Computers Killed DJ's

[Deeman1710]

Maybe the the name DJ should be RJ today, Robot Jock. When I was a DJ I had the freedom to play what I wanted not what the computer had lined up for me that logs the music you play, thats automatically generated from the stations library. In order to have a good show the DJ must be able to pick the music that flows from the music provided, remember carts and records? Reading liners and only having a certain amount of time to talk in a break is not how you do radio. Terrestial radio is killing itself today. Why even listen to music stations, most are all voice tracked with people who think they are Disc Jockeys and have no clue on how to be a real one. Sure there are still some good DJ's out there but they are limited to there real talent because they must follow the format or have to do traffic and weather every ten minutes. It's called cluster and ruins the show. Let the DJ read the traffic and weather once in a while instead of someone cramming it all at you in 30 secs. Listen to radio airchecks from the 60's and 70's. Try listening WABC airchecks. Rick Sklar let his jocks express there own personality on the air. Real radio. Other old examples pending on the stations format to listen to are CKLW, WNEW AM/FM, WLS, WKBW.
A real DJ must keep his/her listeners entertained not bored. There will never be another Dan Ingram, Ron Lundy or George Michael or even Max Kinkel. Some examples are on my website. Listen to WABC Remembering The Jocks. It's a aircheck from a former WABC engineer friend right of the studio air monitor Click on Tony's Radio Friends to hear it. Maybe you'll learn something from it. After that click on Airchecks. Listen to G55 Brad Pierce then Dick Biondi. Next click on Max Kinkel for a real treat on creative radio which gave him the number 1 spot overnights in NY radio. Have fun with the rest of the website. I wrote this post because 2 of my young radio collegues lost there jobs recently because they picked music from the computer that made more sense to play then the order it was in. How are they supposed to learn to be a DJ if the computer rules. Anyway I'm happy to say that one of them moved on to a major market and the other one still does a local Doo Wop show with freedom to play what he wants. I'm not here to affend anyones broadcast company or station because I happen to work for one of the big ones or for that matter even promote my website If you don't know the URL just email me and I'll send it to you so you can listen to the airchecks.

 

[bigtom101]

Unfortunately, PPM has made DJ's...errr "air personalities" lives living hell, along with their PD's. Some stations are doing great with it and have personality (WCBS-FM)...others not so much.

Nice clips Deeman...

 

[InSearchOfGear]

Maybe the the name DJ should be RJ today, Robot Jock. When I was a DJ I had the freedom to play what I wanted not what the computer had lined up for me that logs the music you play, thats automatically generated from the stations library. In order to have a good show the DJ must be able to pick the music that flows from the music provided, remember carts and records? Reading liners and only having a certain amount of time to talk in a break is not how you do radio. Terrestial radio is killing itself today. Why even listen to music stations, most are all voice tracked with people who think they are Disc Jockeys and have no clue on how to be a real one. Sure there are still some good DJ's out there but they are limited to there real talent because they must follow the format or have to do traffic and weather every ten minutes. It's called cluster and ruins the show. Let the DJ read the traffic and weather once in a while instead of someone cramming it all at you in 30 secs. Listen to radio airchecks from the 60's and 70's. Try listening WABC airchecks. Rick Sklar let his jocks express there own personality on the air. Real radio. Other old examples pending on the stations format to listen to are CKLW, WNEW AM/FM, WLS, WKBW.
A real DJ must keep his/her listeners entertained not bored. There will never be another Dan Ingram, Ron Lundy or George Michael or even Max Kinkel. Some examples are on my website. Listen to WABC Remembering The Jocks. It's a aircheck from a former WABC engineer friend right of the studio air monitor Click on Tony's Radio Friends to hear it. Maybe you'll learn something from it. After that click on Airchecks. Listen to G55 Brad Pierce then Dick Biondi. Next click on Max Kinkel for a real treat on creative radio which gave him the number 1 spot overnights in NY radio. Have fun with the rest of the website. I wrote this post because 2 of my young radio collegues lost there jobs recently because they picked music from the computer that made more sense to play then the order it was in. How are they supposed to learn to be a DJ if the computer rules. Anyway I'm happy to say that one of them moved on to a major market and the other one still does a local Doo Wop show with freedom to play what he wants. I'm not here to affend anyones broadcast company or station because I happen to work for one of the big ones or for that matter even promote my website If you don't know the URL just email me and I'll send it to you so you can listen to the airchecks.

