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2009....Someone Pro Tool Auld Lang Syne
January 16, 2009
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Jimmy Carter in his homebase Nashville
Happy New Year ... Music Row still quiet after the New Year and it will be for a few more days.
In the words of our dear former President Bill C: It's the economy. stupid.
I know we have been through bad economies before but this one seems like the perfect storm. The stock market sell-off, the credit crisis, the Big Three car issues, the housing credit mess. All that, then you add the Internet putting a major dagger through the heart of the newspaper business. The crazy cost-cutting at the newspapers is affecting the wire services like AP ... and that affects TV stations ...and so it goes. The ad revenue is off and round and round we go. How does this story end?
As if nothing was happening in the news, Nashville recording studios are buzzing with projects aplenty as the touring waits a few more weeks before it gets going. Rascal Flatts and Brad Paisley among the first to start the trucks and go to where the economy is scarier than a Friday the 13th movie.
Last year's bright spot is back for another golden girl year; it seems. Taylor Swift goes into the year with country and pop hits, crossing formats and outselling everyone in town.
Hard to predict another breakout act in 2009. CRS recently named the new faces for 2009: The Zac Brown Band, Kellie Pickler, Lady Antebellum, James Otto and Chuck Wicks. Are these the next superstars of Music Row? It would be like picking stocks on Wall Street. No one seems to be very good at that these days. It is a tough business environment. Tougher for baby acts to get past one-hit wonder status.
As the 2008 ended, the newspapers were putting for sale signs in their yards on a daily basis. Tribune seeking bankruptcy has to make everyone get very nervous. The want-ads are as dead as a Hummer. Craigslist and free want ads killed the dinosaurs. Can local TV be far behind? God forbid radio.
Ad-drenched NASCAR starts up soon on February 15th. They have huge problems with the carmakers cutting advertising and one of the Big Three may go away altogether.
You have to wonder how all this economy news will affect country concerts in Michigan/Ohio. It has to be a huge factor on everything. Tour support dollars weren't that great anyway. Merch sales were off in last quarter of '08.
If you take Taylor Swift sales off the table, Country music was sickly in 2008. New projects from Urban, Paisley and many other proven talents should help in 2009. Key word is should help. Will marketing money for the new stuff shrink? Has it already?
With advertising dollars dissolving, how do the radio stations owned by the big corporate powers not cut staff? Can radio stations get any leaner and meaner? More voicetracking and dead sounding stations? I can tell you where that train will go!
Same for the record companies. Didn't the fat go away eons ago?
The syndicated morning shows are awfully out-of-town sounding. They aren't fooling anyone. They save money, then what? How do they get local folks to relate? Howard Stern did it and a few othera ... very few in the last 50 years. Local that's good smokes those distant signal gangs.
From Fleetwood Mac to Britney Spears, from Brad Paisley to Keith Urban, is there enough fan money to fund all these huge tours in 2009? Buy the T shirts? Park in the lots and buy their beer? The obvious answer would be NO, but few seem to be backing off ... Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!
So, are these mega-monopolies radio and TV people going to downsize? Sell a few of their stations? Is more regulation coming with the new President? Fairness Doctrine for our Talk brethren?
Can you remember a time when technology made a year more exciting and a year when the doom & gloom seemed so powerful? Even positive people have to take a moment to see where all this is going.
Get back to the basics when times are tough; I always heard that is what you must do.. Maybe it's real good advice for all. Do the things that put you on the map. Stick with the stuff that got you to the dance the first time. The Hail Mary pass should most likely be saved for real problems. That play rarely, if eve, works anyway!
The playoffs in football, Grammys, Super Bowl and the start of NASCAR. Winter breaks and longer days. January is a cold month and maybe a chill of all kinds in 2009. I hope not. I want to see Glen Campbell play with Keith Urban. I want to see Darius Rucker and Dierks with Brad. We all have things to do and places to go. Let's hope this new President is more than just hot air.
Hard work got this country to greatness, hard work not bailouts will get us back where we want to go.
For radio can we say it: Voicetracking sucks. Simple as that. It's probably more about what's wrong that any one thing in radio. We need to train some morning people. Nights need to be lived, not some one-show-fits-all network thing. Radio needs passion and excitement. That costs money, doesn't it ... Damn! I hate canned spam. Puke!
Music needs to have more performances and less polish and re-polish. Old people need to be listened to and the smartmouth empty heads with their Garageband next classics need to shut up. Punk music was junk the first time around; why is it being recycled in video games? The men better rise and the boys sit down. The time for CHANGE is here, like it or not. If we don't fix things this time around, there may not be another chance.
Happy New Year and get off your ass! Go watch the movie Network. I'm as made as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore. Whew .... 51 weeks more ... whew...
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