This was in the back in the 70's and I remember the tv crew interviewing the DJ on the spot with fire engines in the background.... he was a skinny little dude, glasses and a moustache (I think). Isn't it amazing what weird little tid bits we remember through the years? I can see me now, in the nursing home, not recognizing any of my family but remember furiously dialing a rotary phone trying to be the 100th caller to win $1000....
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FM100 - 40 years ago
- Thread starter AlbumOldies
- Start date
Scooter
Great hearing from you! You were and always will be the best!
Jon
Great hearing from you! You were and always will be the best!
Jon
L
littlebigradio
Guest
...skinny little dude, mustache, glasses.....that was Tivers!
S
scottwmro
Guest
Tenn Radio Boy said:
Tenn Radio Boy:
You are so right in your comments. I've preached on the Nashville Board the same thing. It is sad how many are "out of touch" with choices and technology, when it comes down to places to find thier favorite music, especially the age group that are 60 plus, bitching about today's radio. But what's so funny is they are smart enough to get on message boards like this and complain about it.
More options are in the works and will put terrestrial radio out to the pasture. AM is nothing but full of preachers and religion. You might as well say AM is dead and I own an AM station! FM is starting to sound like AM did about 1979.
The NRSC and the FCC would like us AM stations to cut our bandwidth down to nearly 2 KC on the high end, so AM audio will be nothing but telephone audio, worse than an old POTS line.
Generations or demos (15-30) are now at the point they say, screw radio, or I hear, what is AM? They have ipods, XM radio, music on thier cellphones that they can interface with their car stereo system or portable as they want to take it with them.
The days of the screaming Top 40 jocks are way over & have been gone. They will use FM to get traffic reports, weather, local news, etc. Once the NAB (which that organization is gettting weaker) gets out of the way, XM will provide that service.
Oh by the way, it's not just happening in the urban and metro areas, the rural area teens and young adults have already caught on to this as well.
Get with the plan folks, do you really believe your great grandfather thought the crystal radio would be here forever? I don't think so.
Let's get away from this 1950's/60's technology and mentality, get into the 21st century.
Interesting comments, Scott. One important thing to note: AM radio defaulted to news/talk/sports formats after music defected to FM. It was all they could do. But now, that news/talk/sports format has grown up, taken on a life of its own, and has matured and is now ready to take over FM radio. There are still some on the formats boards on this site who are lamenting this change. So AM defaulted to talk-based (non-music) formats, but FM is now being hijacked by them!
So, scottwmro, have I got this right? Because we were making it happen back in the day (as the late Harry Chapman said it) before you went to the party with your daddy and came home with your mommy:-- Rob Grayson, Jon Scott, Jack Parnell, Dennis Rogers, Greg Hamilton, George Klein, Mike Powell, Bill Dollar, The Big Moo-ha, Johnny Dark, Scott Shannon, Robert W Walker, et al, shouldn't be heard from or heard about on these boards?
Lighten up, podjo. Most of us recognize that our day has in fact come and gone, and that that's also, sadly, probably true for terrestrial radio
as anything other than traffic, emergency weather, "Don't pray, just send me your money" religion, and neo-con propaganda (already seen that the lefties just can't figure out how to make it work).
But there's room on the board for all of us, OK?
And it could be worse. Check Louisiana. It's about 95% people beating each other up on the board with their purses -- even the ones who don't carry purses. :
Lighten up, podjo. Most of us recognize that our day has in fact come and gone, and that that's also, sadly, probably true for terrestrial radio
as anything other than traffic, emergency weather, "Don't pray, just send me your money" religion, and neo-con propaganda (already seen that the lefties just can't figure out how to make it work). But there's room on the board for all of us, OK?
And it could be worse. Check Louisiana. It's about 95% people beating each other up on the board with their purses -- even the ones who don't carry purses. :
O
old man river
Guest
All I've got to say is....I'm 61 years old...got radio in my blood and am grateful to be on the air everyday....it's what i love to do...sure it's frustrating and i get angry a lot. But, when 3 pm rolls around and I put the control room in "Live Auto"...and take the phone off 'Voodoo" that is what it's all about ...for me, anyway. Sure there are problems...lots of 'em in radio today...but there are problems in almost all jobs today! I just wish there were more stations with more Live programming and more of the people who've been let go still on the air...they all deserve better treatment! Dennis Roges
To Scott WMRO
Here's one of the problems...you said
"You are so right in your comments. I've preached on the Nashville Board the same thing. It is sad how many are "out of touch"
_________________
Quit preaching...For those of us there in "the day",it was a lifetime experience and yes it will probably never be the same BUT I believe it is the WILD WEST out there and you better be panning.
