Bob_Hudson said:
Bite Me Hard said:
...if he's smart he'll look elsewhere...
In radio there is no longer an "elsewhere."
There may be an elsewhere for Bob if he is willing to move elsewhere. There may not be if he wants to stay in San DIego, which he probably can through retirement. I would guess he's made enough money and can always become an agency guy, like Mike Stafford did when he "retired."
For many, there is no longer an elsewhere. Live talent is becoming an internet connection for someone willing to do the work without the benefit of compensation other than getting to keep their current salary, promotions people are getting cut to the bone because profits are thinning, and engineers are being required to handle more with less. Radio, except during times of disaster, has become irrelevant to most people, especially younger people, and older people aren't courted even though they have the dollars, but tend not to spend them readily.
This isn't necessarily the fault of the buzzards of San Antonio, although they certainly have done everything in their power to foster the environment. The real problem in the demise of the industry is the proliferation of alternatives, starting the cycle of lost listeners, followed by the lack of innovation, the homoginizing of the product, and the complete lack of response to the issues from the very non-creative people at the top charged with maintaining the medium.
What have we been blessed with in the past decade that would support radio? Fewer live talent, voice tracked juke box crap from outside of any market, formats designed for the multitudes produced from a central location with no local relevance, and the big bonus, HD. Big whoop. Why wouldn't I rather listen to my home programmed MP3 device? Hell, I can even get Rush on my time frame, not his.
HD. Not High Definition, but Hybrid Digital. We could have done this right and gone with Eureka, but that would have exposed the buzzards to too much competition. Can't have that. So to protect the existing analogs for as long as possible, the U.S. goes against the rest of the world and comes up with a bandaid digital that doesn't even approach CD (or as someone I know who has great ears says, seedy) quality and we attempt to thrust it upon our listeners with ugly table radios and car receivers that only work within a few miles of the broadcast antenna. Like, wow. Dood.
So now, as we watch the once mighty powers stocks fall below $1, and the employees see their very limited gains blown out from under them, we continue to watch the decline of the medium into mediocrity by the loss of more local and live people and the addition of some voice from elsewhere telling us it's now "ten past the hour" because the hour could be anywhere in six time zones.
But don't forget to get down to Best Buy and buy that quality HD table radio, if you can find a salesperson that even knows what it is.
