Anyone here seen my old friend RADIO?

[fred flintstone]

Bilingualism and Biculturalism has not worked well in Canada. The US is foolish to emulate it. Many Canadian broadcasting positions require people to be bilingual. If that happens here, it will cut down on the number of resumes.

This is a country with a tradition of accepting immigrants.

Traditions evolve and change. What was appropriate social policy 200 years ago is not necessarily productive now. US immigration policy and enforcement are mild compared to the draconian measures Mexico takes to keep its Southern border closed.

Restricting the use of language would violated one of the greatest underpinnings of the US, the guarantee that the government will not limit the freedom of the citizens to express themselves. restricting the language of expression is a clear violation of this Consititutional guarantee, and many a law school thesis has been based on an analysis of the constitutionality of such a prohibition.

Broadcast media (terrestrial radio and television) are government licensed and subject to restrictions not applicable to other media. There is a long history of legislation and court decisions (not just law school papers) on this point.

Broadcast media are licensed to serve the PUBLIC interest, convenience and necessity.
Public: Exposed to general view; of, relating to or affecting ALL the people or the WHOLE area...
Foreign language broadcasting inherently excludes most of the public.

A distinction can be made between language and content. It's one thing to play Latin music (which is actually modified from West African traditional music and dance brought to Latin America by slaves), or polkas or Italian opera. It's another to run spots, weather reports, traffic reports, news, and music intros in a foreign language. Apparently, the only US broadcaster which actively seeks to help speakers of foreign languages learn English is the VOA (and their audience, by law, is not even here).

The US has had a fertile and useful history spanning over 200 years of periodicals and media in the languages of immigrants, and it has been proven that such media is useful in acclimating immigrants to the new country, even if they don't progress far inthe langauge of the US.

Anyone who tries to learn a foreign lagnguage after early adolescence generally has very minimal success and will, all thier life, translate back and forth to the native language in their mind.

You seem resigned to immigrants never attaining fluency in English. No one expects individuals who learn a language as adults to have perfect, native-speaker accents. Foreign language broadcasting encourages immigrants NOT to learn the language of their new country, not to hear it and speak it, not to see that their childen learn it, hear it and speak it, not to assimilate and not to include themselves in the economic and social mainstream. Foreign language broadcasting contributes to that "minimal success" you mention. The more an individual uses a new language, the more fluent he becomes and the more ingrained the new language becomes. Foreign language broadcasting prevents total immersion in the language of the US. Arnold was fortunate the LA market did not have German language radio and TV when he came here.

I bet when you worked in Mexican radio, you spoke Spanish (however you learned it and whenever you learned it). And the more you spoke it (and read it), the better you got.

Nationhood requires homogeneity, including a common language. That is in the public interest, convenience and necessity radio is supposed to serve.

 

[Irishfl]

This is a country with a tradition of accepting immigrants. Immigrants, in the first generation, don't become very proficient in English.

Wrong. This country has always had limited ability when it came to accepting immigrants. During its peak in the late 1800's, and early 1900's many Americans wanted to close down the border (which was the ocean then) many hate groups formed. Immigrants as much as blacks played a hugh role in why the KKK reformed in 1915, and gre to millions within a decade. When the great depression hit, immigrants got alot of the blame. Immigrants who couldn't speak english well, got the worse jobs America had to offer. Even those who could speak english, and even came from english speaking counties, but had an accent where made fun of, and called greenhorns (which by definition today doesn't sound that bad, but back in the day was up there with the N-word)

You seem resigned to immigrants never attaining fluency in English. No one expects individuals who learn a language as adults to have perfect, native-speaker accents. Foreign language broadcasting encourages immigrants NOT to learn the language of their new country, not to hear it and speak it, not to see that their childen learn it, hear it and speak it, not to assimilate and not to include themselves in the economic and social mainstream. Foreign language broadcasting contributes to that "minimal success" you mention. The more an individual uses a new language, the more fluent he becomes and the more ingrained the new language becomes. Foreign language broadcasting prevents total immersion in the language of the US. Arnold was fortunate the LA market did not have German language radio and TV when he came here.

Foreign language broadcasting doesn't help, but really its towards the bottom of the lost. I think one bigger problem is schools with large hispanic populations, havning all spanish language courses for those students who can't speak english. School is suppose to prepare you for life in America, and not knowing any english is this country isn't prepared. Especially if you ever wanna get into any type of white collar work.

 

[davideduardo]

Wrong. This country has always had limited ability when it came to accepting immigrants.

Foreign language broadcasting doesn't help, but really its towards the bottom of the lost. I think one bigger problem is schools with large hispanic populations, havning all spanish language courses for those students who can't speak english. School is suppose to prepare you for life in America, and not knowing any english is this country isn't prepared. Especially if you ever wanna get into any type of white collar work.

My point is that immigrants are what America is about. Unfortunately, as your comments show, so is some bigotry. But that does not negate the point that the entire nation is 99% descendents of immigrants (compared to Mexico, where probably 80% or more are descendents of indigenous nations).

