I can't really understand why los brilliantes that own the big cheap radio empires don't just go all the way. One more step isn't going to make it any more blatantly obvious that they serve no one locally but themselves. That step would be to just round up their syndicated stable of plug-in shows and populate the entire day at all of their stations.. Hire a "street team" to do PAs with cardboard cut-outs of the stars and handle the connection tasks such as handing our key chains and cold pizza at car dealerships ... all the stuff that gives sales a boner.
Think of the overhead reductions! Imagine the denial that the banks and Wall Street wizards were in until someone pulled the fire alarm. RADIO is in that same place. They all believe they have a product with an edge. Yeah, sure. Like Victrolas that play 78s have an edge!
Radio is yesterday technology that has a somewhat better chance than survival if only most of the corporate players would step aside and allow people who know something about developing product, control of the industry.
The Wall-Street mentality, "if you can sell lawn movers, you can sell radio" is done. All these lightweights have proven that they can't be trusted. If left unsupervised, they will eat their own. Hopefully, much needed oversight will return and the business traffic cops will promote healthy and equal competition.
Radio has to realize that, while it was busy acquiring all this over-priced property in an effort to become the all-powerful OZ, time was passing it by. IT gathered lots of dust in it's lust for money and disregard for the human element.
But there is no competition from the net or the ipod. Radio competes only with itself. It has been out-moded in just about every single
former exclusive vantage point. It is what swords are to light sabers.
It's only hope for a comeback as more than a knob that can turn silence into sound is LOCAL LIVE AND INNOVATIVE. I can give you my description of what that is but it will vary slightly with every locale for it is, after all, the reflection and moderate exaggeration of the place it serves.
Move all the frequencies around. Change the monikers and add four songs of a different ilk to change the demographic appeal and classification of the format and any more or less of the nonsensical posturing radio does to indulge itself. Doesn't matter. Left to it's greedy, medieval thinking, radio is a glossy, black metal Royal typewriter in a wireless, cyber-connected universe.
It isn't so much that radio is living in the past for if it were, it would certainly have a better product to show for it. It goes farther than that. The people who run the business have a condescending attitude. One of those, "it doesn't matter that this speeding runaway train is going straight to hell but I am the one in charge here!" kinds of Nero complexes.
Corporate radio quickly ordered motes excavated around their deregulated, consolidated kingdoms and centralized through layers of title and rank that all reports back to the top. Within those clositered systems, they established and environment of no risks and loyal but expendable citizens. Nothing grows from the bottom. Profit is attributed to exceptional management from the top.Failure is the fault of the inept sales solidiers who fall to be quickly replaced by the second line in some 19th century colonial battle. Status quo thrives.
Corporate radio fails to recognize that even though a royal typewriter is perfectly capable of printing impressions on paper until the ribbon is worn and runs out, it will never be able to compete with the mutli-dimensional functionality of the brain in possession of new frontier platforms.
There will be many young and enthusiastic people who will readily take issue with my statements here. Radio has chosen to hire many of them, not because they are an improvement over the older models, but because they are safe and unaffected. They have no reference to the good old days of radio. They didn't grow up listening through the hetrodyne and static to mold themselves into a style of one of the legendary radio heroes. Most of them don't even have favorite radio personalities or know much more about music or radio history beyond a few years ago.
To those guys and girls, I say, "have fun" but get a degree to prepare for a real career while you play radio. Radio is an unfaithful lover.
It wasn't always that way.
Think of the overhead reductions! Imagine the denial that the banks and Wall Street wizards were in until someone pulled the fire alarm. RADIO is in that same place. They all believe they have a product with an edge. Yeah, sure. Like Victrolas that play 78s have an edge!
Radio is yesterday technology that has a somewhat better chance than survival if only most of the corporate players would step aside and allow people who know something about developing product, control of the industry.
The Wall-Street mentality, "if you can sell lawn movers, you can sell radio" is done. All these lightweights have proven that they can't be trusted. If left unsupervised, they will eat their own. Hopefully, much needed oversight will return and the business traffic cops will promote healthy and equal competition.
Radio has to realize that, while it was busy acquiring all this over-priced property in an effort to become the all-powerful OZ, time was passing it by. IT gathered lots of dust in it's lust for money and disregard for the human element.
But there is no competition from the net or the ipod. Radio competes only with itself. It has been out-moded in just about every single
former exclusive vantage point. It is what swords are to light sabers.
It's only hope for a comeback as more than a knob that can turn silence into sound is LOCAL LIVE AND INNOVATIVE. I can give you my description of what that is but it will vary slightly with every locale for it is, after all, the reflection and moderate exaggeration of the place it serves.
Move all the frequencies around. Change the monikers and add four songs of a different ilk to change the demographic appeal and classification of the format and any more or less of the nonsensical posturing radio does to indulge itself. Doesn't matter. Left to it's greedy, medieval thinking, radio is a glossy, black metal Royal typewriter in a wireless, cyber-connected universe.
It isn't so much that radio is living in the past for if it were, it would certainly have a better product to show for it. It goes farther than that. The people who run the business have a condescending attitude. One of those, "it doesn't matter that this speeding runaway train is going straight to hell but I am the one in charge here!" kinds of Nero complexes.
Corporate radio quickly ordered motes excavated around their deregulated, consolidated kingdoms and centralized through layers of title and rank that all reports back to the top. Within those clositered systems, they established and environment of no risks and loyal but expendable citizens. Nothing grows from the bottom. Profit is attributed to exceptional management from the top.Failure is the fault of the inept sales solidiers who fall to be quickly replaced by the second line in some 19th century colonial battle. Status quo thrives.
Corporate radio fails to recognize that even though a royal typewriter is perfectly capable of printing impressions on paper until the ribbon is worn and runs out, it will never be able to compete with the mutli-dimensional functionality of the brain in possession of new frontier platforms.
There will be many young and enthusiastic people who will readily take issue with my statements here. Radio has chosen to hire many of them, not because they are an improvement over the older models, but because they are safe and unaffected. They have no reference to the good old days of radio. They didn't grow up listening through the hetrodyne and static to mold themselves into a style of one of the legendary radio heroes. Most of them don't even have favorite radio personalities or know much more about music or radio history beyond a few years ago.
To those guys and girls, I say, "have fun" but get a degree to prepare for a real career while you play radio. Radio is an unfaithful lover.
It wasn't always that way.