Anybody remember when radio was fun?

[JimmyJames]

I'm not being negative, I'm being realistic. And you're coming across as defensive and uneducated.

 

[radiofriend1]

i come to the defense of an industry that gets a bad rap from the sour grapes crowd, sure

the uneducated part? if U only knew.........

 

[ruger22com]

The key ingredient missing today is good old COMPETITION.
When the cluster stations came to exist (FCC screws up yet again), competition was no longer an issue.
Back in the days of regulation, any company could only own a max of 1-fm 1-am & 1-tv in any given market and 7 of each NATIONWIDE. And THAT created the competition for ratings that allowed for higher money for talent, higher spot rates, and REAL PROGRAMMING by jocks and management.
As soon as companies could buy up to half or more of the stations in a market, and sell them as a package, the high priced talent was fired , the programmers were replaced by "cluster managers", and the competition was gone. As a result, there is now no real training ground for new talent, and this has also hurt the industry to a great degree.
Programming people and jocks once ruled ratings, and thus the revenues, and thus the stations, but now everything is run by salespeople...and we all know what idiots they can be.
I myself worked mostly in Detroit and Mobile, always at or near the top of the arb ratings in each market, and worked for some amazing people like John Bayliss (now passed on) but when clear channel told me I had to fire my support staff because it was just too expensive (on the #1 time slot in my market at the time), I realized radio was going the way of the dinosaur and it was time to move on.
This is why I quit/retired from the business after more than 25 years in major market radio.
I feel sorry for the new guys just coming up. But heck, they will always need salespeople.
Bob Martin aka Robert gage

 

[duncanalausa]

I realized radio was going the way of the dinosaur and it was time to move on.

maybe the key is that the dinosaur that WAS radio has evolved.

sorry that it isn't FUN, but then again all the fun was to get a bigger number wasn't it? and the number counted because you could charge a higher price for spots.

it is still business as usual just evolved toward a more businesslike industry.

social engineering (propping up unprofitable radio or television to satisfy a small, select, elite crowd) is still there. it's just public radio.

 

[ruger22com]

Evolved? Evolved into a system where 75% of the best talent has left, and now no real training ground even exists anymore. And why should it, with the cluster mentality you don't need personalities who GET RATINGS, you just need a 18 year old kid who can push buttons at minimum wage..and one or two jocks who can voice for the whole system....evolved? yeah..right.

Ever hear the jingle package TM produced in the 70's for an R&R convention (it is a radio milestone) , where the whole back side was a spoof on radio in the future...called "Tommarow radio"?? sadely, the spoof has become real.

 

[duncanalausa]

i am sorry that the radio industry you knew and loved has ceased to exist for you but with the plethora of entertainment out there the radio is not the same instrument that it was 20-30 80 years ago. in the 1960's radio was listened to by 95% of the 12-35 crowd in the home. i would venture that 10% of that demo listens to radio AT ALL anymore not just in the home. in the 1970's 99+% listened to radio in the car. with the advent of cds radio went south there too.

radio is no longer an instrument for change, it is background music so the silence won't lead you to office fever and can give you traffic info in the am/pm drive.

to think of radio in the attitude of 20 years ago (or more) is to ignore these things and is not in line with reality.

 

[Bhammer]

In other words... it's rapidly heading down the path to being obsolete.

 

[tomservo]

My biggest concern in radio is how radio will find its proper place in the new media world. It's gotten very de-centralized, with no local talent, and the major radio companies seem to have homogenized one market with the next... I can hear the same playlist and the same/similar voiceover workers from one area to the next.

Hey, that's just like satellite radio, except satellite radio has much more variety than any market in the US.

By the same token, radio has become nothing more than a jukebox, with no real local live interaction during most dayparts. Even if there are local jocks on, do they even get any leeway in the music they play anymore? I couldn't tell you the last time I heard a caller making a request on-air on a pop/chr station...

Hey, that's just like an mp3 player, except the user controls that content and there's no commercials.

Where's radio's place in this atmosphere? Musically speaking, at least here in the south, the urbans and country stations seem to be doing well, so maybe we shouldn't worry so much. And of course talk radio remains strong, as does sports.

 

[mrjay]

i'm on part time on a big river broadcasting station - one of sam phillips stations - up in florence. it's a market leader, still staffed 24/7 by real time jocks, and still takes requests off the request lines. i've worked overnights before and i do answer the phone at 3 am and listen to the requests from the people making the biscuits at the local hardees and put their songs on...and the police officers and security guards....and even a few factory workers. it's a very diverse listening audience.

it does still happen. sam phillips wanted it that way and that's what his sons are still giving us. thank god.

 

[tbarber]

God Bless you Jay!.... and I bet you're having fun as well.... whenever we stop answering the request lines, they'll stop callin'.... and listening. Hats off to anyone that's ever worked overnights.... very few people can actually say that.... or worked Thanksgiving Lunch or Christmas Day.

 

[radiofriend1]

God Bless you Jay!.... and I bet you're having fun as well.... whenever we stop answering the request lines, they'll stop callin'.... and listening. Hats off to anyone that's ever worked overnights.... very few people can actually say that.... or worked Thanksgiving Lunch or Christmas Day.

what a stupid statement. less than 5% of any stations cume EVER calls in or participates. using your logic music played on the radio should solely be determined by what's on the request lines?

most people who listen to most stations NEVER EVER CALL THAT RADIO STATION. get real,this ain't high school radio

and where do u come up with *worked overnights.... very few people can actually say that... or worked Thanksgiving Lunch or Christmas Day.*??????
anybody who's been in radio for more than 5 minutes has worked all those shifts many times

wolfman jack died years ago. time to catch up, it is the new millenium

 

[tbarber]

thanks for educating me.... what do I know?

