40th anniversary of Sacramento's short-lived "Rock of the 80s" station (KPOP 93.5)

[Camron Fry]

And yet I keep hoping SOMEBODY, SOMEDAY will try SOMETHING that's as new and different as KPOP was to me back then.

I thinks that's very unlikely to happen. All commercial radio playlists are the "lowest common denominator" approach to music formatting. In order to keep TSL high... you have to keep replaying what's familiar to the largest cross section of your potential audience....so they'll keep listening to hear your advertisers. That's always been the bottom line. If you're someone who want's to find some variety, all you have to do now is use the algorithm on most streaming services to "match" similar artists and styles of music. In the eyes of radio companies, it's not their job to "surprise" the listener with something new and fresh....it's their job to play the numbers game....both with music that was broken from another medium (like TikTok) and to bundle ad packages across several stations they own to try to make a buck. Sadly... that's the ONLY way they're willing to do it.

 

[Alan Smithee]

Then radio truly is dead. Go to any other message board and ask people if they listen to radio at all, you’ll probably get a lot of no’s. Are there even any kids nowadays who aspire to work in radio?

 

[cc333]

Then radio truly is dead. Go to any other message board and ask people if they listen to radio at all, you’ll probably get a lot of no’s. Are there even any kids nowadays who aspire to work in radio?

I did aspire to work in radio when I was young. I remember back around 1999 or so, I became really fascinated by radio (I'm not sure why or what prompted it), and I wanted to run a station. I had a couple of those old two-way wireless intercoms (well, I guess they were still relatively new back then) that I would set up and pretend that it was a radio station, and I'd "broadcast" music from the main intercom using a hand held tape player that I had recorded either from a real radio station or the TV to the distant intercom, located in another room. It was extremely crude, but enjoyable nevertheless.

My ambitions never progressed far beyond that, because I never really had the opportunity to explore them, but, almost by accident, I did get to volunteer at an LPFM for a couple years about 15 years ago, which was fun except for the people (I suspect a properly run commercial station would've been at least slightly more organized, with proper checks and balances to keep employees and personalities from running amuck, but perhaps this is a bit naive, given some of the stories I've read on these forums.

Anyway, looking at the industry now, it's nothing bit a disappointment. Nobody cares about doing anything new, and most who try end up going under because they lose listeners (and thus ad revenue). And this is in a time where the overall share of listeners is much lower than it was in 1999.

From time to time, I do still toy with possibly applying to work at a local station somewhere (and, if the opportunity arises, I very well may give it a try!), but it seems like by the time I finally do get around to it, I might as well not bother, since it'll all be internet-based anyway, and where's the fun in that? The thing that still excites me about analog radio (especially AM, but FM too) is how one can turn on a radio and, almost like magic, tune into a station that's maybe hundreds of miles away and hear things from a different perspective, or hear music and things that I don't hear locally (which is not so common nowadays, with so many stations under common ownership all airing the same thing).

Internet radio is OK, but it makes the act of listening to the "radio" way too easy and boring, and it all sounds the same. And there's so much variety, that it's kind of irritating, kind of like how having too much of a good thing can sometimes be worse than not having it at all.

I might get an amateur radio license, but what can I do with it? It seems like there's not much to do there other than talk to people about the weather and constantly slave over expensive equipment, which doesn't excite me too much. i like broadcasting, but that's explicitly forbidden on the Ham bands, so that's out.

Oh, well.

c

 

[Alan Smithee]

Music got boring for me by 1999; as I said KROQ, Live 105 and KWOD were still going then but they'd been phasing out the more pop-oriented music in favor of grunge and little else. I was buying far fewer CDs than I used to also because the record labels kept raising prices on them that decade. I'm sure there's been a lot of great music since then that I haven't heard since it's gotten zero airplay, I still have heard SOME good new music and I would want that played on the radio more than even the best tracks from the 80s which I already have my own copies of.

Internet radio is one thing that has made the consolidation of over-the-air radio more bearable, as you can at least find something you'll like there and it also gives the few unique stations infinitely larger reach. In Sacramento I can tune into The Wave from Salt Lake City for example which would never reach here otherwise (I still think they rely far too much on older music but I'll give them points for trying something different at least) and I can listen to Live 105 if they ever decide to not suck, their signal has always been awful and rarely if ever reaches here. I think a HUGE problem with radio now is the use of voice-tracking, where the DJs aren't really live but record everything at least a few hours in advance and it's played by computer. That isn't what radio should be, especially when most of the smaller internet-only stations already operate like that out of necessity. I learned a lot about music from the DJs at KPOP back then (although my friend remembers a lot of them weren't really familiar with the music and mis-pronounced a lot of names, such as INXS being "Ink-Sis" instead of "In-Excess") and The Quake which was far more dedicated to the format but had to eventually sell the station. You just don't get that kind of connection with any commercial station nowadays, and what they should be worried about is that makes the advertising less engaging also. They come off as ads that are just played and forgotten, when real personalities would sometimes comment a bit more about them and even work in promotions. Hearing a favorite DJ talk about a local business would make me more want to check that out, for example.

 

[cc333]

They come off as ads that are just played and forgotten, when real personalities would sometimes comment a bit more about them and even work in promotions. Hearing a favorite DJ talk about a local business would make me more want to check that out, for example.

I remember KGO back in their mostly talk era (before 2011), the hosts would often do that.

I'm really thinking that anything with good taste doesn't work in cities anymore, particularly in the SFBA. Everyone's become too obsessed with technology to care what the radio does (especially here), so the stations air cheap, almost throwaway formats so they don't go bankrupt while trying to stay on the air (the aforementioned KGO airing that good for nothing sports betting format is a prime example).

And when they do air something half decent, it's mostly syndicated, which, like you say, erases any kind of local community connections that might have been. Not much different than an Internet stream played over the air, really.

I do agree with you that having streams of distant radio stations is fun. Stations such as WJEJ, WEMP and others would be impossible for me to hear otherwise, and I really like what they play (ancient oldies and easy listening from the 40s, 50s and 60s, with some 70s and 80s classic hits and a tiny bit of almost-current soft AC mixed in, presumably to make the amalgamation of a format somewhat more appealing to younger listeners without alienating older ones).

c