Radio Suffering Through Worst Year Since 1954

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Like pretty much every other industry during a recession (except maybe the alcohol and fast food sectors), terrestrial radio is seeing record declines in 2008, with the entire industry having its worst year financially since 1954. Revenues are off seven percent from last year's numbers, and 2008 marks the eighth consecutive struggling year for the industry. To put things in perspective, things haven't been this bad since the main attraction beaming to antennas was The Lone Ranger and Joseph McCarthy's hearings against supposed Communists and the Dodgers were still in Brooklyn. Things are somewhat more optimistic in the small markets, where radio has seen their revenues grow by 0.6% over the last 20 months. In the bigger markets, however, the market has lost 4 percent of revenue monthly. One can't fully blame satellite radio for the downturn, as SiriusXM has its own struggles as its stock currently hovers at the 17 cents mark at press time.

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Song Stories

“The Everchanging Spectrum of a Lie”

The Joy Formidable | 2011

The opener off the Welsh group’s The Big Roar album was an epic one, but the band was worried that track had polarized fans. “The first song is eight minutes long,” Rhydian Dafydd, the Joy Formidable bassist, said. “If you did that in the Seventies people would be, ‘Whatever.’ You do it now, people think, ‘Holy s---!’ Some people think it’s the f---ing greatest track on the entire album, and some people think it’s f---ing boring. It’s that element of needing to challenge people.” The band concluded through the song’s lyrics that love was the “everchanging spectrum of a lie.”

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