Here's one of the problems...you said
"You are so right in your comments. I've preached on the Nashville Board the same thing. It is sad how many are "out of touch"
_________________
Quit preaching...For those of us there in "the day",it was a lifetime experience and yes it will probably never be the same BUT I believe it is the WILD WEST out there and you better be panning.
S
scottwmro
Guest
Memphis Jon Scott said:
The problem is some are living in the past, and you reframing from moving on.
As far as the past is concern, it's o.k. to revist the past, but hell, some folks on these boards want us to go back and re-live it. If you want to re-live the past, then throw away your Dell PC (or what ever you got) tell your ISP you're cutting them off, get you an old rotary dial phone, get you a B & W TV, and have at it.
The days of "live" local D.J's are almost gone. Voice Tracking has taken over. Of course, there are people that have taken this issue to the FCC, but economics has proven time and time over that small stations may last a few years this way, but the day comes the station sells and it goes to automation.
Yes, I own an AM station, but my income doesn't come out of the station. My main source of income comes from somewhere else, not in the radio industry. Someday, my AM station will be worth nothing, but the property will be, so I'll turn off the transmitter, take down the tower (that I'm paying high taxes on, that to the State of Tennessee Government) turn in the licensee, and sell the property.
To all you broadcast brokers....ya got that! I will never give any of you the time of day!
And another problem is that for years too many spineless local programmers/owners didn't have the stones to sand up to "Corporate" programmers when they knew that the decisions were bad for the stations and bad for the markets.
They simply went along with whatever drivel came out of corporate, (Because their job was safe), and watched not only their station, but their industry continue a downward spiral.
Yet another is the new generation of "radio gods" with their hip little "American Eagle, cool delivery," that not only embraced all the technology, but came up with new ways of using it to replace themselves.
When you can use technology to "Enhance" radio-it's stupid not to.
But when you use it to completely "Replace" live, on-air people...you are simply rolling over and giving all your listeners to Sat. radio and MP3 Players.
No doubt that radio as we "Old-Timers" once knew it is dead/dying.
But the average "Old-Timer" has more talent for radio in his/her pinky finger, than has many technology enhanced geek at the mic today.
To work on the air then was a gift. You were an "enhancement" to the music for the listener.
Most now try to be the "star", with the music being a distraction until their next break.
Recent rating trends show that, after all is said and done, people WANT live and local information and talk along with their music. When they don't get it...they're gone to XM or their Ipod. (or at the very least constant surfing)
Why listen to a bunch of smarmy attempted humor and coolness, when I can simply plug my "shuffle" into the Jeep stereo and listen to "All Meep requests, All the Time!"
It's not that anyone here is "living in the past." We're not stupid. Far from it (Trust me)
It's just that "The Past" was better radio-pure and simple.
To be an "Owner" of a small AM station...you sure seem ready to give up easily. Do you simply have no pride, or is it purely laziness?
It's owners of your mentality that have the whole industry in a mess right now.
I bet you are a real "Peach" for people that work for you (IF there are any-you don't have to pay Worker's Comp on computers!)
I may be wrong, though...there are still a whole lot of events from my early radio days in the 70's and 80's that I cannot recall for one reason or another. (I DO remember it was FUN then)
They simply went along with whatever drivel came out of corporate, (Because their job was safe), and watched not only their station, but their industry continue a downward spiral.
Yet another is the new generation of "radio gods" with their hip little "American Eagle, cool delivery," that not only embraced all the technology, but came up with new ways of using it to replace themselves.
When you can use technology to "Enhance" radio-it's stupid not to.
But when you use it to completely "Replace" live, on-air people...you are simply rolling over and giving all your listeners to Sat. radio and MP3 Players.
No doubt that radio as we "Old-Timers" once knew it is dead/dying.
But the average "Old-Timer" has more talent for radio in his/her pinky finger, than has many technology enhanced geek at the mic today.
To work on the air then was a gift. You were an "enhancement" to the music for the listener.
Most now try to be the "star", with the music being a distraction until their next break.
Recent rating trends show that, after all is said and done, people WANT live and local information and talk along with their music. When they don't get it...they're gone to XM or their Ipod. (or at the very least constant surfing)
Why listen to a bunch of smarmy attempted humor and coolness, when I can simply plug my "shuffle" into the Jeep stereo and listen to "All Meep requests, All the Time!"
