Radio - dead and loving it (sorry Mel Brooks)

[howdareu]

For a few years now Seattle has been more boring than a hot bag of rocks.

There are like 8 AC stations, 3 rock stations and 2 country stations and AM is all religion, sports and Korean or whatever.

How do you guys who work in this industry wake up every day? Cocaine? Heroin? Merryjuana?

I mean the entertainment value is bankrupt and there are no surprises or shockers! I mean like in years!

You ARE ENTERTAINMENT! Not necessity! How do you get away with it? Is someone sleeping with someone? I mean like you are boring like a corpse resting on a table boring. What the hell?

 

[fordranger797]

How do you guys who work in this industry wake up every day? Cocaine? Heroin? Merryjuana?

I mean the entertainment value is bankrupt and there are no surprises or shockers! I mean like in years!

You ARE ENTERTAINMENT! Not necessity! How do you get away with it? Is someone sleeping with someone? I mean like you are boring like a corpse resting on a table boring. What the hell?

Why? Because I wouldn't want to do anything else. Sure, I could become an account, but why would I want to do that when I already love what I do? I am well aware that radio is a losing battle for eking a decent living in world, but I would choose to work in radio any day than make a better living doing something that I do not enjoy.

There is a certain addiction that comes with entertaining the listener.

I really doubt that you have any involvement in radio.

 

[Kelly A]

Gee..another "radio is dying because it isn't like what I remember in the old days"-topic? Great.

 

[airchair]

Why? Because I wouldn't want to do anything else. Sure, I could become an account, but why would I want to do that when I already love what I do? I am well aware that radio is a losing battle for eking a decent living in world, but I would choose to work in radio any day than make a better living doing something that I do not enjoy.

There is a certain addiction that comes with entertaining the listener.

I really doubt that you have any involvement in radio.

If I remember correctly, it wasn't long ago that you used to make comments on this board similar to the OP. Possibly before you, yourself, got a break in the business?

As for salaries & decent livings (if we're still talking about the programming side of Radio Entertainment), there are PLENTY of healthy salaries coming out of this market. Truth. And not just morning personalities like K&A or F-I-T with a Z. Even part-timers in this market make a pretty good living if they do it right. I hope you're being fairly compensated for the time you donate to your "hobby."

Why do so many people bash this industry? If the MAJORITY of listeners thought the programming was stale, they wouldn't listen. But they do. They have other options...but still listen.

By the way, what has happened to this board? I miss the TVradioGuru laying the facts down around here. At least we still have AQH & Bill to bring reality to these threads.

 

[Bongwater]

For a few years now Seattle has been more boring than a hot bag of rocks.

There are like 8 AC stations, 3 rock stations and 2 country stations and AM is all religion, sports and Korean or whatever.

How do you guys who work in this industry wake up every day? Cocaine? Heroin? Merryjuana?

I mean the entertainment value is bankrupt and there are no surprises or shockers! I mean like in years!

You ARE ENTERTAINMENT! Not necessity! How do you get away with it? Is someone sleeping with someone? I mean like you are boring like a corpse resting on a table boring. What the hell?

This is 2015 and you are exactly what mobile streaming is for. Never again must you listen to boring Seattle radio. With a few simple apps, you can now hear radio from anywhere on the planet.

There's a certain freedom with an infinite dial. Pick a genre. ANY genre. And chances are, you'll find several channels playing it somewhere online.

Who needs boring old corporate terrestrial radio and their commercials and their crummy overplayed music? Radio is no longer a ball and chain to whatever comes in, in any particular area. As a listener with a mobile connection, you have freedom of choice and the ability to listen to any station that suits YOU.

Get with the times. It's fun.

Cheers!

 

[crainbebo]

Case in point: 103.7 the Oasis, K279BP/KOAZ-AM Albuquerque NM. Great smooth jazz station run by Don/Martha Whitman, with several good hosts including Steve Hibbard (ex-Jones Radio Network SJ program director, ala KZAL-94.7 pre-AC/Country).
KYSJ-105.9 Coos Bay, OR - not like the Oasis, but smooth jazz!! Something that the CITY of Seattle has not seen since 2010. KZIZ's signal is crap and the music is almost sheer AC.

Seattle is also missing AAA (like the old Mountain, or KINK today in Portland), a Bob FM to compete with Jack FM, and a classic hip-hop station. The variety in Seattle sucks so badly that the only station I listen to regularly (and that doesn't mean every day) is KJAQ, and sometimes KOMO late at night for news.

Enjoyed the Oasis when they came on in Albuquerque with their stream. Then enjoyed it a year later. Still enjoy it in 2015.

And as for AC? KRWM is not even that close. Seriously...is "Love You Like a Love Song" by Selena Gomez, or "Without You" by David Guetta AC? I don't think so. Could be Hot AC, but not "at-work" AC. As for AC stations, I enjoy ones like KOAI 95.1 in Phoenix, KQEZ 106.3 Idaho Falls, and WDUV 105.5 Tampa. Ones that are Soft AC and still play great hits from the 1970s-the millennium. Yes, I still live in the past.

-crainbebo

 

[fordranger797]

If I remember correctly, it wasn't long ago that you used to make comments on this board similar to the OP. Possibly before you, yourself, got a break in the business?

Yes, actually. Its simple to be interested in radio, and easy not have any grip of how the business works if you have no involvement.

