Is live & local radio dead?

[TheBigA]

in the end all we will have are national stations

Keep in mind that iHeart only owns 850 stations out of 16,000. Lots of options out there, especially among non-coms.

At least the current FCC doesn't care about the stations operating in the public interest

The current FCC is using public interest to challenge the TV networks. Carr has said very directly that they will enforce the public interest. But it's hard to say requiring local DJs is something they would regulate.

 

[yeoldeschool]

Keep in mind that iHeart only owns 850 stations out of 16,000. Lots of options out there, especially among non-coms.

Is there a complete list of station owners giving the number of stations each owns? Something ranked like this, but continuing all the way down to owners havubg only 1 station each?

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

I had a reminder (and compliment) that local radio is not dead this morning.

We've had some rough weather in SE Wyoming this week.. and in some cases, rougher than was even forecast for. Wednesday, going by pure statistics/numbers presented to the media by the NWS was supposed to less intense than Tuesday... Mother Nature had other ideas.

I was recording updates between 2 and 4pm on some current watches/warnings.. things quieted down but the radar was right on the cusp of looking alot worse or causing worse to happen. We had a stable air over Laramie and a cap keeping it stable but that radar was looking like it could pop of some intense thunderstorms and that's all it would take to poke through the cap and case tornadic activity. The NWS told me there was no CURRENT tornadic threat despite a Tornado watch but breaking that cap of stable air could change that in minutes.

So between 4 and 9pm, I was recording updates to air on all 4 stations talking about WHAT I SAW on radar so people were aware what was possible.

I had the city manager in studio today for our daily, live 8am morning interview (City manager here has more power than our mayor). and h said "I really appreciate the weather updates on 98.7 Wednesday night, it was nice to know what was going on even though there was nothing was happening at the moment"

It feels GOOD when the city staff is starting to recognize and notice your efforts. It's part of the drive to keep going and do even more/better next time. And this came at the perfect time, on a great weather Friday and when, during the storms, I was wondering "Does anyone care? Is anyone listening?"

 

[cc333]

@SomeRadioGuy That's excellent!

If you ever have occasion to come work over here in Northern California, your talents would be greatly appreciated!

c

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

@SomeRadioGuy That's excellent!

If you ever have occasion to come work over here in Northern California, your talents would be greatly appreciated!

c

i did .. for 6 months in 2014 i worked for flinn broadcasting in redding and hated it.

 

[cc333]

Ah, OK.

I don't blame you there. Redding isn't the greatest of places to be around here (Bakersfield is probably worse). The central valley in general is a pretty lousy place to live (this probably goes without saying, but the places with the "famous" CA weather tend to be the major metros on and near the coast (San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego, for example). The weather farther inland (and especially the central valley) can get rather lousy, especially during the summer months).

There are places that sit in the middle – literally and figuratively – that are an acceptable compromise where the weather's okay. Not perfect, but okay.

c

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

I know some will disagree with how we do it, but I wanted to share how we do local news on our stations

I do local news at 7am, 12noon and 5pm on Hits 106 KLMI and are working on integrating it onto other other stations, Vintage Vinyl 98.7, True Country 96-7 and IMix 104-5.

My Friday morning newscast is posted as a link at the bottom of this post

News for 7am is done the day before with the most pertinent, important, local info we have. If stuff happens later in the day, then I update things before bed. If stuff happens overnight and I Get wind of it by 645 and it's important enough, a quick record of he new story then slice and dice into the newscast occurs before 7am.

If something happens and I don't find out in time or its not urgent, I update the 12noon and 5pm newscasts. The first thing I do when I wake up is check email, facebook and text messages real quick to see if anything I need to address immediately.

The very first thing I do when I get in studio at 7-715am is check some additional news sources for new community events or news
If nothing new has happened, the 7am newscast is set to run for 12noon and 5pm as well. Thankfully, we don't live in a place where theres alot of hardcore news to report on. But sometimes if there IS alot going on, I have/can/will run seperate newscasts at 7a, 12noon and 5pm. It just depends.

Our stations gnerally stay away from "if it bleeds it leads" and what I would call "incendiary" topics, we don't report on or get involved in drama. We focus on making the community a better place but we don't ignore news if it affects a large portion of our listeners (like fire, a police chase, etc)

You can see our news website, www.county5.com and our online community calendar at www.laramieevens.com to see what and how we focus our energy.

I like this job because we use technology to make staffs jobs easier while providing exemplary service to our community of listeners and advertisers.
My Friday morning newscast is posted in the comments of this post.

news7326.mp3

drive.google.com

 

[michael hagerty]

I know some will disagree with how we do it, but I wanted to share how we do local news on our stations

I do local news at 7am, 12noon and 5pm on Hits 106 KLMI and are working on integrating it onto other other stations, Vintage Vinyl 98.7, True Country 96-7 and IMix 104-5.

My Friday morning newscast is posted as a link at the bottom of this post

News for 7am is done the day before with the most pertinent, important, local info we have. If stuff happens later in the day, then I update things before bed. If stuff happens overnight and I Get wind of it by 645 and it's important enough, a quick record of he new story then slice and dice into the newscast occurs before 7am.

If something happens and I don't find out in time or its not urgent, I update the 12noon and 5pm newscasts. The first thing I do when I wake up is check email, facebook and text messages real quick to see if anything I need to address immediately.

The very first thing I do when I get in studio at 7-715am is check some additional news sources for new community events or news
If nothing new has happened, the 7am newscast is set to run for 12noon and 5pm as well. Thankfully, we don't live in a place where theres alot of hardcore news to report on. But sometimes if there IS alot going on, I have/can/will run seperate newscasts at 7a, 12noon and 5pm. It just depends.

