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Name: Clear Channel
Age: 38
Occupation: media giant
Last Seen: San Antonio, TX
Bee-otched For: killing off talent for more crap
Age: 38
Occupation: media giant
Last Seen: San Antonio, TX
Bee-otched For: killing off talent for more crap
Remember in school, there were the three R's: Readin' 'Ritin' and 'Rithmetic? Well, Clear Channel's wants to use those same three R's to describe their listeners:
Retards, Rednecks and Racists.
After all, Clear Channel's the home of such jerks as Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity on the AM band. Here in Grand Rapids, their radio stations don't necessarily attract the brightest bulbs in the lamp. You've got rednecks enjoying B93, retards enjoying the wife beater sounds of The Fox and bar slut-infested WSNX while WOOD-AM attracts, well you guessed it.
Now, Clear Channel's kissing the ass of one of the three R's: retards. Last week, the company signed a three-year, $60 million deal with Ryan Seacrest, which will keep the overrated host of American Idol on syndication and Los Angeles' KIIS radio. In an interview, Tinker Bell claims that he doesn't even feel like a media mogul since he's only 5'9" and benchpresses 160 lbs.
So, where's CC getting the $$$ to keep Seacrest on board? Well, anybody who knows Clear Channel knows that usually just before the holidays, they love to do some purging. Tragically, Grand Rapids is not an exception. Last month, the company fired WOOD-AM early midday hosts Scott Winters and Michelle McKormick. Also, this past week, WSNX morning man Broadway moved back to B93 nights after the company canned nighttimer Colt McMann.
(Cue The Count from Sesame Street) So at least, one, two, thrrrrree people were canned to help pay for Seacrest! AH-AH-AH!
Ya know, as a kid growing up, I wanted to be a DJ. But, reality sunk in around the same time the non-partisan Telecom Act of 1996 was signed, sealed and made law. Here in Grand Rapids, we have Clear Channel, Citadel and Townsquare, along with several religious independents fighting for listeners. Honestly, the only tolerable station this city has left is WGRD, even though they play 17 minutes of commercials per hour. I'll even admit that sometimes in my car, I'll listen to a little bit of WION 1430 out of Ionia because they're a small indie doing something most stations will never do in a billion years: play music on the AM band locally, and not from a satellite feed.
But'cha know? Yeah, I still have radios all throughout Chuck69.com world headquarters. But I also have a Sirius, an MP3 player and (gasp!) just this past weekend, I upgraded to a brand new cell phone that's Android-enabled. I downloaded Pandora and have been having some fun with it. All I had to do is type in my favorite band (or at least one of 'em, in this case, Nine Inch Nails) and viola! Lots o' NIN tunes, mixed in with Marilyn Manson, Rage Against the Machine, Smashing Pumpkins, Radiohead and even The Verve (I'll admit to liking "Bittersweet Symphony"). No dial flipping, and if I hate a song, I can skip it to my heart's content.
Sorry, but with the coolest and grooviest gadgets out there, who gives two shits about Seacrest and his kin? Or, better yet, terrestrial radio? Yeah, my new phone is FM radio-enabled (probably to please station owners), but since I have Pandora, YouTube and other ways of listening to my favorite songs without trying to call my local radio station to CONVINCE them to play whatever I want, who cares?
It kinda reminds me of something that happened to me when I was a kid growing up in northern Michigan. In the 1990's, fans of bands such as KoRn, Nine Inch Nails, Tool and others were underserved in the market, and I was one of 'em. I remember when 106.7 The Peak had a nightly countdown and I asked the jock to include "Hurt" in the countdown, and his response was, "um, ya gotta song that I can play?" Yeah. This was a station that played the snot out of "Closer" and yet they're scared to play any other NIN tune. But hey, that's how CHR worked. Of course, we can go down the road of how Double Crock KLT sucked (and still does) with their overplaying of burned-out 70's wuss music seguing into Dave Matthews and Melissa Etheridge.
But thanks to the good god of digital technology, the countdown to the end of terrestrial radio will keep creeping closer and closer. Maybe Clear Channel will go belly-up and truly be forced to say "Seacrest, OUT!"
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Bee-otch of the Day is a production of Chuck69.com, Grand Rapids' site for Stern, politics and more!
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