A Hybrid Radio?
By its very nature, commercial radio is in the business of minimising risk. It simply follows public taste and a certain degree of cultural stasis is the inevitable by-product of its caution. According to Shanahan (2005), there has been a shift in attitude of broadcasters where the shareholder is now the king, rather than all stakeholders. In the drive to increase revenue, there has been a tendency to normalize products and maintain the status quo. This has resulted in a loss of localism, a lack of innovation, risk-taking and development of brands. It appears that deregulation ―has resulted in a consolidated, conservative, reactive commercial radio climate that is only proactive in maintaining uniformity‖ (Shanahan and Duignan, 2005 : 42). There are considerable pressures within the medium, technical, social, political and perhaps above all economic that make much of what it offers the public open to criticism. Radio has evolved from treating the audience as citizens of a community to a new understanding of them being essentially just consumers of goods (Murdock and Golding, 1989), delivered to advertisers like John the Baptist‘s head on a plate.
The radio formats deserve investigation into whether there is a driving force behind them. Proponents of the cultural imperialism theory would argue that the dominance of North American content and ideology is manifested through an overwhelming presence in content. Interviews with key gatekeepers and stakeholders will test whether this engagement with the global has produced creativity in local musical and operational practices, or whether it is leading to dependence on the dominating centres of musical production.
This contested hybridity argument will be discussed in depth to discover if and how hybridity manifests itself in the current New Zealand commercial radio scene. Radio today is still a mix of strong North American influence, but it is also introducing other countries and cultures. An enormous body of literature is emerging to make a case for
cultural hybridity as the outcome of globalisation but there has to be a confrontation of the issues by asking some critical questions.
The complexity of this object of study needs a more nuanced analysis that is able to take account of some of the multiple shaping factors at once, including discourses surrounding power.
One factor raised in discussions about power is technology. A nation‘s technological capability has a significant effect on its economic growth, industrial might, and military prowess. It is prudent to analyse these as a factor that influences the balance of power between nation-states.
Technology
Analysing music content gives a quantitative element to this study as shown in the tables in Chapter Six, but it is technology gets the programme made and out to a receptive audience, and sets limits upon what can and cannot be done.
Commercial radio stations around the world share common technology, partly because of the highly specialised role that it plays and due in part to the dominance of the commercial radio structure from the United States. Transmission technology has been relatively stable over the years with a standard radio wave being transmitted and received through aerials. The act of sending and receiving radio signals has not significantly differed over its history; therefore transmission does not feature in this study. What is more of interest are those adaptable technologies that shape the programme prior to broadcast. Some technologies are international in their reach due to their ease of use, a history of relationships with the industry, and more importantly, cost. The most common technology used by the three stations surveyed are: Selector, used to deliver daily music logs so programmers can control their entire music library, Airwaves which manages the scheduling of advertisements, Linker which runs in conjunction with Selector to integrate the pre-recorded events on a station between the songs and the commercials, and Wizard or NexGen that controls the automation and audio playout system. The commonality of these systems means that proficient operators can move from job to job around the country without the need for expensive
retraining. All of these technologies are either run or managed by one global company called RCS with an office in New Zealand.
According to technological determinists, technology is seen as the ‗prime mover‘ in history; it is one of the major causes of changes in society, and is the fundamental condition underlying social organization (Chandler, 2008). Logically, when technology does enter the marketplace and become widespread, it is no doubt likely to produce some social change. However, the debate continues as to whether these changes end up being society changing. Technology is one of a number of factors in human behaviour and social change (ibid).
The sharing of common technologies by most of the stations in New Zealand, and especially the ones surveyed opens up the industry to assertions that technology is a homogenizing force. Tehranian (1999) suggests that access to technology is a key to harnessing the positive elements of globalization, and that the free flow of communication technology has accelerated the globalization process. McQuail (2000) agrees that not only content is exported, but also technology and production values, however he believes that this leads to dependence, loss of autonomy and a decline in national or local cultures. With the increasing one-way flow of technology and content, the claim is that native radio will model the metropolitan styles and norms combined with a borrowing of Western (North American) assumptions of consumerism which in turn changes the value structure of the developing countries creating a ‗false consciousness‘ (Lee, 1980 : 105).
All three stations ZM, More and Sounds, and stations around the world share this dependence on technology, and the dependence on the suppliers of specialist technology with only minor differences. All three stations use the software of one firm in particular, RCS Sound Software from White Plains, New York. Two of their products in particular are invaluable for the day to day running of the surveyed stations, Selector and Linker.
Selector music scheduling software is the industry standard to deliver daily music logs so programmers can control their entire music library. RCS invented the first music scheduling program for the PC over 27 years ago. Selector has since then become the biggest selling music scheduling program in the world (RCS, 2009a : 1).
Linker is the world‘s most widely used promo scheduler. It runs in conjunction with Selector to integrate the pre-recorded carts on a station between the songs and the commercials. Designed to ―rotate promos, jingles, liners, sweepers, intros, beds, public service announcements, live scripts or special effects, Linker allows personalizing and positioning the station‖ (RCS, 2007 : 2). Examples of these carts are the sung or spoken elements identifying the station in between songs, the pre-recorded promotions of station events, or the parts identifying key elements of the show, such as a news or weather sting.
The interface between the final product of music, commercials, promos, announcers and the audience comes in different forms. Sounds FM use the RCS product called
―Master Control‖ which has in the past been a commonly used digital on-air automation system. This is the system that the announcer interfaces with when running a show. It is a culmination of all the other elements of technology used to actually ‗run‘ a radio programme. It is used in over 60 countries worldwide and is fully integrated with Selector music scheduling and Linker promo scheduling.
ZM uses ‗Wizard‘ from Prophet Systems, from Ogallala, Nebraska. Since 1998, Prophet has been an independent business division of American media giant, Clear Channel Communications. However, ZM and More FM‘s playout system has since been upgraded to the more common industry standard of NexGen Digital, the upgrade of ‗Wizard‘, now managed by RCS.
This would give some impetus to the declaration that there is potential domestication of American values through the technology sphere. This modern communications technology is offered to the world with the promise it can better accommodate musical diversity, but the decision to locate decisions regarding the allocation of resources extraterritorially leads to concerns about global cultural synchronization.
Accordingly Hamelink (1983) believes that the indiscriminate adoption of foreign technology can obviously produce profound cultural effects, which raises the possibility that the values and music transferred through technology can be dominated by other countries. This raises concern about systematic dependence on America.
The dominance of this imported mode of production could suggest a technological imperialism and none of these technologies has been uniquely modified for the