among radio conglomerates, according to a recent survey conducted by the Future of Music Coalition, an artists rights group based in Washington.

Half of the 500 people who were surveyed by telephone last month said that radio would have more appeal to them if it offered more new music, less repetition and more songs from local bands and artists. Respondents also said they would support more low-power noncommercial radio stations, which usually offer programming that is particular to a community. These stations broadcast radio signals that travel only a few miles.

The study's results, said Jenny Toomey, executive director of the coalition, show that radio listeners are not passive listeners. Instead, she said, "they're clearly unsatisfied with programming trends that have come into effect as a result of radio consolidation in the recent years." The study was conducted in a partnership with the Media Access Project and the Rockefeller Foundation. The study comes on the heels of complaints from the recording industry, artist groups and local concert promoters who argue that consolidation in the radio industry is anticompetitive. The music business has come under financial pressure as sales of new albums have plummeted and listeners have begun obtaining more of their music online. Artists, too, are rebelling against their recording companies and demanding more artist-friendly contracts. At the same time, the cash-poor corporate parents of many recording companies are demanding that their subsidiaries cut costs.

Executives at radio conglomerates, for their part, argue that their own research shows they are giving consumers exactly what they want. Pam Taylor, a spokeswoman for Clear Channel Radio, who reviewed the survey's results, said that the complaints described by the coalition are the same ones listeners have had for years. "It's interesting; it's not surprising," she said. "People have been saying the same thing since we've been doing research."

In the next few weeks, Senator Russell Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, is expected to introduce legislation that would curb consolidation in the radio industry.

His proposal would also seek to limit payments made by recording companies to independent promoters to promote new songs to station programmers, something that has gone on for decades but is now being described as a new form of payola.

"This survey confirms what I have been hearing in Wisconsin," Senator Feingold said in a statement, "that people are concerned about concentrated ownership of our radio, concert and promotion industries."

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