Singing the radio blues
Charles Warner, the self-styled Media Curmudgeon, hypothesizes that music-playing radio stations that took bribes are dragging the entire radio industry down with them from a business standpoint.
Shorter version: Ad revenue is down. Because audiences of music stations (which, in the aggregate, outnumber audiences for news, sports and talk stations in many, if not most, markets) are down. Because the stations took money from record companies (via "independent" promoters) to play crummy music. The industry's solution? Not "play better music," but "negotiate with the Federal Communications Commission to get its fines reduced."
Yeah. Good luck with that. Hard to believe, I know, but since I left the industry 21 years ago, it has only gotten dumber.