Blanket black and white statements don't always reflect reality. Of course radio is less relevant today than 30 years ago, there are many other sources of music and entertainment, but my experience is that it remains relevant even with younger people. It's likely more relevant in smaller rural areas.
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Not true. Of their 450 stations, only a handful are among the most powerful. They only own a couple of stations in the largest markets (former ABC stations). There are many major markets, like Philadelphia, where they don't own any stations. And the 12,000 figure does NOT include translators, repeaters, and boosters.
As on March 2011:
•14,728 full power radio stations: 4,778 AM, 6533 FM, and 3,417 educational FM. There are 859 Low Power FM stations.
•1,774 full power TV stations: 1,022 UHF commercial, 360 VHF commercial, 285 UHF educational, and 107 VHF educational.
•10,595 translators and booster stations.
•2,172 low power TV stations.
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I notice every single proponent of "live and local" measures it in terms of jobs for jocks. No one ever considers the monetary aspect, nor do they take into account quality.
Radio is a business. Not a jobs program.
Radio is a business. Not a jobs program.
Not every single proponent! Some of us offer logic and observations from the LISTENERS point of view.
No big crowd of happy listeners means no business, no money.
Some of us are not arguing for old fashion jocks. We are arguing for programming that has the qualities of home cooked food... whatever that may mean in your background or ethnicity. We look around and see... no we LISTEN around and HEAR too much that resembles the food in a junior-hi school cafeteria.... not what mama and grandma used to cook.
As of Friday:
15,345 AM and FM stations that are neither translators, boosters nor LPFMS.
11,150 of those are commercial licenses.
When full commercial stations, LPFMs, translators and non coms are all added in, the number is 23,490.
Since boosters are simply signal fill-ins to supplement existing facilities, I did not look for a count on those.
Commercial radio isn't home cooked food. None of it is. It never will be. This falls in the category of personalized music services, not mass media. Anyone who expects to get home cooked food from the radio will always be disappointed. The place to get home cooked food is at home. Home cooked radio is probably going to be a n LPFM from some guy's garage.
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Thomps2525
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Almost every business decision comes down to money. Can a station save money by using voice tracks? Yes. Will a station gain a larger audience and make more advertising revenue by using live-and-local hosts? Probably. Would a station make more money with a local host than they would save with a voice-tracked host? Q.E.D.
Let's assume you are correct. Then the logical political philosophy should be to have a mercy killing. Don't waste my tax money paying FCC people to pretend they are protecting and policing some valuable asset. Let's take down some ugly towers that people don't want in their back yards anyway. Let's shut down transmitters that interfere with the phone of people who live near AM transmitting sites. Let's get rid of the expense of propping up this not-very-reliable emergency alert mechanism. The government is subsidizing in part a broadcast service that is stealing dollars from free enterprise folks like iTune, Amazon, Pandora, etc. Let's reduce the price of an automobile by making the radio receiver un-needed equipment.
Other than grinding out music.... does radio today have any socially redeeming quality.... as you see the picture?
Other than grinding out music.... does radio today have any socially redeeming quality.... as you see the picture?
I wasn't aware that government was in the business of "socially redeeming quality."
Spectrum space is a resource like water, gas, electric, minerals, and forests. That's why the government is involved. What profit making companies do with those resources is spelled out in the license. But nowhere in any rules does it say that radio should provide home cooking. The personal music services you mention are far more profitable, and are not federally licensed.
Have you set through City Council and County zoning meetings? Government in America is often consumed with the idea that it is their duty to make sure that things (including real estate in their case) are dedicated for assignment to those who will turn that asset into it's "highest Possible Use". That is why local governments declare horse farms to be out of context in today's world when a factory or a computerized logistics warehouse has the highest value to society.
The dictates of the Federal Government and local government sometimes are at odds. The local government wants that 3 tower directional array out of here. We want condominiums. We want car dealerships. We want office buildings. Those kinds of uses pay taxes and hire people. That horse pasture with three ugly towers is cheating our schools and our police and our fire department out of tax income they need. Move them over into the next county.
Once the Tea Party realizes what a rip-off it is for radio stations to do nothing more productive than grind out music that can be delivered other ways, the spectrum wars will heat up to new shades of red!
