February 18, 2004

Woke up in Hotel Reality
Posted by Jon Henke

Dale Franks fisks Don Henley. Yes, that Don Henley.

Don Henley writes in the Washington Post today that the music business is all higgledy-piggledy. He argues that the only way to fix the music business--of course--is through government intervention.
...
I suspect that means that Henley finds it difficult to buy a new Gulfstream G-5 for the world tour this year, but we all have to make sacrifices, as they say.
Remember back in the day, when government was "The Man", and you didn't trust "The Man", because "The Man" was likely to screw you over? Well, that's all over now that Henley - and almost everybody else - have discovered that "The Man" can be used to screw the other guy, too.

Oh, and great grafs like this are one reason you should be reading Dale's blog daily:

Oh, OK, I know I'm being too hard on Henley. Musicians aren't particularly known for presenting their thoughts in a logical, manner. Or really for having very deep thoughts in the first place. So fisking Henley over his Wapo op/ed is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel. With a guided anti-tank missile. Of all the knives in the drawer, Henley isn't the Henckels Rostfrei, if you know what I mean.
Well, I wasn't sure what a "Henckels Rostfrei" is, but I think I can figure it out.

On to an arena I know well....

Then, of course, there's broadcast consolidation. That bothers me too. I remember not too long ago that when you walked into the studio, you went to the music library, and programmed your show right on the spot. Heck, I remember walking into the studio 1 minute before air time, grabbing one CD on my way into the studio, and just creating my show on the fly from then on.

Not any more. Heck, you don't even play your own records any more. You have a play list already written for you, all cued up on computer. All you do is talk between songs, and a good portion of that is scripted for you, too.

Very true. Radio is - and always has been to a large extent - much less spontaneous than people imagine. The 1996 Deregulation Act put that into fast forward.

The great irony of the 1996 Deregulation Act is this: it's not really deregulation. It's simply protectionism. The government removed regulations that forbid corporations from owning more than a few stations in any given market and (iirc) 40 stations nationwide. That would be deregulation if small competitors could rise up to compete with the larger corporations, offering whatever the larger corporations cannot.

But that's not the case, since the FCC still strictly controls entry into the radio market. Instead of allowing the market to determine the size and distribution of the broadcasting pie...the government maintained a finite limit on the pie and allowed corporations to own up to 50% per market without the possibility of expanding the pie.

To put it more clearly: Imagine if Wal-Mart was given free reign to buy up as many competitors as they liked (as is the case now), but prohibited any new businesses from being opened.

Instead of a dynamic and expanding market, you've got protectionism. And protectionism leads to lazy, inefficient business practices. Deregulation is good...but what's happening in radio is not deregulation.

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Comments

Henley lost whatever credibility he might have once aspired to when he described Ronald Reagan as "this tired old man that we elected king" in the song "End of the Innocence."

He's the perfect example of disgusting baby boomer behavior: rail against the government while you're young and too lazy to work, whine that the government isn't doing enough to coddle you when you're old.

Posted by: Jeff at February 19, 2004 08:27 AM