Few musical artists have benefited from FM radio more than Tom Petty.

Can you hit the “scan” button on your car radio and not hear something from the nasal singer’s canon? And bully for that. Petty – with and without the Heartbreakers – has been delivering consistently great rock music for decades. Long may he reign.

But Petty’s recent comments concerning corporate radio weren’t music to our ears.

The band was playing a pledge-drive benefit for KCSN, Cal State Northridge’s public radio outlet. The longtime classical music station switched to a genre-mixing “smart rock” format this year, and its fall pledge drive is aimed at boosting the station power to reach a much wider audience.

Petty mixed in some deep cuts along with standard hits like ‘Refugee.’ But he also sided with public radio versus the model which can’t stop playing his songs.

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Proving once again its claim to the hotly contested title of Stupidest Television Network, ABC has canceled “The Goode Family” and “Surviving Suburbia,” continuing their business strategy of desperately trying new things and failing to give them a chance to succeed.

No wonder the cab/sat USA Network actually beat ABC (and the CW network) in the national ratings last week. USA’s formula of original series with unusual but likable characters and sound values carries consistently impressive audience appeal.

Although the ABC cancellations were expected–given the fact that the network had brilliantly moved both series to Friday night, a network television Dead Zone, thus guaranteeing that the shows would not be able to generate an audience over time–they nonetheless prove that ABC hates anything with decent values and ideas and cannot appreciate good, solid entertainment with real sense (Castle being the rare exception). (more…)