GREAT ARTICLE!! If you like great music and miss hearing great music on the radio, Please check out this article (BTW you can hear it by "tuning in" from anywhere in The Universe.) https://www.ocregister.com/2018/09/...m-hd2-digital-station-that-needs-to-be-heard/
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RADIO, The Way It Ought To Be
- Thread starter SuperRadioFan
- Start date
I would love to listen to the 88.5 HD2 channel. Just as soon as I can get a clear signal from the main channel.
The key thing is it's in the non-commercial band. Lots of examples in that area that "break up the monotony." But it requires an audience that actually wants something challenging, with music they've never heard by artists they don't know.
But if you look at the list in the article, it is populated almost exclusively with bands that are very popular - particularly in the classic rock genre. Even in 2018 there is still a large appetite for good ole classic rock.
Then it really doesn't break up the monotony. It just plays more music that's already been played by radio, just at another time.
The fact that there's an appetite for it isn't in dispute. There's an appetite for many things that aren't readily available for free. So that's not the point. As I said, if the goal is to "break up the monotony of today," I'd recommend becoming adventurous and listen to stations that play new music. I think there are enough radio stations that play songs that have already been hits. There's classic rock, classic country, classic hits, adult hits, and adult contemporary. It's time to draw attention to what's being done now.
I listened to the most recent show, from 9/22. BigA Please Post Down 
- I have to say that Hippie Radio plays most of those songs on his playlist in Nashville on a real, live actual commercial station. (No Crowded House, yet.) All in all, I first expected a bit more diversity and deeper cuts from the artists listed in the article. It is nice to hear "Whole 'Nuther Thing." It is interesting to note that there are about an average of 2,000 listens, and that is one of the more listened to top-rated podcasts. Definitely a labor of love.
This paragraph is NOT intended to be a critique of Bob Goodman, because I enjoy what he is doing here. I defer to the "what about the listener" questions. I ask aloud how many listeners on OTA radio would listen to his multi-minute opening dialogue without flipping the channel because radio is now supposed to say only 13 words? Could this style really be a viable format that could draw in listeners for longer TSL and actually change the way other local radio stations scream for attention?
I am not sure this is the original way I remember doing "free style" radio, because that was more abstract, but the show is well-designed and certainly should draw in the interested listener that may not have heard many of these songs when they were released. Nice thread.
- I have to say that Hippie Radio plays most of those songs on his playlist in Nashville on a real, live actual commercial station. (No Crowded House, yet.) All in all, I first expected a bit more diversity and deeper cuts from the artists listed in the article. It is nice to hear "Whole 'Nuther Thing." It is interesting to note that there are about an average of 2,000 listens, and that is one of the more listened to top-rated podcasts. Definitely a labor of love. This paragraph is NOT intended to be a critique of Bob Goodman, because I enjoy what he is doing here. I defer to the "what about the listener" questions. I ask aloud how many listeners on OTA radio would listen to his multi-minute opening dialogue without flipping the channel because radio is now supposed to say only 13 words? Could this style really be a viable format that could draw in listeners for longer TSL and actually change the way other local radio stations scream for attention?
I am not sure this is the original way I remember doing "free style" radio, because that was more abstract, but the show is well-designed and certainly should draw in the interested listener that may not have heard many of these songs when they were released. Nice thread.
Haha - Heck, when I graduated from high school, there was no radio yet...so nothing sucked. (Kidding, but I do feel that way some day!, gr8oldies.)
BTW let me say I'm not criticizing the station in the OP, nor do I have anything negative to say about Hippie Radio. These are both options available to people who choose to listen to them. My comments are about people who then take those examples, and use them to suggest it could be popular if commercial classic hits stations in major markets did it. The facts demonstrate otherwise. The stations mentioned are not attracting the kinds of numbers that typical classic hits stations around the country are getting. I also stand by my comments that playing 50 year old songs, no matter how obscure, is not breaking up the monotony. These are songs that the people who love them should either own in their personal collection, or have them saved on the personal device of their choice. That's what they would have done when they were played originally, and it works just as well today.
