When CKPK (The Peak) returned to the Alternative format this month, after several years of trying to be Vancouver’s “join the conversation” outlet, it gave the market three Alternative stations. It also prompted a message from writer Claire Fenton on behalf of the Daily Hive. Fenton was asking whether the revived station would tap into the original’s legacy of support for local artists, a valid question.
In the mid-’00s, that sort of press query used to come in all the time. Sometimes it was about support for local acts; more often, it was just “why can’t radio be more adventurous?” Sometimes the call came from a music critic or TV writer whose beat also included radio. Others, it was from a metro-section reporter to whom a format-change story had been assigned. When Howard Stern signed with SiriusXM in 2004, I got a lot of calls.
Sometimes the reporter was both a fan of music and radio, like Raleigh, N.C.’s David Menconi or New York’s David Hinckley. Sometimes there would be a great music writer, like the recently passed Claudia Perry, then of the Newark Star-Ledger, with a genuine openness and curiosity about radio’s decision-making process, who wasn’t judgmental about radio’s need to be mass-appeal.
But I was also called for an Entertainment Weekly story headlined “Why Radio Sucks (And What You Can Do About It).” Satellite radio had a lot of consumer-press fans who saw it as their sword of vengeance. But lest this come off like Andrew McCarthy being bitter about a 40-year-old article, let me emphasize that I was fine taking that sort of call, too. I was happy to be part of the dialogue. And it was an acknowledgement of radio’s influence.
There haven’t been a lot of consumer-press stories about radio gatekeeping recently. Even at the peak of the adversarial stories, TV showrunners and ad-agency music supervisors were already bringing a lot of unlikely acts to the mainstream. By the mid-’10s, the rise of streaming was a further safety valve for anybody who wanted something other than “the hits.” Radio had lost its power to infuriate, which was a mixed blessing.
Now, radio is rarely credited in the press as being part of the equation at all. The Washington Post’s Chris Richards acknowledges the better field of Summer Song candidates but doesn’t mention radio’s role in making them part of the cultural discussion. Neither does the Wall Street Journal, whose Niel Shah alleges a lack of major-artist projects with lasting impact and asks “Why Is Pop Music So ‘Meh’ Right Now?”
Yet, radio still figures into all the issues raised. Richards’ summer-song battle between “Espresso” and Tommy Richman is happening in part because radio put a year into developing Sabrina Carpenter, and because radio is still needed as “the finisher” on a hit as unlikely as “Million Dollar Baby.” The lack of long-term cultural dominance Shah cites is at least in part because major-artist projects are top-loaded with singles and rarely worked for multiple hits over the course of a year.
Looking back at radio’s press journey from dissed to dismissed, it is certainly possible that all the mid-’00s stories helped some readers find satellite radio a little sooner. Roughly two decades after the Stern announcement, satellite has taken a big enough piece of broadcast radio listening to be missed but hasn’t been the “death knell” that some had hoped for. (Ironically, SXM’s Alt.Nation has made FM Alternative radio more music-writer-friendly over the last decade, which may not have been the right thing for those stations.)
But streaming probably made its inroads by itself; the generation that engages with radio less doesn’t engage with the consumer press as much either. The other reason that there are fewer stories about radio’s influence is that there are fewer people to write them (including EW, which encountered its own satellite-radio-type disruptor in TMZ and is now online-only). Some of those writing about music online now may not even remember radio as the gatekeeper, or at least didn’t have the opportunity to be mad about it.
Ironically, the moment that Fenton remembers fondly from the Peak is right about the time that U.S. radio was being so pilloried. At the national level, I feel that Canadian Alternative radio and Canadian Alternative bands have had a lot to do with keeping each other vital, something I appreciate Fenton allowing me to say. From 2,500 miles away, Alternative seems healthier in Vancouver (or Edmonton or Calgary) than most U.S. markets, and Canadian acts are a major part of that.
If a local act doesn’t feel that way, my first question would be if they’re engaging with radio. Major-label acts are less inclined to tour radio stations, or even to provide playable alternate edits of hit songs. In its first year, a vital indie-music community has formed on Threads, with bands finding followers one by one and asking to be added to streaming playlists. When I’ve asked, few acts have thought of pursuing radio (many think they’re too esoteric).
If indie acts did try to get on their local radio stations, they would encounter fewer local decision-makers, and fewer single-station acts of heroism than ever. But there are still exceptions. Part of the story of WIXX Green Bay, Wis., which remained vital through Top 40’s doldrums, has been not just finding its own hits, but supporting local pop/punk band the Astronomers for four years and through multiple projects.
I like to think that if other radio stations supported a local act, they would respond in kind and advocate radio to friends and family. (I also like to think that they’d post the “reacting to hearing our song on radio for the first time” video.)
I also like to think there’s an opportunity to establish a radio/writer connection of mutual benefit — writer as morning-show guest or local-music show host; radio person cited as an additional music authority — rather than mutual antagonism. Both parties could use the expanded footprint, or foothold.
There will be other “song of summer” articles written this year. What those stories say will still depend in part on the music decisions radio makes, because there are still few shared experiences without radio. I’ve said before that radio needs to do more to maximize the impact of this summer’s better crop of hits with listeners. Then it needs to do a better job of publicizing itself to the outside world as well.
This story first appeared on radioinsight.com