If you ran American radio....

[Dean Winchester]

I got this from another board but thought it could be fun


Say you were handed control over all the radio stations in the US and was told to remake them into a fair outlet for music. How would you do it.

People complain all the time about what they hate about Clear Channel, so how would you handle things if you were suddenly given the power?

[Dean Winchester]

I personally would fix "Top 40" stations more than anything. America is a real diverse country with lots of genres with viable audiences fighting for #1. If I ran the radio, all top 40 stations would have a quota that would go like this:

15% R&B (whether "real" r&b or the Rihanna/Ashanti stuff)
15% hip hop (whether you like it or not, hip hop is here to stay, just shouldn've be so overdone)
15% pop (just what it is, Gwen, Kelly, Pink, Britney, whatever... POP, but just don't run it into the ground)
15% rock/alternative (merging the two is somewhat controversial but "alternative" as a whole doesn't really exist anymore, most of the 90's holdovers are now known just as rock. Bjork's about the only "alternative survivor" I think you can still call alternative)
15% dance (Madonna's latest album sales are an indicator that dance music is alive and well, radio just avoids it)
15% country (I know country divides audiences much like hip hop does... but much like Eminem and 50 Cent have won over "top 40 pop people", same applies with Carrie Underwood, look at all the average "POP" fans you see here who adore her, and they aren't your typical country fan. Like hip hop, country is never going anywhere, so might as well accept it)
5% blast from the pasts (the occasional hit from the 50's to early 90's to let teenyboppers realize there was life before Britney. Top 40 station year hear to have "the eleven o'clock bedrock" for a number of years where for a half hour, they played songs that were at least five years old at the point)
5% anything goes (be it comedy, jazz, whatever... top 40 radio needs a little something to shake the norms every now and then to keep it interesting)

And the biggest deal would be, no song repeats itself for at least six hours. So you don't have to worry about hearing the same godforsaken Pussycat Dolls song three times between the time you clocked in and your lunch break. There is so much music to be heard and radio keeps playing the same songs...

[Steve M.]

I'd paly more of the Redwells, My Morning Jacket, Franz Ferdinand, and all those folk-rock singer-songwriters whose fans are laughed off as "nerds" and couldn't get a date in high school.

For classic rock stations, three words - Lots of Family!

There'd be more blues. Not rhythm and blues, blues - R&B without the R!

Classic rock stations ought to play Jethro Tull songs not from Benefit or Aqualung and play all the songs John Mellencamp didn't release as singles!

We should also have radio concerts. Why not? Paul McCartney just did one for BBC Radio 2!

There are several other suggestions I have, I'll come up with them later. . . .