The Role Of Commercial Radio In Shaping Our Society

In my last article, about radio station The Rock staging a reprehensible 'Win a Wife' competition I stated that “The hegemonic role of commercial radio is an area waiting to be explored.” this article is intended to be a start to that discussion.

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In the 1930's American public intellectuals such as James Rorty saw the commercial control of radio placing an important communications technology in the hands of an undemocratic minority (the 'captains of capitalism') and worried that commercial radio would hastened the centralisation of control of American life in the hands of big business (see amazon.com/gp/product/0415928214?ie=UTF8&tag=byrcla-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0415928214">Radio Reader: Essays in the Cultural History of Radio). How prophetic those worries were, today one media commemorate, Clear Channel, has a near monopoly on American radio broadcasting. As such, the company has been criticised for a number of reasons, such as having a zero tolerance policy on material it deems 'indecent', censorship in the name of good taste which appears politically motivated (for example after the 2001 terrorist attacks on the US, Clear Channel refused to play any songs from left-wing activist band Rage Against The Machine), refusing an advertisement promoting Gay Pride and a reluctance to foster local content on their stations.

The excellent documentary Before The Music Dies outlines the effect Clear Channel has had on popular music. The modern music industry creates manufactured acts that will get radio air play due to having an act inoffensive to almost all audiences or 'markets' and more importantly, inoffensive to advertisers. The punk band Leftover Crack is even more blunt in their criticism, their song Clear Channel includes the lyrics “No difference between the hot new single and the Pepsi ads commercial jingle...Overdose on shoddy culture; mediocre trends Auto-Tune the bottom line as a mean to meet the ends” and “Politics replaced by 'bling' and clothes and fancy cars”. This politically safe pop music is now stock standard on commercial radio throughout the English speaking world.

Clear Channel has penetrated the New Zealand market through its subsidiary The Radio Network, which owns eight national stations including 91 ZM, and scores of regional stations. The major player in the market however is Mediaworks, which owns ten national stations, including The Rock and More FM, as well as two free-to-air TV stations. Most of the music played on both MediaWorks and Radio Network stations comes from the United States, and as such reflects the music production model outlined above. A theme has recently emerged in popular music, a care-free 'party' attitude which celebrates spending all night clubbing and drinking, see for example Ke$ha's songs 'Tik Tok' and 'Blow'. No one has yet speculated a connection between this dominant form of entertainment and New Zealand's culture of binge drinking, which is apparently becoming worse among young women. In 'Tik Tok' Ke$ha even declares that she uses bourbon to brush her teeth in the morning, but surely there's no connection there at all. The recent single Dynamite by Taio Cruz also uses the partying-all-night theme, but is more explicit than many pop songs in its blatant commercialism; “I came to dance, dance, dance, dance” sings Taio “I hit the floor' Cause that's my, plans, plans, plans, plans, I'm wearing all my favorite Brands, brands, brands, brands”.

For the past decade or so, The New Zealand Music Commission has promoted air play of local talent through New Zealand Music Month, but most of this content could be described as generic pop-rock and is just as politically safe as American pop music, the diversity of genres played by New Zealand artists is rarely reflected on commercial radio stations. In recent times, local varieties of Hip Hop and R&B by Maori and Pasifika artists have achieved commercial success and air play, including songs like Smashproof's socially conscious Ordinary Life, but the politically confrontational lyrics of Smashproof (who topped the charts) are the exception that proves the rule.

With its dance dance dance message pop music appears to be being created for the night club, a possibility exists that this is a reaction to the massive individualisation of music taste through the internet and the portable MP3 player, with music industry profits now coming from licensing to bars and dance venues rather than selling albums to individuals. The night club is one place where popular music gains a 'mass' audience, the others are the shopping mall and the workplace. The latter is where music has a captive audience, workplaces play the radio as a 'perk' for staff, but in turn give broadcasters more imperative to play politically safe material. Once again its punk rockers rather than political theorists who have drawn this connection, Citizen Fish's track 'Pop Songs' is a critique of the symbiotic relationship between the workplace and the commercial broadcaster; “Some say the constant hammering is following the beat, and pop songs heard to pass the time will break up the routine...After daylong happy tunes its prime reaction time,blob out horizontal to the spectacle sublime.”

Radio broadcasters are aware that a big part of their audience is at work, and have came up with the “no repeat work day” to encourage those members of firms with their fingers on the dial to pick their station. The songs don't repeat, although the advertising does. As About.com's 'Five Keys to Radio Advertising Success' notes:

A radio commercial needs to air multiple times before it sinks in with the listener. Running your commercial once a week for a month isn't going to be enough...A commercial that airs multiple times in a day has a better chance of reaching the listener than a commercial that only airs a few times in a week.

By definition, commercials are the real 'content' of commercial radio broadcasters, music and DJ banter is the 'filler' to get the ads into our ears. The content and filler are placed to complement each other based on target audience. The Rock is a station designed to appeal to 25 to 44 year old males, and one can't spend a week in a workplace playing The Rock without inadvertently learning all the words to a commercial for a 'patented nasal delivery technology' cure for erectile dysfunction. Whether selling them penis pills or encouraging listeners to enter a competition to win a bride by answering questions about what they've done to “score” and the “nutjob” things their former partners have done, The Rock profits from the anxieties of New Zealand men. Its well established that advertising plays on our fears in this way, and it works.

There is more to 'Win a Wife' than this however, an from the point of view of Mediaworks it is probably an example of marketing brilliance. That there would be a backlash is a given, but that just provides free publicity. The other side to it is the counter-backlash, The Rock listeners who jump up in the stations defense in the name of opposing 'political correctness'. For example, this comment appeared on the Stop the Rock's Win a Wife campaign page on Facebook “Wow you people need to lighten up a lil [sic] & chill out & learn to have some fun & stop being so friken P.C. , Learn to have a laugh”. Its typical of many other comments on Facebook and other social media. While commercial radio has been politically castrated, a competition like 'Win a Wife' creates a pseudo-political campaign, engaging a segment of the audience in a faux mass movement, which in reality does not challenge the status quo in any significant way.

New Zealand has experienced these same false politics before, they saw his supporters make former talk show host Paul Henry appear to be an anti-establishment figure, and lead school principals to warn of the dangers of “feminising” the schooling system. In reality, while the state's dominant ideology may incorporate a more enlightened view of women than some sectors of the population, actual legislative gains made by the feminist movement in the last decade have been negligible. No amount of misplaced anger on the part of The Rock fans will impact on the hegemony of our late capitalist society, a hegemony that is maintained in no small way, with the help of commercial radio.