Published: Sunday, December 13, 1998

Radio for Robots

Why is local radio so boring? Because the big conglomerates have too much money riding on success to
risk taking chances on creative progamming.

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BRIAN LAMBERT MEDIA CRITIC
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The question ``Why is radio so bad around here?'' is probably as old as the medium itself. And it is,
ultimately, as unanswerable as such other timeless puzzlements as ``Why do men/women act like that?''
and ``How come nothing works anymore?''

 But radio -- and by that we mean the music played on radio -- should be a lot better than it is. (The
quality of radio-delivered  news, sports and talk is a whole other screed). Put another way, the music
played over the air waves should be a lot more varied, diverse and adventuresome than it has been for at
least 25 years.

And as the accompanying essay makes clear, it's not just Twin Cities radio, although God knows it's
boring enough around here. Travel around the country, and you'll hear the same complaint. Somehow,
almost 50 years of pop music, literally hundreds of thousands of songs have been condensed to an absurdly
small number deemed playable by your average program director and his nervous, market-share-oriented
general managers and corporate board members.

One of the most successful formats everywhere you go is ``Classic Rock.'' What that really means is
anybody's guess. But what it isn't is much of anything new. Or anything old that hasn't been played to
death over the past two or three decades.  ``Classic Rock,'' therefore, is an oldies format by another name.

The Who are a classic ``Classic Rock'' band. And they were great. But ``Classic Rock'' stations have
managed to reduce the entire Who catalog to ``Behind Blue Eyes'' and ``Who Are You.'' Ditto the Clash,
the definitive band of the so-called punk era. To listen to ``Classic Rock,'' you'd never know the Clash
ever recorded ``London Calling'' or ``Sandinista.''

Even the venerable Rolling Stones are confined to long-established hits from 20 years or more back.
(Despite two strong albums in recent years, ``Voodoo Lounge'' and ``Bridges to Babylon,'' who can recall
a cut from either making the playlist in the Twin Cities in the past three months?) New music by geezer
rockers doesn't make the cut, either, unless it's something with a big movie-studio promotional push, such
as Aerosmith's love theme (!?) to ``Armageddon.''

And neither do you hear much of a range from new acts. How many ``deep cuts'' of Alanis Morrisette
have you heard?  What you get are a few select ``hits,'' as chosen and hyped (with videos) by the record
companies . . . and then played to death.

This is why, despite every other station in town hyping itself as an ``alternative,'' what you get is little
more than '90s-style Top 40.

If you're detecting the whine of another aging baby boomer trying to resuscitate the anarchic, damn-the-
stockholders spirit of the '60s, so be it. Those of us who think this way are more than happy to argue that
radio was a lot more interesting, unpredictable and fun back when we were kids. More to the point, music
played by iconoclastic, individualistic programmers and jocks broadened our tastes and enriched our lives.

At least, that's the way we remember it.

``I don't deny it's not as diverse as it could be,'' says Gregg Swedberg, program director for cowboy-music-
oriented KEEY-FM (102.1, a.k.a. K102) and one of the towns' more refreshingly candid arbiters of
musical taste. Although currently juggling Garth Brooks, Shania Twain and a dozen other crooners in big
hats and T-shirts, in a previous life Swedberg programmed rock 'n' roll at WLOL-FM (since sold to
Minnesota Public Radio) and genuinely enjoys a wide range of music.

``But this business is less about creating public taste than reflecting it,'' he says. ``Why is there so much
rock on the air?  Because we all do research that shows people want to listen to rock music. If you indict
the content of radio, what you really have to do is indict the tastes of the mass of listeners.

``But what you're complaining about isn't just radio,'' Swedberg continues. ``If the gripe is that radio isn't
challenging the listeners, ask yourself why the news is the way it is? Does TV news challenge anybody?
Why is the front page of the newspaper the way it is? Not because it's trying to challenge the readers,
certainly.''

But even Swedberg sees the absurdity in the yawning credibility gap between promotional claims and
actual programming, ``alternative'' music being a prime example.

``Yeah, I love that,'' he laughs. `` Alternative' to what? The other station playing same eight damn songs?
It's pathetic. The word `alternative' is one of the great lies of the '90s.''

