Good points regarding Q95's music. Estreeter is dead on.
Q95 has always played the tracks they're now calling "deep tracks" they just seem to be showcasing them with imaging and jock talk. Just to keep the facts straight...Q95 has been on air for 30 years (Feb 14, 1978). Bob & Tom on 25 years (March 7, 1983).
Remember...as Estreeter noted, to be a success in this MASS medium, one must please the masses. If you're reading this board, you are NOT counted among the masses...you/we are the fringe, and it's enjoyable out here on the edge, isn't it?
We're the fringe music lovers, the fringe radio junkies/programmers/part-timers/veterans of the biz, the fringe first adaptors, etc. We are NOT Joe Sixpack...and that's all cool. This board exists precisely for those of us slightly out of step (usually ahead) of the masses. Just remember what commercial radio was meant to accomplish: attract, and keep, the widest, most well qualified audience to sell to advertisers at the highest rate the market will allow in order to make the most money possible, while serving the licensed community. Anything less, in commercial radio, is just a greater or lesser degree of failure.
Yes, we'd all love radio stations to be more of what we personally enjoy, but that would defeat the purpose of this mass-appeal medium wouldn’t it? I know, some say that's why iPods and SatRadio will do well...however, we're forgetting something very important, we're programming to people...people who succumb, by definition, to human nature...people want to be included in a community…in the community and want to be in the know about where they live. (ummm do I smell local radio with it’s emphasis on the community, the local issues and idiosyncrasies of the market?) Nothing, I repeat NOTHING is more inclusive than free, commercial radio. There has never been a more pervasive, penetrating, omnipresent mass medium than radio in history. Think about that. Think about what we’ve done, what we do and what we take for granted. Radio is everywhere...it's alive, it's well. Yes, there are obstacles…many created by those of us in this business, but they will be side-stepped, radio will find a way to continue forward just like it did when technology changed before, and when TV came along , then cable, then satellite TV, satellite radio, cassettes, 8-tracks, CD’s and now iPods.
Know your audience, know your medium, unlearn some “radio knowledge” you’ve clogged your brain with, think like a regular Joe Sixpack, consume life from the fringe, observe it all, then dispense to the masses in a manner they can accept and understand and then relax and reap the success.
From the fringe, digging the mass appeal stuff but rockin' long forgotten sounds...Guru out!