It's not that anyone here is "living in the past." We're not stupid. Far from it (Trust me)
It's just that "The Past" was better radio-pure and simple.
To be an "Owner" of a small AM station...you sure seem ready to give up easily. Do you simply have no pride, or is it purely laziness?
It's owners of your mentality that have the whole industry in a mess right now.
I bet you are a real "Peach" for people that work for you (IF there are any-you don't have to pay Worker's Comp on computers!)
I may be wrong, though...there are still a whole lot of events from my early radio days in the 70's and 80's that I cannot recall for one reason or another. (I DO remember it was FUN then)
Back in the 60's 70's, and even well into the 80's, I kept the radio on in the house all the time. Whether it was Top 40 WMPS, WHBQ, or Progressive Rock WMC FM, it was always entertaining. Today, the radio is seldom on in the house. Somewhere along the line, Top 40, or at least Top 40 with guitars and melodies, went away. Progressive rock, (album rock) somewhere along the way became "Classic Rock." To be downright honest, I rarely hear anything on today's Top 40, or whatever they call themselves these days, that I like. Oldies stations tend to play the same stuff, with unimaginative DJ's (oh to have the Tom Kent syndicated oldies show on 24 hrs a day - he knows how to do it right). Classic rock is in such a rut that I even begun to hate the term "classic rock." I wouldn't care if I EVER heard "Sharp Dressed Man" or "Beast of Burden" again and I never thought much of AC/DC to begin with. Where's the CSN&Y? Where's the tracks from "Magical Mystery Tour" or "Sgt Peppers?" Where's the last two Tom Petty albums? Why aren't they getting air time on FM Rock?
I do not believe that AM and FM radio have to disappear. I do not believe millions have switched to XM or Sirius to escape from ads. I think the biggest factor for the swing to satellite radio is the opportunity to hear something DIFFERENT. That was the biggest thing I liked about FM100 in their album days. There was infinite variety. I have a number of albums in my collection containing tracks that I have never heard on AM/FM
stations except FM100, and others I very rarely hear. However, I have heard a number of them on the XM stations, so someone out there is still aware of them. Even the 60's and 70's Top 40 XM stations do a much better job of digging out the lesser played stuff - the ones people hear and say "Wow - I've not heard that in years!" I wanted to puke one day a while back when a local Knoxville Classic Rock DJ made a comment about how long it had been since he played some song. Well what's taken you so long to play it again? This goofy station even made a big deal of a "deep cuts" weekend saying they were going out on a limb playing tracks the boss did not want them to play. How corny! Play the *$%#$%^ songs! The constant repetition and cornyness is exactly why I no longer listen to this station and have deleted it from my radio push buttons. There is nothing about this station to attract a true rock listener. I like to say they try to appeal to rednecks, but that's just my opinion (if you ever heard their listeners call in to request a song, usually "Free Bird," you'd know where I am coming from).
I suppose there are a number of younger people who have read this thread who can't imagine what a true Top 40 station was like in the 60's and 70's and who would be astounded to be able to listen to the signal of FM100 from the late 60's until about 1974 as I got to hear it.
Keep the Ipods and camera phones. I'll take my old stereo system with the huge speakers and my Nikon F3 camera any day. They worked great then, and they work great today.
By the way, as I'm typing this I have the Doobie Brothers album "What Were Once Vices are Now Habits" on in the living room. Oh so many good tracks on that album that were once played on the radio but aren't any more....................
I do not believe that AM and FM radio have to disappear. I do not believe millions have switched to XM or Sirius to escape from ads. I think the biggest factor for the swing to satellite radio is the opportunity to hear something DIFFERENT. That was the biggest thing I liked about FM100 in their album days. There was infinite variety. I have a number of albums in my collection containing tracks that I have never heard on AM/FM
stations except FM100, and others I very rarely hear. However, I have heard a number of them on the XM stations, so someone out there is still aware of them. Even the 60's and 70's Top 40 XM stations do a much better job of digging out the lesser played stuff - the ones people hear and say "Wow - I've not heard that in years!" I wanted to puke one day a while back when a local Knoxville Classic Rock DJ made a comment about how long it had been since he played some song. Well what's taken you so long to play it again? This goofy station even made a big deal of a "deep cuts" weekend saying they were going out on a limb playing tracks the boss did not want them to play. How corny! Play the *$%#$%^ songs! The constant repetition and cornyness is exactly why I no longer listen to this station and have deleted it from my radio push buttons. There is nothing about this station to attract a true rock listener. I like to say they try to appeal to rednecks, but that's just my opinion (if you ever heard their listeners call in to request a song, usually "Free Bird," you'd know where I am coming from).
