Bring Back Real Radio

[jfrancispastirchak]

...No One has answered my question...what radio can do better than any form of media, and it could still do today! know the answer? if you nail it, you win!

Well, WhoDat, I'm game, but it won't surprise me if Im wrong--- I think radio is already doing what it does best, but outa be doing better--- NEWS, WEATHER, THE TIMELY DISSEMINATION OF INFORMATION IN GENERAL--- News has always been radio's strong card; it's old battle cry "news today, history tomorrow" (remember that one?) effectively bashed the newspaper industry into the ground, forcing that medium to counter by boosting what it does best: features, coupon advertising, Op-Eds, etc...

Today's talk formats and brokered programming no longer allow time for news & weather breaks. Exceptions of course are all-news formats, but not all markets have news stations offering headlines & weather every 10-minutes. News stations in smaller cities and rural communities often mesh heavily with "talk", and tend to sound automated.

I recently listened to a small town station crusing sleepilly through a 30-minute infomercial, while a twister danced around in it's own backyard. They never once sounded an alert. True, the tornado sirens sounded, undoubtedly saving dozens of lives. But, while people hear sirens, they LISTEN to the radio. That station was uniquely positioned to do what radio can do better than "any form of media", and they blew it.

Well, did I win?

NEWS & LOCAL INFORMATION if RADIO can't do that, what good are they?give that man a cigar! but wait THERE'S MORE to the answer i'm looking for..

I don't smoke cigars, but I'll give it to my wife. THANKS!

 

[cspotrun]

ya fine there are lots of ways to get information agreed, but we're talking about Radio here. and my point is if RADIO can't even do that what good is it..?

Your question was what can radio do better than any other media. My answer is nothing. Most people use radio in conjunction with other media, not exclusively. Radio today is mainly a support medium.

As I've been saying, radio isn't one big thing. It's lots of independent businesses. Some radio stations do lots of local news and information. Some do nothing. Some have all local staffs. Some pipe it in from elsewhere. You're looking for a one-size-fits-all statement, and it doesn't exist.

you give up too easily, don't overthink it.

 

[mmnassour]

It is a scandal that radio, the one and only medium that connects people everywhere instantly, has been allowed...even urged...to abandon its role as a news-gatherer.

Radio is just as susceptible to these kinds of things as Twitter.

No.

At least, it wasn't. The radio I grew up with employed professionals that had judgement as to what should be said over the air to inform people...and what was a garbage rumor.

Today's radio, yes you can argue, is no better than Twitter.

No, perhaps it is better than Twitter only because the vast majority of stations give us NO information, only the lame, repetitive, voice-tracked pap that the owners demand, rather then the rumor and lies that populate such Internet "services".

I want my radio back. I'm not likely to get it, but I still want it.

 

[TheBigA]

The radio I grew up with employed professionals that had judgement as to what should be said over the air to inform people...and what was a garbage rumor.

I think you have selective memory. ANY time you rely on people to make a judgement, there's a chance they will be wrong. Hunter Thompson wrote his "Fear & Loathing" books in the 70s, and Timothy Crouse wrote The Boys On The Bus, talking about pack journalism of the 70s. Not very different from what you see today. In fact, one could argue that what happened in the 70s paved the way for today's cable news channels.

 

[mmnassour]

Selective, no. ;D

What I'm saying is that in the past, radio news was much more widespread, that stations employed local reporters to report on local stories.

Today, you're lucky if you get 30 seconds from FoxNews at the top of the hour.

Local and state news has disappeared from all but one or perhaps two stations in many, if not most, markets. I'm not referring to the quality of the news product...let the public judge that. I'm saying that the news product has disappeared...and for that we are all the poorer.

 

[TheBigA]

What I'm saying is that in the past, radio news was much more widespread, that stations employed local reporters to report on local stories.

And because it was so widespread, there was no quality control. They just did what they did. The biases people are senstitive to now existed then too, but got pushed under the table.

Les Nessman was not all fiction.

The fact was that radio news was seen by the listeners as an interrution. This view goes back to the 60s. Why do you think WABC did their news "five minutes sooner?" It was to get it out of the way, so they could be back to music at the top of the hour, when everyone else was doing news. News was an obligation. That's why stations did it. It was the crap they put up with in order to play more music.

 

[mmnassour]

Right. And that's fine. But the bottom line is...it existed. That entire infrastructure is, for all intents and purposes, gone now. Was it valuable to have humans giving information to local folks about their local community? I happen to think so. But if all you want is music, an iPod will give you exactly what you want....without commercials.

"Radio"...the media....was much more than just music. It was a companion. With a few exceptions, that's gone.

 

[TheBigA]

Right. And that's fine. But the bottom line is...it existed. That entire infrastructure is, for all intents and purposes, gone now.

Dinosaurs roamed the earth too.

But if all you want is music, an iPod will give you exactly what you want....without commercials.

Here's what we're finding: There is something called iPod fatigue. People own them, but they don't use them. And radio usage is up. People don't need a companion. Their phone instantly gives them that, and is interactive. They don't need some self-involved DJ yelling at them. But they like the music, and the way it's presented.

You want things to return to the past. It's not going to happen. The past is over. We're making radio for today, and today's audiences, and they seem to like it.

 

[Tom Wells]

There are those, like myself, for whom a smart-aleck phone will never be considered a viable replacement for a radio.
The audio quailty is too low, there's barely enough signal for a call to express a few words of vital information.

I far prefer the sound and presentation of real radios, not anything teensy...and I can't image when my life would ever be quiet enough to use any kind of a personal music player.
I really need the speaker to be about so big, in a box about so big, so that I can hear it reasonably over a moderate distance.
Now I wonder what percentage of listeners to such players are using docking stations, and how big and powerful are
docking stations these days?

