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A survey, random and nonscientific: radio is dead

Z

zumahans1

Guest
I recently picked up my daughter from her dorm room at a major California public university.

I noticed that neither she nor her roommate had a clock radio, stereo or any radio of any sort.

Being a curious sort, I asked eight other dorm residents if they had any type of AM or FM receiver.

One male (coed dorm) said he listened to baseball games - in his car, never his room - but that was it.

Ten kids, aged 18-20. Not one functioning radio.

Anyone who says that radio listening is at the same level now as it was 10, 20 or 30 years ago is severely out of touch.
 
So if radio is dead, does that mean you won't be bothering us with your opinions and conclusions anymore?<P ID="signature">______________


</P>
 
> So if radio is dead, does that mean you won't be bothering
> us with your opinions and conclusions anymore?
>

Oh, I pray to Vesta and Apollo in the hopes this is so.
 
> > So if radio is dead, does that mean you won't be bothering
>
> > us with your opinions and conclusions anymore?
> >
>
> Oh, I pray to Vesta and Apollo in the hopes this is so.
>
I second that.
 
> So if radio is dead, does that mean you won't be bothering
> us with your opinions and conclusions anymore?
>

Just like those people who try to censor everything. It's too wild for us to watch, but not for them to watch it first!
Radio is NOT dead!
If you consider that that satellite are a type of radio.
Free radio? Not for a while, at least.


And, as part of my contractual obligations... Why is this subject specific to LA radio? And if it isn't, why did he post it here?
 
Good point, Garrett.

> And, as part of my contractual obligations... Why is this
> subject specific to LA radio? And if it isn't, why did he
> post it here?

Excellent observation. I will move the thread to the National (Coast to Coast) board so that more people can attack his conclusions.
<P ID="signature">______________


</P>
 
> So if radio is dead, does that mean you won't be bothering
> us with your opinions and conclusions anymore?
>
Enough with the ugliness. How is this not a personal attack, violating rule one of this board? Did you see the piling on below? You are a moderator. There should be some responsibility that goes with that job. Which should include being somewhat "moderate" in your posting. Opinions are one thing. Throwing out nastiness is another.

Folks in radio need to start taking unscientific findings like zumahans's more seriously. The scientific findings are close behind.<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by BeachBum on 01/04/06 03:38 AM.</FONT></P>
 
> Enough with the ugliness. How is this not a personal
> attack, violating rule one of this board? Did you see the
> piling on below? You are a moderator. There should be some
> responsibility that goes with that job. Which should
> include being somewhat "moderate" in your posting. Opinions
> are one thing. Throwing out nastiness is another.

You don't know what we on the Los Angeles and San Diego boards put up with from this guy. (David Eduardo's prayer in this thread should give you an idea of how obnoxious we find him; I am simply voicing a majority view.) My remarks, BTW, were made before I moved the post from the L.A. board.<P ID="signature">______________


</P>
 
Before you pile on too deeply...

According to arbitron studies, there has been some erosion in both the ratings and the time spent listening to radio. The actual number of listeners in many demographics has grown, but not as fast as the population has grown.

This can be seen as a result of competition from other music delivery systems, radio programming practices, vagaries in the reporting process, and a number of other likely factors.

The "unscientific" part of the survey is interesting in that it discusses the behavior of a very specific subset of people in a very specific environment and age group. How this translates to the population in general is debatable.

Obviously, zumahans1 is relying on personal experience with a limited sample. The inflammatory "radio is dead" posted on a radio-centric site deserves abuse, but a closer study of listening trends indicates that radio people and companies need to be concerned about both the competition and their own product.
 
And these are the people that radio falls all over itself to cater to.

> I recently picked up my daughter from her dorm room at a
> major California public university.
>
> I noticed that neither she nor her roommate had a clock
> radio, stereo or any radio of any sort.
>
> Being a curious sort, I asked eight other dorm residents if
> they had any type of AM or FM receiver.
>
> One male (coed dorm) said he listened to baseball games - in
> his car, never his room - but that was it.
>
> Ten kids, aged 18-20. Not one functioning radio.
>
> Anyone who says that radio listening is at the same level
> now as it was 10, 20 or 30 years ago is severely out of
> touch.
>
<P ID="signature">______________
[email protected]</P>
 
Re: Before you pile on too deeply...

I've read recently that among heavy iPod users, radio TSL is down by about 15 minutes a week..hardly "everyone abandoning radio in droves".<P ID="signature">______________
Have a Happy New Year!
http://www.thebig8.net/have_a_happy_new_year_with_cklw.mp3</P>
 
> And these are the people that radio falls all over itself to
> cater to.

Yet most advertisers don't even do so much as lift a finger to target the 55+ audience. Try figuring that out some day.
<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by radionut987 on 01/04/06 02:06 PM.</FONT></P>
 
radio is dead?

You should probably inform the over 10,000 radio stations across America about this. I'm sure they'll be a little surprised they don't matter anymore.


> I recently picked up my daughter from her dorm room at a
> major California public university.
>
> I noticed that neither she nor her roommate had a clock
> radio, stereo or any radio of any sort.
>
> Being a curious sort, I asked eight other dorm residents if
> they had any type of AM or FM receiver.
>
> One male (coed dorm) said he listened to baseball games - in
> his car, never his room - but that was it.
>
> Ten kids, aged 18-20. Not one functioning radio.
>
> Anyone who says that radio listening is at the same level
> now as it was 10, 20 or 30 years ago is severely out of
> touch.
>
 
> You don't know what we on the Los Angeles and San Diego
> boards put up with from this guy. (David Eduardo's prayer
> in this thread should give you an idea of how obnoxious we
> find him; I am simply voicing a majority view.) My remarks,
> BTW, were made before I moved the post from the L.A. board.
>

Yeah, the LA board has a terrible burden putting up with any dissent. But that is not the issue. This thread is about the fact that IPODs and computers arr replacing radio for a key demographic, and no amount of bluster or prayers from Mexico or Africa will change that basic fact.
 
