Does anyone besides me think AC today is a joke?

[davideduardo]

And who really cares what the listenership is. As long as those small stations are satisfying their own audiences, that's what matters. If I enjoy hearing 88.5 KSBR, I could careless what the hell KRTH or KIIS is playing.

With the caveat that KSBR and its two translators may not encode for the PPM (most non-coms do encode), this station has no listening. None, zip, nada.

When you say that listenership is not important, then please explain why public funds are being spent to keep a station on the air that pleases nobody?

 

[oldies76]

Your attempt to draw a line between the huge mass of "average" listeners and some self-anointed group of privileged music devotees is just another attempt to try to convince others of how bad KRTH or some other gold station is. However, when you see that those stations often reach over 20% of the adult population of their markets, the argument fails miserably.

Average listeners (like most of your L.A. audiences) differ ten-fold to listeners that prefer deeper libraries and those "deeper cuts". In other words, there is a line.

To your average listeners, KRTH is the best ever and deservedly so. To in-depth music fans, such as myself, and millions of others, it is not.

 

[oldies76]

With the caveat that KSBR and its two translators may not encode for the PPM (most non-coms do encode), this station has no listening. None, zip, nada.

When you say that listenership is not important, then please explain why public funds are being spent to keep a station on the air that pleases nobody?

Listeners who enjoy jazz have KSBR as an option. This station is run primarily by Saddleback College students and staff. (I should know, since I took several radio courses there in the late 80's). It is used by funds to educate students wanting a decent radio background for starters.

I was responding to Big A's comment, downplaying the importance of small stations due to small listenership.

"You can talk about college stations, indie stations, and pirate stations all you want, but the listenership for all of them is a fraction of the more mainstream stations."

All I'm saying is that there is life in the radio world beyond the KRTH's, the KIIS's and the other mass corporate owned stations. Small stations do matter and they have their many listeners as well, who are satisfied with what they do.

In Big A's case, it's more about the bottom line than the efforts by these small stations to attract and program to their audiences in their unique ways.

So, once again, so what if their listenership is only a fraction of what large markets get. At least they are trying hard to get their listeners in the first place, ala locally, 690, 1510, 950 and 95.5 and the hundreds more around the country.

I'll take these stations any day, over some puny 275 song playlist!

 

[K.M. Richards]

Average listeners (like most of your L.A. audiences) differ ten-fold to listeners that prefer deeper libraries and those "deeper cuts". In other words, there is a line.

To your average listeners, KRTH is the best ever and deservedly so. To in-depth music fans, such as myself, and millions of others, it is not.

Please note that you made the precise distinction David said you were.

"Average listener" ... all of you who "settle" for stations that are researched to create a music mix that pleases you.
"In-depth music fan" ... the rest of us, who are too elitist to ever be happy with researched formats.

Now that you have made the distinction, I (and the rest of the professionals who do this for a living) will thank you to stop trying to make the stations who serve that larger first audience into something the much-smaller audience wants. There simply aren't enough of you for the industry to ever kowtow to your viewpoint.

 

[davideduardo]

Listeners who enjoy jazz have KSBR as an option. This station is run primarily by Saddleback College students and staff. (I should know, since I took several radio courses there in the late 80's). It is used by funds to educate students wanting a decent radio background for starters.

Many of those non-coms of the KSBR type are ego-driven projects of someone on a tenure track.

Non-com experience is not of much value in getting a radio job other than a minimum wage board op position. Many at commercial stations find such experience to be a trip through fantasy land where ratings, commercials, a traffic department, sales and other parts of a commercial station are unknown qualities. That's not a "decent radio background". That is a version of Wonderland without some of the critters and characters.

In fact, I worked for over 20 years for one owner who would not interview communications department graduates; he found they all "knew it all" while in fact, they really knew nothing about commercial radio and had to be "un-learned" to have any future. I got to interview many of the ones he did not want to see (for EEO reasons) and never found a single one who was qualified to work for us. Yet we hired many who had diverse training and work experience in everything from Yellow Pages sales to club DJ work.

So don't use a station with no measured audience and a very, very, very niche format to criticize commercial radio.

 

[oldies76]

Many of those non-coms of the KSBR type are ego-driven projects of someone on a tenure track.

Non-com experience is not of much value in getting a radio job other than a minimum wage board op position. Many at commercial stations find such experience to be a trip through fantasy land where ratings, commercials, a traffic department, sales and other parts of a commercial station are unknown qualities. That's not a "decent radio background". That is a version of Wonderland without some of the critters and characters.