In many parts of the US, there is no longer a need to know English to be a business owner. All yu do is hire someoen who speaks English. I have a friend who has a large restaurant chain in the SoCal area with revenues of maybe $25 million a year. His children do the English part of the business, and he has never learned any English. Stories like this abound... right up to people making salaries in the low 7 digits!

 

[davideduardo]

This is a country with a tradition of accepting immigrants..

Traditions evolve and change. What was appropriate social policy 200 years ago is not necessarily productive now. US immigration policy and enforcement are mild compared to the draconian measures Mexico takes to keep its Southern border closed.

This is not Mexico. Our lax enforcement is due in obvious part to the need for entry level workers. We have a functinal unemployment level that approaches zero; Mexico is "second world" and has a superavit of low paid workers and not enough jobs.

Broadcast media (terrestrial radio and television) are government licensed and subject to restrictions not applicable to other media. There is a long history of legislation and court decisions (not just law school papers) on this point..

The US Constitution is of greater authority than FCC rules and / or administrative law.

Broadcast media are licensed to serve the PUBLIC interest, convenience and necessity.
Public: Exposed to general view; of, relating to or affecting ALL the people or the WHOLE area...
Foreign language broadcasting inherently excludes most of the public..

... And so does AC or News-Talk or rock or R&B. The minute you regulate content, you have violated the constitution of this nation.

A distinction can be made between language and content. It's one thing to play Latin music (which is actually modified from West African traditional music and dance brought to Latin America by slaves),.

Stop there. Only Salsa and Merengue, the music of some people of the Greater Antilles, is what is so-called "Afro Antillian" music. Spanish language rock, pop, AC is just as universal as English language interpretations in these genres. The Argentine Tango is from France. Mexican music (norteña, ranchera and banda) is European in roots. In fact, 95% of all Spanish langauge music heard in the USA is NOT at all related to African forms at all. How did you form this odd conclusion?

or polkas or Italian opera. It's another to run spots, weather reports, traffic reports, news, and music intros in a foreign language. Apparently, the only US broadcaster which actively seeks to help speakers of foreign languages learn English is the VOA (and their audience, by law, is not even here)..

The VOA Special English is being discontinued, and it was intended for the elite of non-English speking naitons where English may have been known in rudimentary form.

Anyone who tries to learn a foreign lagnguage after early adolescence generally has very minimal success and will, all thier life, translate back and forth to the native language in their mind.

You seem resigned to immigrants never attaining fluency in English. No one expects individuals who learn a language as adults to have perfect, native-speaker accents..[/quote]

Studies show that those who try to learn after pre-adolescence in an overwhelming percentage never progress beyond a basic "translation vocabulary" due to the way the mind processes langauge. By age 18, most persons brains are hard wired and few learn anything like gluent English. Most know at best a few hundred words, and they translate back and forth to the native langauge, and can not think in a second langauge... ever. This has been studied over and over and over, and a simple seasrch on language learning will show you why most immigrants can never become even able to read a paper or listen to and English radio station.

And musical taste is formed in early adolescence, right after langauge skills start declining. This is part of what hard wires the brain, in fact. So a 22 year old immigrant will never begin to like American kinds of music unless they liked it in the home country. It's not the language, it is the music form itself.

I myself can not listen to much English langauge radio because I find most of the music either distasteful or just uninteresting. It was never imprinted on me, so I don't find it pleasing.

Foreign language broadcasting encourages immigrants NOT to learn the language of their new country, not to hear it and speak it, not to see that their childen learn it, hear it and speak it, not to assimilate and not to include themselves in the economic and social mainstream. Foreign language broadcasting contributes to that "minimal success" you mention. The more an individual uses a new language, the more fluent he becomes and the more ingrained the new language becomes. Foreign language broadcasting prevents total immersion in the language of the US. Arnold was fortunate the LA market did not have German language radio and TV when he came here..

Children of immigrants learn English in school. Always have. Whether in the Chinatowns or Little Italys of the US, the parents seldom achieved any deep skills in English as they came here uneducated and with a need to work long hours. The second gneeration was nearly always bilingual, and this goeds back to the Germans and Italians of the 19th Century, too.

I bet when you worked in Mexican radio, you spoke Spanish (however you learned it and whenever you learned it). And the more you spoke it (and read it), the better you got. .

I learned Spanish and Portugues very early, at least in rudimentary form. And were I to have wanted to, I could have worked in the English stations in Mexico City. I did not want to do that, as I wished to work for the biggest company in radio at the time, which I did. And, in any case, I was about 15 at the time I started.

Nationhood requires homogeneity, including a common language. That is in the public interest, convenience and necessity radio is supposed to serve..

Radio serves the current needs of its potential listeners. Since it can be shown how people acquire language, it is important for larger groups of immigrants to have voices, whether printed or broadcast. Such has been true for 230 years, in fact. To limit access to information based on poor language skills and the inability to acquire another language would be discriminatory and anti-constitutional.