It's not that I take issue with the spirit of your post, but you're talking about a different era, before research, and before format fragmentation. Having a jock pick his own music, relying on nothing more than his own personal tastes, would be a daily missed opportunity to play a focused hits playlist. As a current day jock, I would never want the responsibility and the accountability that comes with it when ratings tank because of poor, uninformed choices on my part. If whomever is doing the music knows how to do their job correctly, there will be hits and there will be flow, or THEY will be held accountable. I do believe that jocks should be educated in the process, so on the occasion they have a blatant error staring them in the face on their music log, they'll be in a position to make a quick fix and avoid spending half an hour trying to track someone down with the authority to make the fix for them. No doubt that back in the day your PD did take the time to educate you in the process, which would mean you were not in fact relying on your own personal perspective in choosing music.

 

[nd2023]

Even back then, the PD would tell the jocks to play x currents per hour, x recurrents per hour, x golds per hour, all at certain times. The jock could choose which ones, but there weren't that many choices for currents and recurrents. The jocks wouldn't have played the Beatles several times an hour on their own accord at the beginning of the British Invasion.

If you want to hear DJs hand pick the music, check out the college stations.

 

[Tom Wells]

But why is FOCUSED held as some kind of glorious ideal for a format?
Variety is is exactly the opposite, it is deliberately and carefully diffused in a way that permits you to play a certain song from certain artist
that would otherwise have nothing that fits your idea of your "format".
It widens the appeal of the product to more than just a few specific demographics.
Except that there's no way to measure variety anymore than you can just open up the dining room in your house and start selling
chicken dinners to people. They can't imagine a chicken dinner that did not come from our huge prepackaged food marketing and delivery system. It just isn't done the other way anymore, and it CANNOT be done anymore than you can open a watch shop
in the middle of nowhere, even on Main St. Not anymore, not with mega-shopping redefining what a business can be.
The less and less I've heard of individual input into radio music choices, beginning in the mid sixties led to where we are now.
It was the first of many reasons why I decided I was staying out of radio as much as I'd like to go into it, and this was by the early 70's.
Then engineering requirements and compliance went out the window with the First ticket, assuring I wouldn't work in radio in any way.
I still love running into the odd stations out there where you can hear the choices of one or a few individuals who truly love music.
Doesn't happen as much anymore but I have heard them.
The very best songs for me are when it's an oh wow for the jock and me, but I've never heard it before. That defines good music for me.
It's not as difficult as it's made out to be, but you have to believe first that not everybody was "born with" musical blinders.
The radio industry not only believes it, they nurture and sustain the strange territorial habit soley for profit, because other aspects are incidental today. If the most desirable demo began demanding Continuous French Horn music, they'd have it on the sat in a month.
But not variety and serendipity. That would be too daring. Too scary. Instead, listen to this classic hit you've heard so many times here
on ----, focus groups show us you still love it.

 

[oasisrulz]

I kinda like it better this way...I remember when the jock was in control many titles were to their taste not mine. Especially in the case of oldie formats if you had a soul jock all you would hear is motown, soul and r&b, no british or any other type music, it would be like they were programming in their house for themselves. PGR was that kinda station soul jocks in control no rock cuts...VLT is like that, the morning and mid-day hosts are soul men and you har mostly soul, Fleetwood is a variety jock and plays everything, a jock like him can work. So in a nutshell, if the jock loves soul, you loose out if you like other type oldies or music and this goes for any other format that is variety oriented...excluding Rap, Country, Rock and Classical they have a niche format but the mass appeal stations if left to the jock will be in their control and not want I want to hear....

