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Things you don't hear on the radio anymore

Ed Nielson

Ed Nielson

From the good ol' days when radio was local...

1. The National Anthem at the beginning and end of the broadcast day (at least for daytimers.)

2. School lunch menus.

3. High school football.

4. The term "city of license" actually meant something. There was a time when the "public file" had to actually be at the station... or at least somewhere in the cithy of license.

Any others?
 
Tradio/swap shops. Now, it's called Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace. But in some very small towns, swap shop is still heard daily. This summer I picked up KPAN-106.3 Hereford TX during an Eskip opening to the TX panhandle and NM, and it's a daily feature during the noon hour.

Midday/afternoon shifts that were local and not voicetracked from another market. Local DJs during the 7-midnight timeslot...it's either syndicated or automated nowadays. Even some morning shows are voicetracked nowadays, let alone syndicated.
 
Ed Nielson said:
From the good ol' days when radio was local...
Click to expand...

Here's what I miss: Locally owned department stores, grocery stores, hardware stores, and electronics stores. Before the national big box chains and Amazon put them all out of business. They all used to advertise on the radio, and their money paid a lot of local people. Now there's not as much ad money, so we can't hire as many people. There's a reason why radio has changed, and it's because everything else has changed.

Here's another thing I miss: People actually talking to other people face to face instead of posting on message boards.
 
Ed Nielson said:
From the good ol' days when radio was local...
1. The National Anthem at the beginning and end of the broadcast day (at least for daytimers.)
2. School lunch menus.
3. High school football.
4. The term "city of license" actually meant something. There was a time when the "public file" had to actually be at the station... or at least somewhere in the cithy of license.
Any others?
Click to expand...
It seems a few of the things you're referring to hearken back to the days of "full-service radio". For better or worse, most of those types of stations were gone by the late 80's in favor of satellite programming or computer automation.

If we're going to go back to that time, here are a few other things to add to your list. Some are still around, but certainly aren't as abundant:
-Ethnic music and programming, usually on weekends
-Church services / religious programming on Sunday mornings
-Swap shop / tradio
-Community calendar
-Weather forecasts / local sports or news recaps, called in or recorded by local TV personalities
-Movie reviews
-Local interest programs / commentaries
-Brokered or special interest programming, usually on weekends from gardening groups, veterinarians or financial advisors -Programs sponsored and hosted by local civic organizations like Rotary or Chambers of Commerce
-Agriculture reports
-End of trading day stock market updates, phoned in by a local brokerage firm
-Locally sponsored contests and prize giveaways
-Remote broadcasts from large community events, fairs, store grand openings and car dealerships
 
Yes on the Sunday church services. Small-town (very, very small town) radio still does this. KMGK 107.1 Glenwood MN has more than one church service on Sunday. In Clay Center KS, KCLY-100.9 even airs Gaither Homecoming AND Adventures in Odyssey on Sunday mornings! They might be the only commercial FM that airs Odyssey, the long-time children's drama produced by Focus on the Family. Two Lutheran church services too.

Agriculture updates are a part of the regular broadcast day on many MN, IA, and MO rural FMs. But not in the Yakima area...where we have a LOT of agriculture. Even the TV news doesn't broadcast the closing markets and we have tons of alfalfa, vegetable, hop, and apple fields, besides a lot of cow farms too, you'd think the cattle prices would be a given. Toppenish has a large livestock auction house. When my grandmother was still alive, she would often take goats down there to sell.

Brokered financial programming is still aired on a lot of news/talk stations on weekends.

Remote broadcasts still happen to some extent in my market, but they are mostly promoting a sale at a business, or they are at the Vintiques or fair.

Community calendar? Thing of the past. Facebook replaced that. But Positive Life Radio still airs 15 second community PSAs during the breaks, locally-inserted for each station. Church events and park/rec. events for the most part.

This is why I am taping small-town FM stations via their webstreams, because once the owners die or EMF gives them that sweet offer, the local news and local programming is gone forever. They are an endangered species thanks to streaming.

I'll add...*effective* PSAs. Most of them are bland nowadays. Yes, I'm talking to you, Ad Council. McGruff the Crime Dog and WE PREVENT had some excellent PSAs in the '90s on gun violence. Did Partnership for a Drug-Free America use the 'Brain on Drugs' as a radio PSA too? I'm not sure.
 
Ed Nielson said:
From the good ol' days when radio was local...

1. The National Anthem at the beginning and end of the broadcast day (at least for daytimers.)

2. School lunch menus.

3. High school football.

4. The term "city of license" actually meant something. There was a time when the "public file" had to actually be at the station... or at least somewhere in the cithy of license.