 

[PhilGalasso]

One of the worst effects of consolidation and the over-researching of radio is the ever-shrinking number of formats available in such large markets as New York and Philadelphia. The preoccupation of the advertising agencies with women 25-44 doesn't help, either, as formats appealing to older listeners have disappeared from the airwaves in most major markets. Another effect comes from companies paying through the nose to gobble up stations as stick values went up during the feeding frenzy that followed deregulation. When the loan payments came due, stations started cutting corners or dropping long-established formats that management felt could not earn enough to service the debt. Hence the lack of meaningful news coverage on most stations except KYW and the loss of WFLN as a classical station. News is labor intensive, so most owners have dropped it. "News" on most music stations is "rip and read" from the local newspaper or nauseating celebrity gossip. When Greater Media bought WFLN, they felt that they could not service their $50 million debt with classical music, so 95.7 entered the Format of the Month Club. Worst of all are those stations that run unattended most of the time. Sure, it's radio on the cheap. But it does not serve people during emergencies. EAS has failed time and time again, so that bargaining chip that broadcasters used in lobbying for deregulation and unattended operation is really quite worthless to the public that these stations are licensed to serve. Here are some examples:

1. Several years ago, a train derailed in Minot, North Dakota, releasing a cloud of deadly anhydrous ammonia gas. Since the accident occurred at 1 AM, the local group-owned radio stations were airing their normal formats, using voicetracked talent imported from 500 miles away. EAS failed, as the local authorities did not know how to use the system and the lone operator babysitting the automation systems in the station cluster did not know how to originate alerts anyway. At least three people died, 200 were hospitalized, and numerous pets and farm animals were killed by the caustic gas cloud.

2. In 1998, a regional group owner gutted the staff at WOBM, once the only significant source of broadcast news in Ocean County, New Jersey. The news department was fired and the station ran unattended from 7 PM to 5:30 AM on weekdays, as well as during most of the weekend. A violent storm blew through the northwestern part of the county at a time when WOBM was unattended. While several houses lost their roofs in the microburst that accompanied this storm, WOBM broadcast its "soft rock favorites" and a canned weather forecast calling for a "chance of showers overnight". Calls to the station went to an answering machine, as there was nobody there to take them. Although the current owners of WOBM have made some improvements, the print media remain the only real news source in that part of New Jersey. But print is of no value in emergencies requiring the immediacy that radio once offered before the greedheads and bean counters took over the industry.

3. Another station whose group owner decided to cut costs by closing down the news department at night was asleep at the wheel when a gas pipeline blew up in Edison, New Jersey, just ten miles from the studio. WCBS, an all-news station in New York City, had the story on the air within 30 minutes. But the local station had nothing but syndicated, satellite-delivered talk shows. They did devote the next day or so to coverage of the disaster...but the damage was already done.

That said, lousy, low budget programming was around long before consolidation. In 1966, the FCC banned most AM/FM simulcasting in the larger markets. Many station owners, scrambling to find something to put on FM, went with tape automation and those horrible syndicated formats that dominated the FM band well into the 1970s. Who can forget the canned Drake-Chenault "Hitparade" and "Solid Gold" formats, complete with the lifeless, disembodied voice of Robert W. Morgan? If the automation system did not include a good high pass audio filter, the 25 Hz automation cue tones rattled your left woofer at the end of each song or voice track. For those stations that preferred to play sleepy elevator music, Jim Schulke's Stereo Radio Productions offered a thoroughly researched, prepackaged format. I believe that WWSH aired it in Philadelphia.

Modern voicetracking can sound good if the station does not make the mistake of importing voicetracked talent from a distant market. Nothing sounds worse than an imported announcer mispronouncing local place names.

Consolidation did benefit me as a broadcast engineer. When the first wave of deregulation hit in the 1980s, many stations fired their staff engineers, opting for contract engineers. In plain English, contract engineering sucks. In addition to the large investment in test equipment, there are the headaches of dealing with the tax laws relating to self-employment and of chasing down deadbeat station owners and managers. Add to that the astronomical cost of health insurance! In the pre-deregulation days, I may have maintained two stations at most (an AM/FM combo). Nowadays, I take care of six stations in a mid-sized market cluster. But the salary is good, as are the benefits. And I do not have the aggravation that I had with contract engineering.

One final digression: Why does every thread on this board degenerate into race-baiting over the WSNI format flip? May I suggest that those members of the "English only" crowd take the time to learn how to write a coherent sentence in standard American English? Most of the postings condemning foreign-language radio are replete with misspelled words and glaring grammatical errors. If you indeed champion the English language, why don't you take a little time to master your language? Don't embarrass yourselves by writing at a second grade level. And don't depend on the "spell checker" in your computer. "There", "their", and "they're" are all valid words to one of these programs, yet they have radically different meanings and I often see them interchanged. The same goes for "your" and "you're". Buy a good dictionary and a thesaurus.

