Could Radio Disney “save” AM?

[Silkie]

Re: Could Radio Disney “save” AM?

Plenty of good AM radio in NJ.  Love WMID, but it isn't a Disney station.  Some secretary at another station uses their instrumentals for her background music to try to sound more professional.  It doesn't work, because professional is as professional does - and impersonation is not professionalism; it is merely flattery to increase the ratings of the AM station. We had both stations on simultaneously the other day online. The secretary who has mic duty as other duties as assigned apparently has been stealing other stations' material for quite some time.

 

[butlerguy03]

WRDZ 98.3 is a Class A station licensed to Plainfield that transmits about 15 miles west of downtown Indy. Whether that can be considered "full market" is debatable since it's so far west. How's the signal in the Carmel area or the far-north and NW sides of the city?

In my family vehicle (2010 Toyota) I listen clearly without any noise on I-70 east of Indy at the Mt. Comfort exit, and just east of Noblesville on SR-38. Good signal most times. For what it's worth, many local ads mostly geared at adults (jewelry, real estate). I've spotted billboards on I-465 eastskde near US-52 and one on I-69 near 96th street. If I'm not mistaken, they feature an African-American tween (maybe Willow Smith?).

 

[semoochie]

"WRDZ 98.3 is a Class A station licensed to Plainfield that transmits about 15 miles west of downtown Indy." It sounds like a suburban station so that's not quite the same thing that I imagined. It's still a poor choice but I don't see the value crashing down from it.

 

[congsec51]

Nothing can save AM. It is almost as obsolete as a manual typewriter. Like a manual typewriter, there will always be a few around and even a few people who use them. Why Disney wastes money broadcasting on the AM band is a mystery to me. They will catch on soon if not already. Heck the internet is now chipping away at FM. (Pandora anyone?) My Droid X phone can stream radio stations from all over the world with better audio quality. All that AM - FM hardware, transmitters, antennas, ect will no longer be necessary. Waste of electricity.

 

[secondchoice]

Nothing can save AM. My Droid X phone can stream radio stations from all over the world with better audio quality. All that AM - FM hardware, transmitters, antennas, ect will no longer be necessary. Waste of electricity.

Radio was supposed to die in the 1950’s when TV came along. I was kind of thinking the PDA/ IPOD / smart cell phone would be a serious issue for on the air radio’s future until AT&T and Verizon (the two biggies in the cell business) both did away with unlimited data packages. Now listening to your favorite audio stream will count against your data package and is not “free”. Ask any record company employee if most of the people under 30 will pay for their music and the answer will (expletive) NO! On 06-19-11 www.**************** (sorry I can’t find the link on that hard to navigate site, but we have a copy of the whole report at work) had a story about a Broadcast Architecture study about formats and listener satisfaction (ages 25 thru 54). The last paragraph stated that 73% of younger people will “even” listen to AM to get their unavailable format “fix”.

 

[secondchoice]

Here is the link:

http://news.****************/cgi-bin/rol.exe/headline_id=b12975

 

[triadradionewsman]

Nothing can save AM. My Droid X phone can stream radio stations from all over the world with better audio quality. All that AM - FM hardware, transmitters, antennas, ect will no longer be necessary. Waste of electricity.

Radio was supposed to die in the 1950’s when TV came along. I was kind of thinking the PDA/ IPOD / smart cell phone would be a serious issue for on the air radio’s future until AT&T and Verizon (the two biggies in the cell business) both did away with unlimited data packages. Now listening to your favorite audio stream will count against your data package and is not “free”. Ask any record company employee if most of the people under 30 will pay for their music and the answer will (expletive) NO! On 06-19-11 www.**************** (sorry I can’t find the link on that hard to navigate site, but we have a copy of the whole report at work) had a story about a Broadcast Architecture study about formats and listener satisfaction (ages 25 thru 54). The last paragraph stated that 73% of younger people will “even” listen to AM to get their unavailable format “fix”.

I think modern day radio is doing a fine job of killing itself these days. Last night (6/28/11) here in the Triad of North Carolina we had severe thunderstorm warnings, flash flood watches, etc. I had to be out running errands and was trying to find weather info on my car radio and to my dismay, but not to my surprise, there wasn't any station with any. I don't think there was a station with anyone "live" on the air. If I had been at home local the TV stations would have kept me updated with at least a crawler at the bottom of the screen. There was Delia with her sweet, mushy, compassionate, irritating wisdom for all the single and divorced females in her audience. And there were the country, hip hop, rock, & God knows what else formats playing whatever it is they play, but there was no weather, at least while I was listening. I might as well have been listening to my i-pod, or satellite radio (if I could force myself to subscribe). I didn't attempt to listen to AM since severe lightning would have made it almost impossible. Local radio dropped the ball. I don't why people even listen any more, if I wanted music, the i-pod, mp-3 player or cd would give me exactly what I want. I think it may be time to call in hospice for AM and unless FM operators wake up, the death of FM may not be too far behind. I guess I'm off topic here but just needed to rant. I always enjoy the discussion.

