All of our theory's about Radio?

[KDRadio]

I have read thread after thread of theories (some that are very convincing) about the Demise of Radio but my question is do we really believe that radio will kill itself off, and people will not care is they flip on there favorite station, and its not there? is it really that serious? It has survived the arrival of the 8-track
Tape Deck, CD Player and in car DVD. and guess what we are still here. Do we Honestly want to believe this?

 

[kzewdude]

It's not the technology, its the current ownership that's killing radio. Talent is available to make great content. But great talent in many cases is being abused, under utilized or fired. Still other great talent wants no part of radio because of its lousy reputation (deserved, in most cases). Doesn't matter if it's AM, FM, iPOD, cell phone or Internet. Listeners will go where the best content is. Radio still has a chance to survive. But only if the owners wake up--or sell to new owners who care about the medium and spend money on it. That's my rant.

 

[leonardo10]

I think radio will be going strong for years and it could be quite a while before it's actual demise. I know so many have said that satellite radio would kill over-the-air radio but as of now both XM and Sirius only have a total of about 11 million subscribers. What does that leave for radio? about 290 million US listeners? I agree that radio is not what it used to be. It seems there is less originality and the programming choices have not been very exciting....perhaps due to single companies owning so many stations. I remember as a teen wanting to get to the car and tuning into my favorite stations waiting to hear my favorite song. Now its like hmm, nothing good on the 90 stations, guess I'll listen to a CD instead.

 

[djmimi]

Radio was not killed by TV, nor by satellite, or the internet. It's old and tired but not dead yet. However, the numbers are definitely getting shared, chopped up, and parsed out to more and more mediums available to the public. So the audiences are getting smaller and smaller and companies/managers have to ratchet back accordingly.

Meanwhile, I still read books! They haven't gone away, but I suspect many magazine and newspapers are dying...
Meem

 

[LA_Guy]

It's the CONTENT, stupid!

This saying has been around a LONG time, and unfortunately the people who currently run the big radio consolidators don't GET what it means!

In the movie "Field of Dreams", over and over he heard: "If you build it, he will come". That's 100% true of radio. If you PROVIDE compelling content AND let the masses know that it's there, they WILL COME!

Unfortunately, the John Hogans and Farid Sulemans and Lew Dickeys and Jeff Smulyans aren't PROVIDING content that the people want on their stations, so they are going elsewhere to find it.

Problem is, if they find it elsewhere, they won't be back to radio, and some of them already have found it (elsewhere).

 

[cheese]

Passion. That's what good jocks have for radio. It's not just a fun way to make money. We love it. We want to put something out there that effects people. To us, Radio is an art. The best PD I have ever known said "it's not how good you are, it's how few mistakes you make." Radio's mistake is that we now serve the shareholder, not the listener.

 

[skyrocker]

Actually, wouldn't the very best thing a broadcaster can do for its stockholders be --
to hold the listeners in top priority? What's a shareholder gonna do with a station that has no listeners?

 

[Bob_Hudson]

I believe Dave Eddie is preparing to post some numbers that will prove that studies consistently show that surveys support polls indicating statistics prove more than 65% of 73.5 percent of the two percent of the population ages 25-64, excluding unemployed white females ages 28-34, not only own radios, but also know how to turn them on, this ensuring a healthy future for radio pollsters, pundits and people named Mays.

So there you radio naysayers.

 

[henry]

Radio needs to be 'radio' to beat iPods.

But current owners are doing everything to remove the human element and make radio into "an iPod where I can't control the music, and it plays commercials."

Not a very attractive choice.

People = great radio.

 

[MusicMaestro]

It's not the technology, its the current ownership that's killing radio. Talent is available to make great content. But great talent in many cases is being abused, under utilized or fired. Still other great talent wants no part of radio because of its lousy reputation (deserved, in most cases). Doesn't matter if it's AM, FM, iPOD, cell phone or Internet. Listeners will go where the best content is. Radio still has a chance to survive. But only if the owners wake up--or sell to new owners who care about the medium and spend money on it. That's my rant.

Dittos to that! But the remaining question is this: will the PD's/GM's/OM's wake up before it's too late? Radio has slowly declined in content/quality over the last couple of decades, just listen to some of classic airchecks that are availible from years gone by, & listen for yourself! There is a REASON why ipods, satellite radio, & internet streaming are becoming more & more popular by the week--it's not an accident.

