New Details on Apple's Negotiations With iHeartMedia Surface

iHate iHeartMedia. :p

Anyone that follows news about the broadcast industry knows just how bad this company has been for radio stations across the United States.

Actually, iHeart Media has been GREAT for stations….’ owners. iHeart paid big bux to buy out all those stations since FCC deregulation in 1996 allowing for single companies to own more stations in each market.

It has been bad for employees, because iHeart consolidated stations into their iHeart-centralized groups and slashed payroll. However, automation has been doing that, and the FCC has been appropriately deregulating radio to compensate for changing technology.

It has been REAL BAD FOR CULTURE! This McMUSIC culture due to homogenized radio and centralized control of music culture has resulted in the dullest of the dullest musical scene since 755 A.D. when Vlad had to miss the lute-playing traveling bard to take a dump outside the communal hut in the mud lands of Eastern Europe. iHeart (among a couple others) has tightly controlled sales and charts through centralization of radio programming.

In the old days (heydays of the 50s-70s), radio and sales were dictated by the people listening and buying. The record companies and radio stations offered up grassroots creativity and would promote what stuck to the masses listening and purchasing. Manufactured groups and talents were in the mix as well, but anyone could make a go of the system. Nowadays, the average Joe in Podunksville, AL can’t get airplay locally because it is controlled by a centralized corporation way-way over the hills. Mom and Pop sold out/were bought out by the “big boys”.

The radio industry had grown stale in the 80s-90s, anyway. It is like the stepchild of the entertainment industry where lots of ego combines with a lack of talent to create a boring mess. Ultimately, radio stations are mostly audio billboards…. But who is listening?

According to studies, 90% of Americans tune into AM/FM radio every week in their cars! 90%!! It’s huge. However, radio doesn’t have the cultural import it had when it promoted a fresh and lively bevy of creativity, so it is mostly relegated to “filling space” in commuters’ lives. That’s still a fairly good billboard! And that is why it is still relevant.

But why listen? They play the same 10 songs, all bland “chart toppers” written by the same 10-20 folks, all sounding like the same stuff since the late 90s-onward. They cram too many commercials in. The “talent” speaks in funny voices and says puerile quips or snarky aphorisms, etc. And half of the stations/formats sound identical today: ACH sounds like AC sounds like Top-40 sounds like Urban. Even country now sounds like Lite AC.

The future of terrestrial radio isn’t death. It isn’t McRadio, because that is a heartless and failing venture, and it isn’t online. Online is as distant and heartless as iHeart(less) radio and satellite radio. What people are gravitating to more than anything else is information and exploration. They turn to radio in hopes of hearing new music and experiences or information they didn’t get elsewhere. Your playlists on an iPod get stale—quick. The looping XM radio stations feel uncared for and lacking personality or fresh info. They fill no particular niche outside of a musical format. Online radio isn’t much better, and it can be too indulgent for the owner/operators and too difficult to find for the average Joe.

Localization of radio, talking to locals, infoming locals, curating locals along with semi-locals along with nationals and regional talents, will keep it fresh and alive. Apple isn’t going to do that. No major corporation will do that. It will be “normal” people, local folk, picking up the pieces of the radio industry that is crumbing that will make it work again as it worked in the past when it was an actual business instead of an investment scheme for titans and social programmers.

iHate iHeartMedia. :p

Anyone that follows news about the broadcast industry knows just how bad this company has been for radio stations across the United States.

iHeart logo confuses me

There's a lower case letter i.
There's a heart.
There're radio waves being transmitted from the "i" shaped antenna.

Helpful?

apple killed their ipod star. apple had a great music situation, I have a 2007 ipod connected to a Bose sounddock that plays music uninterrupted, clearer, deeper and without loss that sounds much better the itouch 2010 running foobar or anything itunes tries to play though airplay. now apple who destroyed their own music format wants to help a radio company? this is what happens when accountants instead of musicians control music.

iPhone killed the iPod because people stopped buying iPods once Steve Jobs put it on a phone with a web browser and apps.

iHate iHeartMedia. :p

Anyone that follows news about the broadcast industry knows just how bad this company has been for radio stations across the United States.

That doesn't mean Apple can't turn that viewpoint around. Interesting that Cumulus has also filed for bankruptcy. If Apple can get iHeart for a discount, why not use it as a way to convert terrestrial radio listeners to paid streaming users?

I’m confused what you mean by Apple isn’t as large as Disney. Apple could buy Disney multiple times over.

Apple is moving to become a media behemoth, like Disney but not as large. In ten years, Apple might produce and distribute music, movies, television, and radio. Remember, Steve Jobs was Disney's largest shareholder. Twenty years ago, the thought that Apple would replace Sony as the world's most beloved consumer electronics company was little more than a dream. But here we are today. We might be looking at Apple's first baby steps into the future.

I fail to see what Apple achieves with this proposed investment. Terrestrial radio is good for automobile commuters; what benefit does Apple gain from this?

If Apple are working on their own autonomous car then it might also help to own a massive radio network for people to listen to while they're being driven around.

I fail to see what Apple achieves with this proposed investment. Terrestrial radio is good for automobile commuters; what benefit does Apple gain from this?

Idk if they would do this but maybe to make all those station aviialable on Apple Music?

Each location/person had different needs, and for us automation works well. We also have Nest and video cameras at all the needed position as well as automatic door locks. Having been using it for well over 30 years, its very comfortable for us.

Since I met my husband 15 years ago, I only listen to NPR and local affiliates. I’m old. :/

The background music in a typical npr segment is more memorable than the throwaway repetitive vibrations they call modern music nowadays.