BY JIM DEROGATIS POP MUSIC CRITIC
The National Association of Broadcasters is mad as hell at Tom Petty, and they'd like to give him a piece of their mind.
In the title track of his latest album, "The Last DJ," Petty delivers a withering critique on the state of rock radio, essentially charging that corporate consolidation and increasingly conservative, bottom-line-driven programming is killing the medium we once knew and loved.
As Petty crosses the country on a tour that comes to Chicago tonight, the radio industry's largest lobbying and special interest group is contacting newspapers to refute the artist's charges. I spoke Tuesday with Dennis Wharton, senior vice president of communications for the NAB, in an attempt to give radio equal time in the debate.
(Petty declined numerous interview requests from the Sun-Times, and the NAB could not provide a Chicago-based programmer for comment. Petty is getting heavy air play on several local stations, including WXRT-FM.)
Q. I have to say, Dennis, that I agree with much of what Tom Petty is saying in "The Last DJ." How do you read the song, and why do you think he's wrong?
A. My reading on it is that Tom Petty has made a song that is popular and it's getting air play. That's how the radio industry works.
Q. But I had just lunch with a programmer at one of Chicago's top rock stations who told me that Petty is not getting played by Clear Channel-owned stations because of his negative comments.
A. I do not have any knowledge of that. I think you should call the Clear Channel people to see if that's a false statement. [Clear Channel did not respond to a request for comment.] I'm not familiar with the Chicago market, so I can't really comment on it, but I do know that Petty has made a hit song, and it's getting played, and that is the name of the game. My advice to Tom Petty is to make better music and you'll get played on rock 'n' roll radio.
There has never been more diversity on the radio dial than there is today. I am looking at the diversity in the radio market I'm familiar with, which is Washington, D.C., and there are eight Spanish-language stations, there is a Chinese station, there's a Korean station, there are all-news and all-sports stations, there are all-religious stations and all-business and all-alternative-rock and all-jazz and all-country stations. In terms of format diversity, particularly in the ethnic area, it's never been better.
Q. But I've also interviewed artists like Moby, who sold 10 million copies worldwide of "Play," but he insists that the only way radio paid attention to him was when he went around radio and brought his music to people through TV commercials and movie soundtracks. Only then was he played by radio.
A. Everyone who is a recording artist thinks that their music is the best and should be on radio. I think that for every Moby there are probably hundreds of people who think their music is just as good as Moby's.
Q. But there is heavy pressure for congressional hearings into the corporate consolidation in radio and the practice of independent promotion, which some are calling a new form of payola.
A. There are one or two members of Congress who have raised this issue, and mind you, there are 535 members of Congress. I would concur that they have gotten an enormous amount of press attention, but whether there's a groundswell of support for actually passing this legislation, well, I'm not gonna finish that thought. When was this golden era of radio [that Petty is singing about]?
Q. The early '70s, free-form FM radio, when a DJ chose what he or she was playing, and was able to go from John Coltrane to Jimi Hendrix to the Temptations.
A. I still hear Coltrane and Jimi Hendrix today.
Q. Never on the same station!
A. I think there is something to be said for radio stations today better defining the target audience that they are directing their music to. In many ways, I think the radio industry, radio broadcasters, are doing a better job now of finding what listeners want to hear than they have ever done before. Stations spend an enormous amount of money on research to find out what listeners want to hear. If the allegation is that radio broadcasts today are delivering a product that millions and millions of Americans like and want to hear, we stand guilty as charged.
Ninety-five percent of all Americans listen to their local radio station once a week; 75 percent every day. That tells me that we're delivering a service that people like. It's probably not the station Tom Petty wants to hear.
Q. But what he's saying is that you have a music lover, maybe somebody who's devoted 20 or 30 years of their career to being a DJ, and they are no longer able to control what they play on the air. It isn't even decided by the station's programmer, but by some national consultant, who is taking his cue from independent promoters and the major-label hype machine. That's who Petty is eulogizing in "The Last DJ."
A. Do you have specific examples of that?
Q.Yes. I've interviewed a dozen DJs in Chicago and Minneapolis on six different rock stations over the years, and they all agree with that critique. They complain about following pre-set play lists fed to them on a computer. If they deviate and play something else in a moment of inspiration, they receive a scolding memo, and sometimes they're even fined. Does "The Last DJ" really exist anywhere today besides college or public radio?
A. Yes, I think so. I don't believe they're gone. In Washington, D.C., WHFS is a tremendous alternative-rock station.
Q. But I have seen its play list, and it's almost identical, song for song, to three dozen other alt-rock stations across the country.
A. If the charge is that they're playing songs that people want to hear, guilty as charged.
Q. What Petty is questioning is what comes first, the apple or the horse? Is radio playing songs because they inspired the programmers and the DJs, or is it playing songs that are being pushed by millions of dollars of promotional money? And how can people like a song that they have never had a chance to hear?
A. I don't think the idea is to inspire DJs. I think the ideas is to inspire audiences to come back with music they want to hear.
Q. If that's so, why is this such a chronic complaint from artists, from Elvis Costello to R.E.M. to Tom Petty? When was the last great rock song written about how good radio is?
A. You're the rock critic, you tell me.
Q.I have to go back to "Roadrunner" by the Modern Lovers or "Rock 'n' Roll" by the Velvet Underground, both from the early '70s. That's a long time!
A. You're always going to have artists complaining about not getting air time on radio stations, except for the ones that are actually being played and that are popular.
Q. But Billboard, the music industry bible, has done extensive reports on even those artists complaining about how they are pressured by radio stations to play for free at these big Christmas and summer concerts in exchange for air play.
A. The alternative, I suppose, is for radio stations to play music that is not popular with the audience, and I think given the choice, most listeners would prefer the former to the latter. If an artist is popular with a new song, if it's something that appeals to a large number of people, that song will get played. That's the way the business works. It's a hotly competitive business, and people vote with their dial every day. The name of the game is to provide programming that people will come back to.
Q. So your basic gripe with Petty is that he is eulogizing someone who isn't dead and something that still exists?
A. In a nutshell, yeah. If the claim is that somehow radio is all bland and boring, our response is that's not an accurate reflection of the business today. Tom Petty is being played all over American radio today, he has a hit song, end of story; his argument has no validity.
Nothing Petty
Tom Petty News - December 2002