Like I said, it's for starters, an INTRODUCION to radio and operations. Boy, you sure downplay everything, don't you?

If it's not David's way, there no way, I get it. I'd love to hear their reaction to your comments about their radio program.

 

[Peter Pan]

Keith Urban and Shania Twain are considered "classic" artists.

Shania is on one classic country station I listen to, though.

WAKG out of Danville, VA is the one that plays their hits along with today's country hits. While that station is a small market station, it has been nominated several times by the CMA and ACM as "Country Radio Station of the Year."

 

[oldies76]

My apologies David...I just got a bit over my head.

I am happy what I've learned in school in terms of radio broadcasting, and I took your statement personal.

It's an introductory program in a community college, that's all.

 

[Peter Pan]

Keith Urban and Shania Twain are considered "classic" artists.

Shania is on one classic country station I listen to, though.

WAKG out of Danville, VA is the one that plays their hits along with today's country hits.

Even though that station is a small market station, it has been nominated several times by the CMA and ACM as "Country Radio Station of the Year." That's why I side with Oldies76 that small market stations should not be belittled.

 

[oldies76]

That's why I side with Oldies76 that small market stations should not be belittled.

They sure do their part, don't they? Best playlists, good talent, wonderful programming and they tend to care more about their listeners as a whole. And the best part, some even take personal requests, even if the song is not scheduled in regular rotation. That's what I call, SERVICE!!

 

[davideduardo]

They sure do their part, don't they? Best playlists, good talent, wonderful programming and they tend to care more about their listeners as a whole. And the best part, some even take personal requests, even if the song is not scheduled in regular rotation. That's what I call, SERVICE!!

That's what I call disservice. When I listen to the radio outside my own professional niche, I am a critic just as you are. When i had a home in Prescott, AZ, is about when I activated XM Radio in the car. The stations I might have enjoyed had amateur quality voice tracking and were worse when live and improvised. The music included too many songs I disliked or had grown to dislike. The local commercials were badly written and poorly produced. It was enough to stop listening to radio altogether.

 

[crainbebo]

Most of my online radio listening comes from small-town stations with very little from top 50 markets.
KKRB Klamath Falls, OR is one of my favorites but on some computers (like mine) the stream is slow, and really sucks. They need to get rid of Radio Loyalty! Expect to hear 1970s-today, with hundreds of very rare adult contemporary singles and album cuts mixed in. www.klamathradio.com/sunny107/
KSRW is another one of my favorites from Independence, CA, in the eastern Sierra south of Bishop. The website says: "In between – Our own brand of Adult Contemporary Music", and it's not Adele, Katy Perry or anything like that. It's a huge mix of variety from the mid 60s through 2000 with lots of singer/songwriter stuff, smooth jazz cuts, smooth vocals, and some 70s/80s soft rock hits. You are more likely to hear an album cut from the Corrs, or James Taylor, than hear Maroon 5. In the two years I've listened to this station, I've only heard Maroon 5 ONCE.
They air AC music weekdays from 11-noon, 1-4, and after 6 Mon, Tue, and Thur. Saturdays, it's all adult contemporary until the 6PM Jazz Show begins. http://www.sierrawave.net/ksrw-925-radio-program-guide/
KLAN Glasgow, MT: This is another interesting station, lately they have been embracing mid 00s on with some 70s/80s/90s. But they air a LOT of new artists or songs from new artists that I've never even heard of before. Most likely, they'll air new AC/Hot AC singles weeks before major markets. KLAN is a mashup of who knows what, and it's another favorite on my list. http://www.kltz.com/

-crainbebo

 

[davideduardo]

Like I said, it's for starters, an INTRODUCION to radio and operations. Boy, you sure downplay everything, don't you?

If it's not David's way, there no way, I get it. I'd love to hear their reaction to your comments about their radio program.

I don't care about the station's reaction. I care what the audience thinks. And many of those stations have no detectable listening.

One of the greatest failings I have found in such student run stations is a lack of guidance by whomever is the faculty guidance counselor or overseer. People on the air don't get better and in the worst cases, as they gain confidence they become loquacious and boring... showing no training and direction being given.

There is a reason why many universities and colleges that have or have owned stations have changed them into professionally run properties as opposed to free-form student activities... or they have sold them.