 

[davideduardo]

Case in point: 103.7 the Oasis, K279BP/KOAZ-AM Albuquerque NM. Great smooth jazz station run by Don/Martha Whitman

Martha Whitman is Don Davis's wife. Don owns a couple of stations and she owns The Oasis.

 

[Unregistered]

And as for AC? KRWM is not even that close. Seriously...is "Love You Like a Love Song" by Selena Gomez, or "Without You" by David Guetta AC? I don't think so. Could be Hot AC, but not "at-work" AC. As for AC stations, I enjoy ones like KOAI 95.1 in Phoenix, KQEZ 106.3 Idaho Falls, and WDUV 105.5 Tampa. Ones that are Soft AC and still play great hits from the 1970s-the millennium. Yes, I still live in the past.

-crainbebo

Your definition of "good" AC stations makes your criticism of Warm a moot point.

 

[boombox4]

What the guys said about internet streaming is right on. I listen to P3 from Norway.

 

[xmtrland]

How do I work in the industry?

I don't turn up the off air monitor when I visit the transmitter site for it's weekly visit. Never visit the studios unless I want to catch the flu.

Maybe I should have posted that anomalously.

 

[Bongwater]

Streaming is the future of radio. Not many new terrestrial radios are being made anymore. And as the economy and tech improves, more and more people will want to move beyond the stale sounds of their traditional terrestrial radio dials and onto something they can't find on it. Or what the radio sounds like in Las Vegas. Or they may discover a whole new genre they can't find on the radio locally. Or something.

And mobile streaming is improving and prices will begin seriously falling in the coming years. Because consumers are demanding improved services and prices as everything in our lives goes "smart" and wi-fi connected (many new devices also act as wi-fi extenders.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iiuF8lVHGs

And they will get ALL of it. Capitalism 101, baby.

 

[TheBigA]

And mobile streaming is improving and prices will begin seriously falling in the coming years.

Maybe on the consumer side. But for streaming radio stations, the royalty rates are going up. At some point, those costs will have to be passed on to consumers in some way.

 

[boombox4]

I see the same number of radios for sale at box stores that I saw 20 years ago. Same aisles full of clock radios, shower radios, mini-boomboxes, etc.

Sure they may not be selling in monstrous numbers, but they still sell, or the stores wouldn't have them there for sale.

Streaming is probably the future, but what BigA keeps saying is something to consider. I wonder if that is why I've noticed some radio stations turning their streams off at certain times.

Streaming has a bit more in common with cable TV than OTA radio. Eventually a lot of it may end up being pay-to-play. Whereas over the air, you just tune the device and you're listening for free.

A prime example: try listening to an NFL football game on a radio station's online stream. Good luck. Unless you pay the NFL to hear them on their own site, you're dead in the water.

I can see where this trend could extend itself, esp. once OTA radio becomes less and less popular. Look at what happened with TV. Maybe 10% of TV viewers tune into OTA signals? The rest of the populace pays $70-$150 a month for what used to be free, and most of them still only watch 5-6 channels.

 

[b-turner]

From my observations, many folks unhappy with local radio offerings tune to distant over the air stations that stream.

Streaming costs are so high radio would likely need several sources of revenue to make it. Much like TV, is America ready to spend to receive a station online that still runs just as many commercials? Would you pay $15 to $20 a month to listen to each preferred station if there were no commercials and on top of paying your service provider?

 

[TheBigA]

Would you pay $15 to $20 a month to listen to each preferred station if there were no commercials and on top of paying your service provider?

Sounds like Sirius...19 million people do it already.

The music industry wants a streaming fee added to all mobile phone bills. How do consumers feel about that?

 

[AQH]

Sounds like Sirius...19 million people do it already.

Sirius/XM takes, how should I say it, liberties with the definition of subscribers.

The music industry wants a streaming fee added to all mobile phone bills. How do consumers feel about that?

Furthermore, how are people going to regularly use music streaming services or terrestrial radio streaming in an age where every ISP is in overdrive to minimize consumer data usage through caps and throttling, yet increase rates?

 

[TheBigA]

Furthermore, how are people going to regularly use music streaming services or terrestrial radio streaming in an age where every ISP is in overdrive to minimize consumer data usage through caps and throttling, yet increase rates?

That's the marketplace. If streaming is so much better than OTA, we'll see how much more consumers are willing to pay for it. If they're not, then OTA has nothing to worry about. Because the truth is that, for the majority of music listeners, OTA serves the need just fine. I don't see a big interest in music that's beyond what's on OTA, especially for free.

 

[AQH]

That's the marketplace. If streaming is so much better than OTA, we'll see how much more consumers are willing to pay for it. If they're not, then OTA has nothing to worry about. Because the truth is that, for the majority of music listeners, OTA serves the need just fine. I don't see a big interest in music that's beyond what's on OTA, especially for free.

Right.

There will always be a small minority of people who will want to hear something from out of town, but not nearly enough to be a factor.

 

[CTListener]

Sirius/XM takes, how should I say it, liberties with the definition of subscribers.

They claim more than 25 million now. Some are multiple radios owned by the same person, who only listens to one of them at a time. And Sirius -- back when the companies were separate -- rather notoriously counted activated radios in unsold cars sitting in dealer lots as "subscribers" as well. XM didn't. Not sure if the combined entity is still including the unused car radios as subscribers or not. Since the SEC apparently found nothing wrong with the practice, I would imagine SXM is still doing it.