Our stations gnerally stay away from "if it bleeds it leads" and what I would call "incendiary" topics, we don't report on or get involved in drama. We focus on making the community a better place but we don't ignore news if it affects a large portion of our listeners (like fire, a police chase, etc)

You can see our news website, www.county5.com and our online community calendar at www.laramieevens.com to see what and how we focus our energy.

I like this job because we use technology to make staffs jobs easier while providing exemplary service to our community of listeners and advertisers.
My Friday morning newscast is posted in the comments of this post.

news7326.mp3

drive.google.com

Paul, on principle, I disagree (I get nervous recording a newscast five minutes in advance), but I also know that resources are finite (an understatement) and what you're doing is a good faith attempt to serve the community. I also know that you're conscientious enough to stay on top of things in case updates are required.

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

Paul, on principle, I disagree (I get nervous recording a newscast five minutes in advance), but I also know that resources are finite (an understatement) and what you're doing is a good faith attempt to serve the community. I also know that you're conscientious enough to stay on top of things in case updates are required.

Thank you. My boss, the owner, is in the office 5 days a week and outside of our city staff, one of the most well connected well known people in town (went to HS and college here after being born here and never left) so we're incredibly well conncted.

One day, walking to the park at 530pm, i got an alert about a wildfire in the NE part of he county... i stopped on the side of the road with my garden cart that I haul around with me and VT'd two breaks about the wildfire right from my phone, no external devices.

I have resources and time here that i didn't have in Alaska....... so my job is alot less stressful and involved. I work 7hours a day ... weekends/holidays off

I cant tell you how many times ive updated a newscast after ive recorded it and tossed it into the system.

 

[fybush]

If it's only getting updated once a day sometimes, and it's getting recorded the night before, it might be an "information" update.

But I would strongly hesitate to call it "news" on that kind of an infrequent schedule, honestly. Especially if you're making your audience wait that long been between "updates" that sometimes aren't even actual updates.

Even if you do SOMETIMES provide updates, it looks from here like you're thinking more of the convenience of your own workflow than of your audience's listening habits and needs. If I listen even once at 5 PM and it's all the same stuff I heard at 7 AM, that's probably the last time I ever bother tuning in, because I have no way of knowing that you "sometimes" update it.

Not to say that it's not providing *something* of value to your audience - but it's also not anywhere in the same ballpark as the kind of every-half-hour freshly-written live news I did for most of my news career.

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

If it's only getting updated once a day sometimes, and it's getting recorded the night before, it might be an "information" update.

But I would strongly hesitate to call it "news" on that kind of an infrequent schedule, honestly. Especially if you're making your audience wait that long been between "updates" that sometimes aren't even actual updates.

Even if you do SOMETIMES provide updates, it looks from here like you're thinking more of the convenience of your own workflow than of your audience's listening habits and needs. If I listen even once at 5 PM and it's all the same stuff I heard at 7 AM, that's probably the last time I ever bother tuning in, because I have no way of knowing that you "sometimes" update it.

Not to say that it's not providing *something* of value to your audience - but it's also not anywhere in the same ballpark as the kind of every-half-hour freshly-written live news I did for most of my news career.

local news 3x a day, but were also talking about expanding it to at least 4, with a 6am airing... we also have statewide news multiple times a day and national news 24/7

Its only run 3x a day, because as i said.. this isnt like a ...place.. that has a ton of stuff going on and we stay away from hardcore stuff.

There are some days its legitimate news..
like this https://county5.com/concerns-about-...-on-the-banks-of-the-laramie-river-greenbelt/
or this https://county5.com/whats-with-the-haze-smoke-and-bbq-smell-all-over-laramie/
or this https://county5.com/severe-weather-risks-now-through-fri-june-26th/

and there are days its an information update like this: https://county5.com/update-on-carbo...who-was-injured-by-suspect-in-baggs-shooting/

or this: https://county5.com/city-of-laramie-larval-mosquito-aerial-application-on-june-10th/

It all depends on the way. We're less hardcore about because our competition is very click baity and we wont do that

 

[Kent]

Not to say that it's not providing *something* of value to your audience - but it's also not anywhere in the same ballpark as the kind of every-half-hour freshly-written live news I did for most of my news career.

That's fair, but you also don't generally get that outside of the major markets, especially on commercial radio. I've lived in larger markets than Laramie, WY that had stations airing the same newscast every hour after 6:00 PM until the next morning. I suppose you could make the case that that's malpractice. I remember tuning in to the same station almost 30 years ago while visiting my dad and hearing breaking news around 11:00 PM that evening: "The Raintree Inn on North Glenstone and Kearney has a heavy police presence" while the station's police scanner was audible in the background. Those days, however, are gone. The money's not there, nor is the audience. Even the Raintree Inn is gone; a Chick-Fil-A and a Whataburger sit there now.

In principle, you and Michael are correct. I just don't know how you pull a full-scale news operation off in a small market anymore. You have to have money to do that, and you have to have an larger audience than what most of those stations get to support it. The loss of that news operation I mentioned might be a problem, but it's a symptom of an even larger problem. The audience started leaving when that service was still being provided.

 

[TheBigA]

The audience started leaving when that service was still being provided.

Exactly. This needs to be said more often. The reason radio sounds the way it does is because the audience left.

What came first? The audience left. They weren't "driven away." They just found something else. I used to go out to dinner at the same place every week. Then one week, I tried a new place. Then I went there. It wasn't that the food was bad at the old place. Just that I tried something new. I recently drove past the old place, and noticed it had closed. Nothing is forever. Same with radio.