Or, as Pedro Vizcayino, a newscaster on New York's WADO, used to say some thirty years ago, "¡Mejoremos nuestro idioma...hablemoslo correctamente!" That phrase applies as much in English as it does in Spanish.

 

[davideduardo]

One of the worst effects of consolidation and the over-researching of radio is the ever-shrinking number of formats available in such large markets as New York and Philadelphia.

I find that there are more formats that did not existe 15 to 20 years ago. Since a cluster allows a broader range of formats to complement sales, not every operator is looking to have THE AC or THE CHR station.

As I have mentioned before, in the very early 60's, I was in a top 15 market that had 8 stations. 3 were CHR, 3 were MOR, one was R&B and one was a Black religious daytimer. Today, with FM being viable, the market has about 25 format alternatives, not 3.

The preoccupation of the advertising agencies with women 25-44 doesn't help, either, as formats appealing to older listeners have disappeared ....

Most ad campaigns target somewhere in the 18-54 demos. The combinations and spreads are very wide... 18-34, Women 25-44, Men 25-49, etc While there are many campaigns aimed at women, that is because they buy most consumer goods.

And it is the agency client who determines the demo. In fact, most of today's products are designed with a specific demo in mind, and even the packaging reflects this.

Advertisers do not want 55+, as the ROI on advertising is often negative. It takes to many impressions to produce a sale, so it is money wasted.

Another effect comes from companies paying through the nose to gobble up stations as stick values went up during the feeding frenzy that followed deregulation. When the loan payments came due, stations started cutting corners ....

This is a widely held urban legend. Most of the major acquisitions were done with equity financing or mergers, not with debt. Companies paid stock to the previous owner. Or companies merged with one another to make one bigger company. But Clear Channle has a very normal 1.03 debt to equity ratio... Cox is 0.6, and others are similarly low... some almost as low as the natural resources secotr that tends to have low debt ratios.

Hence the lack of meaningful news coverage on most stations except KYW

Most of us realized well before the FCC let us that listeners only needed one or two news stations. They are bright enough to go where the news is given best, and do not want it on thier mood stations... they want music there.

and the loss of WFLN as a classical station.

From Buenos Aires to Mexico City to the US, classical is becoming not only elitist, but very much a 65+ format. It is barely viable in a few markets, but not in most.

News is labor intensive, so most owners have dropped it. "News" on most music stations is "rip and read" from the local newspaper or nauseating celebrity gossip.

Most music station listeners do not want news there. Ask them, and they will tell you where they go when they need news. A music station has no creidbility as a news source, so they find news to be distracting in most cases.

EAS has failed time and time again, so that bargaining chip that broadcasters used in lobbying for deregulation and unattended operation is really quite worthless to the public that these stations are licensed to serve.

EAS runs unattended.

(More in second part)

 

[davideduardo]

1. Several years ago, a train derailed in Minot, North Dakota, releasing a cloud of deadly anhydrous ammonia gas. Since the accident occurred at 1 AM, the local group-owned radio stations were airing their normal formats, using voicetracked talent imported from 500 miles away. EAS failed, as the local authorities did not know how to use the system and the lone operator babysitting the automation systems in the station cluster did not know how to originate alerts anyway. At least three people died, 200 were hospitalized, and numerous pets and farm animals were killed by the caustic gas cloud.

You have collected two urban legends in one post. That must win you something.

Now, the rest of the story.

When the train derailed in Minot, it was about 2 AM. Per ratings, about 100 to 200 people in the city zone were listening to the radio. In any case, the city officials did not know how to activate the EAS system. So no matter if there had been 100 people at the local cluster, the EAS would not have activated. And, with 200 people listening, nobody would have been warned anyway. The entire fault was that of the local and state authorities, who did not have training in originating and EAS alert, not that of the stations, which had the gear installed and would have boradcast, automatically, the alert (to nearly nobody) if it had come in.

The fact is, at best, around 25% of people are listening to the radio. Unless the EAS can make an "off" radio turn on, during most of the 24 hour day, the system misses about 80% or more of all people.

2. In 1998, a regional group owner gutted the staff at WOBM, once the only significant source of broadcast news in Ocean County, New Jersey. The news department was fired and the station ran unattended from 7 PM to 5:30 AM ... A violent storm blew through the northwestern part of the county at a time when WOBM was unattended. While several houses lost their roofs in the microburst that accompanied this storm, WOBM broadcast its "soft rock favorites" and a canned weather forecast calling for a "chance of showers overnight".

Since the late 60's, many of not most stations have been automated. In fact, in the 70's a higher percentage were automated than today! We just did not call it voice tracking.

Again, the level of listening after 7 PM is so low that a bulletin might have reached 1 person in 20 at that time. Broadcast radio is a very inadequate medium for alerts unless there is a trigger to turn on radios.

Thank the FCC for much loss in local news coverage. I was involved with an AM/FM in Lake City, FL, with a nice news department on call 24/7. The 80-90 affair dropped 5 new stations in the market, and nobody made money, so everyone cut expenses to the bone and automated. Now no station has any service at all.