As I pointed out, the station in the OP is an HD2 of a non-commercial station. It would not work well on a commercial station that depends on large audiences measured by PPM. There are lots of other non-commercial stations that do this around the country. There are a lot of people who have started LPFMs doing this. And that's all great and appropriate. But extrapolating anything else from it is ignoring the facts.
I used to argue with folks like Mr. Big A and Mr. Eduardo that there was a place for this kind of radio on the commercial frequencies. But after years of paying attention to what people listen to, and the music they care about, I've concluded that they are right. Most people really DO want to hear their favorite top 30 or 40 hit singles over and over.
I was a baby-boomer who grew up on Top 40 AM radio - then I got an FM/AM stereo radio from my parents for high school graduation. The FM "underground" stations (KPPC, KMET) were just getting started in my first year of college. I was totally enthralled by it. But really, that "golden" age of album rock only lasted a couple of years. By 1971, "Rock N'Stereo" KLOS started to dominate the ratings. No matter what people may think of KLOS in the 80s and beyond, in 1971 they were really fake album rock radio - playing mostly Top 40 hits with a few album cuts thrown in. The DJs talked like FM jocks of that era (softly and slowly), and there were no jingles or loud Top 40 type formatting. DJ talk was severely limited. Just back-announce the previous song-set, read the weather, and go to commercials.
The point is, KLOS dominated the ratings by mostly repeating the same hits over and over - just like KHJ or KRLA, but that's apparently what listeners wanted to hear, because it kicked a** in the ratings. IIRC, ratings came back strongly some years later, but that was primarily with a much tighter format and strict playlists.
These days, with so many choices - MP3 downloads, Spotify, Pandora...there is even less of a place for this kind of programming on commercial radio. And really, I couldn't care less - I can build my own playlists of songs without spending much money, so music "radio" is becoming mostly irrelevant in my world.
Exactly. As I've often said, radio is not in the music business, or the music distribution business. We have a situation where the music business, the owners of those songs, feel they don't benefit from radio airplay. The record labels say their business model has changed, and they get paid by music users, not by music sales. So creating free radio stations that are devoted to the music and wide playlists doesn't benefit radio owners or music owners. Just a handful of listeners who mostly have the personal wealth to pay for the music directly. That's what the music industry, including the artists and songwriters, would prefer.
I suspect many in the business might enjoy hearing the songs on this program but from the standpoint of their radio job would never consider the songs. What many don't understand is radio is sort of like hamburgers. You might have your special recipe for your hamburger you enjoy with all the special toppings and marinades but when it comes to opening a restaurant to sell hamburgers, you discover by offering the typical menu allows you to sell big numbers of burgers and create a successful business. Your personal favorite might be great but you'd only sell a few of those,not enough to keep the doors of your restaurant open.
Where I live in Mission Viejo there are parts where the HD2 signal drops; and traveling north on the 5 or 405 Freeway the signal drops just north of the Spectrum shopping center in Irvine. The signal also drops in parts of Laguna Niguel and Aliso Viejo. ..... KF, I'll bet you drive a late model vehicle equipped with Bluetooth and you also have a smart phone, right? You are smarter than your post indicates hahaha
So are you trying to tell me that my idea for a chain of restaurants that sell no meat mushroom sourced burgers with hummus topping is NOT a good business model?
As an indication of how much cheaper it is to buy music these days, I took the year I started buying music as a kid (1968) and ran it through the inflation calculator on-line:
In 1968, a 45 RPM single cost $1.00. Adjusting for inflation, that would be equivalent to $7.39 in today's dollars. But now I can buy a "single" download for $1.25
For the few who still buy albums - you can download an album these days for $10.00 or less. Adjusting for inflation, that would be like buying an album in 1968 for $1.38, but as those of us old enough to remember will recall - albums in those days cost about three times that much - -+ around $4.
This is not to mention services like Spotify and Pandora, where you can "rent" an almost unlimited selection of music for $15 per month.
You realize I know all this already, right?
Congratulations. You have crushed my dreams! Guess I'll go with Plan B - opening a chain of video rental stores all over America. That streaming fad cannot last much longer.
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