Do You Really Care About Radio?

[JEREMIAH]

There is one instance I know of where kids identified with older peple. When Boris Karloff was alive the neighborhood kids would ring his bell on Halloween asking him to go trick or treating with them.


Jerry Gordon

 

[landtuna]

There is one instance I know of where kids identified with older peple. When Boris Karloff was alive the neighborhood kids would ring his bell on Halloween asking him to go trick or treating with them.


Jerry Gordon

That's neat. Just this morning the morning guy on Fox10 Phoenix was telling a story and mentioned Boris Karloff and the 30-something co-host had no idea who he was.

 

[TheRover]

I don't now, nor have I ever, responded to commercials. Even as a young adult. If I want to buy something I go research it and decide on the specific product. Research does not include any advertising.

I do not recall, being influenced by any advertising on the FM Album Rock stations, at any age, with the exception of of a music album, or a concert being advertised.

As long as advertisers are willing to pay music stations to only target a certain "young" demo, then us older folks that love album rock, are not economically viable, not becuase of the stations, but becuase of the advertisers that buy time on the stations.

When a stations tells you that that they're to serve you, and that they care about you, well, that's only a half-truth. Unless they're a non-profit, they they are there to serve themselves, by serving the advertisers.

But it's nice to believe that someone or some station cares about you. The lonely listeners want to believe, and many of them do.

Selling a Dream.

 

[TheRover]

That's changing rapidly. The only worry is the cost of your data plan for your smartphone.

The very best time to get a phone deal is from Thanksgiving to Christmas. Amazing '2 phones for the price of one' kind of deals.

I finally got a smartphone, with Metro PCS, so there's no contract, and it has a fixed fee. I think a 4G smart phone plan for around $30 a month is very doable in my budget. At work, there's public wi-fi. And I have a Clear wi-fi set up at home. I listen at work using a Bluetooth earpiece. It's all good.

I now stream radio through i-Heart and Tune In. I listened to a lot of Christmas music with the various 181.fm stations at 128k MP3. Sounds great with my Icon ERA Bluetooth.

I know about Pandora, and have listened to it on the home computer, but haven't used it for the phone. But, I find the smartphone a wonderful way to explore radio stations from all over.

 

[TheRover]

I can't believe that a DJ would necessarily think they were too old to be a radio performer at age 45. Especially after being awarded as "America's number one DJ". I remember seeing photos of DJ's in their later years and being amazed at how old they were but their voices didn't betray them.

I can see where it might freak a guy out to have his own young daughter calling him and requesting a song. That sounds as creepy as neighborhood kids asking a dad to hang out with them.

45 is and was pushing it for a Top 40 DJ.

Right, I remember thinking it was kind of creepy in 1976 for a 44 year old Casey Kasem to be hosting the American Top 40. I was only listening toa "Top 40" program, because Zeppelin's Presence album was #1 for awhile, so he had to play a track from the #1 LP, and I wanted to hear how he introed the song....

 

[TheRover]

Morning shows are very separate in the minds of listeners and in listener needs / wants. In the most basic tear-down, listeners want to wake up and know the world has not totally disappeared overnight... and morning shows provide, to one degree or another, that "warmth" that is required. By the time you get to 9 AM, listeners to music formats want just the opposite... music with nearly no talk.

When I was listening to KLBJ-FM in college, it was just the opposite for me. I wanted to wake up in the morning to only soothing music and a DJ talking in low hushed tones. Only by 9 or 10 am did I want to find out if the world had gone away, but really high noon was a better time for hard news, which I would get from the AM News/Talk station.

 

[LKellerIII]

Rover - I assume that the call letters KLBJ had something to do with Lyndon Baines Johnson, correct?

 

[davideduardo]

Rover - I assume that the call letters KLBJ had something to do with Lyndon Baines Johnson, correct?

Lady Bird Johnson... the company was in her name, IIRC.

 

[JEREMIAH]

RE: Stations don't really care about the audience, just their advertisers and the comment that most listeners would like to believe the stations care about them I was reminded of the story of how WCOL Columbus created a very scientific Top 40 format in the '50's. They didn't use this slogan when I was there many years later but in the beginning the words were "You have a friend...1230, the New WCOL."

Your friend, Jerry Gordon

 

[LKellerIII]

RE: Stations don't really care about the audience, just their advertisers and the comment that most listeners would like to believe the stations care about them I was reminded of the story of how WCOL Columbus created a very scientific Top 40 format in the '50's. They didn't use this slogan when I was there many years later but in the beginning the words were "You have a friend...1230, the New WCOL."

Your friend, Jerry Gordon

Later, it would have been "You've Got a Friend" - from the song (James Taylor,etc.) That was an over-used advertising slogan in the early 70s...I assume Carole King (the writer of the song) got royalties.

I remember a right-wing Los Angeles politician named Warren Dorn using that as his slogan - it was on billboards all over his District. Didn't work. He lost his seat to KABC-TV anchor Baxter Ward.