3. Another station whose group owner decided to cut costs by closing down the news department at night was asleep at the wheel when a gas pipeline blew up in Edison, New Jersey, just ten miles from the studio. WCBS, an all-news station in New York City, had the story on the air within 30 minutes. But the local station had nothing but syndicated, satellite-delivered talk shows. They did devote the next day or so to coverage of the disaster...

Have you looked at whether they could afford to have so many people? At the time of consolidation, 50% of all US stations did not make money. When you make no money, you do not staff the news department when nobody is listening anyway.

That said, lousy, low budget programming was around long before consolidation. In 1966, the FCC banned most AM/FM simulcasting in the larger markets. Many station owners, scrambling to find something to put on FM, went with tape automation and those horrible syndicated formats that dominated the FM band well into the 1970s. Who can forget the canned Drake-Chenault "Hitparade" and "Solid Gold" formats, complete with the lifeless, disembodied voice of Robert W. Morgan? If the automation system did not include a good high pass audio filter, the 25 Hz automation cue tones rattled your left woofer at the end of each song or voice track. For those stations that preferred to play sleepy elevator music, Jim Schulke's Stereo Radio Productions offered a thoroughly researched, prepackaged format. I believe that WWSH aired it in Philadelphia.

WWSH was actually live, as the 13-Q jocks will attest. On night, they spliced a hard rock tune of the Iron Butterfly ilk into an SRP tape, and the live announcer snoozed through it all...

Beautiful Music was a wonderful format. It helped many FMs become successful, and was wildly popular for 2 full decades. One person's sleepy music is anohter person's absolute delight.

The 25 Hz filter was a notch filter. easy to build, and if there was a problem, it was caused by engineering, not the product. I had several #1 automated stations, including three which were 100% personality driven. Those who used the technology creatively ended up with far better stations.

In any case, there were dozens of format syndicators, such as SRP, Bonneville, D-C. TM, Churchill, Música en Flor (mine), KalaMusic, RPM, IGM, FM 100, Peters Productions and many more. All were very viable options for stations that were confronted with zero-revenue stations that had to be separately programmed.

Modern voicetracking can sound good if the station does not make the mistake of importing voicetracked talent from a distant market. Nothing sounds worse than an imported announcer mispronouncing local place names.

But if trained, nothing sounds better than a good jock who is nice to listen to vs. the only guy you could get locally in market 212.

Consolidation did benefit me as a broadcast engineer. When the first wave of deregulation hit in the 1980s, many stations fired their staff engineers, opting for contract engineers. In plain English, contract engineering sucks. In addition to the large investment in test equipment, there are the headaches of dealing with the tax laws relating to self-employment and of chasing down deadbeat station owners and managers. Add to that the astronomical cost of health insurance! In the pre-deregulation days, I may have maintained two stations at most (an AM/FM combo). Nowadays, I take care of six stations in a mid-sized market cluster. But the salary is good, as are the benefits. And I do not have the aggravation that I had with contract engineering.

When I built my first cluster, in 1964 (well, that was a stand-alone which started "clustering" 18 months later) I found that finally I could go to the movies without checking my station on a transistor radio every 15 minutes during the flick. I could afford backup engineers and one was always the on-call guy. I could even take vacations... something I did not do the first two years since I was on call for about 700 days non-stop.

One final digression: Why does every thread on this board degenerate into race-baiting over the WSNI format flip?

Because radio folks are contentious? ;D

May I suggest that those members of the "English only" crowd take the time to learn how to write a coherent sentence in standard American English? Most of the postings condemning foreign-language radio are replete with misspelled words and glaring grammatical errors. If you indeed champion the English language, why don't you take a little time to master your language? Don't embarrass yourselves by writing at a second grade level. And don't depend on the "spell checker" in your computer. "There", "their", and "they're" are all valid words to one of these programs, yet they have radically different meanings and I often see them interchanged. The same goes for "your" and "you're". Buy a good dictionary and a thesaurus.

Since I can not spell worth a darn in English, and my typing sucks big-time, I just figure most people can understand and this is not English 101.

Or, as Pedro Vizcayino, a newscaster on New York's WADO, used to say some thirty years ago, "¡Mejoremos nuestro idioma...hablemoslo correctamente!" That phrase applies as much in English as it does in Spanish.

Vizcaíno, I think.

It reminds me of the nearly daily calls I got when doing pretty agressive (Spanish) talk radio on KTNQ in LA: little old ladies telling me we were fracturing the Language of Cervantes. I had to tell them I did not think Cervantes cared much any more...

 

[fred flintstone]

WOBM has, according to their website, a five person local news operation. And they are part of Millennium NJ's regional news operation.

Few radio news departments were ever staffed 24/7. In fact, back in the day, many stations signed off at night. Even if Minot had a local news department, they would have been home in bed. One out of every 182 people in Minot was listening to the radio (although maybe not Clear Channel). 181 out of 182 still would not have heard anything. And how is it radio's fault that local officials were unprepared and did not know what to do?

