Right now, somewhere on the face of the planet, is a radio station or stream manager, someone sitting in a car scanning the radio dial, or possibly YOU searching for some new music!! In major urban markets if you listen to terrestrial radio, your choices are limited to competing classic rock stations, country, hip hop, or well…..variations of the same and absolutely no contemporary blues . If you have satellite radio, you can tune in to ONE channel on Sirius XM!! If you are a bit more industrious, you can play your phone through your car radio and listen to a variety of small niche blues stations including my own…WRHB (hit the tab at top on my blog home page or on a phone just click the menu on the home page and chose WRHB). You can also go to http://www.bluesmusicfan.com where I spin two shows each week on a station providing radio hosts and 24 hours a day of the blues.
How can this be?? How is it that no major radio stations or streams feature the contemporary blues? How is it that the 5 or 6 major record labels worldwide carry only a handful of blues artists?? The primary reason I hear is that there isn’t enough content….that the blues are dead!! Let’s see…. Assume a broadcast hour that includes 10 minutes of commercials, 5 minutes of Radio Host talk, and 45 minutes of music. Over 24 hours, that is 18 hours or 1,080 minutes of music. In any given year that means you need 6600 or so hours of contemporary blues to fill the airwaves, smart phones, tablets, and computer screens. Wow…seems like a lot doesn’t it? What if I told you that last year ALONE, I personally received 9400 new contemporary blues songs. That is approximately 800 hours of new music. And I am a small time radio host relying on submittals from artists that have heard of me, artists I know, and through my association with Blues Music Fan Radio. I would say that the contemporary blues music pool in any given year over just the last 10 years contains at least 1200 hours of newly released music!!
Sooo…if the contemporary blues station in your market just wanted to play contemporary blues hits from the last three years in heavy rotation, hits from the last decade in medium rotation, contemporary blues from 2000 in light rotation, and also draw from THOUSANDS of hours of classic blues, you could easily fill the airwaves of a major urban market with 24 hours a day of some badass blues!! How do I know it is possible? Because Blues Music Fan Radio and WRHB do it every day as commercial free non profit streams!! We just can’t reach the numbers of listeners to be commercially viable. (Most internet radio streams are limited to several hundred or a couple thousand simultaneous streams of the music because of the “per stream” costs.)
We need an Elon Musk of the blues! Someone with the love, vision, passion, and start up money to fuel a wave of contemporary blues stations across the globe. Perhaps some of the stations in countries around the world will be based on satellite technology (e.g. Star Link), others on streaming broadcasts that allow tens of thousands of listeners, and, most importantly in terms of exposure, terrestrial stations reaching the tens of millions of people going about their lives in their cars every day!
In all honestly, perhaps I am too close to the music and blinded to the challenges of running a major market radio station or internet stream. I certainly love the contemporary blues and there are so many talented artists to chose from to listen to. But I also owned and ran a successful consulting practice for almost 25 years. I understand the “dollars and cents” and my gut tells me that the fusion of contemporary blues artists, savvy marketing, and wide spread exposure would yield a marketplace where blues artists get their due, investors make back their money, and people discover just how vibrant and entertaining the contemporary blues market really is!!!! If hip hop & rap can command the attention of Wall Street and major record labels, surely the contemporary blues can if given just half a chance!!
If you have thoughts, suggestions, or feel the need to tell me that I am out of mind, please comment below. I will read every one of them!!
#blues #bluesmusic #benveeroadhouseblues #bluesnews #bluesreviews #contemporaryblues
Ben Vee started out spinning songs on terrestrial radio and at nightclubs back in the 1970’s in his home state of Louisiana. After a career in the construction business, he returned to DJing in 2011. He now hosts two shows each week on http://www.bluesmusicfan.com and writes about the blues at http://www.benveeblues.com from his home in Connecticut. He also has a personal 24 hour stream devoted to the Roadhouse Blues… WRHB as well as a Youtube channel.
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