 

[bturner]

In regard to news, it seems the greater competition in the past led to a bit higher bar. Whether a station was forced to carry news is not the point but that the competition heightened the ideals of journalism in the past. These ideals are still there but the playing field is, I feel, smaller now. And I feel with time some of those ideals might have been relaxed a bit.

I recall in high school I wanted to do a specific story but my editor (aka teacher) said I could only if someone else took the opposing view. Her objective was if I was trying to build a case for my topic, the opposing views must be included by another student in the class and she specified we could not ethically exchange notes.

I would think if a news organization utilizes an implied slant, they do so as an objective to develop a core audience while having no 'dog in the fight' other than profit. In other words it's about attracting an audience and making money and politics is not really a factor in the board room.

 

[mmnassour]

iPod fatigue...? Yea, I can relate to that. My family has two of the things sitting in drawers right now! ;D

But of the three of us...I'm the only one who listens to the radio, per se. My wife listens to a local "comedy" station that's really a translator, and my daughter, well, she's 21 and I have never, ever, seen her turn on a radio. Not in the car, not in the house, not anywhere. Her music came from the previously mentioned iPod, or she listens to BBC2 or Virgin Radio over her phone, in addition to her CDs that have been ripped or various downloads. I really don't think she's ever heard a local ad on radio.

And that, I guess, is what bothers me about the business. When I wander around the UT Austin campus here, no one and I mean no one is listening to a radio. They're not seen. They're not heard in offices. That does not mean there isn't music being played...but none of it comes from...the radio.

I'm really concerned that commercial radio is becoming the Lawrence Welk Show...yes, people are listening but in 20-30 years most of them will be gone.

BigA, I'd really like to see some good numbers of what percentage of the 12-24 and 18-35 potential audience is listening today, versus 2000, 1990 and 1980. I can't help but think it wouldn't be good.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

I would think if a news organization utilizes an implied slant, they do so as an objective to develop a core audience while having no 'dog in the fight' other than profit. In other words it's about attracting an audience and making money and politics is not really a factor in the board room.

I'm going to take the role of that high school teacher/advisor of yours and say that there has to be an opposing view to what you just stated.

The recent Presidential race... and the Republican Primary in particular... gave us a glimpse of things we have never experienced before, or things never experienced on such a grand scale before.

Now we could name some "networks" that are nothing more than a mechanical/business device for distribution of personalities that were already developed. Some of those will fit your description of "profit is the primary purpose". We see other "mechanical/business devices" for distribution of message that we haven't figure out yet. We cannot trace the cables that go back to the control levers, yet. Then there are some other "mechanical/business devices" for distribution of messages that are simply "front organizations" for people who want to pull the levers and the cables, but have it look like "a natural business development serving a grass roots movement".

It probably kills our ability to even peek and poke at the edges of this concept for a discussion for it will then erupt into a political dogfight that the Board Editor (and we as participants) will say, "Hold on... that doesn't belong here!"

I will venture this far into opinions: The Supreme Court decision known as "Citizens United" has totally turned the game table on it's edge, dumping all the money and the cards and the poker chips on the floor in a big mixed up mess.

What ever may have been true about your claim that the whole "political message and talk industry" is just bottom-line profit driven is now laying down there on the floor... scattered among the poker chips, the dice, the cards, and the concealed weapons that fell out of someone's pocket in the melee.

Is this something new? Probably not. Heard an interesting view by a historian explaining his book on C-span recently. He was writing about the history of New Orleans in particular, and Louisiana in general. What did we learn in school? Maybe New Orleans was kind of the leftovers of the earlier movement of French traders who pioneered the idea of being on "the front lines" running trading posts among the Native Americans, the the Mississippi and it's tributaries as their railroad, their Interstate system. (We did buy the Louisiana Purchase from France didn't we?)

This historian writes that at the time Louisiana was established, France had been repossessed by an English nobleman who was a world financier, and the nation of France was simple nothing more than a watch-fog dangling from the Englishman's shirt pocket which he used to out maneurer some of his English peers who "owned" the original colonies of North America.

Life does get messy if you look under the tarp that is covering the hold. ;D

So tell me. Is Fox News a straight up business deal.... or is it a watch fob hanging out of someone's shirt pocket?

 

[TheBigA]

BigA, I'd really like to see some good numbers of what percentage of the 12-24 and 18-35 potential audience is listening today, versus 2000, 1990 and 1980. I can't help but think it wouldn't be good.

The last numbers I saw were pretty much the same percentages as they were 25 years ago. Keep in mind that it doesn't matter what device people use when they listen to the radio. If they listen to an OTA stream via phone or desktop, the station gets credit. The only change is that younger people use MORE devices to hear music, not that they use one exclusively.

The fact is there's absolutely nothing anyone can do that will make me give up my phone or my internet. Radio can hire tons of staff, or even bring back all the legends from the 60s. It won't make any difference. I love my phone, and I love my internet. It;s radio's job to get it's content to ME. And all of the major companies are doing that now.

 

[stan]

I think the point is that when an industry starts losing a generation of listeners, in the long run it won't survive in its current form. I certainly wouldn't have money invested in the current mess any more.

 

[TheBigA]

I think the point is that when an industry starts losing a generation of listeners, in the long run it won't survive in its current form. I certainly wouldn't have money invested in the current mess any more.

Which is why radio is adapting to the new platforms like mobile and online. But the business model for that kind of radio won't support the staffing of the past.

 

[mmnassour]

Which leaves us right where we are....iPods with commercials, only iPods programmed by someone else.

Oh well, there's always BBC2 online! ;D