One of the business lines that Cumulus Media inherited by acquiring Citadel who acquired ABC Radio was a line of syndicated music programming – delivered by satellite. With advances in technology, stations have other options like getting programming over the internet or on preconfigured hard drives that offer more flexibility and make the station sound more local, while still benefiting from the skills of the people who maybe are better able to produce a quality product than the 18 year old kid willing to work for free.
While ABC radio had a couple dozen big city stations (mostly AM), they were not perceived as being direct competition to the local mom and pop radio stations. The dynamic of Cumulus + Citadel now operating their music delivery service probably has some people rethinking that choice.
Most of these formats do not stream to the public, as doing it would undercut their affiliates and perhaps let the cat out of the bag of how little of the day your “local” radio station is really “local”.
For your viewing pleasure, a list of who produces the music programming many of your radio stations probably use:
- Cumulus Media (formerly ABC Radio)
- Today’s Hits and Yesterday’s Favorites
- Classic HipHop and R&B
- Greatest Mojo (Classic Hits)
- RockURadio (Classic Rock)
- Today’s Best Hits (Contemporary Hits)
- Nerve Rock
- Real Country
- Today’s Best Country
- True Oldies Channel
- The Touch (Gospel / R&B)
- Dial Global (formerly Jones Radio Networks)
- Mainstream Country
- Classic Country
- Hot Country
- True Country
- Classic Rock
- Rock 2.0
- Hot Adult Contemporary
- Less Hot Adult Contemporary
- Classic Hits / Pops
- Classic Hits / Rock
- Good Time Oldies
- Hits Now!
- Drive FX
- Jack-FM (Variety)
- S.A.M. (knows Jack)
- Adult Standards
- Premiere
Premiere offers a different approach, with syndicated live programs like Bob & Tom, Ryan Seacrest, Steve Harvey, Elvis Duran – that are entertainment shows more than music shows, and mostly carried on Clear Channel’s own stations. They also offer “show prep” services for stations so some 22 year old local Heavy Metal DJ can produce the local country music show on the Country station in the “cluster” using a different name – and sound like he personally knows anecdotes from the life of Loretta Lynn - WFMT Beethoven Satellite Network
Classical music programming carried by many Public Radio stations who like to take your money but have no music programmer who couldt tell you the difference between Bach, Bartok and Beethoven - Classical 24
Similar to WFMT, but produced by Minnesota Public Radio and PRI
Here is a typical “Show Clock” [Look] of how the local stations (via automation) can insert local ads and news, etc… into a show that sounds somewhat “local”. Dial Global gets 2 minutes an hour for its ads, about 40 minutes of music, and the rest given to the local station for news, ads, or local ‘content”.