Music industry troubles caused by radio?

As with most posts here all of you bring up great points but in the end the blame has got to come down to the record industry itself. There may be other things that affect their sales but inevitably it comes down to to their lack of response to these conditions.
Very stupid recording industry executives are quick to blame the internet for declining sales. If the Internet provides exposure to a product and sales decline is it the Internet's fault or does it have everything to do with an inferior product? Is a free download nothing more than a free sample? If you hear a great song or album aren't you very likely to seek out- and pay to see or buy other releases - from this artist? I know I do.
But if you plan much more short-sided where you shove a "hit" song by the next "great" new artist down the public's throat via airplay along with the 450,000 airing of "Sympathy for the Devil", and then try to sell their album with 45 minutes of noise, people get leary. Bottom line - people will buy, and more importantly come back and buy again, a good product. Sorry but I can ramble on about this forever.

Kevin

Here in NC we have the best station in the world. We are so lucky, it's WNCW 88.7 or www.wncw.org it's a college radio station that plays real music. They do broadcast via I-net. So give them a try. Tell me what you think. I listen to them all the time via a Magnum Dynalab 102.

Hockey, you are so right! The industry is looking for a scapegoat rather than evaluating the real issue -- their unwillingness to take risks and target any but the broad audiences. The success of 70's FM radio was based on a wide variety stations targeting different audiences with a broader mix of music. What the hell happened??? Now, except for the college stations and some public radio stations, it's formula, formula, formula with less than a dozen formats -- and each of those formats being repeated endlessly on other stations and across the country. Radio is no longer much fun! Radio no longer makes me go out and buy CD's because the only songs being played will become overplayed and tiresome soon enough! I bought my first Osibisa album long ago based on hearing African rock on the radio. Anybody hear that lately? Or even modern jazz? Anything so new that it shook you?

Sorry for the rant. IMO, music industry execs are pursuing a short term profit maximization strategy that will lead to long term erosion (sort of a local optima, temporally). Where's the vision? Maybe it is satellite as Tok suggests. Tok, are they playing anything new? Is there variety? If so, maybe that's the answer.

As mentioned above, some of the music industry's problems are a result of consolidation in radio broadcasting. But a lot of the blame should be dumped right back on the "suits" that run the five majot record labels.
When you start treating your customers like criminals, with various copy protection schemes that serve noone but the record company; fail to bring to market acts people really want to hear; try to screw your own artists out of millions of dollars in royalties; have a product that is grossly over-priced in relation to actual costs; and make marginal efforts to promote your new acts - you can pretty easily understand why the major record companies are in trouble. And I haven't even talked about the so-called new audio formats that are launching at a snail's pace.
Yes - the stations owned by Clear Channel and Infinity really leave a lot to be desired. Not only do they all seem to play the same "Top 40" and "Light Rock" drivel, but they compress almost everything they broadcast. And if you find the music less than pleasing, you can add insult to injury with the 20+ minutes of ads they run each hour. About the only stations still broadcasting un-compressed music these days are college stations, PBS and public owned stations, and a ever-smaller group of independent holdouts from the 90s. (Most in small markets - I might add.)
Given all the negatives in the radio market, it's pretty clear that radio is also helping with the music industry's demise.

Check out KCMU.org - it's the local (Seattle) college station, and it's available online with various kinds of hi-rez streaming. If you want to hear non-commercial pop/rock (as well as a great African music show - Best Ambience), it's worth looking at. They even have older shows available as 'archives' that you can listen to. For rock/pop, there isn't a single station worth listening to in the entire area. If you want to hear new and interesting music, you defintely won't find it on commercial radio! There's tons of interesting music being produced these days, thanks to low-cost digital technology.