All news is dying because few stations want to do it. With AP All News Radio, cost was not excessive. AP dropped the service last year for lack of station interest. Except for a handful of established all news stations in major markets, there's not enough cume to overcome short TSL. You can make more money talking about news than reading news.

Radio news has become a joke, in any case. No actual reporting is done. Radio news is stealing news from the newspaper, calling somebody to "get sound" to go with a press release, doing PSAs disguised as news, showing up for scheduled "media opps," doing man on the street interviews (talking about news - talk radio by sound bite), or going someplace where something happened to read wire copy and call it a live shot. It is creating the appearance of covering news; not covering news. Because of the decline in DJ gigs, remaining news slots are mostly covered by would-be jocks and not real journalists. For all these reasons, radio news has become irrelevant to listeners and therefore to newsmakers. Radio news jocks are to journalists as DJs are to musicians.

Language of Cervantes? Pffft!

The majesty and grandeur of the English language, it's the greatest possession we have. The noblest thoughts that ever flowed through the hearts of men are contained in its extraordinary, imaginative, and musical mixtures of sounds... the language of Shakespeare and Milton and The Bible. - George Bernard Shaw

English is part of a superior culture. The English speaking peoples are at the forefront of art, science, technology, industrial and agricultural production, business and the development of personal liberties and representative government. South of the Rio Grande, it's the third world, ruled by military dictatorships and they are still in the middle ages. An influx of barbarians is what led to the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

 

[davideduardo]

Language of Cervantes? Pffft!

Huh? Who are you to determine the validity, beauty, ability to express ideas, etc., in regards to one language or another? Are you a linguist or a cultural anthropoligist? Do you read Spanish? Have you read cervantes?

If you can not answer "yes" to the last quesiton, you do not know that Spanish has an ability difficult or impossible to find in English of being able to create the most melodic, enchanting prose. Whether Cervantes or the mystic and poetic prose of "Cien Años de Soledad" Spanish can express emotions and feelings to an extent seldom encountered in the harsher mix of Northern European gutteral languages.

English also has its sepcial characteristics, representative of a different culture and way of life in many cases. To dismiss one to favor another is like eating only apples and never trying a pear.

English is part of a superior culture.

Oh, come on. There are many "good" cultures and to self-proclaim yourself part of the "superior" one is jingoism at its absurd worst.

The English speaking peoples are at the forefront of art, science, technology, industrial and agricultural production, business and the development of personal liberties and representative government. South of the Rio Grande, it's the third world, ruled by military dictatorships and they are still in the middle ages. An influx of barbarians is what led to the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

Check your facts. Except for Cuba, the governments in Latin America are elected. Even the nutcase Chávez was elected, just as Nixon was. There is not one military dictatorship in Latin America at present, and there have been few in the last quarter century. Latin America is a net exporter of foodstuffs to the US, so there goes your "agriculture" arguement (which is false, anyway, due to billions in subsidies needed to prop up a sector unable to operate without assistance). Your statement fails on the liberties and representative government criteria, too. The Poles do not have liberties anda representative government? The Spaniards? Italians? Japanese? Koreans? Hell, even Costa Rica has a century or so of uninterrupted government of and for the people.

Asians and Europeans are now at the forefront of science. The US even has to import them, so bad is the teaching of math and science in US schools. We have a real crisis of the future in the US, and you are hyping past achievements. Look at who and where the major advances in science and industry are coming from... it is less and less the US, and less and less English speakers.

But, if you want to believe a dream, and do nothing about it, go for it. I feel that the US has lost its competitive edge and we need to improve education in the sciences and math or we will be a second tier nation in three generations.



[/quote]

 

[fred flintstone]

I wonder who wrote the book of radio....

David, you almost have enough for a book.

The Online Essays of David Eduardo will go on sale at Borders, Barnes and Noble and Amazon.com early next year - in both English and Spanish versions, of course.

 

[PhilGalasso]

You have collected two urban legends in one post. That must win you something.

Now, the rest of the story.

When the train derailed in Minot, it was about 2 AM. Per ratings, about 100 to 200 people in the city zone were listening to the radio. The fact is, at best, around 25% of people are listening to the radio. Unless the EAS can make an "off" radio turn on, during most of the 24 hour day, the system misses about 80% or more of all people.

Two points here:
1. The injuries and deaths in Minot were anything but an "urban legend". Do a little experiment. Go to the supermarket, buy a bottle of plain ammonia, open it, and take a good, deep breath right at the mouth of the bottle. When you regain consciousness, please call me so I can visit you in the hospital. Since the "ammonia" sold in supermarkets is a dilute solution of ammonia gas in water, it is nowhere near as powerful as the gas that was released near Minot.

