Scott Borchetta Said WHAT? (2014 Country Radio Seminar Primer)
This week in Nashville is the annual CRS or Country Radio Seminar where executives and personalities in country radio gather with executives and artists in the country music industry to hobnob, network, and attend workshops and presentations about the direction and future of radio and country music. This year the backdrop of CRS most certainly will be the Country Music Media Arms Race breaking out in 2014 (see more about this below).
Bits of interesting news about the country music radio industry tend to trickle out of CRS week, like a couple of years ago when an Edison Research study concluded that country listeners wanted more classic country on the radio. Edison Research President Larry Rosin said at the time, “I believe that we as an industry have really made a mistake in our conception of our own stations. While many people don’t want to listen to classic country music, some still do, and we’ve let them float away”¦We run the risk that we just are more and more pleasing to fewer and fewer people until all we are is ecstatically pleasing a tiny, unsustainable number of people.”
Scott Borchetta Quizzically Compares Big Machine Music to a Ferrari, not McDonald’s.
Even before the CRS events got started in earnest Monday evening, many interesting pieces of information about radio and country music emerged in the run up to CRS. Big Machine Records’ Scott Borchetta had the most puzzling quote, choosing a strange, if not unfortunate analogy to compare his label’s music to when explaining why he chooses to delay releasing music from artists like Taylor Swift and Justin Moore on Spotify and other streaming services until months after the release date has passed. Borchetta told The Tennessean:
“I’m not McDonald’s. I’m not 1 billion served. I’m much more in favor of building a Harley-Davidson or a Ferrari and take that 1 or 2 percent of the population who love what we do and super-serve them.”
It seems like that analogy needs to be flip flopped, but big power players like Borchetta, and their ability to control the market with landmark deals with Clear Channel and others entities will certainly be one of the big topics at CRS 2014.
Why Radio Still Matters
Every time Saving Country Music broaches the subject of country radio, the alternatives such as satellite and streaming services are brought up as evidence of why radio doesn’t matter anymore. Though radio may not matter to a specific consumer, when it comes to the research, the experts, and to the culture and listeners in country music specifically, radio is still by far the most dominant format, especially for consumers to discover new music.
“Time and time again when studies are done, broadcast radio remains the No. 1 source for discovering new music,” Broken Bow Records executive Jon Loba told The Tennessean ahead of CRS. “Radio is still 80-plus percent of your music exposure. One thing I remind staff at least once a month in an artist development meeting when we are focusing on other mediums of exposure that are important streaming, or press for TV, or whatever else I try not to let everyone get in the weeds with that. Radio is still the primary form of exposing new music.”
Despite dramatic growth in music streaming across the board, just like with the transition from CD’s to downloads, country music is lagging behind other genres in the changeover, allowing country radio to continue to hold onto its power over consumers. As Nate Rau writing for The Tennessean explains:
“An analysis of music streaming data for 2013 shows that, despite growing noticeably, country still lags behind the other genres. Of the top 10,000 streamed songs last year, 28 percent were rock songs, 28 percent were hip-hop/R&B songs, 19 percent were pop songs and 8 percent were country songs, according to Nielsen data. But on traditional radio, country music outranks all other genres as the most popular format.”
Radio Losing Its Autonomy From Record Labels
Whereas in the past many radio stations were independently or regionally owned and their charge was to serve their communities with music, now that radio consolidation has put the majority of radio stations in the hands of a few select companies, principally Clear Channel and Cumulus, the point of radio in many instances is not to serve communities, but to serve record labels. As Broken Bow’s Jon Loba explains:
“When I got into the business, at my first CRS in 1997, I remember radio stations saying, ‘It is not our job to sell records. Our job is to keep listeners tuned in to our station. That is it. If we happen to sell records as a byproduct, that’s fantastic, but it’s not our job.’ [Now] there’s a much more symbiotic relationship, not just in words, but actually in action. CBS and Clear Channel both are taking the time to say very proactively, ‘We want to help you highlight your priorities, we want to help you sell records. We know healthy record labels are a large part of our business.’
The Country Music Media Arms Race is Heating Up
Similar to how all popular music is coalescing into one or two huge mega-genres or mono-genre, the media that covers and serves country music fans in radio, print, online, television, and social formats is consolidating around two big media players: Clear Channel & Cumulus—the two largest radio station owners in the United States, supported by partnering or gobbling up other important players in the country music media realm.
In December of 2013, word came down that Clear Channel had cut a deal with CMT to create nationally-focused country music programming to be distributed across the 125 country radio stations owned by the company, as well as some digital and television platforms. This move was in response to Cumulus, the 2nd-largest radio station owner in the United States behind Clear Channel, which had created its own national syndicated format earlier in 2013 under the NASH-FM brand, serving 70 separate radio markets.
