CD Sales Are Down Because of Radio Consolidation
There's a great writeup at Salon about the impact of deregulation on the radio industry, specifically about Clear Channel Communications. Clear Channel has 970 more stations than its closest competitor, frequently owning the major stations in key markets like New York, and dominating the different genres. You can't get radio coverage if Clear Channel won't play your music.
My personal opinion is that the collapse of CD sales in the past three years is due as much, if not more, to the deregulation of the radio industry than to P2P filesharing. Wonder if/when the RIAA will take on Clear Channel. It's probably much easier to go after college students.
Read Clear Channel's big, stinking deregulation mess: The sorry state of the radio industry today is sabotaging FCC chairman Michael Powell's plans to let media conglomerates run wild. If you like the article, sign up for a subscription to Salon (if you don't have one already).
e.p.c. posted this at 14:54 GMT on 19-Feb-2003 . Archive Link