2. Since you are obviously more concerned with the business aspects of radio than the pre-deregulation principle of serving the public that stations have long been licensed to serve, here's an idea for saving even more money: Since, by your estimation, so few people are listening to the radio at night, why not sign the stations off at 7 PM, 11 PM, or midnight? That would save on power costs, as it takes a lot of electricity to run a transmitter. Engineering could use the downtime to defragment the hard drives on the automation computers and to do other maintenance that cannot be done while the stations are on the air (unless there are duplicate or backup systems, a very good thing to have at any station). And, as one of those age 50+ listeners who are so detested by advertisers, the hiss and static on a vacant channel are far more pleasant to listen to than is most of the programming that I hear on the radio these days.

 

[PhilGalasso]

One of the worst effects of consolidation and the over-researching of radio is the ever-shrinking number of formats available in such large markets as New York and Philadelphia.

I find that there are more formats that did not existe 15 to 20 years ago. Since a cluster allows a broader range of formats to complement sales, not every operator is looking to have THE AC or THE CHR station.

As I have mentioned before, in the very early 60's, I was in a top 15 market that had 8 stations. 3 were CHR, 3 were MOR, one was R&B and one was a Black religious daytimer. Today, with FM being viable, the market has about 25 format alternatives, not 3.

On the other hand, let's take a look at Philadelphia and New York City, both markets with plenty of radio stations. In the pre-deregulation days, Philly had a full-time classical station (WFLN), a free-form rock station (WMMR), two top-40 stations (WFIL and WIBG), two "beautiful music" stations (WDVR and WWSH), two MOR stations (WIP and WUSL), and a standards/nostalgia station (WPEN). None of those formats can be heard in the market nowadays, at least on commercial radio (classical shares time with jazz on WRTI). In pre-deregulation New York, you had country (WHN), top-40 (WABC and WNBC), full-service (WOR), oldies (WCBS-FM), standards (WNEW), "beautiful music" (WVNJ-AM/FM, WPAT-AM/FM, and WRFM), and free-form rock (WNEW-FM and WPIX-FM). While top-40 has evolved into mainstream (WIOQ in Philly, WHTZ in New York) and rhythmic (WQHT and WWPR in New York, WUSL in Philly), none of the other formats mentioned above can be heard anywhere on the dial. So much for format diversity, at least in English-language commercial radio. There is some splintering of urban and AC formats, as urban AC (WDAS-FM and WRNB in Philly, WRKS and WBLS in New York) did not exist back then, nor did "Hot AC" (WPLJ and WNEW-FM in New York, possibly WMGK in Philly), while the classic rock stations all seem to air the same burned-out, overresearched, and overplayed songs that people like me grew tired of hearing some 20 years ago. The only increase in the number of formats seems to be in Spanish-language radio, at least in New York. There, WADO runs a news/talk format, WPAT-FM is soft AC, WSKQ is a contemporary mix of salsa, merengue, and reggaetón, while WCAA seems to be in the Format of the Month club and WWRV carries evangelical Christian programming in Spanish. With fewer stations, Spanish-language radio in Philly is less diverse, although the former WSNI reminds me a bit of WSKQ, but with a softer edge, WPHE carries religious programming, and WEMG and WTTM may or may not change in response to WSNI.

 

[davideduardo]

Two points here:
1. The injuries and deaths in Minot were anything but an "urban legend". Do a little experiment. Go to the supermarket, buy a bottle of plain ammonia, open it, and take a good, deep breath right at the mouth of the bottle. When you regain consciousness, please call me so I can visit you in the hospital. Since the "ammonia" sold in supermarkets is a dilute solution of ammonia gas in water, it is nowhere near as powerful as the gas that was released near Minot.

The incident was real. What was not real was any culpability on the part of the radio stations. All had working and type-approved EAS monitors with the capability of inserting an emergency message. There has never been a requirement to have a news person on duty 24/7. Unmanned operation goes back 25 years or so, and is based on the FCC approving both offsite monitoring and the technology that enables it.

2. Since you are obviously more concerned with the business aspects of radio

Stop there. How can a station that loses money serv anyone?

than the pre-deregulation principle of serving the public that stations have long been licensed to serve, here's an idea for saving even more money: Since, by your estimation, so few people are listening to the radio at night, why not sign the stations off at 7 PM, 11 PM, or midnight? That would save on power costs, as it takes a lot of electricity to run a transmitter. Engineering could use the downtime to defragment the hard drives on the automation computers and to do other maintenance that cannot be done while the stations are on the air (unless there are duplicate or backup systems, a very good thing to have at any station). And, as one of those age 50+ listeners who are so detested by advertisers, the hiss and static on a vacant channel are far more pleasant to listen to than is most of the programming that I hear on the radio these days.

You probably don't know why stations run from midnight to 5, do you? Simple: it only took one incident per engineer or manager where a staiton transmitter failed to go on at the beginning of Morning Drive for them to consider, "what if we just leave it on and it will seldom fail right at 6 AM?"

Even stations with backups and so on feel much safer running through the overnight period rather than risking the most important daypart on everything "waking up" correctly at 6 (or 5 in the big markets). Nearly no station makes any money there, so it is not about reveneu. It is about avoiding disasters in the key daypart of morning drive.