It takes no skill to turn on a transmitter. It takes skill and training and experience to get folks to listen to what is being transmitted.

 

[Leia Durane]

WAKG out of Danville, VA is the one that plays their hits along with today's country hits.

Even though that station is a small market station, it has been nominated several times by the CMA and ACM as "Country Radio Station of the Year." That's why I side with Oldies76 that small market stations should not be belittled.

I second that. Proof that a small town or small city station can be successful.

 

[oldies76]

That's what I call disservice.

To you.

 

[oldies76]

It takes skill and training and experience to get folks to listen to what is being transmitted.

ALL radio employees begin somewhere and that somewhere is usually a school of some sort. Radio broadcasting school, college radio, trade schools or internships, because they sure aren't born as professionals. Just because you came up differently outside of the US with radio, means nada to those working their asses off in school learning the things you may know today. It takes time and I find your above conclusion of college radio programs to be an insult to those who try and to the professors and college personnel who institute these programs.

A kid has to begin somewhere. And so did you.

 

[davideduardo]

ALL radio employees begin somewhere and that somewhere is usually a school of some sort. Radio broadcasting school, college radio, trade schools or internships, because they sure aren't born as professionals. Just because you came up differently outside of the US with radio, means nada to those working their asses off in school learning the things you may know today. It takes time and I find your above conclusion of college radio programs to be an insult to those who try and to the professors and college personnel who institute these programs.

A kid has to begin somewhere. And so did you.

Yes they do. And so did I, beginning as a gopher for a money-bleeding FM jazz station and its ultra-profitable r&b AM in 1959. While "the mistake by the lake" may seem like a foreign country to you, it's actually the home to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame!

After what seemed an eternity just hanging around, I got some board shifts and other duties at a buck an hour. It seems that during the "eternity" they had been, bit by bit, teaching me how to run the board, take transmitter readings, file records, tape commercials and all the other stuff right down to setting up a remote.

None of the people I learned from had studied radio in college. Many had not gone to college, and those that did studied other things; our PD had a Ph. D. in Literature from Ohio State, but got into radio because there were not many positions for Black scholars back then.

Today, very, very few of the people I work with studied anything related to communications. At the management level they may have undergrad degrees ranging from Political Science to Liberal Arts and the MBA's of course studied business. There are a few who studied music (I have worked for 35 years with a Juliard graduate) and a couple of veterans who went to the long gone but great Don Martin school in Hollywood, but otherwise nobody who specifically studied radio.

When I went to college nearly a decade after dropping out of High School to pursue a radio career, I studied social sciences and business. Sociology, cultural anthropology and business law and accounting as well as statistics, higher math and such. I took a senior Broadcast Management course for the heck of it... I got a poor grade on a "case study" project and then, no more than a few months later, went on to implement my case study concept in a top 15 market where the "failed" concept got me a #1 in adult women in one book. So much for the quality of broadcast education.

I have always recommended a course of study that covers the basics of language skills, humanities, math and the social sciences to anyone wanting to go into radio. I do not recommend communications courses or degrees in mass communications to anyone because, with few exceptions, they are either to far from the real world or are many years behind the times in trends and realities.

 

[vchimpanzee]

KLAN is a mashup of who knows what, and it's another favorite on my list. http://www.kltz.com/

-crainbebo

Obviously with those letters it's too far west to be in the South. But I find it hard to believe anyone would want those letters. If a station in the South were able to get them, can you imagine the reaction?

 

[vchimpanzee]

Her first hits are 20 years old. In my book, something 20 years old can be called a classic. Vince Gill & Garth Brooks are in the Hall of Fame, and they were having hits around the same time. I expect she'll get inducted too.

Shania's "Any Man of Mine" actually does sound country and is played (or was, since I haven't heard it lately) on one classic country station I listen to. But not long after that, she started doing crossover stuff that I really hope doesn't show up on the good stations. That's not to say all of her music was bad, but she's one of the offenders.

 

[TheBigA]

Shania's "Any Man of Mine" actually does sound country and is played (or was, since I haven't heard it lately) on one classic country station I listen to. But not long after that, she started doing crossover stuff that I really hope doesn't show up on the good stations. That's not to say all of her music was bad, but she's one of the offenders.

I remember her saying that they made an effort to have steel guitar on that album. It was partly recorded in Nashville. They had fiddle and steel on a couple songs on Come On Over, but that was it. She always had a fiddle player in her band. Even in Vegas.