 

[bigtom101]

If whomever is doing the music knows how to do their job correctly, there will be hits and there will be flow, or THEY will be held accountable. I do believe that jocks should be educated in the process, so on the occasion they have a blatant error staring them in the face on their music log, they'll be in a position to make a quick fix and avoid spending half an hour trying to track someone down with the authority to make the fix for them. No doubt that back in the day your PD did take the time to educate you in the process, which would mean you were not in fact relying on your own personal perspective in choosing music.

The problem is that NONE of this is happening with corporate radio. Jocks are not told about the music philosophy, and play a game of Russian roulette whenever things don't time out correctly and try to fix it. Pick that 90's song to dump instead of the 80's and run the risk of pissing off the consultant. Or if they swap a song to shave some time? Piss off the consultant. Or...don't do anything, run late, and piss off management since that the stopset didn't start at the right time and it threw the PPM's off because they fell in the WRONG quarter hour. All for the same amount per hour you can make pumping gas or working at Wendys - with almost no thinking required.

Do I want to go back to the days of free-form radio? Not really - but I would like to have some flexibility to adjust the log incase things don't time out right. And maybe make the shift a bit more my own - within the format of course.

Back off my soapbox...

 

[Seltzer]

A tight focused list in any format wins. Been that way for years and no reason to believe that'll change any time soon.
The trick is in the scheduling. There is an art to how songs rotate to create the perception of "variety."

When people complain about a station playing the same songs, upon review, the case usually is too many songs in rotation that the audience doesn't like. The hits aren't getting played enough in this case.

 

[hubcity]

Computers are tools. They can be used in place of DJs, and they can be used to enable them, just like you can use a hammer to smash a window or to build a house.

 

[YEKIMI]

Back in the early 80s the playlists were starting to be handed down from on high either from the PD, the MD or some faceless honcho at corporate headquarters. The station I was at, they knew what a soul killer that could be for a DJ, so they let us pick out a song an hour that we personally wanted to play [as long as it fit the format or didn't stray too far from it] and one of those could be an oldies song [say from the 50s or 60s]. If we came across a song that we liked and it fit the format of the station and it wasn't on the playlist we could pass it along to the PD and he would listen to it and decide whether to add it or not, headquarters be damned. Sometimes he'd pass it up to the big shots and say "hey, we should add this to all our stations" Local artists, we played them also. Nowadays, forget it. Do what corporate says, punch that button to play what they say and if the local listeners don't like it, tough s**t. Deviate even one song from what's been dictated and you're out on your butt.

 

[gr8oldies]

Find it interesting that you would mention "jocks picking their own music" and give several examples of stations where jocks definately did not pick their own music, nor were they able to do long stream-of-consciousness talk breaks. All the calls to "play unfamiliar" on this board will never translate into a format. People, even who mix every possible genre into their IPod (fewer than you think) want what they want at the precise moment they want it. They don't want to wait 4 hours for everyone else's oh wow songs to finish until the station gets to theirs.
Computer selection programs are a tool and nothing more..that's why you edit the logs or should. A PC is also easier on the cuticles than file cards

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Back in the early 80s the playlists were starting to be handed down from on high either from the PD, the MD or some faceless honcho at corporate headquarters.

I could have sworn that was started sometime just before 1960.

 

[nd2023]

I think the jock should at least be allowed to choose 1 out of every 5 songs from the station's music library, either to fulfill a listener request or their own taste. It would give each jock a "flavor" on the station, yet keep to the format. And it would also make the listeners happy to hear their request. Pulse 87 was the only station that played listener requests, even if I requested a gold.

 

[gr8oldies]

It's about building and keeping an audience, not the jock's self-expression.

 

[bigtom101]

It's about building and keeping an audience, not the jock's self-expression.

That it is - but when a jock is "engaged", whether it's running their own board and not letting "Auto" do the segs, talking to the audience on the request line (NOT necessarily airing the calls), or maybe picking one song per hour off of a approved list of tunes, it adds that x factor that can keep an audience engaged and not merely leave them as a drive by listener.

