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Classic Rock 100.7 scraps its morning show

theotherguy said:
The many, many, many, many DJ's now out of work due to the ability to voice track would strongly disagree with you.
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It's a dog eat dog world. Those who are working see it differently. It's a competition, not an entitlement.

As someone who works in radio, I will tell you there are more jobs now than there were before doing more interesting work than sitting at a console waiting for a song to end. The job of being a disc jockey really ended when there weren't any discs to jockey anymore.

theotherguy said:
Unless you meant to say big corp. radio ownership likes it because they can pay someone for an hour or 2 of work what they used to pay someone for four or five.
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So you would be willing to give up your washing machine and wash clothes by hand? Give up microwaves to cook food on a stove? How many modern conveniences would you be willing to give up?

Radio stations used to hire live bands to play music rather than play records. But it's cheaper to play records.

Look around. Bank tellers replaced by ATMs. Grocery clerks replaced by self-checkout. Newspaper delivery replaced by the internet. We call it progress. Things are not like they used to be. If they were, you wouldn't be on this message board.

theotherguy said:
If doing a live radio show 5-6 days a week for 4-5 hours a day is taking away from time with the family you're in the wrong business.
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I started in radio working overnights. I hated it. I quit and never had to do it again. I'm in the right business. Computers make it possible for me to live a normal life.
 
theotherguy said:
The many, many, many, many DJ's now out of work due to the ability to voice track would strongly disagree with you.

Every modern automation system now allows you to not babysit a board and focus on content and do a live show.

Unless you meant to say big corp. radio ownership likes it because they can pay someone for an hour or 2 of work what they used to pay someone for four or five. Or pay that one person a full day's pay to take care of multiple stations instead of paying multiple people's salaries and benefits.

If doing a live radio show 5-6 days a week for 4-5 hours a day is taking away from time with the family you're in the wrong business.
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I looked ahead. If anyone were going to read you the riot act and put you back in your lane, it would likely be TheBigA. And I was right.

For the record, I like the way you think.
 
theotherguy said:
The many, many, many, many DJ's now out of work due to the ability to voice track would strongly disagree with you.
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And the same goes for any area where technology has replaced jobs. Heck, WOR in New York in the later 40's had over 40 engineers on its staff!
theotherguy said:
Every modern automation system now allows you to not babysit a board and focus on content and do a live show.
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And in most dayparts except morning, there is no content or prep for a midday, afternoon, night or weekend show. So the jock wastes about 55 minutes out of the hour doing nothing.
theotherguy said:
Unless you meant to say big corp. radio ownership likes it because they can pay someone for an hour or 2 of work what they used to pay someone for four or five. Or pay that one person a full day's pay to take care of multiple stations instead of paying multiple people's salaries and benefits.
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That is the effect of technology and progress. Ford made cheaper and better cars because they mechanized the production process. If we had today's technology in the 50's, stations would have done voice-tracking then.
theotherguy said:
If doing a live radio show 5-6 days a week for 4-5 hours a day is taking away from time with the family you're in the wrong business.
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Most air talent that actually does a 4-5 hour daily airshift that is not voice tracked also have hours in production... or they double as music director or PD or do some other function.
 
ex radio pimp said:
I never looked at it like standing around waiting for a song to end. I looked at it like curating a show and being ahead of what is playing and being very ready for what's next. It was a rythm and a vibe you don't get from automation. It was like playing an instrument.
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The DJ typically doesn't do show curation. That's done by the music scheduler. When they do VT, they can see what's ahead. With some VT you can hear the last few notes of the song, so you know the tempo.

Funny that you bring up the music comparison, because a lot of songs are pieced together in the studio rather than recorded in real time. So music has it's own version of VT. They do pick-ups and drop-ins all the time. They used to do physical edits in the tape, and now it's all digital.
 
TheBigA said:
The DJ typically doesn't do show curation. That's done by the music scheduler. When they do VT, they can see what's ahead. With some VT you can hear the last few notes of the song, so you know the tempo.

Funny that you bring up the music comparison, because a lot of songs are pieced together in the studio rather than recorded in real time. So music has it's own version of VT. They do pick-ups and drop-ins all the time. They used to do physical edits in the tape, and now it's all digital.
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None of that is lost on me. I worked in this market for years in music/rock/alt radio. Your live talk breaks hit different than pre recorded breaks. That's the curation part. Hosting the show live is generally the preferred approach from the DJ's I know.
 
ex radio pimp said:
Hosting the show live is generally the preferred approach from the DJ's I know.
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The music DJs I know want to be at shows at night, seeing live music, especially in a place like Boston where there are concerts every night. That way they can talk about it the next day. That's what I'm doing, and I look around me, and I can see people who I know pre-taped their night shift so they could be there. Being isolated in a radio station at night deprives you of the kind of material you need to be an informed person on the radio. Its important to live the lifestyle.
 