The dictates of the Federal Government and local government sometimes are at odds. The local government wants that 3 tower directional array out of here. We want condominiums. We want car dealerships. We want office buildings. Those kinds of uses pay taxes and hire people. That horse pasture with three ugly towers is cheating our schools and our police and our fire department out of tax income they need. Move them over into the next county.
Once the Tea Party realizes what a rip-off it is for radio stations to do nothing more productive than grind out music that can be delivered other ways, the spectrum wars will heat up to new shades of red!
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The tea party LOVES broadcast radio. Who are you kidding? Where else can they hear Rush?
Also local government has no jurisdiction in radio. Says so in the Rules.
Local jurisdictions currently have no ability to nullify existing facilities.
Buy a dilapidated station with a rusty, rotting tower and try to replace the tower and get the city to grant a construction permit.... when the city.... say Chicago? has been wanting to see the acreage developed for years.
If the station is broadcasing Rush... watch the Tea Party come protest at City Hall.
If the station is broadcasting Hip Hop to what we call an "Urban Neighborhood"... what are the possibilities the Tea Party will come and support the idea of a new Mixed use Community and a big hotel and tell the broadcaster: Your tower franchise just died. We are going to apply the doctrine of "Highest Level of Use".
A couple of decades ago the scuttlebut among engineers in the Midwest was the dilemma some Chicago station was in. WGN or WBBM or someone had a tower along the Interstate north of O'Hare Field and the tower was aging. The folklore was that there had been discussion with whatever municipality now inhabited what used to be somewhat open fields along the Interstate going toward Milwaukee in past years. The station, which ever it was, approached the local municipality about the need to replace the aging tower with a new tower. What would be the red tape. What expectations did the city have about red tape to deal with the installation of the replacement.
The city answered: Our expectation is that you go put it somewhere else. We don't really want it here. But, as long as the thing stands and is safe, our rules don't give us the ability to force you out. But we WILL NOT approve the construction of a new one.
Can we paint the thing? Yes.
If we find one or two rusty spots, can we weld in overlay repairs. Repairs, yes. Replacement no.
So the folklore in the Midwest was that the station had come up with a design in which a slightly larger cross-section tower would be "assembled" in a fashion that it would encase the existing but headed-for-failure tower. Bracing brackets would interconnect the good tower to the failing tower. The station was prepared to go to court and prove that legally, it was a repair, not a replacement. Back then a well known, well rated 50kW station in a market like Chicago could fund such a Rube Goldberg scheme to out-fox locals who wanted the tower gone.
But what does a 3 or 5 tower 5kW station at the high end of the AM dial do if their towers are failing and their market is Peoria, or maybe Lexington, KY or Bowling Green, KY. And how many stations in markets like that can go to the Supreme Court to win a case which says local government has to stand aside and let the FCC over ride local zoning laws and construction codes?
My example is a reach, and I understand that. An Indianapolis station had to move an array years ago because an Interstate Highway was being built. Does a Federal broadcast license trump a Federally financed highway that is out exercising Eminent Domain? Apparently not.
Tell that to property owners in downtown Atlanta where the powers that feel that the image and social values of the community need to go down the street and build a new football stadium because the 20 year old stadium lacks "credible social value". Try and explain to them they don't need to move their businesses or their homes or their churches because "government is not authorized to deal in socially redeeming values.
The city answered: Our expectation is that you go put it somewhere else. We don't really want it here. But, as long as the thing stands and is safe, our rules don't give us the ability to force you out. But we WILL NOT approve the construction of a new one.
Can we paint the thing? Yes.
If we find one or two rusty spots, can we weld in overlay repairs. Repairs, yes. Replacement no.
So the folklore in the Midwest was that the station had come up with a design in which a slightly larger cross-section tower would be "assembled" in a fashion that it would encase the existing but headed-for-failure tower. Bracing brackets would interconnect the good tower to the failing tower. The station was prepared to go to court and prove that legally, it was a repair, not a replacement. Back then a well known, well rated 50kW station in a market like Chicago could fund such a Rube Goldberg scheme to out-fox locals who wanted the tower gone.
But what does a 3 or 5 tower 5kW station at the high end of the AM dial do if their towers are failing and their market is Peoria, or maybe Lexington, KY or Bowling Green, KY. And how many stations in markets like that can go to the Supreme Court to win a case which says local government has to stand aside and let the FCC over ride local zoning laws and construction codes?
