Goodbye Broadcasting Magazine

[boombox4]

Magazines and newspapers are going the way of the Dodo, in an age where everything -- news, music, audio and visual information and entertainment -- are all just internet "content". Some of it is free, some of it is paid for via subscription. A lot of periodicals that have gone online, and used the subscription model, are failing. The LA Time itself is losing money, I think (last time I read up on it, it was losing millions of dollars a year). So I'm not really surprised at the demise of Broadcasting.

I don't recall if the radio company where I worked subscribed to Broadcasting. They did subscribe to Billboard, Radio & Records, FMQB, and a few others, and some of those are gone.

 

[Kelly A]

Or R&R, Gavin, Rudman’s FMQB and all the rest?

Or what about 'Electric Weenie?'

 

[gr8oldies]

Or what about 'Electric Weenie?'

O'Liners too.

 

[davideduardo]

While this thread is about Broadcasting Magazine and not music tip sheets and the like, I did get a memory flashback when gr8oldies mentioned "O'liners".

Many here miss local and live talent and their "fun and local" content. In fact, most morning show hots subscribed to a variety of joke and content services that provided the raw material for shows. There were all kinds of services, ranging from jokes to weird facts to just buying the latest Guinness book of Records.

In fact, some jocks would do daily little contests based on strange facts or strange people. It was all bought and mailed to the jock. Some even offered market exclusivity and were more expensive.

 

[PTBoardOp93]

In the past few years, I've seen "advertising slump" turn into "advertising recession" and now "advertising depression." All of these terms imply a future recovery. But what if there is no recovery? What if American business has discovered, en masse, that it has been wasting money on advertising, especially in physical and linear media like print and radio/TV, for decades and have no need for it going forward?

A recovery is unlikely for certain mediums which have shed large portions of their audience, most especially print and broadcast television. Radio is arguably doing the best of the three.

Were Broadcasting and Editor & Publisher, which covered the newspaper industry, published by the same people?

Don't think so, at least not in the last 25 years. E&P was published by the Nielsen company starting in the late 90s. Editor & Publisher and Kirkus Reviews Close (Published 2009)
Not sure who published E&P before Nielsen, but Broadcasting was never part of Nielsen.

 

[K.M. Richards]

O'Liners too.

I will have to mention to Dan O'Day (who lives less than ten miles from me) that O'Liners was still remembered after all this time. I'm sure he will get a kick out of that.

 

[tvnut]

As noted, B&C and E&P were never under the same publishing roof. Broadcasting and its successor B&C were not only informative but, from the 1970s on, the model for an efficient business publication should be (with Advertising Age a close second). At that time, E&P, on the other hand, was a mess of a publication, sloppy looking and not well edited. It had been better in the 1940s and was excellent at the end under Nielsen.

 

[vchimpanzee]

I was fortunate that my college library (1970s) had it as part of their magazine selection. Back then I read it mostly for info on new station applications, station sales, facility and format changes, and call letter assignments.

When I went to work in broadcasting there was usually a copy laying around that I could read on my lunch/dinner break.

Same for me, except I never had a job in broadcasting. Now I rely on this site for all of these.

I kept looking at it on ProQuest when it became too hard to find real copies.

I used it a lot to update information on Wikipedia, but my inability to find it even on ProQuest since 2021 means the Wikipedia article on repacking is outdated. Others could have kept track of developments, but they didn't.

 

[davideduardo]

Same for me, except I never had a job in broadcasting. Now I rely on this site for all of these.

I kept looking at it on ProQuest when it became too hard to find real copies.

I used it a lot to update information on Wikipedia, but my inability to find it even on ProQuest since 2021 means the Wikipedia article on repacking is outdated. Others could have kept track of developments, but they didn't.

As mentioned previously:
Broadcasting Magazine: BROADCASTING MAGAZINE - Business magazine from 1931 to 2002
Broadcasting Yearbook: BROADCASTING YEARBOOK - Station and industry directory 1935-2010 (Ended 2010)

Both are searchable. The magazine can be searched through the whole collection, by decades and by year.

 

[K.M. Richards]

I used it a lot to update information on Wikipedia, but my inability to find it even on ProQuest since 2021 means the Wikipedia article on repacking is outdated.

That has always been part of the problem with Wikipedia. If those with editing privileges (I presume that the Chimp, like myself, have actual accounts at Wikipedia for that purpose) don't update pages they can quickly get outdated.

The other problem there is people who add things which are unsourced. I had to practically rewrite one page from scratch because of that.

This is why I always advise fact-checking Wikipedia before presuming it is correct and then inadvertently posting false information here. I tend to read the source links for anything I may want to quote; I get a fuller picture that way as well.

 

[gr8oldies]

That has always been part of the problem with Wikipedia. If those with editing privileges (I presume that the Chimp, like myself, have actual accounts at Wikipedia for that purpose) don't update pages they can quickly get outdated.

The other problem there is people who add things which are unsourced. I had to practically rewrite one page from scratch because of that.

This is why I always advise fact-checking Wikipedia before presuming it is correct and then inadvertently posting false information here. I tend to read the source links for anything I may want to quote; I get a fuller picture that way as well.