> Yeah, the LA board has a terrible burden putting up with any
> dissent. But that is not the issue. This thread is about the
> fact that IPODs and computers arr replacing radio for a key
> demographic, and no amount of bluster or prayers from Mexico
> or Africa will change that basic fact.

Based upon what, by your own admission, is a "random and nonscientific survey"?

What I saw was not a survey, but one man's personal observations and conclusions. Not exactly what the industry requires as proof.

If you believe that your limited observations somehow qualify you as a prophet, you have an incredibly inflated sense of your self-importance. My own conclusion from reading your observations is that <u>students on college campuses</u> listen less to radio. But guess what? 30 years ago, when I was a student living on a college campus, we didn't listen much to the radio either! Neither my roommate nor I turned the stereo in our dorm to the tuner very often, and that was despite the fact that I worked at the campus radio station. If we needed music while studying, we played records. No different from today's student listening to an iPod, just different technology.

Maybe I should have prophesized in 1975 that "radio was dead" based on the experiences in my dorm. But, of course, had I done so, I would have been proved wrong by now. Just as you will be proved wrong.<P ID="signature">______________


</P>
 
Those of use who grew up in an era when there was
one TV, black & white, in the living room, and
there were no MTV or downloads for music are now
obsolete.

We're hopelessly addicted to the radio habit.

Advertisers may now want us but we may be all
they've got.

OK... I'll just listen to my 78s.
(Just kidding ... my 45s and LPs, too.)

My PC has a better oldies playlist than the
local oldies stations. And I'm not even a big
collector nor a user of napster and the like.

I was shocked when I was listening to my 1920s
music playlist on PC yesterday and saw I had 120
songs!

73s from 954
still listening to Caribbean music on WAVS 1170
<P ID="signature">______________
Prairie Home Companion Coming To Miami in Feb!


South Florida Radio Pages</P>
 
> What I saw was not a survey, but one man's personal
> observations and conclusions. Not exactly what the
> industry requires as proof.

Why the attack the messenger and not the message?

I did not represent my observations as anything other than my personal view, which I thought was one of the missions of this web site. I even put it in tyhe headline that my observations were nonscientific and random. Just as are yours of your dorm in 1975.


>
> If you believe that your limited observations somehow
> qualify you as a prophet, you have an incredibly inflated
> sense of your self-importance.

I believe my observations are qualified as a point of discussion, civil and polite.

> My own conclusion from
> reading your observations is that students on college
> campuses listen less to radio. But guess what? 30 years
> ago, when I was a student living on a college campus, we
> didn't listen much to the radio either!

I was in a dorm in 1976, and all of us had stereos, and none of us had any records of any sort ... not to mention cassettes, CDs, IPODS or 8-tracks, for that matter.

Radios were on in the lounge 24/7.

> Maybe I should have prophesized in 1975 that "radio was
> dead" based on the experiences in my dorm. But, of course,
> had I done so, I would have been proved wrong by now. Just
> as you will be proved wrong.
>

We shall see. meanwhile, an entire generation of college students has stopped listening to radio.
 
Re: radio is dead?

Actually, it's more than 13,000 radio stations if you count the non-commercial stations. 13,599 as of 09/30/2005 to be exact. Add a bunch of FM translators and boosters, as well as 508 Low Power FM stations, and that total expands to 18,117.

> You should probably inform the over 10,000 radio stations
> across America about this. I'm sure they'll be a little
> surprised they don't matter anymore.
>
>
> > I recently picked up my daughter from her dorm room at a
> > major California public university.
> >
> > I noticed that neither she nor her roommate had a clock
> > radio, stereo or any radio of any sort.
> >
> > Being a curious sort, I asked eight other dorm residents
> if
> > they had any type of AM or FM receiver.
> >
> > One male (coed dorm) said he listened to baseball games -
> in
> > his car, never his room - but that was it.
> >
> > Ten kids, aged 18-20. Not one functioning radio.
> >
> > Anyone who says that radio listening is at the same level
> > now as it was 10, 20 or 30 years ago is severely out of
> > touch.
> >
>
 
> > Yeah, the LA board has a terrible burden putting up with
> any
> > dissent. But that is not the issue. This thread is about
> the
> > fact that IPODs and computers arr replacing radio for a
> key
> > demographic, and no amount of bluster or prayers from
> Mexico
> > or Africa will change that basic fact.
>
> Based upon what, by your own admission, is a "random and
> nonscientific survey"?

Maybe the word "anecdote" isn't in his vocabulary.<P ID="signature">______________
Prairie Home Companion Coming To Miami in Feb!


South Florida Radio Pages</P>
 
You call that a survey?

When I was in college, I listened to AM radio for a
minimum of two hours a day -- commuting. No cassettes
or 8-tracks or FM. Just AM.

Have you surveyed any commuter students?

> We shall see. meanwhile, an entire generation of college
> students has stopped listening to radio.

At least the portion of that generation that resides
in or hangs around your daughter's dorm room.

I hope you don't mind me asking, but -- were you doing
exit polls in the 2000 election?

73s from 954<P ID="signature">______________
Prairie Home Companion Coming To Miami in Feb!


South Florida Radio Pages</P>
 
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