Okay, So It's Not Just Me
by Sean Carolan

Paranoia's not generally my style, so when I started feeling as though alternative radio was homogenizing, I thought, "Hey, I'm just getting older; this probably how my parents felt listening to the radio when they hit my age...". It's a bit of a relief, then, when members of Congress start seeing the same problems.

In Wednesday's Washington Post, Senators Ernest Hollings and Byron Dorgan complained rather lucidly about ... well, they used the same word I did, "homogenization". It's a great word for this particular discussion, owing to its ineffable relationship with the concept of "milk", and the obvious conclusion that it leads to everything in radio tending toward the same color and consistency.

In their piece, aptly titled "Your Local Station, Signing Off" they note the consolidation that has occurred in the radio industry with a surprising amount of accuracy, given their viewpoint from inside the Beltway, and offer their hope that it won't continue on into the television industry. In fact, the article takes "the troubling results [of deregulation] in the radio marketplace" as a given.

Of course, they're politicians, and it's difficult to hear such a stand taken without stopping to consider what the upside for them might be; in other words, what large and powerful lobby has suggested that they take a stand for the little guy. I'd like to think, of course, that it's actually altruism; I sincerely hope it is.

In summing up, they hammer pretty heavily on the term "diversity", which is apt. Diversity is rapidly being vacuumed out of radio, and it's nice to think that loss is showing up on the radar of some of the folks in Congress. Now, let's watch, and wait (and for those of us in the US, a phone call to our local representatives might not hurt, either...)

©2001 Sean Carolan