When several ownership groups started snapping up every radio station they could get their hands on after the Telcom act loosened the limits 10 years ago, we started to speculate that in the future there would be one station in each format that would just be cloned or syndicated all over the country.  It looks like such a thing could become a reality in the realm of smooth jazz with the launch of a nationally networked format in January.  An owner who wants to put the format on one of their stations can just take the feed and let it run - no human beings that require paychecks and benefits or even worse, want to bring their input, creativity, and personality into their work. It could all be reduced to one consultant, one program director, and one playlist.

Could this happen? It’s been in the works for years as a smaller group of people have become more and more influential. The majority of the high-profile stations already share the same consultant, and the ones that are not paying for their services tend to copy the ones that are. This hasn’t happened in other formats, possibly because there are more stations in top 40 (CHR), adult contemporary, country, rock, urban, talk, or religious than there are in smooth jazz.  It’s easier to concentrate power in a format with about 30 influential stations than it is in one with 100. It’s always dangerous for too much authority to be placed in too few hands. In any endeavor, when the think-tank is reduced to a handful of people who have been working with each other for years, they start to mirror each other and insulate themselves from any input that doesn’t affirm what they are doing.  When that happens where do new ideas come from?  How do evolution and innovation happen?  They don’t.  Instead, the focus gets narrower and spirals inward.  The “super station,” as it is being referred to, will be a prototype of an approach to the format that has been successful.  The heritage stations get excellent ratings, and they are profitable.  Does that mean that it’s the only viable way to do it?  Other approaches could work too, but that is something we haven’t been given the opportunity to explore because the people who could create them have left the format.  Some were downsized or exiled when the original network went on the air in the mid-90s.  Some couldn’t march to the beat of this particular drum and left for the internet, indie/alt media, or jobs in other fields.  We need their experience and creativity, they need to be mentoring the next wave of programmers and personalities, and most of all, these people need to be communicating and exchanging ideas.  But they are elsewhere now.  Competition and diversity are what keep things from becoming stagnant, and right now we don’t have much of either.

I still have press releases and tear-sheets from trade publications that covered the launch of the original network in ‘94 and ’95.  A lot of the same things are being said this time around.  It’s supposed to get the music into more markets, expose it to more listeners, and so on -- all the things that artists, managers, record companies, and promoters hung their dreams on the first time.  We know how that worked out.  The morning and evening shows are already on the air on several stations, and it is mostly a mix of older pop and R&B songs or instrumental covers of older songs with very little in the way of original instrumentals and almost no new music.  This approach does work, but it’s not because of the smooth jazz that remains. Since adult contemporary stations are getting “hotter” as each new generation enters their target audience, urban adult stations are starting to play hip-hop, and oldies stations are disappearing.  It fills the gap for an easy-listening station that plays Stevie Wonder and Sade instead of Bread and Air Supply, and the sax players make it sound a little bit fresher than all those other stations.  However, it would be foolish to stake high hopes on this giving enough exposure to any artist who is playing original contemporary instrumental music for it to have a dramatic effect on their career.  Last time around most of the record companies narrowed their focus and cut off all but a select group of stations.  They also shifted their promotional budgets away from retail and other forms of marketing in order to focus on these stations.  Hopefully everyone is wiser now because we need to cultivate more alternative ways to get the music heard, not less!  A few artists will get airplay, which will be great for them because any airplay is a plus.  But a lot of songs that would become hits under a different set of circumstances will have less of a chance for exposure as more local programming is lost.

So what can be done?  It’s time to get off autopilot, get creative, and get proactive.  Instead of fearing the fragmented new media environment, it’s time to work it.  What if everyone who cares used a little bit of their time and talent to support some aspect of the music?  It could be something big like starting a website or an internet radio station or something as “small” as showing up and being supportive when a local promoter brings in a concert.  This is especially important because there are so many experienced people in the business who are being downsized.  When you’re in job-loss shock, it’s hard to remember that you still have the skills and gifts, and they are very much needed.  It just may not be your primary source of income for awhile.  What matters is that you care about the music and the people who create it.  It will make that interim “daytime job” or job search much more tolerable, and all of us could end up being the “think tank” that creates a way to get the music heard by the people who will get hooked when they hear it.  It might be another approach to the radio format.  It might be something else entirely.  It could even be something that doesn’t exist yet or a new twist on something that does.  Sometimes there have to be ashes before you can rise out of them. The music itself is just as wonderful as it always was.  People just have to dig deeper to find the good stuff, which is why everyone’s help is needed.  Hang in there! 

- Shannon West