Then Cumulus matched Clear Channel’s cross-media move by partnering with the long-running magazine Country Weekly to migrate the NASH-FM brand into print and online media. Announced in late January, Country Weekly in the next couple of quarters will become NASH Weekly. Cumulus has also registered nashweekly.com, and is expected to make an online presence for the NASH brand a focus. Then yesterday, even more ventures and partnerships were announced from Cumulus, including a television station, live concerts and events, even potentially restaurants and consumer products will be part of the massive NASH brand expansion.
Personalities and cross-platform promotion are what is driving the media arms race. CMT’s Cody Alan who now also appears in Clear Channel’s syndicated radio network can do an interview with a big country star, and use that interview both on television and in radio, transcribe it for print and/or online media, and promote it through both company’s social networks. However there are obvious trappings to having one or two companies control all of country music’s media.
“From the record company standpoint, it is absolutely more efficient and cost-effective with respect to reaching a larger audience in one shot,” says Broken Bow’s Jon Loba. “But it can also be somewhat scary in that there are fewer voices and opinions being heard out there.”
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What’s for certain is that in 2014, country music media will go through the biggest paradigm shift in the genre’s history, touching every facet of how consumers engage with country music, and creating two massive companies who will dominate the media landscape, partnering with the country music recording industry and blurring lines between covering music and creating music like never before.
February 18, 2014 @ 2:55 pm
Hey Scott ever hear this “It’s better to be thought a fool than open your mouth and remove all doubt”
February 18, 2014 @ 3:01 pm
It’s a tough one. The big “country” radio stations don’t necessarily acknowledge the diversity of the genre and play the same pop country songs by the same pop country artists. “country music is lagging behind other genres in the changeover.” As much as I would love to see the big country stations branching out and airing the a more diverse sound including classic country, I don’t know if it would be worth sifting through the crap like Luke Brian just so I can hear artists like Sturgill or Isbell. That’s why I’m thankfull for the (few) smaller stations consistently playing the artists we all love.
February 19, 2014 @ 9:27 am
Do you have any examples of the small stations playing good artists? I’m always in the market for a new station to look into.
February 19, 2014 @ 2:31 pm
Well it depends on where you are from. I only really know of one from where I am from. I live in Santa Cruz CA and we have a great station called KPIG. They stream their radio online for 5 bucks i think.
February 18, 2014 @ 3:17 pm
I refuse to give a tinkers damn about cumulus or clear channel. I choose to thank God for Satelite and internet radio and good locally owned staions. Yes at some point the mono genere may absorb them too but until then think God for a state like Texas were independent music can still thrive. I do have sympathy for the long standing local and regional radio personalities that are being let go as programing goes national.
February 18, 2014 @ 4:07 pm
I applaud Larry Rosin…but it shows market research is not the reality.
Borchetta wants the 1 or 2 percent….that is awesome…he is the next supporter of Saving Country Music!!!!!!
Sturgill Simpson, Aaron Watson,, Lindi Ortega…whiskey Myers , etc….
The bottom line is our “thoughts” need a concerted effort of financial support….whether it is buying the albums, going to the shows, or perhaps an Independent sort of “fund” to push the radio to listen and play the songs….
I think we can make it happen….
Trigger, figure out the details and I am good for $500.00 towards the cause…
No none sense….this is possible.
Thanks,
Rakor1932
February 18, 2014 @ 5:13 pm
If Scott Borchetta is the Country Music Anti-Christ, then CRS must be hell itself as it’s the epicenter of all of the destructive trends which have molded AirHead Country Radio into it’s current pathetic state. Having two big media conglomerates strengthening their hold over the Top 40 country airwaves is akin to a death grip on the neck of diverse and high quality music programming. I personally tuned out years ago and this new trend makes it even less likely I would ever consider tuning back in at some point in the future.
February 18, 2014 @ 5:30 pm
Fortunately, here in the Bay Area, Cumulus and Clear Channel together own only 8 FM stations (out of about 40). The one country station in the South Bay is still locally owned (which unfortunately does not stop them from playing lowest common denominator modern “country”).
February 18, 2014 @ 7:43 pm
Eric, I also live in the Bay Area. You could say I’m one of the holdouts, one of the 1% of folks in the Bay Area who still live in rural areas. Yes I’m familiar with KRTY. Unfortunately their playlist is not much different from what you would hear on a Clear Channel station. I used to listen to them regularly on the commute, then I started changing the station frequently when they played Taylor Swift songs, then 2-3 years ago I tuned them out completely when they started playing a lot of “bro country” garbage (yes, conservative talk radio is a big improvement over Jason Aldean and Luke Bryan). I think they still play at least one popular artist that you like, but the way mainstream country is going KRTY and I might never ever be getting back together (:
February 18, 2014 @ 11:00 pm
Interesting! I presume you live near Gilroy (since that is about the only agricultural area left in the Bay Area)?
