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Clear Channel on Satellite Radio

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This letter was sent to Entertainment Weekly in response to a piece on satellite radio:

"Satellite radio is not the answer to good radio, much like cable TV is not the answer to good TV. Both just give you more choices of crap.

Radio is categorized, and it ought to be. Only a slim number of people would like to hear Ja Rule, Rusted Root, Barry Manilow, and Dwight Yoakam on the same radio station. If you are actually looking for a station that will play Norah Jones, B-Tribe, Ned Otter, etc., then look for your closest college ratio station. Give them a good listen. I guarantee you that after 30 seconds of pure hell, you will switch back to a Clear Channel Radio station because we play the hits.

Steve Smith
Production Director/Imaging Director, Clear Channel
Steven.Smith@ClearChannel.com
Lebanon, N.H."

― M Matos, Sunday, 7 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

I imagine you guys have better responses than I do, which is basically, "Guh...."

― M Matos, Sunday, 7 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

d'oh! that should read "30 MINUTES", not seconds

― M Matos, Sunday, 7 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

notice how independently his first paragraph can be read from the second!

if not for the way commercial radio works then maybe my college station could be on FM and not AM.

― Josh, Sunday, 7 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Well, it isn't as if the world has never seen militant philistinism before. Nor is it surprising that such militant philistinism should come from Clear Channel. It is a little shocking to see it stated so bluntly, particularly in what's supposed to be a publicly-regulated industry with a modicum of knowledge about public relations.

― Tadeusz Suchodolski, Sunday, 7 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

And though it's just stating the obvious, one of the major reasons why there's so much crap on the public airwaves is because companies like Clear Channel own an inordinate percentage of those public airwaves (and wants more) and programs that crap in the first place. But that's just twisting the knife.

God, I wish a Worldcom- or Enron-type scandal would get rid of Clear Channel!

― Tadeusz Suchodolski, Sunday, 7 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

He freely admitted to providing crap? What a bizarre man.

― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 7 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

I bet this guy wears tassled loafers.

― earlnash, Sunday, 7 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

just for having an "Imaging Director," Clear Channel should be destroyed. this guy should be first against the wall; the reason people like homogeneity in their radio is that their force-fed homoegeneity from the moment they're born. i'll say it again: homogeneity! homogeneity!

― your null fame, Sunday, 7 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

grr. "they're" not "their." i'm not an idiot. not that kind, anyway. and i hid an extra 'e' in a word somewhere, too.

― your null fame, Sunday, 7 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Production Director/Imaging Director, Clear Channel

As a title, "imaging director" didn't make a lick of sense to me until I realized he must read the auras of records.

― Michael Daddino, Sunday, 7 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Hmm. Other 'net articles that cite Mr. Smith list him as a "executive vice president" and/or "COO." Did he get knocked down the Clear Channel hierarchy? Or is this title some kind of lame dodge?

― Michael Daddino, Sunday, 7 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

It's mildly stupid for him to rant like this to Entertainment Weekly, because when you take into account their music coverage, I'd say that the average EW reader probably has broader-than-average listening tastes, and hence is more likely to view the radio Clear Channel hawks as deeply phillistine. Yeah, arrogance trumps sense again.

Isn't Lee Abrams -- the guy some of the old school rock-crit world blame for the decline of '70's radio -- the brainchild behind satellite broadcasting? (Doesn't Clear Channel also have a stake in it?)

― Michael Daddino, Sunday, 7 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

I bet this guy wears tassled loafers.

Nah, he probably wears Vans with jeans and a tie so he can show he's "down" with da kidz.

― Michael Daddino, Sunday, 7 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Tie? Puh! Ties are for SQUARES! No, my man Steve-O is rockin' the 'dangerously non-conformist shirt colour' vibe (whoa! Fuchsia! That sounds sort of like 'fuck' if you say it funny!), with not just one, but TWO - that's TWO - buttons undone up-top!

Just coming up to a quarter to two, here's The Calling...

― Mr Swygart, Sunday, 7 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Fuchsia!

Nah, fuchsia is too "gay."

― Michael Daddino, Sunday, 7 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Meh. It's actually "fuschia."

It's still "gay," though.

― Michael Daddino, Sunday, 7 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

If you are actually looking for a station that will play Norah Jones, B-Tribe, Ned Otter, etc., then look for your closest college ratio station.

Never mind that Clear Channel and the other commercial radio behemoths wouldn't tolerate college radio stations getting signals strong enough to be heard outside of discrete on-campus locations-- that would interfere with the commercial stations' business!

The sheer amounts of money involved has evidently warped the minds of Clear Channel people, as that letter indicates. Could the answer lie in identifying Clear Channel advertisers and staging high-profile boycotts of those companies? (Granted, that wouldn't be easy...I used to work at a Ticketmaster-affiliated Web site, and the degree of vertical integration in the concert biz I saw was frightening.)

― j.lu, Sunday, 7 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Steve feels the gay demographic, though. No, not like that. Not that he's got anything against anyone that does.

It's about a quarter past three, here's Ja Rule!

― Mr Swygart, Sunday, 7 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

I bet this guy wears tassled loafers.
Only at the office. When he gets home he puts on the stilletoes and pretends to be Hillary Rosen.

― Lord Custos III, Sunday, 7 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Both just give you more choices of crap.
I fail to see how this is a bad thing. I'm sick of the same old crap. I want shiny new crap!

― Lord Custos III, Sunday, 7 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

wait, someone figured out what 'imaging director' means? i guessed that it meant 'tries to make our morning djs look somewhat passable on those billboards we own on EVERY HIGHWAY ON THE PLANET,' and therefore he probably saw a pink slip last week for -- o irony! -- besmirching the company's image.

― maura, Tuesday, 9 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)


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