My example is a reach, and I understand that. An Indianapolis station had to move an array years ago because an Interstate Highway was being built. Does a Federal broadcast license trump a Federally financed highway that is out exercising Eminent Domain? Apparently not.
Tell that to property owners in downtown Atlanta where the powers that feel that the image and social values of the community need to go down the street and build a new football stadium because the 20 year old stadium lacks "credible social value". Try and explain to them they don't need to move their businesses or their homes or their churches because "government is not authorized to deal in socially redeeming values.
Other than grinding out music.... does radio today have any socially redeeming quality.... as you see the picture?
As I'm sitting here in the small market on the Washington Coast, listening to the thunder, watching the lightning, getting the power outage reports, listening to my several stations, with live disk jockeys talking about downed trees, flood warnings, etc, and our talk show host discussing the pros and cons of a Federal Government land grab in a nearby area, I'd say that radio today does have "socially redeeming quality", other than "grinding out music". This weekend, while we were grinding out music, we were also keeping our many thousands of listeners informed as to the wind, flood, power outages, etc. And today, if it gets worse, we'll be dealing with school closures, business interruptions... you get the drift. I hope what we do here is done in other small markets across the country, but I guess it's possible that we are the only ones.
Small market radio is cool that way. Here, if jocks talked about storms and such, most of the people hearing the station wouldn't be experiencing those storms unless it was an unusually massive storm.
If I were a jock whose job it is to be local, I would think that it would be hard to find enough local things to talk about most days. Sure I could talk about the proposal to expand library hours, proposed tax increases for road improvement and local music, but I fear most of my audience would tune out. What few live and local jocks that are left talk about "celebrity news", the lates viral videos and any number of things that could be from anywhere, or from a nationally syndicated show.
A few years ago my wife and I drove right through Bossbill's markets. I wasn't thinking radio that week. We were trying to see how much of Seattle and Washington state you can see in one week. Not much! But we did our best.
One of the problems of being in Bossbill's markets.... as a hired help.... where do you turn for hints, for instruction, for inspiration. How do you take 'library hours discussion' and deal with the topic without it becoming a shouting match like major market Talk Radio tends to be. How do you convince Bossbill that you have the talent to do down and interview the folks dealing with tax increases and road improvements and that the resulting product will be worth the time and expense he invested in you doing that.
During my broadcasting years (quite a while back) that is where I was, and what I wanted to do. There were no journals and subscription news letters back then that a guy like me could subscribe to on my own so I could step and say, "Boss, here is what I want to do, this is how we can do it!" Today, I don't come across any websites that are very instructive in that area. So... if you are young (we call that entry level these days) and you have this 'want to' for things like that, where is the 'how to' from which we learn.
I worked for 15 different radio stations. TWO of them were into this kind of stuff. One of them put me 'front and center' and taught me what I know about being a small town radio person. At the other one, I was in sales and the owner/manager picked my brain for tips on how my previous employer did what he did, and he had a person devoted full time to making these kind of things work.
But the other stations I worked for..... not so much. (Some didn't have a clue! Some would say the same thing about me. )
One of the problems of being in Bossbill's markets.... as a hired help.... where do you turn for hints, for instruction, for inspiration. How do you take 'library hours discussion' and deal with the topic without it becoming a shouting match like major market Talk Radio tends to be. How do you convince Bossbill that you have the talent to do down and interview the folks dealing with tax increases and road improvements and that the resulting product will be worth the time and expense he invested in you doing that.
During my broadcasting years (quite a while back) that is where I was, and what I wanted to do. There were no journals and subscription news letters back then that a guy like me could subscribe to on my own so I could step and say, "Boss, here is what I want to do, this is how we can do it!" Today, I don't come across any websites that are very instructive in that area. So... if you are young (we call that entry level these days) and you have this 'want to' for things like that, where is the 'how to' from which we learn.
I worked for 15 different radio stations. TWO of them were into this kind of stuff. One of them put me 'front and center' and taught me what I know about being a small town radio person. At the other one, I was in sales and the owner/manager picked my brain for tips on how my previous employer did what he did, and he had a person devoted full time to making these kind of things work.
But the other stations I worked for..... not so much. (Some didn't have a clue! Some would say the same thing about me.
)
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