 

[secondchoice]

You are correct about the unattended stations. The current corporate (and a lot of individuals too) owners who were stupid and paid too much for stations and claim they can not “afford” personnel have to go. If I was the “king” of the FCC, I would require some kind training of on the air “operators”. I not saying go back to the FCC tests, but each station, group, or cluster local control point (where the FCC looks at your EAS etc.) should have a person who came break in to the satellite or pc juke box feed and do emergency when in operation. If the station can not “afford” this then the station is not “viable” and needs to go away. If 1 to 5 AM the station "signs off" OK. A lot of stations signed off during the old EBS days and the Russians did not nuke us.

 

[TheBigA]

You are correct about the unattended stations. The current corporate (and a lot of individuals too) owners who were stupid and paid too much for stations and claim they can not “afford” personnel have to go. If I was the “king” of the FCC, I would require some kind training of on the air “operators”.

You're living in the stone age. Did you know most public service functions in this country operate un attended? Try calling the gas company on a weekend. You can't squeeze the toothpaste back in the tube. So forcing stations or owners to have 24/7 live bodies just ensures they will all go out of business. And I mean ALL of them, not just a few. That's what happened to the passenger rail system after over-regulation. All the big companies shut down, and now we have Amtrak. Is that what you want radio to become?

 

[Nostalgia]

I not saying go back to the FCC tests, but each station, group, or cluster local control point (where the FCC looks at your EAS etc.) should have a person who came break in to the satellite or pc juke box feed and do emergency when in operation.

Its called an EAS and it does what it is told to do. I tell mine to break in immediately with any NWS tornado, hurricane, or severe weather watch or warning in addition to the end of the world stuff. Some stations are afraid to break into the latest Britany Spears song to tell people their house is about to blown down! So please, dont lump all radio stations owners, especially us AM station owners, who are doing our best to serve our communties as best we can while balancing the realities of the checkbook.

Hey mr triadradionewsman, you should have tried that little button on the radio that says AM, perhaps you would have found a small, "local" AM station pushing through the static with NOAA weather alerts. It was good enough for your parents before FM was even a gleam in the eye. And mr secondchance, you would have us just sign off?! Perhaps a waste of our natural resources keeping my transmitters running 24/7? Have you ever worked at anything other than a 9-5? We have industry and a prison in our listening area that runs 24/7. My little EAS/DJ lets them know about bad weather at 3am, and hopefully keeps them entertained the rest of the time! And on a more local level (while I am ranting) I have given the local fire chiefs my cell phone number that should the unowhat hit the fan they can call me anytime and we can get the word out. Think that train disaster in the Dakotas some time ago. Radio is not dead, AM radio is not dead! arrrrggggh. I need some rolaids................

 

[bossbill]

One thing I have noticed in this age of instant gratification is that when a person turns on the radio and hears a song playing, he(she) then often makes the assumption that there is no information available. We are so used to cable TV channels staying with a story forever that we expect the radio station to interrupt all programming, and keep repeating over and over "We have a high wind warning... repeating... we have a high wind warning" etc.

The typical phone call we receive is "do you know anything about the ...?". Our normal response is "Only what we've been broadcasting on the air", and we go on to give them a brief update and suggest they turn on their radio. More often than not, their response is "Well, I've been listening and haven't heard it", in spite of the fact that we may have been airing updated information every 10-15 minutes for several hours.

As are most, our stations are unattended at night. We prefer that to being off the air. EAS alerts do what they are supposed to do... they interrupt the programming and tell the listener in real time that there is that "high wind warning". From that point the local radio station decides whether to offer more coverage.

We had a tsunami warning a couple of years ago. Within 10 minutes we had most of our staff at the studios, ready to provide more information. As it turns out, the warning was cancelled, and we of course aired that as well. But we didn't go into the 24/7 mode that the cable channels do, since there wasn't much more to say, except that there was no more warning.

Cable TV channels have the advantage of being able to run their infomercial, or the 3rd rerun of Bill O'Reilly, and use the crawl at the same time.

 

[secondchoice]

And mr secondchance, you would have us just sign off?! Perhaps a waste of our natural resources keeping my transmitters running 24/7? Have you ever worked at anything other than a 9-5?

In radio I have worked 5 AM – 10 AM which really was 430 AM to turn on the FM filaments and clear the AP, for the 5AM news , and try to remember to turn on the AM filaments at 5:30 AM for a smooth 6am PSA start, Midday’s, PM drive and 12midnight-6 AM. The only shift I have never been scheduled to work is 6PM till midnight.

