First, the agree part:
The Consolidation of radio stations in the hands of 3 or 4 pigopolists absolutely, positively must stop. Period! This has as much to do with the consolidation of power in soiled hands as it has to do with the utter destruction of the medium. But that doesn't matter; it sinmply has to be stopped.

Now the disagree part:
Top40 is, was, and has always been a scourge. However, it is not the root cause of the Destruction of the Medium. IMnsHO, the root cause is the Format.

And not the Format in and of itself, but the Format in the soiled hands of the control freaks and pigopolists who control the medium.

A bit of history before I leap headlong from my soapbox into the mosh pit of public opinion. In the early and middle 70s, I was a DJ at a couple of different stations in the Southwest (New Mexico, to be precise). At the pinochle¹ of my career in that misguided business, I was at two separate times the Music Director of KRST, a (then) Album Rock station whose transmitter, sitting atop Sandia Crest (12,700 ft above sea level, approx. 5000-6000 ft above average terain), would easily cover a 5-state area (and occasionally Kansas).
KRST (pronounced "KReST", as in Sandia) underwent the same transmogrification as did all rock stations of the era, morphing from "free-form" to "formatted" to "Formatted" (spelling difference is important, as you will see).

In the Free-form era (pre 1973), we took in records, and records, and records. More of them that we could possibly listen to all at once. I would often take home several dozen a day to try to find those that would be worth airplay. My decisions were not final; they could be (and were) overridden by the rest of the air staff. Nonetheless, we had quite a bit of leeway as to what we could play. Free-form was actually a bit of a misnomer; there were rules about what we could play, and in what ratio. But all it took for an exemption was a quick, "Hey, is it OK to play XYZ during my shift?" The answer was generally "yes", unless XYZ had been played too much that week.

Steve Suplin (or "Santa Monica Fats", as he was known on the air) was my program director and mentor...until he got a better job in Denver (you move up, or you move out in this business...even then). When he came back, he brought with him the very first format for KRST. It was a variation of KBPI's groundbreaking format, one that KBPI claimed raised its listenership (and therefore, its card rates) by 15% in one year. The format reduced KRST's playlist from virtually unlimited (we estimated that there were some 25,000 available cuts from which to choose at any given time) to about 2500, all broken down into 28 neat categories (labeled A-Z, and 1 and 2; the numbers being "new" cuts of varying age). The DJs were required to play so many songs from each of the categories during a shift, with no back-to-back cuts from a given category, yadda-yadda-yadda. No matter that one particulay category had exactly 2 cuts in it (there were more than that available to the category, but KRST's library only had those two available), and that other categories were similarly bereft of possibilities.

What happened? Well, KRST's numbers did improve, with younger listeners. But a competitor sprung up: KMYR, whose slogan was; "Proud to be/Format free". They beat the snot out of us in the first year and a half. I left KRST to finish up my degree.

KRST's management response to KMYR was not to compete, but to clamp down. Formats got continually tighter, until about 2 years later (having finished my degree and looking for a job), I decided to try out at KRST again. Lo and behold, I got hired again. At this point, KRST's playlist was down to about 1000 songs, and the current management thought that was too much...they wanted the playlist shrunk to about 350 cuts! This was in late 1975. When the fall sweeps numbers were completed, KRST was showing its lowest numbers ever, KMYR was the top station in Albuquerque (and was this close to getting clearance from the FCC to put its transmitter onto Sandia crest, too). In a panic, management fired the curent program director (Suplin had long ago moved on again), but not the GM, whose "vision" was to contract the playlist; promoted me again to Music Director (ostensibly because I was the only one there from "the good old days" and I knew the library better than the people who had been working there for the last two years!), and was given the mandate to "make the station sound good again". I immediately expanded the playlist back to 2500 cuts (eventually getting it back up to 5000), and the new PD threw out much of the format. The result was, for the spring sweeps, an increase of 20% in our numbers!.

Why didn't it last? A couple of reasons: First, I couldn't keep my mouth shut, and eventually ran terminally afoul of the GM. It was this episode that taught me the first two axioms of broadcasting in the US:

1) When the inevitable conflict of personalities/egos/interests occurs in the broadcast industry, the person with the higher rank fires the person with the lower rank. This is not considered to be a bad thing; there is no disgrace in being fired from a broadcast outlet.

2) If it weren't so much fun, ain't nobody would work in that industry.

Second, since the GM was a control freak, he would do anything to assert control. The Format (big 'F') was the way to assert control on all aspects of the broadcast day. Hence it's popularity with the suits. Coupled with axiom 1) above, it assures that the suits will assert control over what was ostensibly an artistic outlet.

Back to the problem I had with the GM. The primary point of disagreement was the irrational, paranoid fear on the part of management that, if you play the "wrong" cut at the "wrong" time, you will lose your entire audience. Management absolutely believes that the entire audience waits with baited breath for the next "hit", and if you should challenge the listenership with something a little different (such as a Led Zep cut before 8:00a, or...Ghod forbid...Jazz) they will abandon your station for good and forever. How to keep this from occurring? Program all chance (and therefore, all choice) out of the playlist, be safe, be similar, and above all, be in control!

So, for both these reasons (ego and fear) the Format is all about control. Control is about Power, and Power is what drives the industry.

>whew<........Next question?

¹ There's an old joke there, but I'll save that for later....

Absolutely! I'd be interested in the response...

They're still there, in name if not entirely in spirit.

They got bought by one of the pigopolists, and although the same people are still there (Terry Hemmert, Wendy Rice, Tom Marker, et al), they have been...er, "compromised". More commercials than music, tireless self-promotion, call letters before and after every cut...in short, the Format, only tailored (grudgingly, I'm sure) to the fact that if they were fully inCorporated, the owners would lose whats left of the gem in the proverbial five-and-dime store.

As it stands, I just can't stand to listen to them (except during Flashback, Saturdays 8a-12n), because every time...and I mean every TIME! I tune them in, they're playing a commercial. (Sets are no longer than 2 cuts each, and they have no more than 5 sets an hour. Do the math...!)

Didn't know you were an expatriate of the airwaves.

e...with consulting firms (the one I was familiar with was in Atlanta..can't remember the name...) telling you which songs appealed to which demographic...

Hey! I know those guys! (And I can't remember their name, either...repression of Bad Things, I guess.) They were also the bastards who came up with the "enhanced" thing...changing the speeds of the turntables so the songs sounded "peppier". (Were you there for that abomination, too?)