Like radio-locator pattern maps, Wikipedia is largely "for entertainment only"

 

[K.M. Richards]

Like radio-locator pattern maps, Wikipedia is largely "for entertainment only"

Although I am sure that, unlike radio-locator, Wikipedia never intended that to be the case! 🤪

 

[vchimpanzee]

I presume that the Chimp, like myself, have actual accounts at Wikipedia for that purpose

I have over 60,000 edits. Of course, many of those are correcting typos, and a lot of those typos I made.

 

[Mark Roberts]

Like radio-locator pattern maps, Wikipedia is largely "for entertainment only"

Reminds me of the disclaimer that the St. Louis Post-Dispatch used to put at the start of every horoscope column, in oblique font: "NOTE: Horoscopes have no basis in scientific fact and should be read for entertainment, not guidance."

 

[TexasTom]

I can't say I'm surprised. If anything, I'm surprised that B&C (and Multichannel News) managed to hang on as long as they did.

The first time I ever saw Broadcasting Magazine was in 1980 when I started college -- the university library had subscriptions to both it and TV/Radio Age, and I read the issues of each as they made it to the library. Once I graduated and had a job, I subscribed to both. In the 80s and 90s, Broadcasting really was an industry news magazine. Each issue was filled with breaking news, feature stories, and updated FCC actions. But in recent years, that has all been gone. I quit subscribing to it years ago, but they kept sending my copies anyway and in the past year it has mostly just been "hall of fame" awards and other fluff. There's almost no actual information left in it, and I can't say that there was any compelling justification for its continued existence. Frankly, there weren't even any non-compelling justifications for its continued existence.

The magazine had a good run for a lot of decades, but it was well past its prime for at least a decade. For those who remember what it once was, looking at the back issues that David Eduardo has scanned on his website is the way to appreciate it. Because those back issues cover the period when it carried important information.

 

[semoochie]

That has always been part of the problem with Wikipedia. If those with editing privileges (I presume that the Chimp, like myself, have actual accounts at Wikipedia for that purpose) don't update pages they can quickly get outdated.

The other problem there is people who add things which are unsourced. I had to practically rewrite one page from scratch because of that.

This is why I always advise fact-checking Wikipedia before presuming it is correct and then inadvertently posting false information here. I tend to read the source links for anything I may want to quote; I get a fuller picture that way as well.

I believe that I only posted once to Wikipedia and I don't think I had an account. I did however once read a misprint of myself!

 

[davideduardo]

I believe that I only posted once to Wikipedia and I don't think I had an account. I did however once read a misprint of myself!

Even more astounding, today I found an entry about a radio station that was 100% accurate.

As they say, even a broken clock is...

 

[davideduardo]

The magazine had a good run for a lot of decades, but it was well past its prime for at least a decade. For those who remember what it once was, looking at the back issues that David Eduardo has scanned on his website is the way to appreciate it. Because those back issues cover the period when it carried important information.

I'm now trying to find / beg / borrow / purchase the issues of B&C / Broadcasting & Cable that I don't have to complete the collection.

If anyone here has one or more, please consider giving it to me for scanning. I'll pay shipping, of course.

In other words, HELP!

 

[txchipk]

Like radio-locator pattern maps, Wikipedia is largely "for entertainment only"

Obviously some are good and really detailed, but the Wikipedia entries for a large number of stations is pretty poor. As I’ve been trying to digitize my old aircheck collection since the cassettes are 25-35 years old now, I’ve been writing them up since I also have some old notes scattered about from when I started 100000watts . com plus my old ancient M Street Journals since I used to contribute to them. As part of writing them up, I’ve been trying to add other sources that validate my notes or gaps (especially pre-1980 history) — i.e. old MSJs, Billboards, local newspapers, etc.

This week, I put up an aircheck from KWKH-FM Shreveport after it flipped to top 40 in 1996 (before it changed to its present day KRUF calls). The station is the oldest FM in Shreveport, signing on 75 years ago. It relayed the AM for almost the first two decades before splitting off daytimes. It shifted to rock/pop/blues in the 1970. It rebranded as KROK “K-Rock” in 1972. It flipped to country and back to the heritage KWKH-FM calls in 1984. It flipped to top 40 in 1996 (the aircheck I posted was a few days into the flip on August 10. The new top 40 format was branded as “the Big Dog 94.5”…it flipped to the “K94-5” brand several years later.

Wikipedia’s history section of the station is all of 2 sentences. The first sentence is correct; the 2nd sentence is partially correct as the CHR format began August 5 (thus I recorded the August 10 aircheck...the August 12 date is when the DJs started) and the brand was "the Big Dog 94-5." "K94-5" came in either 2000 or 2001...

On November 21, 1948, KWKH-FM went on air. It was operated by International Broadcasting Corporation, which was owned by The Shreveport Times.

On August 12, 1996, KWKH-FM changed its format to Top 40 (CHR), branded as "K94.5". On November 1, 1996, the station changed its callsign to KRUF.

 

[davideduardo]

I’ve been writing them up since I also have some old notes scattered about from when I started 100000watts . com plus my old ancient M Street Journals since I used to contribute to them.

Do you have any M-Street Journals I do not have?

M STREET JOURNAL: Format Changes, FCC filings - 1990 - 2002

M Street Journal covered the changes and applications at the FCC as well as format changes and station sales

www.worldradiohistory.com