Minnesota Daily

Minnesota Daily
A&E Odds & Ends

September 25, 1997

DING, DONG, THE EDGE IS DEAD

By Ryan Kallberg

By the time this paper's in your hands, it'll be official: 93.7 The Edge, ABC/Disney's take on alternative radio, will be no more.

Watch the red card very closely, ladies and gentlemen. The Frequencies Formerly Known As Rev 105 and/or X105 will now broadcast "adult alternative"; 93.7 on your FM dial will once again be 93X, all bad metal, all the time. For this week, anyway. (Meanwhile, the FCC still hasn't returned Beat Radio equipment - apparently, only professionals are allowed to make a mess of the FM band.)...

...Disney doesn't play shell games when it's down. Disney doesn't fear, it litigates. But as for the shell game - you can smell a mouse under every piece. After nuking the aternative format, they can meld KQRS's classic rock and the new 93X's alternametal, and kill those formats as well. If Stern makes WRQC successful enough, or impinges on Disney's sovereignty in too many markets, Michael Eisner and Co. can just buy Stern.

Justice Department interpretations of FCC rules wouldn't currently allow for a scenario this Disneyfied. Still, at the rate monopoly laws are depreciating, we're not that far off. Imagine: The airwaves could become one pure quality entertainment signal from one giant tower. Listeners can have mouse earphones implanted and listen to Radio Free Disney 24-7. Destroy all formats. Of course, they'd probably preserve them at EPCOT- or something.