Clear Channel To Acquire Playlist.com?

According to reports, Clear Channel is interested in purchasing the popular website Playlist.com

Clear Channel is reportedly interested in the assets of Playlist.com, a digital music service that filed for bankruptcy protection in 2010. A source tells CNet that Clear Channel is interested in Playlist's user interface and some other technology assets belonging the the service, which allowed users to create and share music playlists with their friends.

I fail to see how the addition of Playlist.com would help Clear Channel. The only way I could see it making an impact would be to completely alter the way the website functions. The way it works now, you put a song or artists into a search engine and it finds the URL of the song on the internet and adds it to your playlist. There are no restrictions at all, just as long as your song is on the internet you can add it to a playlist. What I feel could possibly happen is that Clear Channel could replace that option and make it exclusive to songs that are on the Clear Channel playlist or that have been green-lit by the channel, holding other record companies hostage and allowing them to get the deal they want so they can not only get their music on the site but on the Clear Channel affiliates as well.

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Atlanta Producer Fired For Tweets; Delta Comes Off As Scumbags

A producer of a popular radio show in Atlanta has been fired because of tweets he made about one of the station's sponsors, Delta Airlines.

"I was upset my flight was delayed an hour, then two," Chadd Scott (@ChaddScott) said Wednesday.

It was not the way Scott wanted to end a weekend visit with his twin brother and his family in Saint Louis, Missouri. But there he sat Monday morning, stranded at the airport. "I had an 8:52 a.m. flight, and it was waiting and waiting and waiting," he said.

Scott needed to get back to Atlanta, to his job at 680 The Fan radio station. He helped produce the popular Chuck and Chernoff show and anchored the sports updates several times an hour.

Scott says he watched as other airlines took off the from the airport. Then a Delta employee told him and other passengers why they were delayed. "They were out of de-icing fluid and they were hoping to get a delivery sometime in the next two hours," he said.

Scott was among the 2,000 passengers affected and as the hours ticked by, he began firing off ticked-off tweets.

The first one said, "The bean counter who saved Delta a few bucks in st. lou hoping he wouldn't need more de-icing fluid this year screwed a lot of people today."

The next one said, "Not a big quote tweeter, but #delta should remember 'when you fail 2 prepare, you prepare 2 fail.'"

Another tweet later read, "New #delta strategy on de-icing planes in st. louis: wait 'til it melts. well, the company is based in atlanta."

What Scott didn't know was that while he was tweeting from St. Louis, tempers were flaring in Atlanta.

Before his plane took off Scott says he received a text message from a boss at 680 The Fan that said, "The client, Delta, was causing a big stink over what I had said and to knock it off and be careful," Scott said.

But it was too late. By 6:30 that night, after Scott landed in Atlanta, he was fired, eight hours after the tweets began. Scott says his bosses told him Delta threatened to pull its advertising from the station.

Calls from 11Alive to 680 The Fan were not returned. Calls to Delta were not returned either.

Scott says he's shocked by the airline's sensitivity. "How it got as far up in the Delta boardroom as it did and that they would take their time to involve themselves in this insignificant of a matter, puzzles me still."

Scott will have time to think about it. He's now out of a job.

When asked if he regretted his tweets he replied, "Obviously. They're funny, and they got me a lot of twitter followers but I'd rather be at work, then talking to you right now,no offense," Scott said.

I am obviously not a fan of this move at all. Now, I do not listen to the station so I cannot comment on Scott's talent and contribution to the station, but the fact that Delta airlines in the first place would complain and take it to the point where they would threaten to pull their sponsorship with a station because an employee with just over 1,000 followers posted two negative tweets is ridiculous. It shows that Delta is weak and considers a negative tweet from someone who, in the grand scheme of things, is quite insignificant could make an entire corporation lose their shit. I also think it shows that the station is not a strong station to the fact that they did not back up one of their own. I know it could have cost the station a lot of money but the way in which they handled this was terrible and now a man is out of a job in this terrible economy. Very odd situation all around.

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NFL Broadcasts

Considering the NFL might be going through a labor stoppage that could knock out a chunk of the football season, I thought it would be appropriate to discuss the state of the NFL on the Radio. Currently, games are carrier Nationally through CBS Radio & Westwood One and distributed to their affiliates. The regional games, instead of being broadcast by a Broadcast network and simulcast to both cities involved in the game, each team has their own set of announcers who call each game and are paid by the team.

Now, in a work stoppage, it could potentially open the way for the current TV/Radio deals to become voided and get force a restructuring or possible change in the landscape of the whole thing. This could be a potentially huge switch for the NFL, as ESPN's somewhat-recent foray into the radio business has gotten them up to par with WWO and can compete for the most lucrative contract in radio. If ESPN were to win, it would be a huge blow to the WWO stations that have carried the NFL since they acquired the package back in the 90s. It also could potentially backfire on ESPN, as some of their stations in big markets such as New York & Miami for example, have weak signals that might not be able to reach faraway stations while the WWO stations could have done with ease, thus essentially blacking out some listeners.

In the end of the day, the money from ESPN might be too good to pass up, but by doing so the NFL could be shooting itself in the foot. We shall see.

Top 40 Radio Gets a Bad Rap

I feel there is a lot of unfair bashing of the content that is played on Top 40 radio stations. Over the course of the last century, music has evolved every 10-20 years. The difference in style of music from the 50s to the 60s in huge, let alone the 90s and today. That would obviously mean that the general public's perception of music will change. Music that was popular at one point will give way to another type of music that has come along to take the reigns as the new "it" music. As an example, a lot of people in our class bashed top 40 radio because they "feel like people aren't smart enough to know what they like so the station is telling them what to like". I feel that is a very ignorant and elitist comment. While someone who may not be a music fan might have trouble deciding certain things due to the fact that they don't know music, but 99.9% of people who listen to radio know a pretty good deal at what they are listening to, heck, why'd they even stop the dial unless it sounded good? It was a broad generalization that painted the top 40 listening audience as an incompetent group of morons that was similar in style to saying all protestors (either party) are a largely irrational bunch cause they compare their opposition to Hitler. While there are a few bad apples, they obviously don't represent the majority of the group, who are intelligent people. I also feel the comment was elitest due to the fact that music is subjective, not something defined by fact. Now while the main pulse of the music industry is through the internet and blogs, where snarky comments and ripping on the establishment is not only common but encouraged, people have been able to label all different kinds of music with descriptions that can be damaging to the industry as well as ones that can be helpful. Someone was able to label hip-hop as "uneducated black men talking about cars, money and woman", something that scares off middle america. Dance music is labeled as something meant for guidos and is girly to an extent. Indie rock also seemed to be turned into "real music" by the apparent ministry of music. Now, I don't want to come off as someone who knocks the internet for its freedom of speech I'm a firm believer in it, but before the internet came around people seemed to like the popular music. I mean, its not like it becomes popular because someone said it's popular, its popular because its demanded by the people. We're the ones going out and buying their music. If we're being "brainwashed", as one student put it, to like popular music, then why isn't any of this "real music" thats out there in the pop charts? We always see people complain about the quality of music but if the music everyone seems to be ripping is still in the charts and this other music is nowhere to be seen, I think America has spoken.