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How Do Bands Get Played on Star 101.9?
Well, kids, you’re not going to like this. After doing some research of Clear Channel stations, it turns out that Star 101.9 IS above the curve when it comes to supporting local music. I know. We love to hate Star SO much. Actually, folks, they are incorporating local music and local music events more than their Clear Channel peers across the country. What’s more, Star’s new program director, Adam Carr states, “I not only support, but seek out quality local music to give exposure to.” Through this article, I intend to describe why the scene has had such a struggle with Clear Channel and what has changed locally. I will also express my belief that our scene needs to be a DIY scene. WE need to be behind the organization and creation of the outlets that will make our scene strong. While we’ve all been wondering for a long time whether it was even possible to get local music into rotation on Star, the inspiration for this article came when a bunch of anonymous and angry posters on Craigslist bad mouthed Star 101.9’s Battle of the Bands. Apparently, Star dutifully promoed the Battle on the air, but had almost zero web presence, making it nearly impossible for people to find any information about who was playing or who won. To the Scene, it appeared that Star was half-assedly trying to look like they supported local music while making a buck on our shows (bands don’t get paid for playing a battle). To Star, they claimed that it was a learning experience in which they completely underestimated the importance of putting information on the web. Thanks to a friend, I had a connection to Star’s new program director, Adam Carr, who quickly and graciously agreed to meet and talk about this issue. While his main priority has been to keep the ratings up at Star, he has been pushing for local music at some level. He has helped spearhead the “Made in Hawaii” concert series in which a local band gets their music played (once around 1pm and then again after 10pm) for 10 days on Star, after which they play a live concert at Irish Rose. On Star’s website, they have a Book-A-Band feature, open to all local bands, geared towards people interested in hiring a band for a party. Star has also held at least one previous Battle of the Bands.In my interview with Adam Carr, he stated that Star is actually able to do MORE for local bands than many other stations because we are so far away from corporate. Skeptical about this claim, I visited Clear Channel radio station websites from all across the country, choosing places with strong local music scenes like Seattle, Portland, NYC, Austin, and more. It turns out that Adam is right. The vast majority of Clear Channel stations - I would estimate 80% - have absolutely no mention of local music. One extreme exception is Rock 105.3 in San Diego which hosts a Loud and Local three hour long radio show every Sunday night. To understand why this is so, we must now fully understand what Clear Channel Corporate really is. We would love to believe that a company that owns the largest share of radio stations in the nation (about 800 out of 10,000 stations, i.e. 8%) actually cares about music. Sorry folks. Clear Channel is NOT a music company. It is an advertising company. Clear Channel owns a series of media and marketing companies along with over 150,000 outdoor billboards in the U.S. To bring the point home, this is an excerpt from Clear Channel’s Creed: “We are in the business of helping our customers grow their businesses. We do this effectively with our wide variety of media and entertainment products.” The Creed does not mention music once.In the last year, Live Nation spun off of Clear Channel (though Live Nation and Clear Channel share some board members). According to Live Nation’s website, they produce more than 16,000 concerts a year for over 1500 artists throughout 57 countries and own over 80 venues worldwide. To put all this information together, people dislike Clear Channel because they see it as a monopoly (although they have reduced their share in the market by about 25% in the last few years) in the concert promotions and music industry. Imagine that an artist wrongs Clear Channel in some way. Perhaps they don’t agree with the ticket prices (this scenario has actually gone to court). Suddenly that artist could lose access to Clear Channel’s radio station and venue network. That’s a lot of leverage with which to strong arm the industry. Another reason that Clear Channel has a bad rep is that their radio stations share and overlap more content than ever. This gives listeners everywhere less choice, restricts the number of artists that can actually get radio play, and with more and more syndication of radio shows, takes away jobs from would be local radio DJs. Clear Channel decides what listeners want to hear and communities no longer have as much of a say about their programming. This, folks, is the crux of the struggle that we are facing. Clear Channel is “standardizing” radio with very little regard for local communities. AND Clear Channel is in the business of selling advertising, not in helping you, or anyone for that matter, become the next rock star… unless they can profit off it (ref: The Fray). So, when Adam Carr says that there’s “nothing, really” keeping local music from being played on the radio, it’s true. There are no required playlists, however playing local songs is not the choice that would satisfy Clear Channel’s business model. That is the likely reason why Star 101.9 has not been receptive to local music in the past and why it is so important to have someone within the radio station interested in working with local bands. As evidenced by Made in Hawaii and the 10’O Clock Chicken Fights, Adam does have the ability to incorporate local music into programming. We know that Rock 105.3 in San Diego does even more, therefore it is possible for Star to build a stronger representation of local music into their programming. Adam encourages, “It’s not a brick wall. We’re open to things and we’re starting. [The scene is] encountering the brick wall that was.“So let’s get on it and hold Adam to his word! We can also do a few things that could help. Adam explained that Star regularly gets reports on music downloaded by people in Hawaii. They are interested in numbers, so I suggest that you make use of all of your outlets and get your music on iTunes, Myspace, Facebook, and any other distribution site that will lead to your band’s name in a report somewhere! If you can generate downloads, Clear Channel radio, and any entity you may be interested in working with, really, may be interested in playing your music. Star should also be impressed by community support. Request songs through their online forms. Call them up. Write to Adam Carr (AdamCarr@clearchannel.com) and ask him what you can do to help him get local music on the air. Tell him about your band. On the other hand, Clear Channel radio stations are not made for us and never will be. We should (of course!) work towards the opportunity to be broadcast across the islands on Star’s 100,000 watts. In the end, though, this scene has got to be DIY. We CAN do a lot of what we hope for if we organize and work together. What if someone started a local music internet radio station and all the bands played on that station helped promote it within our communities? That could be just the beginning. We could create outlets of our own to reach listeners! We feel ignored, but we have to change that mindset. Star is open to building bridges, so let’s get out our hammers! But don’t stop there. Turn those hammers proactively towards our own projects. Our scene HAS the ability to create what we want and need.
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