Any others?
Click to expand...
High school football is still king on radio, but live-streaming on NFHS (nfhs.com) has made inroads.
 
TheBigA said:
I do it frequently. My local pub has wifi, and I travel with my ipad. Covid is over. I don't stay home anymore.
Click to expand...
Good to know, but unfortunately COVID is getting worse again with hospitalizations going up.

Getting back to Radio, the premise that Local = Better was never true. Sometimes that was the case, but I heard plenty of bad local Radio. Putting callers on the air requesting some rubbish tune was one example...
 
crainbebo said:
Midday/afternoon shifts that were local and not voicetracked from another market. Local DJs during the 7-midnight timeslot...it's either syndicated or automated nowadays. Even some morning shows are voicetracked nowadays, let alone syndicated.
Click to expand...
You think that Seacrest is live? Practically never.

Shows like that are made up of workparts, assembled later. That way artist interviews and the like can be built in, even if the artist is not available when the show is run. Technology made this possible, but the result is much more interesting content.
 
I'm in a county of 40,000. We do high school football (sold out). We do a buy/sell/trade program that is sold out. In all fairness, we take birthdays and anniversaries during the 30 minute weekday program as well. We do local news, weather every 30 minutes. We do two local PSAs each hour too. Sunday morning is paid programming from local churches. How are we doing? About 1 in 4 in the county listen to us from 50 signals received (Nielsen). We're talking a rate increase right now.

So, nobody listens to radio or does anything local? We do all of this and we're voice tracked. I admit we are an oddity.
 
Even my little Part 15 station signs ON with the National Anthem every weekend.....!!
The LPFM I worked for most recently plays a different version of the National Anthem EVERY DAY at 12 noon ...
IIRC, this was a request from the local IBEW, which leases space for the station's studios......
 
TheBigA said:
Here's what I miss: Locally owned department stores, grocery stores, hardware stores, and electronics stores. Before the national big box chains and Amazon put them all out of business. They all used to advertise on the radio, and their money paid a lot of local people. Now there's not as much ad money, so we can't hire as many people. There's a reason why radio has changed, and it's because everything else has changed.

Here's another thing I miss: People actually talking to other people face to face instead of posting on message boards.
Click to expand...
There are still a few places that have some semblance of that, but I've noticed that they tend to have smaller, more depressed economies, especially after the COVID lockdowns that pretty much ruined most small businesses and even a few larger ones.

Message boards (such as this one) are a very useful invention, and I like them very much when they're useful and their members are civil and polite (aka, "family friendly").

tbolt909 said:
Good to know, but unfortunately COVID is getting worse again with hospitalizations going up.
Click to expand...
Yeah, but it's still well below last year's peak last I checked, and we have all these fancy new tools so we don't have to run and hide like it's 2020.

An increase in hospitalizations isn't necessarily bad unless there is a corresponding increase in deaths.

c
 
I notice even the large market advertising is national, national, national. I rarely hear a car dealership or local business on Seattle FMs anymore, but boy do they have commercials for The Home Depot, Grocery Outlet, podcasts, etc. Olympia FMs get a lot of local advertising because they are, well, a smaller area.

Where I live in Yakima, usually the national ads on radio take up the last minute of the break, and the rest is local. Mostly car dealerships, marijuana retailers, plumbing and HVAC companies, Legends Casino, and a lot of Pepsi and Mountain Dew commercials (we have a local, long-time bottler in town, Noel Bottling Co.)

Which brings me back to another novelty: Local DJs recording the local spots. Plenty of those on KMGK Glenwood, but they are a novelty on their own, 3000 people in town and the station with 'no format'...

Inflation is also a rising threat in these small-town economies. Even the long-time local burger joint has to increase their prices $3-4 for a meal. Which trickles down to the customers and people passing by.

B-Turner, my guess is based on your location, the station in question is KGAF, 1580/92.3? God bless Steve Eberhart. What a station he has. And it's #1 in the county, well over the Dallas FMs 40+ miles away. They could just become a Westwood One satellite pass-through, but Steve keeps it local :)
 
crainbebo said:
I notice even the large market advertising is national, national, national. I rarely hear a car dealership or local business on Seattle FMs anymore, but boy do they have commercials for The Home Depot, Grocery Outlet, podcasts, etc. Olympia FMs get a lot of local advertising because they are, well, a smaller area.
Click to expand...

I think many of those national spots come from things like news, traffic and weather sponsorships. They will give you the programming for free in exchange for a certain amount of avails throughout the day.
 
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