 

[gritsandeggs]

I dont think Barber was saying that request calls dictate what songs a station plays....simply that answering the request line is an important part of a radio stations life.....no doubt, you'll want to argue this point, but I can tell you that without a doubt, no VT'ed stations that cant answer a request line are beating our station. And by the way, if you got in radio 5 years (or 5 minutes ago as you say) you've NEVER worked Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Years......one good thing about voicetracking. The rest have worked all these holidays and more.

 

[radiofriend1]

all i am saying is the days of *the request line* being a vital ingredient in most successful stations is o-v-e-r

few EVER used it, even less today w-email, IMing, etc

if u are beating a vt station it's not cuz they're not picking up the hitline every 30 seconds

 

[Stewy]

Sorry, I have to jump in on this one. Either I've aged tremendously overnight or awoke in another dimension because ignoring loyal customers doesn't grow the business does it? Radiofriend 1 must work for a CHR that only has pre-teens listening? I feel like the AFLAC duck in the TV spot after listening to Yogi Bearra explain the program. PLEASE ANSWER THE PHONES.

Radiofriend 1 do you have another name you also use maybe radioresearcher?

 

[radiofriend1]

do not work for a chr station or research co.

but it's almost aways been the case that less than 5% of the cume will ever attempt to call in, for a song or a contest

and don't forget many of the *loyal customers* U refer to calling to play contest aren't necessarily the station's loyal LISTENERS----often just the loyal CONTEST PIG

 

[mrjay]

wow....didn't mean to start a firestorm, but i don't really care. radio is fun for me. that's why i do it. i listen to radio...quite a bit....and being an avid radio listener does help to educate me. My good friend in Mobile Amanda Murdock (aka Amanda Gene) started an all request night show probably a year ago....on 92.1, the zew. That led to MUCH more user/listener involvement, which meant other listeners heard the following:

1) omg, there's actually someone LIVE here.
2) omg, other people are suggesting different songs and this dj is PLAYING THEM, this means i might actually hear stuff i don't hear often!
3) omg, this is actually giving this part of the station a personality.

It went over so well, last I heard, they'd made the entire day Thursday all request thursday.

Another thing you will learn about radio - and I'm by far *NOT* the best person to know any of this - but it's not all about the ratings....it's about if people turn to your station to hear bad weather news or traffic information....complimenting the folks at big river, they still play news at the top of the hour. It's kept me there for YEARS before I worked there. Then, it's about the advertisers knowing that you do those things for the listener...and that you are truly serving the community (or knowing your demo listens there the most...) - and thats where the advertising money comes in. I envy the sales people....I do NOT want their job.

Now a little story of how radio was fun....two weeks ago, i was on an overnight shift...a couple of guys called and requested elvis...and being a big river / sam phillips station, i've learned elvis is never bad. That grew into Three Dog Night, adn into the Guess Who, and into Steely Dan, and into Jethro Tull, and into all kinds of requests. I started taking those requests and if someone wanted to hear two songs, I'd throw in a third. By the end of the hour I was going three in a row from whatever artists they wanted to hear...and i got calls from the third shifters all night just amazed...they hadn't heard that song in YEARS.....they didn't leave me alone until I turned it over to the next guy at 6 am.

It was great....but another thing - I didn't focus on the number one stuff. I focused on the stuff you don't hear very often. I focused on telling the listener what the name of the song was and who requested it. If I had taken the time to learn how to use the phone recorder / adobe audition by that point i would have used it too...but the *listener* kept me hoping....and i kept reminding the listener....they are the reason we're here. And they are.

In fact....that's a problem I have with Matt Murphree on 101.1 the source - he's told several callers Crawford owns the airwaves....Crawford has a lease on the airwaves....they don't own anything....and not that the FCC will actually do it, but if Crawford stops serving the public interest (which I'm already wondering if the government would consider their bashing of politicians NOT serving the public interest), the FCC could pull their license.

Would they do it? Probably not....but could they do it? no.

I have to ignore Matt when he says that.

Ok...carry on everyone. Oh, and no, I would not call Matt and debate it with him.

 

[ruger22com]

In a small market where ratings are not a factor, request lines are important (as is any community involvement promo). But in larger markets, request lines are nothing more than a hook to make a station "seem" involved with the listeners. From a programming standpoint, pretty worthless, and for music research absolutely useless.

 

[MBird]

Back in 1996, when I first started working at WTBF in Troy, we were still playing vinyl 45's and taking requests on nights and weekends. When we went to FM a little later, that continued for a while - and people do like to call in and request music. The unfortunate thing is, sometimes the regulars can almost hold you prisoner to a record they like.

We had one caller who always wanted to hear "For the Good Times," a hit for Ray Price from 1970. Another always asked to hear "Don't Worry," by Marty Robbins, from 1962 or somewhere thereabouts. It didn't matter if we were focusing on rock, gospel, AC, whatever -- these people called every time the lines were open. But, since we were an all-purpose MOR station in a town where we were the only choice for many listeners, we usually honored their requests no matter the format.

My good friend Russell Wells, now in Savannah GA, had a program called Thursday on the Rocks, which spotlighted artists from the 1960s and beyond in the rock era. RW would dig deep for some classic tracks in the station's collection. He got requests from all over south Alabama and into northwest Florida when his show was on FM. I'll never forget the day we changed formats, RW was out and I filled in for him...this was in 2000. He had regular callers with requests, but we had changed to a lite format. And in the middle of a record, I get this angry call:

"Where the h**l is RW? And what the f**k is all this Lionel Richie s**t?!"

 

[tzbarber]

thanks for educating me.... what do I know?

Geez,Barber. Come back when you've got another 3000 posts!