TeledyN

US-based terrestrial radio stations suffered an absolutely brutal decline in 2009, according to data released Friday by the Radio Advertising Bureau.  Across various revenue-generators - on-air, off-air, digital - revenues slumped 18 percent to roughly $16 billion.  Of that, local stations suffered a 20 percent decline to $10.8 billion, and national stations slipped 19 percent to $2.4 billion.

The downturn comes during a difficult time, and a major pare-down in advertising.  Digital was a rare bright spot, lifting 13 percent to $480 million.  RAB chief Jeff Haley pointed to second-half improvements, while optimistically suggesting an upturn in 2010.  "In 2009, radio went from negative 25 percent in May to flat in December - a tremendous lead-in to 2010," Haley stated.

Whether that happens is speculative, though stations are undoubtedly hoping 2009 was a bottom.

Ok, let me get this straight: the original filetrading free-distribution music media machine that can be accessed anywhere on $2 worth of gear now finds it cannot compete with the new free-distribution kilo-dollar-receiver music machine, and why is that?

Oh wait, I forgot: they don't actually play much 'music' on their airwaves anymore and what is played, even outside of the corporate pap that cream-fills the bulk of their hours, but the little bit of actual music tucked into the odd-hours is still lathered with cynicism and framed by barbarism, yellow journalism backed by canned press releases. Oh yeah, mama buy me some o' dese -- and as if that weren't enough, instead of local radio getting down and getting local, that being their propitious god-given niche and the hardest-part way of the world getting in with the ten-thousand channel online world, they instead keep copying each other's failed one nation, one jerk business model of program misdirection, cutting costs by cutting content until they are left with nothing more than SOCAN fees and dead air, and then they pine and woe to the press when it fails to work for them? Ah, ok. I was just checking.

I did offer to help, I did. I was shown the door. And a mighty fine door it was too, I will wager paid for back in the earlier glory days when they actually had some relevance to more than just the homebound right-wing retirees.

The previous year was very good to us at NPR Music: We made a whole bunch of stunning concert Webcasts and recordings in 2009. And for many of them, the artists have graciously agreed to make the audio archives available as free downloads. The least we could do is put 'em all in one place for your convenience.

Remember, streaming audio, and now video archiving, is available for many of these shows too -- including a number of Village Vanguard, Newport Jazz Festival, and now, Toast Of The Nation recordings that aren't cleared for download.

Happy listening.

Live At The Village Vanguard (full series)
--Kurt Rosenwinkel Quartet (two sets)
--Terence Blanchard Quintet
--Edward Simon Quartet (selections)
--David Sanchez Quartet
--Bill McHenry Quintet (two sets)
--JD Allen Trio
--Billy Hart Quartet
--Dave Douglas Quintet

Newport Jazz Festival 2009 (full series)
--Vijay Iyer Trio
--Cedar Walton All-Stars
--Hiromi's SonicBloom
--Rudresh Mahanthappa's Indo-Pak Coalition
--Steven Bernstein's Millennial Territory Orchestra
--The Bad Plus with Wendy Lewis

Assorted Performances
--Terence Blanchard Quintet: Live In New Orleans
--Fight The Big Bull With Steven Bernstein
--Dave Douglas Brass Ecstasy: Tiny Desk Concert

anyone surprised? it won't be among the longtime readers here, because we've been waiting for artists to click into the share-friendlies since back when you could still download a Cello. Or it seems so. Great to see such a list of dignitaries who now dig the value of 'free'; let's show 'em some love and give them a bit of our precious attention, shall we?

"Hopefully, this analysis - and there’s more on the nuts and bolts of our method below - sheds some factual light on the claims and counter-claims that are paranoically sweeping across the music industry establishment, not least that put forward by the singer Lily Allen in this paper recently - and the BPI - that artists are losing out as a result of the fall in sales of recorded of music."

Say it again. Louder.

Because waves of repression continue to come: lawsuits are still levied against innocent people; arrests are still made on flimsy pretexts, in order to terrify and confuse; harsh laws are still enacted against filesharing, taking their place in the gradual erosion of our privacy and the bolstering of the surveillance state. All of this is intended to destroy or delay inexorable changes in what it means to create and exchange our creations. If STEAL THIS FILM II proves at all useful in bringing new people into the leagues of those now prepared to think 'after intellectual property', think creatively about the future of distribution, production and creativity, we have achieved our main goal.

This is the Future - And it has nothing to do with your bank balance.

There are so many things to say about this. There's the idea that the punishment is excessive (Steve Lawson was one of the first to point out that $22K per MP3 is a complete joke). There's the idea that the record industry continues to fight against inevitable change, instead of working hard and in good faith to develop a viable business model that takes into account new technology, the livelihood of musicians, and the needs of audiences. And there's the idea that none of this will do what the RIAA appears to believe it will do -- specifically, intimidate other music fans into giving up "filesharing" altogether.

That last bit is key. Let me say it again, in a slightly different way: this case is not going to have much (or any) effect on the day-to-day lives of music fans -- except perhaps to galvanize them against the industry a bit more. So it's basically a very damaging exercise in futility, a lashing-out, a naked and spiteful display of power by an already-doomed giant.

Here's hoping this registers,here's hoping this draws a line in the sand, here's hoping this divides between those who are with me in preserving the last shreds of our culture and those who say eh? what? but I like all those artists! which is fine, if you want to play that game. Those who step across that line, however, I have a job for you, a dangerous mission of utmost importance, a charge to carry a precious cargo through a dangerous land, a call to preserve a gift from your ancestors.

"Men and women wanted for hazardous journey, no small wages,
self-funding, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness,
constant danger, safe return doubtful.
Honour and recognition in case of success"

"Why does the music industry persist in saying that every download is a lost sale? If you even think about it, it can't be true. People - even downloaders - only have a finite amount of money. In times gone by, sure, they would have been buying vinyl albums. But if you stopped them downloading, would they troop out to the shops and buy those songs?

I don't think so. I suspect they're doing something different. I think they're spending the money on something else.

What else, I mused, might they be buying? Hmm... young.. like the entertainment industry... ah, how about computer games and DVDs? Thus began a hunt for the figures for UK sales of games and of DVDs and of music to see if there was any consistent relationship between them."

While there are Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics and in this chart no distinction is made between new-release (which may dominate the technology-driven game sales) and back-catalog (which may dominate DVD and music sales) the figure I would most like to see charted is the relationship between the post-Napster rise of file trading and the sales in the long tail of the back-catalog, the older releases and especially the older, really obscure and forgotten releases such as Martin Denny or Pentangle.

However that might pan out, what is really salient in the Guardian story is the simple observation that downloads logically cannot equate to "lost sales" -- as the absurd fines levied out clearly prove -- those charged downloaders are each exceeding their personal budgets by many orders of magnitude, several times over!  When you consider how the $40,000 required to fill an average iPod is simply not in the reach of any but the most exclusive club of elite teenagers, isn't it inescapable to reject equating their collections to a $40,000 corporate profit loss?