I remember many years ago someone telling me that on commercial radio stations, the music that they played was “just the breaks between the adverts”.
Yes, commercial radio and TV stations have always had “advert breaks” in their programming, after all that’s how they make money in order to pay for and produce their programming, which is otherwise offered on a ‘free-to-view/listen’ basis.
Remember the days when your local radio station was just that? A station that was broadcast locally, employing local people, airing a mix of music and local news reports.
Those days it seems have sadly gone, with most local commercial radio stations absorbed into bigger groups, hosted by identikit voiced ‘DJ’s’ all playing the same handful of familiar sounding records.
Chances are that your ‘local’ commercial radio station is now owned by the ‘Global’ group, who also own the biggest and best-loved radio stations such as Heart, Capital, Smooth and Classic FM, to name but a few.
Well funnily enough, Global is also “the leading outdoor media company in the UK and one of the largest in Europe, with an extensive portfolio of over 253,000 sites combining airports, roadside posters, premium digital screens and more. Together, our outdoor inventory reaches over 95% of the UK population and beyond.”
You’ve probably seen their advertising boards everywhere now.
On-air, on Global Player and outdoor – through these platforms combined, we entertain and reach 51.7 million individuals across the UK every week.
https://global.com/
There you go, the vast majority of your commercial radio stations in the UK (and Europe) are owned by Global, who are basically an advertising agency.
The programming plays second fiddle to the primary reason, which is to push advertising onto its listeners and viewers. There are no longer ‘advert breaks’, just ‘breaks from the adverts’.
What also happens is that the ‘local’ news gets replaced by the ‘Global News Team’ broadcasts, pushing the same mainstream media ‘talking points’ across the whole network.
On the subject of ‘local news’, what has also happened in recent years is that many local ‘independent’ newspapers have been ‘acquired’ by the Reach Plc company,
Formerly the Trinity Mirror group, the name ‘Reach’ itself tells you all you need to know, it is another advertising platform able to ‘reach’ a great number of people.
We are Champions, Campaigners and Changemakers.
At Reach, we have a clear core purpose: speaking up and shining a light on the truth. While our titles differ in their political views, they each serve their communities with integrity and passion.
This essential relationship exists because we keep our audience entertained, informed and engaged every day, with breaking news, entertainment and sport. We understand and respect our readers – what keeps them up at night, what makes them laugh, what gets them talking – and this is why our purpose cuts through.
https://www.reachplc.com/about-us/our-purpose
The other un-named ‘purpose’ is to deliver advertising, which is why so many ‘articles’ published on these websites are nothing more than ‘click-bait’, and often have no relevance to the local site in question.
While I feel sorry for anyone who doesn’t arm themselves with some kind of adblocker in their browser, it is equally as disturbing the number of websites that are now actively blocking those who choose to make use of such adblockers from even viewing their content.
I get that some websites need to make money through advertising revenue, and it’s understandable. But the question that needs to be equally asked, is how much do you value advertising revenue above the quality of the content that you produce?
The ‘modern media’ is just bits of propaganda drizzled in between advertisement breaks.
And most adverts now are just pushing ‘mainstream media’ propaganda.
“And now, here’s Gary with the weather…”