As to maintenance, nearly everything can be done today by switching to live assist or using a back-up CD set for a few hours once a month or two. Studios switch to production, transmitters switch to AUX, etc. About the only things you can not do while staying on the air is antenna work, unless you have an AUX site.
[/quote]

 

[davideduardo]

On the other hand, let's take a look at Philadelphia and New York City, both markets with plenty of radio stations. In the pre-deregulation days, Philly had a full-time classical station (WFLN), a free-form rock station (WMMR), two top-40 stations (WFIL and WIBG), two "beautiful music" stations (WDVR and WWSH), two MOR stations (WIP and WUSL), and a standards/nostalgia station (WPEN). None of those formats can be heard in the market nowadays, at least on commercial radio (classical shares time with jazz on WRTI).

You are confusing viability with variety. Beautiful Music died around the mid-80's. It did so becaue it stopped getting the huge ratings of the 70's, because the artists like Frank Pourcel, Caravelli, etc., stopped recording or died, and because the demos were skewing very old. Today, the average listener would be about 75.

Classical has gone through the same thing. There are fewer and fewer listeners, and there is a decline in most markets in the ratings and an increase in average age.

MOR is a format that matamorphosized into AC. Instead of Tony Bennett, we have Celene Dion. Sam format, different name, less yakking by the "talent" and so on.

Standards has matured so that the average age of the listener is way over 65. Again, a format that ceased to have any viability and was dropped. Oldies is not far behind, either.

Free form or progressive rockers died, mostly, in the 1972 to 1975 period as they came up against Lee Abrams´"Superstars" version of album rock. Stations that played at random and played deep cuts and where the jock could pick the music died very ugly deaths aganst stations where the music was researched, the jocks had no control over it, and where there were formatics in place to create a consistent and appealing product 24/7. This was competition at its best: the badly formatted rockers gave way to the ones people preferred to hear.

In all these cases, the changes came about due to either the format maturing out of the ages advertisers wanted or when a better version of the same format came around.

Consolidation had nothing to do with any of the examples you cite. Standards, Beautiful, Oldies; MOR either disappeared because of advertiser acceptance or the "moving on" of the genre. Progrressive rock died because listeners left it when a more consistent, better form of AOR came out.

[/quote] In pre-deregulation New York, you had country (WHN), top-40 (WABC and WNBC), full-service (WOR), oldies (WCBS-FM), standards (WNEW), "beautiful music" (WVNJ-AM/FM, WPAT-AM/FM, and WRFM), and free-form rock (WNEW-FM and WPIX-FM). While top-40 has evolved into mainstream (WIOQ in Philly, WHTZ in New York) and rhythmic (WQHT and WWPR in New York, WUSL in Philly), none of the other formats mentioned above can be heard anywhere on the dial.[/quote]

Country was tried over and over in NY. It did not work, and was subject to the ups and downs in the music itself and did not survive. Oldies, like standards and beautiful, aged themselves out of the advertiser's focus, and could not be sustained. Free form I have already discussed.

You seem very interested in "old" formats. FOrmats that appeal to old people. This is not a radio issue, but a marketing one. If there is no advertiser interest at all in 55+, radio can not provide formats for that age group. This has zero to do with consolidation.

So much for format diversity, at least in English-language commercial radio. There is some splintering of urban and AC formats, as urban AC (WDAS-FM and WRNB in Philly, WRKS and WBLS in New York) did not exist back then, nor did "Hot AC" (WPLJ and WNEW-FM in New York, possibly WMGK in Philly), while the classic rock stations all seem to air the same burned-out, overresearched, and overplayed songs that people like me grew tired of hearing some 20 years ago. The only increase in the number of formats seems to be in Spanish-language radio, at least in New York. There, WADO runs a news/talk format, WPAT-FM is soft AC, WSKQ is a contemporary mix of salsa, merengue, and reggaetón, while WCAA seems to be in the Format of the Month club and WWRV carries evangelical Christian programming in Spanish.

WCAA has had two formats since it began. Nice try. In any case, the Hispanic population has increased by nearly the double in the last 30 years in NY, so there is going to be much more programming for Hispanics, in English and Spanish.

Since you refer a lot to the 70's, with Top 40 and Progressive rock, compare NY now with then, Blacks have FMs, and they have both urban AC and Urban versions. There is hip hop for all ethnicities. There is still CHR. We now have smooth jazz. We have FM talk, we have a dance station (purists will disagree) and we have three distinctly different FM Spanish music formats, where in the early 1970 we had 4 AM stations with lots of talk and the same music (620, 1280, 1480, 1380). We even have an all business station, and both liberal and conservative talk. There is a variety of ethnic stuff from Russian to Korean, which was seldom heard before. NY even has sports talk, an innovation made in NY for the first time by Emmis.

With fewer stations, Spanish-language radio in Philly is less diverse, although the former WSNI reminds me a bit of WSKQ, but with a softer edge, WPHE carries religious programming, and WEMG and WTTM may or may not change in response to WSNI.

Philly has little growth in Hispanic population, while NY does.