the way the music industry die

The radio business, in the early '90s, had really started to suffer. There were lots of stations that were doing poorly financially, and the broadcast lobby, which is a very powerful lobby in Washington, successfully lobbied Congress to raise the limits on station ownership. So, whereas before a company would be limited to owning roughly 40 stations nationwide, when this 1996 legislation was passed, there was suddenly no limit of what you could [own]. Thousands of radio stations changed hands and companies that wanted to really get on radio were able to pull up some enormous multi-billion dollar mergers. And suddenly a company that once owned three-dozen stations could suddenly own a thousand. And so you just had forces emerge that couldn't have legally existed before because of this change, and that's really revolutionized the music business. The effect has been? ... All of a sudden you have these companies emerge where they controlled every station in that city or they controlled a small station that you used to be able to hold sway over. But they also have a huge station that held sway over you, and they can use that to leverage the record companies. So, the bounds of power really shifted toward the radio conglomerates. And this idea of 20-song playlists, you're talking about a funnel being narrowed? Right. I think it's difficult to measure exactly what the effect on playlists has been. But, I think there's statistics that show at least at the top of the playlist, there are fewer new songs that are getting the heaviest rotations. So what you're seeing is essentially a trend where in most radio formats there's a small number of songs that get played over and over and over again. And the number of songs that get that opportunity has definitely shrunk. And so if you are someone who believes, as a lot of record executives do, that radio is the most powerful promotional tool that you have, and a big part of your week is spent trying to get spins on radio stations, that's a big problem. Because now you've got few opportunities to get into that pipeline where exposures would seem to translate to record sales.