广播的重生

2006年7月23日 THE BUFFALO NEWS JEFF MIERS撰稿 陈英吉译

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There is a revolution afoot in the world of radio, but you won't find it on the dial

Music radio has been in trouble for a while.

　

Long before New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer began his crusade to wipe out pay-for-play deals; long before huge corporations began gobbling up stations across the country and homogenizing them; long before formatting became so tightly controlled that DJs seemed all but superfluous, something had already gone seriously wrong.

　

Music radio traditionally connected listeners to the larger music community by keeping them in the loop on the latest developments in rock, R&B and pop; by taking chances on new sounds; and by offering listeners DJs who were considered experts.

　

That stopped being the case more than a decade ago. Many hard-core music lovers abandoned radio.

 

Commercial radio has "taken our airwaves and created a world where every station fits into a certain demographic," says John Richards, morning show host on KEXP in Seattle, an innovative online and terrestrial station. "... You have no choice on the dial, so what do you do? You choose not to listen to the dial, and that's sad. Once you leave, you leave the potential for listening to something local and part of your community. In most cities, that doesn't even exist anymore."

　

Shaking up the dial in the last decade, the explosion of digital downloading has left radio, like the music industry, wondering what had happened to the glory days of rock and pop play lists, and what to do next.

　

The industry's response was frustrating, if unsurprising; in the desperate quest to grab hold of a rapidly shrinking listenership, formats became even tighter and more strictly adhered to - modern rock, classic rock, Top 40, adult alternative, et al.

Meanwhile, listeners went elsewhere for their music.

　

Where?

　

Internet and satellite radio have capitalized on broadcast radio's inability to give listeners what they truly seem to want - variety, voices of knowledge and authority, some sense of excitement, and the ability to hear what they want, whenever they want.

　

Radio, as we know it, has been reborn.

　

"The new radio formats are all about choice," says Spin magazine Executive Editor Doug Brod. "In a sense, this very choice may eventually bring about the end of the album as we know it. No longer do listeners have to buy entire albums when they can just pick and choose particular songs to download. This very efficiency is already having a tremendous impact on the art of the album-making. Artists can now release only a few songs at a time."

　

Though its methods of delivery are changing, radio has once again become a key player, not just in shaping the way that we hear music, but in shaping the way that it is being made.

　

If that's not a revolution, then it's certainly the seed of one.

Competition is good

　

An example of innovation in radio, 2006 style, is Seattle's KEXP 90.3 FM. KEXP is a traditional radio station that has also fully embraced Internet radio. You can go online and listen to it right now.

　

Under the theoretical umbrella "music that matters," KEXP DJs such as Richards have been clamoring to bring excitement and a sense of possibility back to radio. The difference between a station like KEXP and your standard-issue corporate-owned station? The Seattle station is content-driven, and clearly dedicated to being willfully eclectic in its music choices.

　

KEXP is notable in that it is a "terrestrial" station - what those in the industry have taken to calling old-school, traditional radio stations - but also has become a shining star in the world of Internet radio.

　

Of course, Buffalo broadcast radio stations - Citadel's 97 Rock FM and 103.3 the EDGE FM, for example - also stream their broadcasts online. Is it possible that satellite and Internet radio and conventional broadcasts could end up feeding each other?

　

"The thing is, competition is always good," says Hank Dole, program director for 107.7 the Lake FM, a relatively young Buffalo station known for its tendency to play deep album cuts from a wide array of rock-based artists. "The same is true in print media and television. The more choice the listener has, the better radio stations have to become in order to compete for their attention. So I believe that they do feed each other. With that much choice out there, you simply have to become better."

　

Radio is not dead

　

It's still possible to be a huge fan of radio, and simultaneously, a fierce critic. Radio still has immense potential. The question is, have the majority of strictly demographic-minded broadcast stations niche-marketed themselves obsolete?

"No," says Spin's Brod. "Homogenized corporate radio will survive, because it's free and easily accessible. There's no computer or satellite receiver required. Corporate radio stations will likely just reinvent themselves.

　

"Radio formats are constantly in flux, so, for example, as soon as the boomers who listen to '70s classic rock can't play music too loud because of their hearing aids, the format will become a dinosaur."

　

Little Steven Van Zandt, whose "Underground Garage" radio show is syndicated to hundreds of commercial stations weekly, and broadcast - minus his between-song commentary - 24/7 on Sirius Satellite Radio, said in a recent online interview that, though he realizes he's "in the minority at this point, ... I personally feel it's a complementary relationship between so-called terrestrial and satellite, and I continue to [see] a very ... synergistic relationship between the two."

　

Van Zandt, a member of Bruce Springsteen's E-Street Band and part of HBO's "Sopranos" cast, has long been a champion of radio's ability to enlighten listeners by challenging them, and turning them on to music from both the past and present.

　

In his view, satellite and Internet radio might urge commercial radio to cut down on the advertising, and return to a more content-driven approach.

　

"You're seeing a strong public radio force out there that cares about listeners and music (and information) so you have to hope we can carry the torch," says KEXP's Richards.

　

Buffalo's Jonathan Coe, an admitted "lifelong music fan," believes that satellite and Internet radio have taken steps in the right direction, but aren't quite there yet.

"Are satellite and Internet radio offering what rock radio once did? Yes and no," says Coe. "Satellite radio plays a lot of music that doesn't get played on radio anymore, but it still seems to be packaged under a specific format. What everyone seems to miss these days about radio is the variety of music. It seems to me that all satellite radio has done is to make more music available, but still to package it in a format."

　

Is Internet radio more flexible in this regard?

　

"What's great about the Internet is that you can track down radio stations that still play whatever they want to," Coe says. "That's exciting. Things like the Bob Dylan radio show (heard on XM) make satellite radio more attractive than corporate, strictly playlisted radio stations. But it would be nice if [Dylan's show] was syndicated on commercial stations too, like Little Steven's "Underground Garage' is.

　

"To me, the issue is finding a radio station that I can play all day long. Satellite is expensive, and therefore, exclusionary."

　

KEXP's Richards says commercial radio "has to and will change in the next five years. You will see massive changes, I think, but the question is - will they change for the better?"
　

Tailor-made radio

　

There's an upside, though, as Brod points out.

　

"Satellite and Internet radio certainly represent a victory for artists who wouldn't normally fit into very specific, heavily playlisted terrestrial radio formats," Brod says. "And listeners can now play specific channels that feature music virtually tailored to their tastes."

　

Does the success of both Internet and satellite radio represent a sort of revolt by listeners who've grown tired of the same old stuff? Is this a case of the listener finally making themselves heard and demanding more - and more varied - content with fewer commercials?

　

"Absolutely," says Brod. "You could always change the station if something came on the AM or FM dial that you didn't like, but now with satellite and Internet radio, you're likely to be more forgiving, or even interested in what comes next."

　

The wheel, of course, is just starting to spin. It's impossible to gauge the effect satellite and Internet radio have had, and will have, on terrestrial stations.

　

It's obvious, however, that by looking back toward radio's glory days, satellite and Internet stations have made radio feel a bit more dangerous and exciting again.

　

Still, fears persist. Is there the chance that, once more and more people subscribe to these relatively new formats, we'll end up with the same problems involving lack of variety, excess advertising and strict formatting - the very things critics of corporate radio have long decried - once again?

　

"Probably not," according to Brod. "The suppliers know that's what's drawing people to the new formats - if they renege on their promises, subscribers will turn away in droves."

e-mail: jmiers@buffnews.com

原文出处：

http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20060723/1071885.asp