TheBigA said:
The music DJs I know want to be at shows at night, seeing live music, especially in a place like Boston where there are concerts every night. That way they can talk about it the next day. That's what I'm doing, and I look around me, and I can see people who I know pre-taped their night shift so they could be there. Being isolated in a radio station at night deprives you of the kind of material you need to be an informed person on the radio. Its important to live the lifestyle.
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There is little on-air DJ talk about local nighttime live music on a station like WZLX anymore unless it’s talking about a major nationally proven or classic legacy act in a major venue booked, promoted, or owned by a paying sponsor, such as the national entertainment near-monopoly Live Nation (a “spinoff” of Clear Channel, formerly its “Entertainment” division, just as iHeart was formerly Clear Channel’s Broadcasting division).
Live Nation now owns or exclusively books most major music venues around greater Boston, as they now do in most major USA markets.

DJ talk about local and/or up-and-coming bands playing in smaller local venues simply for local interest without paid sponsorship is relegated to non-commercial college and community stations nowadays, at least here in Boston, and I’d speculate in most major markets lately.
 
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TheBigA said:
That's because it's a classic hits station.
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Classic rock actually, but there are no longer any commercial current rock stations in Boston (except perhaps some of the "softer" stuff on AAA station WXRV "The River" Haverhill MA), so DJ talk about local and/or up-and-coming rock bands playing in smaller local Boston area venues for local interest without paid sponsorship is relegated to non-commercial college and community stations nowadays, at least here in Boston.

Some Boston commercial radio DJ's may be out at night seeing local current new and up-and-coming bands in smaller local venues, but they're not talking about them on-air.
 
Eli Polonsky said:
Some Boston commercial radio DJ's may be out at night seeing local current new and up-and-coming bands in smaller local venues, but they're not talking about them on-air.
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What I said was that the DJs I know do that. Whether they do or not is no reason to compel someone to ignore existing and accepted technology that allows DJs to work normal hours. We all use the technology that's available now.
 
No music today: not that I expected anything. In real time time Fred was being a critic of Rich's plan to get back his electronic address content, which the former place claims they own even if it was personal. Fred accused him of trying to buy ratings. Surprise.
 
QED said:
No music today: not that I expected anything. In real time time Fred was being a critic of Rich's plan to get back his electronic address content, which the former place claims they own even if it was personal. Fred accused him of trying to buy ratings. Surprise.
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According to an article in The BGlobe over the weekend, music will not be played on Rich's show.
 
nowradioguy said:
According to an article in The BGlobe over the weekend, music will not be played on Rich's show.
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The big winner here will be Beasley. Not with WBZ, that'll probably lose a few points. But WROR, that will be #1 next month.

Looking at this from a broader view, iHeart is starting to turn its classic rock stations into semi-sports stations. Look at WAXQ in NYC adding Jets football. Look at WBIG in DC that has the Commanders. They want the Patriots, and they might get them on WZLX.
 
He said he will donate $10,000 to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute when the number of followers on his new X.com account, @heyrichhey, matches the 150,000 he had on the “Toucher and Rich” account.

It’s going to be fascinating going forward to discover how Shertenlieb’s show fares ratings-wise compared with “Toucher and Hardy” and WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Show.”Boston.com
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"I’m honestly not sure what to expect."
 
TheBigA said:
The music DJs I know want to be at shows at night, seeing live music, especially in a place like Boston where there are concerts every night. That way they can talk about it the next day. That's what I'm doing, and I look around me, and I can see people who I know pre-taped their night shift so they could be there. Being isolated in a radio station at night deprives you of the kind of material you need to be an informed person on the radio. Its important to live the lifestyle.
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Yet they loved their jobs back when they couldn't. Live radio is better radio.
 
ex radio pimp said:
Yet they loved their jobs back when they couldn't. Live radio is better radio.
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I'll say the same thing I said before: Whether they do or not is no reason to compel someone to ignore existing and accepted technology that allows DJs to work normal hours. We all use the technology that's available now.

You're using the technology that's available to you right here now, yet denying that same right to people in radio. I'm here to say that live radio when done poorly is NOT better radio. Conversely, recorded radio when done well is better radio. The goal should be to do better radio, regardless of whether it's live or not. That shouldn't be determining the quality of the work.
 


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