 

[oldies76]

Radio in 2008?? Jocks who constantly talk over the songs intro and outs, repetitive, measly playlists of 400, boring weekends, excessive ads, music requests that are ignored, but within format....etc.. That's today's theory about most radio stations. Sad

 

[Michael Rivers Kramer]

Radio in 2008?? Jocks who constantly talk over the songs intro and outs, repetitive, measly playlists of 400, boring weekends, excessive ads, music requests that are ignored, but within format....etc.. That's today's theory about most radio stations. Sad

Since when is sticking to "playing the hits" bad? Usually, it's when listeners hear a lot of low testing records that the image of poor variety comes up.

 

[Stewy]

Bump.

Good input by all. Well, except for Mr. Kramer who sounds a little defensive. Someone in the right position is going to go through the archives of radio-info posts and read what the 'old timers' preached and figure out how to do enough of it to seemingly become a 'legendary guru'.

 

[Michael Rivers Kramer]

Bump.

Good input by all. Well, except for Mr. Kramer who sounds a little defensive. Someone in the right position is going to go through the archives of radio-info posts and read what the 'old timers' preached and figure out how to do enough of it to seemingly become a 'legendary guru'.

For the record...I defend my issue of broadening playlists. If you play too many low testing records, your ratings go down.

Everything else including excessive spot loads, lack of human element and declining creativity, I agree with.

Sorry that my earlier comment didn't past muster with you Stewy.

 

[davideduardo]

Since when is sticking to "playing the hits" bad? Usually, it's when listeners hear a lot of low testing records that the image of poor variety comes up.

In my experience, a station that plays a shorter list of songs listeners score higher has never lost to one that plays more songs including those that score lower than the tight listed station. Never. And it's a lesson loearned by (a bad) experience.

 

[BACKnUSSR]

Radio in 2008?? Jocks who constantly talk over the songs intro and outs, repetitive, measly playlists of 400, boring weekends, excessive ads, music requests that are ignored, but within format....etc.. That's today's theory about most radio stations. Sad

Radio in 1968... Jocks who constantly talk over the songs intro and outs, repetitive, measly playlists of 400 (and less),
boring weekends, excessive ads, music requests that are ignored, but within format....etc. That was yesterday's theory about most radio stations (except maybe a bit more reverb). Sad?

 

[Stewy]

Sorry Mr. Kramer, wasn't attacking or arguing the theories of rotation or catalog's, just mentioning that your response to oldies76 was perceived by me as a little defensive. No venom intended, please accept my apologies.

Personal theory on playlists: they should grow in number as the core audience gets older.

 

[Carmine5]

I had kind of an interesting experience that has changed my view on whether kids listen to radio or not.

I just finished filming a video for the CA offices of education on how students use podcasting. I had a crew follow several classrooms of middle school students for three weeks as they created podcast projects.

What was interesting for the purpose of this discussion was how many of the kids were using advanced radio production techniques for their podcasts. They were doing things like "ducking" (a feature of Garageband), tight editing to eliminate dead air and so on. The teachers weren't teaching the students to do this, so where did they learn it? I'm thinking through listening to radio. The kids wanted their podcasts to sound like radio.

So I've come to the conclusion that more kids are listening to radio than we think or is being measured. Maybe this is a residual of Radio Disney or a result of iPod fatigue or whatever. The important thing is for radio to keep these kids engaged so that they are retained as listeners as they enter adulthood.

C5

 

[henry]

FYI ... I'm a super-senior at a University. Only one of my roommates (besides myself) in the past several years has owned a radio. And he only used it as a quick punch-and-go alarm clock.

Myself, I'm tuned in to 103.1 here in SLC ... but I am a real rarity. Outside of in-car listening, radio has lost the the under 25 crowd.

 

[BACKnUSSR]

FYI ... I'm a super-senior at a University. Only one of my roommates (besides myself) in the past several years has owned a radio. And he only used it as a quick punch-and-go alarm clock.

Myself, I'm tuned in to 103.1 here in SLC ... but I am a real rarity. Outside of in-car listening, radio has lost the the under 25 crowd.

I'm curious, (and rhetorical), How does KIIS do ratings-wise? How about Z-100 in NY? Who are they geared to?
Just wondering.