Re: radio is dead?...The Solution
Steve, I am going to reply to your statement about radio being on life support and close to the edge of being insignificant in our society.
My reply is the same reply that I usually have. If radio is moving toward insignificance, then its market value should be in a declining trend. As station values decline, some owners will sell at a discount. The price will fall to a level where a whole new batch of interested people (maybe someone like you!) will be able to afford to buy their own station. Maybe for cash or maybe financing it in some way. When stations are discounted, the investment will not be as large as it is now or has been and owners can afford to "tinker" with the station. If discounting continues, then people will buy stations as a hobby to play the kind of format that they want to have on a station. Not as much for money as for the sake of enjoyment and their own interest.
A level could be reached where a significant number of stations are personal jukeboxes, not much grander than what is now streamed only on the net. That is not so bad. Radio will find its niche, but it may be at a lower financial level than it has ever been.
The only problem with this scenario is our Big Brother at the FCC. I think they would rather have no radio station, than to have a deregulated station that has come on the air with nothing more than a sale to a new owner. The FCC will not allow a new owner without the "hullaballoo" (or some other term you may choose) of a beaureucratic nightmare, the likes of which is seldom seen in this country for anything outside of disposing of nuclear waste. And if you are the citizen of some other land, including ones that signed on to NAFTA, or you are a convicted fellon, then forget about having a radio station.
The death of radio has been and will be due to government regulation of a service that should not be regulated. It is no one's business who buys an existing licensed station. But the government makes it their business and no one can broadcast (as an owner) without "nanny's" permission.
The Socialists here say that the airwaves belong to the people. If they do not become deregulated, that is how they will die.
Radio can have a life, but the FCC will see to it that radio dies!
Steven Green
Capitalist and member of Libertarian Party since 1980.
> They won't be surprised. Those who make the decisions at
> radio stations know they're on borrowed time. This is why
> when we cry foul each time a decent jock is let go in favor
> of a satellite feed or a voice track, it falls on deaf ears.
> GMs know it's pointless to pay for a warm body when
> nobody's listening, and advertisers won't buy... they KNOW
> IT.
>
> And, they aren't, except for in their cars, and SOMETIMES at
> work... which means a staffed AM and PM drive is necessary,
> but nothing after 6pm or before 5am. And sometimes even
> middays is voicetracked now. That's the reality of radio
> today.
>
> One thing though that most people don't understand, radio
> has been it's own worst enemy. While it's really too
> expensive at many stations to actually employ talented live
> voices during most of the broadcast day, this wasn't always
> so. Before the internet really took hold in the mid-90s,
> stations already due to consolidation were replacing the
> real talent with, shall we say, adequate talent... or
> competant board ops. And automation/satellites. I think
> it's safe to say that radio had as much a hand in pushing
> it's audience away as the internet and mp3 players did in
> helping to take it away.
>
> Same reason AM top 40 met it's demise 5-7 years before it
> should have... the programmers all in unison threw in the
> towell and went big band/standards around the same time...
> and pushed a huge audience off the AM band.
>
> I'd disagree that radio's dead. But it is on life support.
> How many of you got that email from All Access written about
> how radio is run by stupid people? The ones who have
> screwed up HD so badly that nobody will EVER buy it because
> the industry, TEN years after HD first was proposed, still
> has no reception and display standard. What a good article.
> Go read it, then figure out that the brain surgeons who run
> the biggest radio groups in this country sit up in their
> lofty corporate suites, in nosebleed country, and have no
> clue how bad conditions in our industry are, nor do they
> know how to fix it. They let satellite get the jump on them
> in the digital world, now we gotta play catchup with a
> broadcast band that isn't even profitable because we can't
> figure out how to properly launch HD... which COULD be the
> next big toy for young listeners... but now looks like it'll
> suffer the same fate as C-QUAM AM Stereo. Things really look
> bleak.
>
> I'm one of radio's biggest fans... it's nice to work in a
> business in which you love everything about your work, but
> one of you guys in this thread said it right... we're radio
> addicts but at our age we might be the only ones left. It
> seems radio's not that important to people under 30, and
> just about non-existant to those under 20. I hate being
> this negative but I see many in our industry with their
> heads up their collective azz. Enjoy radio while we have
> it.
>
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