Roger Friedman, celebrity columnist for Fox News, broke the news this week that Clear Channel Radio – the largest American radio broadcast chain – has issued an “edict” to its classic rock stations to basically ignore the new Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band album Magic, in spite of the fact that it has been number one on the charts for two of the last three weeks. Evidently Clear Channel execs want their stations to “only play tracks that people know,” which begs the question as to how people will become familiar with new music if radio doesn’t play it. Friedman is correct in concluding that Clear Channel’s homogenization of rock radio has done more to hurt CD sales than downloading ever could. Stations with a “Classic Rock” format could do more than merely play old songs; they could also play new material by older artists. Considering that Springsteen, John Fogerty, Santana, Annie Lennox and the Eagles have all released albums of new material recently, why is there no place on radio for them these days?