I knew Mega was doomed the first time I listened to it.
The radio station, at 95.7 FM, played the same five reggaetón hits every hour, it seemed, as if they were aiming for a kindergarten audience that thrives on repetition the same way 4- year-olds can listen endlessly to Barney sing “I love you. You love me. We’re a happy family.”
Incidentally, the purple dinosaur is a bit more sophisticated than some of these reggaetón artists. Sample chorus, translated from Spanglish to English: “Break it, break it, break it, break it down. Break it, break it, break it. The way she moves it. Break it, break it, break it. Break it down.”
Finally, the childlike music is gone.
Last week, the station pulled the plug on Mega and changed the station’s music to an upbeat R&B format.
During the 16 months it was on the air, no matter what changes the producer made to the songs chosen for rotation, the station continually failed.
“Mega debuted at No. 12 in its target demo (Latinos, ages 18 to 34) and it never got any better,” said Joe Bevilacqua, director of FM programming for Clear Channel Radio Denver. “We couldn’t get anyone to listen to it.”
It died in 22nd place.
Last year, reggaetón – a mélange of reggae and hip-hop splashed with Latin rhythms and set to Spanglish lyrics – was hailed as the Next Big Thing. A Latino vice president at Clear Channel boasted last year to me that reggaetón was so hot it had propelled the Denver station to No. 4 in the general market.
It turned out to be hype. Some might even say a lie.
Because most of the songs denigrate women as sexual objects, I’m glad it’s gone. Its closest competitor, Super Estrella at 92.1 FM, plays some reggaetón but offers a wide swath of Latin music: from rock en Español to Latin pop. Its ratings, which are pretty poor, would jump if the station started playing groups such as Ozomatli and Yerba Buena and got rid of the syndicated “On Fuego” show – a radio program hosted by reggaetón artist Daddy Yankee, which may as well be a commercial for his latest album. (Not to mention he hawks his new Reebok sneakers incessantly.)
The sad part is some Latinos called reggaetón a movement. If it’s a movement, it’s empowering no one but making a few artists, their producers and their labels rich while dumbing down kids with sophomoric lyrics.
There are lessons to be learned here.
Lesson No. 1: Radio conglomerates that let corporate headquarters decide what should be played in local markets always will be chasing the Next Big Thing, flipping its stations every couple of years hoping to get at a shrinking listener market that would rather listen to music on their iPods.
Lesson No. 2: Latinos are not a monolithic group. Clear Channel assumed that because Puerto Ricans and Dominicans in New York City love reggaetón that Mexican-Americans and Chicanos in the West would, too. Wrong!
That’s why reggaetón stations in Las Vegas and Dallas shut down this year.
Until they allow local producers to have more say in what’s played, we can expect more homogeneous, one-size-fits-some programming from conglomerates like Clear Channel.
Decisions about what is going to be played in Denver, Chicago, St. Louis and Miami should not be decreed by middle-aged executives based in New York and San Antonio. It’s why Denver and 10 other cities wound up with stations that played the same list of songs under the same divisive-sounding slogan: “Latino & Proud.”
This Latina was not proud.
Cindy Rodríguez’s column appears Tuesdays and Sundays. Contact her at 303-954-1211 or crodriguez@denverpost.com.
