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Annoying trend?

Y

Yabadabado1

Since I rarely stray from the left end of the dial anymore, except for a sweep through what's playing on other commercial stations, I've noticed that some stations [especially out of market] "personalities" ID themselves by just using a first name. I can only assume that it's because of voice tracking and they don't wanna confuse listeners in case they tune across the dial and hear "Mario Milkbone" on three or four other stations. Personally, I find it annoying, I'd rather hear the full name of a DJ. How many "Hi, I'm Jeff, thanks for tuning it to........" and then have another DJ ID as "Jeff" on 4 other stations owned by different companies?
 
Yabadabado1 said:
Since I rarely stray from the left end of the dial anymore, except for a sweep through what's playing on other commercial stations, I've noticed that some stations [especially out of market] "personalities" ID themselves by just using a first name. I can only assume that it's because of voice tracking and they don't wanna confuse listeners in case they tune across the dial and hear "Mario Milkbone" on three or four other stations. Personally, I find it annoying, I'd rather hear the full name of a DJ. How many "Hi, I'm Jeff, thanks for tuning it to........" and then have another DJ ID as "Jeff" on 4 other stations owned by different companies?
Click to expand...
In my experience, people in radio management and ownership always resented the air personalities. The resented the fact that at a party, everyone gravitated toward the deejays, wanted autographs, pictures etc. Not only that, but a very popular and highly rated air personality had some pretty strong negotiation power at renewal time. Well, these people finally got what they wanted. Lots of voice tracking from far off locations so that they don't have to deal with these people. Not surprised at all that the trend is now to have some of the hosts call themselves by one name as to diminish their standing at the company . What's more, if someone is called just "David" what is stopping the Company from firing him and getting a new "David"? What many of the broadcast owners failed to realize is that good, solid local personalities who know the market was the one advantage that the local stations had over national streaming and everything on the internet.
 
Never forgot the station owner who told a friend of mine years ago, "Why should I pay somebody to talk on the radio?" Or the fellow DJ who told me on a new job to tone it down because "Funny is money".
Now they have their wish. Just saw for $19 a month a station can have a full AI suite for commercials, news, production. Soon, very soon, there will be few real people
on the air, management's ultimate dream and perhaps the only way some parts of the industry will survive.
 
BTW, there was a station in Syracuse or Rochester years back where all the DJs had the same names, like Dave Davis, Bill Williams, in the same day parts and whoever was hired had to use that name. Anyone recall which station that was?
 
radiofollower said:
What's more, if someone is called just "David" what is stopping the Company from firing him and getting a new "David"?
Click to expand...
That's been going on awhile - there was a cohost in mornings at a Cedar Rapids station who left the show about 10-15 years ago and his on air name was something like "Bill", so they hired a new cohost. That person wanted to use their own on air name, but instead they became "Bill" because the company didn't want to redo the promos and stuff.
 
There used to be a guy in Providence who simply went by the name Giovanni. I can't see them bringing in a replacement under the same name.
 


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