“CORPORATE FM” My rating: B (Opening May 25 at the Screenland Crown Center)
73 minutes | No MPAA rating
I almost never listen to my car radio (when I do it’s an NPR station) and “Corporate FM” nicely explains why.
Made over seven years by KC filmmaker Kevin McKinney, this documentary takes in the big picture of corporate consolidation of the radio industry.
And while the film exposes no smoking gun (most of its revelations are familiar enough to people concerned with the issues), it’s an extremely effective summation of how we got into this mess and how we might get out of it.
The doc’s long gestation period actually proves beneficial, for McKinney is able to observe over the long haul the evolution of radio from a public service (that’s the FCC’s definition, not mine) to a corporate cash cow.
His film follows the rise and fall of stations in Lawrence and Kansas City, features dozens of interviews with deejays and radio personalities (Mancow Muller) and old-timey radio types (David Lawrence, Dick Fatherly) who remember how things used to be. He talks to musicians (like Jewel) about the difficulty of getting new music on the air, and even delves into a couple of tearful personal stories of radio veterans rudely jettisoned from the industry they love. (I can identify.)
The basic story goes something like this: Once upon a time stations hired deejays who played the music they liked. They had news staffs that reported on local events. The radio station was an integral part of the community’s social fabric.
But in the mid-90’s changes in the industry saw owners selling their stations to big conglomerates which, now saddled with staggering debts, slashed staffs and outreach.
Musical offerings were limited to tunes selected by a suit in some faraway city. News staffs were reduced to a lone rip-and-reader…and on weekends not even that. Many stations are 100 percent automated on Saturday and Sunday. If there’s a local disaster, you can forget about hearing an on-air warning.
If there’s any good news coming out of the recent economic mess, it’s that many of these big companies now are eager to divest themselves of stations hurting the bottom line…meaning there’s once again an opportunity for local ownership of radio stations which help enrich and shape the lives of their listeners.
| Robert W. Butler
Butler's Cinema Scene 
Leave a comment