Dude, I'm not talking about changing dominant stations into Time-brokered stations. I am not saying PD's need to allow local people to suddenly come in and start buying time and messing up their format. And I most certainly am not saying to break a music station apart by allowing people to pay for what they want to play, irregardless of format.
Your view point on this is skewed and narrow minded.
I am talking from the reverse point of view. If someone wants to be a talk host, and they can find a station that will take their money, that in itself doesn't mean they are bad at hosting a show. I'm saying that a host shouldn't be discounted JUST because they pay for time.
There are many hosts that STARTED that way...it's a good business model from the HOSTS perspective because they don't collect a fixed salary. They control what they make. And from a small station's perspective because they DON'T HAVE to chase commercials.
Traditional radio, with sales people selling commercials, can be profit prohibative for smaller stations because not only do you need to pay talent to be on the air, you have to have a traffic manager and a production person. Sure, some people are talented enough to wear several hats, but if your sales person is also producing their own spots either their selling day is short (less revenue) or they are working 60-80 hours per week, so they will burn out sooner than later. If your traffic person is producing the spots your spots may be poorly produced (no offense, but most traffic people aren't creative) and then they are not as effective for your advertisers so your sales person is constantly looking to replace lost business....
In order to have the traditional model work, you have to have the right signal the right programming etc. Show me 1000 - 2500 watt stations with
traditional programming billing over 1M per year.
I understand what you are saying that some brokers may be a little crooked, I think that's just business in general. And that most brokers are not all that great sounding for radio....but...many people who started in radio sucked their first year or two. If you have a coach or a good manager at the station who is interested in developing talent...the situation could be alot different.
Why are stations "allowed to sound bad" on the weekend, because like I said, some of the 1000w (generally speaking) stations aren't making money because they have poorly trained sales people (if you were an experienced sales person would you prefer to sell $15 spots on a 1000w station or $250 spots on a 50000w station?), they have the second or third tier talk hosts that don't generate a large listening audience and they need the money. That's why.<P ID="signature">______________
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