He adds, ``It's tough for me, because I love new music. But the number of people who are really into it is,
what? one-tenth of the audience [for pop music]? That doesn't pay the bills. It might be nice to the play a
lot of challenging, interesting music, but the bottom line is if you don't give listeners the music they want
to listen to, they say, `Screw you,' and go find somebody who will.''

Another local program director, who asked not to be identified, says, ``We're all prisoners of the Arbitron
ratings, or at least we were until all the consolidation of the last couple of years. If the ratings went up,
you kept your job. If they went down, you got torched. Generally, it was better to be employed and eating
regularly.

``The game has changed now, with these huge companies owning a half-dozen stations in a market. The
new guys define market share differently than they used to. But because of the money involved, $30
million to $35 million for a [full-power] FM, no one's going to take a lot of chances with risky
programming. You find out what people will listen to and that's what you give them, over and over.''

The media end of the merger-and-acquisition frenzy of recent years was touched off by the
Telecommunications Act of 1996. It was a heavily lobbied piece of legislation that both the Republican-
controlled Congress and President Clinton signed with so much overblown ``vision of the 21st century''
rhetoric that a casual observer might have thought they were witnessing the reinvention of the Bill of
Rights.

In fact, the TelCom Act didn't have much in common with the Spirit of the Revolution. It was far more
Darwinian than democratic. The small sold out (better than being suffocated by competition). The big got
a lot bigger. And gargantuan, heavily leveraged monopolies have become the order of the day.

So much for anarchic old hippies spinning groovy tunes.

How big have the bigs become? At the moment, the Chancellor Media Corp. owns seven stations in the
Twin Cities, and close to 500 across the entire country. The Disney-ABC company controls six local
licenses, and CBS owns four.

We concede the complaint of ``boring radio'' is highly subjective. Plainly, huge numbers of listeners
continue to tune into the same two Who cuts on ``Classic Rock'' and the same eight ``alternative'' cuts at
four or five other stops on the dial. Presumably, some of these listeners might even like what they hear.
We doubt that. But it's possible.

The issue, though, is one of choice, and in the Twin Cities, only very small, low-power stations offer
anything like a true alternative to the conglomerates.

KUOM-AM (770, Radio K) on the University of Minnesota campus plays as eclectic and unpredictable a
mix of rock music as you'll find anywhere in town, but it is a ``daytimer,'' broadcasting only from sun up
to sun down.  And, as we all know, sunlight is in short supply through a Minnesota winter.

But in the realm of subjectivity and personal opinion, we advise all complainants to seek out KUMD-FM
(103.3) in Duluth. It is the best radio station in the state, a station that comes closer than any other to
providing what that perpetually cranky, displeased 10 percent of the alternative-music-loving public
imagines when it dreams of good radio.

A public, member-supported station on the University of Minnesota-Duluth campus, its 95,000-watt
signal covers a nice chunk of northern Minnesota real estate, as far south as Hinckley if you're on
Interstate 35.

As well as such public-radio standards as ``Car Talk,'' ``Whaddya Know?'' and the superb ``World Cafe''
every afternoon from 2 to 5 p.m., KUMD's identity is closely tied to a blues-rich playlist throughout the
day, plus an eclectic five-hour Sunday-afternoon ``Women's Music Show'' and a couple of weekend gems.
``Highway 61 Revisited'' (6 p.m. Saturday) is an avid fan's labor of love, a constantly re-researched
compilation of Bob Dylan live shows and little-heard recordings.  ``Interstate 103'' (10 p.m.-3 am. Friday)
is quintessential doing-their-own-thing programming by a quartet of jocks. It's the    place to go for
terrific, ignored-to-nearly forgotten cuts by everybody from Patti Smith to Michelle Shocked to the Verve
Pipe.

KUMD General Manager Paul Schmitz has run the show since 1984. He says the principles guiding the
station's programming is providing ``an alternative to what you hear on both commercial radio and other
public stations around here,''  and in terms of the music, ``quality with some artistic merit.''

But here's the tough question. Were Schmitz to roll over, sell out and program a commercial station, does
he see himself being able to resist the corporate pressure creating blandness and boredom across the dial?

``Not in any city of any size, I don't. There's too much money tied up in these licenses today.''

The best news for the Twin Cities is Schmitz hopes to have KUMD available over the internet ``in three to
six months.''

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