Should a A/C station be like WNEW-FM from the 70's? No, but that "x" factor can make the difference for a suburban station that is trying to stand out from Lite, Fresh, or B. A friend of mine works for a suburban NY station that bans talking down the backside of a record, and tells you what liner to read when. So if you have a 28 second ramp, all you can say is "Frequency Call Letters" if the long says so.

All of this takes having good competent jocks and giving them useful direction. Something many PD's simply don't have time for these days with running multiple stations, and trying not to end up on the wrong end of a budget cut.

 

[Dancerev889]

I think the jock should at least be allowed to choose 1 out of every 5 songs from the station's music library, either to fulfill a listener request or their own taste. It would give each jock a "flavor" on the station, yet keep to the format. And it would also make the listeners happy to hear their request. Pulse 87 was the only station that played listener requests, even if I requested a gold.

Pulse isnt the only station that plays requests. The music isnt what is supposed to bring a DJ's flavor to the table, its the DJ's personality. Just because a PD is picking music doesnt mean a DJ cant put his or her stamp on the station. The problem is that the bigger companies don't allow DJ's to have a presence on the air.

 

[instigator]

Amen!! So many stations are sharing music in there playlists with two to four stations in the same market. The dj should be allowed to do more with his personality to bring his energy to the station...Seriously how entertaining can u be talking over a 5 second intro??

 

[bigtom101]

Amen!! So many stations are sharing music in there playlists with two to four stations in the same market. The dj should be allowed to do more with his personality to bring his energy to the station...Seriously how entertaining can u be talking over a 5 second intro??

You can be entertaining over a 5 second intro, or even a cold intro. How do you think us oldies jocks do it into "Good Lovin" (no pun intended)? Drake tried to take the waste and noise out of Top 40, and bring it back to basics. And he did it by forcing the jocks to have some discipline about when and how long they were on the mic to keep things moving. There is a difference between "be entertaining over song intros" and "read 'x' liner at 'y' point in the log." One is freedom within a framework, the other is a dictatorship. Of course, programmers that took Drake to the extreme missed the point, and just looked for a way to take discretion away from jocks.

Again...hire talented and driven people, give them the game plan, and let them execute it. Correct them when they may do something that isn't right to your ears, but educate them as to the 'why.'

 

[Dancerev889]

Amen!! So many stations are sharing music in there playlists with two to four stations in the same market. The dj should be allowed to do more with his personality to bring his energy to the station...Seriously how entertaining can u be talking over a 5 second intro??

You can be entertaining over a 5 second intro, or even a cold intro. How do you think us oldies jocks do it into "Good Lovin" (no pun intended)? Drake tried to take the waste and noise out of Top 40, and bring it back to basics. And he did it by forcing the jocks to have some discipline about when and how long they were on the mic to keep things moving. There is a difference between "be entertaining over song intros" and "read 'x' liner at 'y' point in the log." One is freedom within a framework, the other is a dictatorship. Of course, programmers that took Drake to the extreme missed the point, and just looked for a way to take discretion away from jocks.

Again...hire talented and driven people, give them the game plan, and let them execute it. Correct them when they may do something that isn't right to your ears, but educate them as to the 'why.'

Well put.

 

[nd2023]

I think the jock should at least be allowed to choose 1 out of every 5 songs from the station's music library, either to fulfill a listener request or their own taste. It would give each jock a "flavor" on the station, yet keep to the format. And it would also make the listeners happy to hear their request. Pulse 87 was the only station that played listener requests, even if I requested a gold.

Pulse isnt the only station that plays requests. The music isnt what is supposed to bring a DJ's flavor to the table, its the DJ's personality. Just because a PD is picking music doesnt mean a DJ cant put his or her stamp on the station. The problem is that the bigger companies don't allow DJ's to have a presence on the air.

That's true, Pulse and your station and other college stations are the only ones that seem to play requests for stuff that aren't in power or heavy rotation. And for Z's case, I do hear some subtle differences in the (dance) music selection depending who's on. It is nice to hear DJs express their personality on the air. The best jocks can sound great and express their personality even if they don't even like the music their station is playing, like an old jock on a CHR station or a young jock on an oldies station.