Currently, from 5pm till 11pm, I cover the Asian Stock Options Desk (actually there is no desk it is a software application) that IM’s and text messages me if something: (Equities which the small firm I work for has a position in) moves more than 3%. I also research a several media stocks (not radio except CBS).

We have industry and a prison in our listening area that runs 24/7. My little EAS/DJ lets them know about bad weather at 3am, and hopefully keeps them entertained the rest of the time!
And on a more local level (while I am ranting) I have given the local fire chiefs my cell phone number that should the unowhat hit the fan they can call me anytime and we can get the word out. Think that train disaster in the Dakotas some time ago. Radio is not dead, AM radio is not dead! arrrrggggh. I need some rolaids................

You station might be the exception but in my town there is a Gospel 1KW station that does not have an “on air staff”. No local news, not even an obituary! This winter the preacher at my church made the announcement to watch Channel 2 to see if we were having Church when it snows because and this is a quote “the local stations are on automatic”. The local school system has a phone call out system because the Superintendant could not get the school closing announcement on a local radio station a couple of years ago. Now for school closings parents are told to watch the Atlanta TV stations.

During the tornados (which tore up the west end of the county thankfully nobody died like in other areas of GA, Al, and TN) this spring except for 3 EAS announcements no mention of the roads blocked and the other damage. These conditions were predicted several days in advance you think somebody would be “handy” if something happened. Several of the Atlanta radio stations also missed the boat. I have work a satellite feed station and many evenings I have had to change the forecast when there was a tornado watch or warning.

Maybe you are selling a couple commercials at night but if you were not, would you really want to run up your electric bill?

Radio is not dead, AM radio is not dead! arrrrggggh. I need some rolaids................

I started this tread, and still contend that too many the industry is writing off AM and they are making a mistake.

 

[GeneSavage]

From http://news.****************/cgi-bin/rol.exe/headline_id=b12975:

"...Surprisingly, 74% said that they would be willing to listen to one of these "unavailable formats" if it was only available on AM. Even 73% of younger respondents indicated a willingness to listen on AM. (06-09-11) ..."

Huh... well how do you like that! Provide quality, unique content, & people will listen.

Who ever heard of such nonsense???

 

[davideduardo]

"...Surprisingly, 74% said that they would be willing to listen to one of these "unavailable formats" if it was only available on AM. Even 73% of younger respondents indicated a willingness to listen on AM. (06-09-11) ..."

Huh... well how do you like that! Provide quality, unique content, & people will listen.

Consumers... of anything... can not visualize the future. So they say they would try all kinds of products that in truth they will not consume.

In open ended radio research, respondents say that they want more educational shows. Yet they do not listen to anything already on the radio like that. It's posturing. Back when radio research was door to door coincidental, I accompanied a field crew. Down the block, we could hear the "lowest class" station in the market blasting from one house, yet when the woman at the house was asked what station was tuned in, she named the classical music station. It made her feel good to say that.

Most people under 50 have no habit of using AM, don't like its sound because they never got used to it, and in most markets only a couple of AMs have decent coverage anyway. The few good signal will continue to serve a mostly aging audience, the rest can sell time or serve a niche such as foreign language speakers. But mass appeal music will not happen on AM.

 

[GeneSavage]

...the rest can... ...serve a niche...

We're in agreement, David, and agreement with the article. It doesn't say that an AM top 40 can beat the local 100,000 watt heritage top 40, or that becoming the 4th country station, on AM, when the other three are on FM, is a smart move.

Let me quote a little earlier in the article:

65% of adults indicated that they were pleased with the format options available. Nearly two-thirds said that they were satisfied in general with what they get from radio. The remaining 35% listed a variety of suggestions.

Most listeners consume 'missing' formats via personal music collection. In order to hear these "unavailable formats," most people reported that they are utilizing their personal music collection (CDs, MP3/iPod). However, with younger demos, many are turning to services like Pandora and other audio streaming sites.

Only 25% acknowledged that they go to satellite radio to hear a format that is not currently on the radio dial in their city.

If an "unavailable format" became available on the radio, 54% indicated that this station could "definitely become" a favorite choice for them. Additionally, 32% said that this station could "probably become" a favorite choice.

So, you say "niche," they say "unavailable format." Potayto, potahto. It's not about taking on a pre-existing format, but it IS about keeping AM viable by filling in the niche audiences not currently reached by your town's FMs.

Sadly, many AMs give up and either run talk, or satellite AC. Both are so over-saturated in most markets, I have to wonder how they think they have a chance!

I don't think we disagree on this point as much as you may think we do.