The irony is Santana used outside vocalists before, but now older artists need certain celebrities to increase their chances to get on radio. Stunt casting is the only way you'd expect Herbie Hancock to get on rock radio now.

That's the difference between hip-hop and other genres,

As recently as a year ago, most U.S. broadcasters viewed it as a fringe sound in the continental U.S ... not something you could base a format around.

As for how far it stretches, it's too soon to tell yet. So far, what we know is that it transcends national heritage among Hispanics.

Program directors have to go earlier and earlier to keep the competitive advantage.

There's never been a radio conspiracy to foist terrible records on people with our without payola. The records that are getting played into the ground are the ones that are going to get played into the ground anyway.

There doesn't seem to be a consistent ratings pattern for local versus syndicated morning shows. So much of it depends on what else is going on at the station and in the market.

The acid test will be when there is some anti-war commentary on country radio. That hasn't happened yet.

It goes in 10-year cycles. One of the things that's happening now is that radio is in transition. So everything is up for grabs. Also, you have a very slow market out there - labels aren't putting out so many records. And, because they're looking at the costs of promoting records, they're putting out fewer left-field ones.

People were, certainly in the first couple of months, very cautious, and they are less so now. So it took people time to get past whether they were willing to say things.