Country Radio Seminar Opens This Week in Nashville
By Norm Daniels
It’s one of the most important gatherings to hit Nashville. Its called Country Radio Seminar, or CRS for short. Scheduled for February 21-24, it happens at about this time every year, and brings disc jockeys and radio execs from all over the country together for discussions of what’s happening and what might happen in both music and radio. And this year some mighty changes are likely to come up.
Like the Internet competition that’s competing more and more with traditional radio. Years ago, the new competition was thought to be television. That pretty well passed as a competitive factor. Now, though, the competition for radio AND music is heavier and more like a reality show. Illegal downloads of music plague the music business and streaming music like Pandora is a real threat to earthbound radio.
But tangled in all the serious stuff wil be loads of fun as the top Country Music stars perform as well as meet and greet. Both sides love the opportunity, because there’s an interdependency between the two industries like no other. Music needs radio and radio needs music to survive. But it’s always been like any love affair: sometimes beautiful, sometimes stormy.
The music business would always like radio to play more or less of something, and radio would always like labels to provide more or less of some kinds of music. We’ve been there and done that. Your writer was in radio for a string of years, first as a disc jockey, then in management. And of course now the thing is music. Seeing it from both sides can be interesting.
So what will be the major conclusions from this year’s CRS? Probably none. But there’ll be a lot of thought, maybe some of it new. And maybe a spark will pop out of the whole thing that will lead to some breakthrough solutions. We hope so. Both music and radio could use some.