Did you go to the George Strait concert in San Jose as well?
February 18, 2014 @ 11:01 pm
Correction: only agricultural area left in the SOUTH Bay. I had forgotten about the Napa-Sonoma wine country.
February 18, 2014 @ 11:38 pm
Don’t forget KPIG!
February 19, 2014 @ 12:47 am
I have a few acres up in the Santa Cruz mountains. We don’t have public water pipes, gas lines, or cable TV, but we have plenty of woods and wildlife and some views of the bay. It’s beautiful country, removed from the stress of Silicon Valley.
Unfortunately I didn’t make it to the George Strait concert, but I still listen to his music a lot. I am sad to see the cowboy ride away, but I gotta give him credit for keeping it up for longer than just about anyone else for traditional country music, and certainly a good man needs to have some quiet time with his family.
Country music has lost so much in one decade. I remember 10 years ago frequently hearing songs like “Long Black Train” and “Whiskey Lullabye” quite often on KRTY, along with a lot of Alan Jackson, and thinking that mainstream country might be back on the right track. I remember hearing some pretty traditional songs from the women too back in those days, during the few years after Shania moved to Switzerland and before Carrie won American Idol. Country radio has changed so much that I feel like playing Alan Jackson’s “Remember When”.
February 19, 2014 @ 4:38 am
That is a truly beautiful place to live. Having gone up to Skyline Blvd. via Saratoga once, though, I definitely got the impression that commuting to the Silicon Valley from there is difficult.
I have lived in the Bay Area for about 6 years now (Aug. 2007 to Dec. 2011 in the East Bay and since Sept. 2012 in the Silicon Valley). The ironic thing about this place is that despite how beautiful the Bay looks from a bird’s eye view, the general environment improves significantly as one heads away from the Bay and toward the mountains. I can imagine that living in the mountains with a view of the Bay must feel like heaven on Earth, even without too many amenities.
February 18, 2014 @ 8:21 pm
While Clear Channel and Cumulus may be the biggies driving this race to the bottom they are far from the only offenders. Cumulus isn’t even in the market I live in (Seattle) and Clear Channel doesn’t have a country outlet here. The two major country stations are owned by CBS and Entercom and they are just as bad as all the others. I honestly can’t say I’ve listened to more than a few minutes straight of these stations in ages. When I listen to local radio it’s sports or talk radio and for music it’s satellite. Terrestrial music radio is a stunning wasteland right now.
February 18, 2014 @ 10:58 pm
I would agree that the Seattle country stations are bad. The last time I was in Seattle, back in 2012, both 94.1 and 100.7 were in the early stages of bro country, even though 100.7 purports to be more “true country” than 94.1.
February 18, 2014 @ 8:20 pm
I can see Borchetta’s point, Harley’s are loud and annoying, and Ferrari’s are all flash and expensive to repair.
February 18, 2014 @ 8:26 pm
If the first artist they signed is any indication, I’d say the Big Machine is more like a bright red second hand Ford Mustang with a sun roof, chrome wheels, squeaky brakes, and a leaky transmission. It doesn’t handle like a real sports car, it doesn’t even do some of the basic things a car is supposed to do very well, but the teenagers want to believe that it’s a sports car.
February 19, 2014 @ 12:35 am
“Radio is still 80-plus percent of your music exposure…. Radio is still the primary form of exposing new music.”
I read the article this quote came from, and I’m still not sure: was Jon Loba referring specifically to the country genre when he made this statement? I would honestly be surprised if radio were still the main source of information about new music amongst the general listening audience. That sure dosen’t *seem* true, though I could possibly believe it about the mainstram country radio audience. They seem pretty passive.
February 19, 2014 @ 2:55 am
What is this “new” music to which he refers? It all sounds the same, and like the stuff directly previous, but none of it sounds like country. He must be so used to reaching down for the lowest common denominator that he thinks we’re all fools.
February 19, 2014 @ 10:57 pm
http://www.rab.fm/uploads/2014/Onderzoek/Nielsen%20360%20report.pdf
Radio is still the main way songs get heard by the masses, which translates into big sales. The top 50 radio chart roughly equals the top 50 sales chart and the most played artists get the most sales. Sites like this are the main source of info about music and also drive sales. Problem is one can’t hop into their car, turn the radio on and read or hear this site. Radio reaches everyone so it has the largest audience of all media by far. Where else do songs get repeated to over 100 million people? Even when an artist performs on a TV show with a big audience it’s just a 1 time play and listen so that song might just barely enter the top 50 sales chart briefly while good radio play keeps it there. A top 10 song on radio gets heard many times per day by a much larger audience. Repetition to a passive audience drives sales. Radio playing the same crappy songs over and over is why people go to Youtube, Pandora, etc.
May 27, 2014 @ 4:29 pm
Don’t forget MTV. I want music videos like Taylor Swift music videos on MTV. I’m sick of reality shows on MTV. Let’s not forget about music videos (YouTube, Fuse, Vevo, etc.). I’d take MTV, Vevo, Fuse, Music Choice and VH1 over radio any day. Music videos forever. Yeah, I agree about why radio is overrated. I prefer music videos and MTV to radio. Down with radio.
February 19, 2014 @ 2:49 am
Mr Borchetta can continue to focus on his 1-2% of “Ferrari” audience, and I’ll continue to ignore radio, as I’ve done for over a decade now, except for one little AM station which plays classic country. Other than that, it’s Live 365 or some other internet format, where I can still hear, for instance, Tanya Tucker’s Oklahoma twang and distinctive little vibrato thing she does, or Conway Twitty’s velvet and gravel southern drawl. I won’t be hearing distinctive voices like theirs from anything he’s associated with, nor anything else distinctive lyrically, melodically, or in any other way authentic. Even country’s classic novelty songs had more depth and lyrical content than the crud being assembled on the line now.
February 19, 2014 @ 7:48 am
Speaking of Clear Channel, a few days ago I was flipping around the radio and heard an iHeart (Clear Channel) commercial that made me cringe. I’ve heard it a few more times over the last couple of weeks, but not yet when flipping by a Clear Channel Country station (are they smart enough to not air this on a country station?). It was read by what sounded like a teenage girl:
“Some people believe in God, I believe in music. Some people pray, I turn up the radio.”
I’m sure people could get bent out of shape about that from a religious aspect (no other gods before me), but it just had a creepy cult like vibe to me when I heard it.
Looking around it turns out Clear Channel lifted the clip for the commercial from a ’30 Seconds To Mars’ video. The quote starts at 4:56:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLqHDhF-O28
February 19, 2014 @ 8:31 am
We have a local AM station that’s been around for over 80 years. We all listen to it and I hope it never goes away.
I can’t think of any ranchers or cowboys that prefer live streaming. They’re too busy trying to keep everyone alive….feeding their livestock and humans.
February 19, 2014 @ 10:32 pm
I will go a step further and say radio also shapes what country music is or what millions of people think it is, especially young people new to the music market or country music. That’s why it’s important that country radio play great country music, not pop, rap or crappy country songs. Here’s a radio industry publication calling for radio to take back ownership of the music from labels:
http://www.radioinfo.com/2014/02/03/going-golden-ears/
May 27, 2014 @ 4:25 pm
”Why Radio Still Matters
Every time Saving Country Music broaches the subject of country radio, the alternatives such as satellite and streaming services are brought up as evidence of why radio doesn”™t matter anymore. Though radio may not matter to a specific consumer, when it comes to the research, the experts, and to the culture and listeners in country music specifically, radio is still by far the most dominant format, especially for consumers to discover new music.
“Time and time again when studies are done, broadcast radio remains the No. 1 source for discovering new music,” Broken Bow Records executive Jon Loba told The Tennessean ahead of CRS. “Radio is still 80-plus percent of your music exposure. One thing I remind staff at least once a month in an artist development meeting when we are focusing on other mediums of exposure that are important ”” streaming, or press for TV, or whatever else ”” I try not to let everyone get in the weeds with that. Radio is still the primary form of exposing new music.”
Despite dramatic growth in music streaming across the board, just like with the transition from CD”™s to downloads, country music is lagging behind other genres in the changeover, allowing country radio to continue to hold onto its power over consumers. As Nate Rau writing for The Tennessean explains:
“An analysis of music streaming data for 2013 shows that, despite growing noticeably, country still lags behind the other genres. Of the top 10,000 streamed songs last year, 28 percent were rock songs, 28 percent were hip-hop/R&B songs, 19 percent were pop songs and 8 percent were country songs, according to Nielsen data. But on traditional radio, country music outranks all other genres as the most popular format.””
Screw radio, music videos like MTV, digital music like ITunes and streaming music like YouTube are much better. I’d take MTV, Music Choice, Vevo, Fuse and YouTube over radio anyday. I’m glad I prefer the ones I said over radio so I can listen to my favorite music like Avril Lavigne.