I suppose there are a number of younger people who have read this thread who can't imagine what a true Top 40 station was like in the 60's and 70's and who would be astounded to be able to listen to the signal of FM100 from the late 60's until about 1974 as I got to hear it.
Keep the Ipods and camera phones. I'll take my old stereo system with the huge speakers and my Nikon F3 camera any day. They worked great then, and they work great today.
By the way, as I'm typing this I have the Doobie Brothers album "What Were Once Vices are Now Habits" on in the living room. Oh so many good tracks on that album that were once played on the radio but aren't any more....................
Scottwrmo, I'm not refraining (or, as you typed it, reframing--hallo, spell-check?) from moving on. Hell, at my age. I'll move almost anyway I still can. Alas, the 49 miles of hills and curves between my shack in the woods and KHOZ's Branson Country Strip studios, was more movement than my declining bod' could handle, so I'm now their "jock of last resort." Which means, when I drive in to their Harrison rig for my December shot tomoro afternoon, it'll be just like that first night I sat down at the board at KWAK when I was 14. But, ya know something? For me, air-shows are still all like that, whether once in a blue moon, or doing a two-week vacation fill-in. I envy the pee-walley-dew out of Old Man River, still getting to do it every day; but I've finally quit arguing with my body when I know I'm not gonna win. A 70-something guy out here at the American Legion told me, "You're different from those others on your station. You always sound like you're having the time of your life." Well, hell yeah!!! Even with the sadness from reading the daily death toll from the corporate home sites, for me it's like the line in a Jerry Jeff Walker song: "gittin' paid for doin' somethin I'd be doin' anyway." I just hope the guys at the beginning end of their trip through this silly ole bidness, will be saying the same thing when they look back like we are.
Even with the sadness from reading the daily death toll from the corporate home sites, for me it's like the line in a Jerry Jeff Walker song: "gittin' paid for doin' somethin I'd be doin' anyway." I just hope the guys at the beginning end of their trip through this silly ole bidness, will be saying the same thing when they look back like we are.Mr AM Station owner..do you mind if we ask which city you are programming? Thought you may need some hep!
Meepster said:
Pure perfect Meep...
I saw the trend in the mid 80's and I knew it was no longer going to be fun so I was able to get out of it for good. I mean it still runs in the blood, but unlike our brother Dennis Rogers up there I just didn't have the perseverance to hold on nor really have the desire. When I left Memphis I said goodby to real radio. Those days will never be back.
Dan S.
S
scottwmro
Guest
Memphis Jon Scott said:
Gallatin, just outside Nashville. No, I DON'T need no help from anybody, PERIOD! I'm on satellite and I like it. The problem I've found in this business is that everybody (mostly jocks) that think they can program a station thier way, that 9 times out of ten, if they get that chance, they get thier butts canned within 3 to 6 months, due to us GM's and Owners are looking at the bottom line ($$$$$$$).
Don't take this the wrong way, and cover your eyes and ears when I say what I'm about to say and it's not directed to you personally, nor anybody in particular, but it pisses me off when I get some smart ass that bugs me to death about running my station. If I need help, I know where to find it. I'm fully capable of running my own station. If I wasn't, I wouldn't of bought the damn thing in the first place. I don't mean to sound nasty, rude, crude, and a know it all, but I've been in this business for nearly 30 years now and I call it as I see it. I change with times. Actually, I don't care if my station makes a profit, as long as it pays for itself, I'm happy. My main source of income comes from somewhere else.
Since 1988, I've worked with two other stations, besides my own, that were on a music satellite music network. If done correctly, a satellite music network will work. Liners and jingles must be fresh and always updated. You just can't "Throw it on the bird and walk away"! There is much work to be done with a satellite music network. The network just gives you the basics, it's up to the local affiliate to do the rest.
The reason for all the bitching over satellite networks is because it does away with a good portion of live jocks and saves the station owner money. I learned how to program satellite at WVOL in Nashville. The owner let me do what I wanted with the automation and the satellite. It's how much work you put into it to how "local" it's going to sound, and having a good relationship with the network.
I'm only a listener, but I have been since I was 5 (1964) when I first listened to WLS in its glory years.
Don't take this personally, but understand this. If you don't have live bodies sitting in a studio in the town of license (or at least in the area) it is neither live nor local. Unless I want to listen to ESPN Radio, I want to listen to someone in MY town who knows what's happening, and I want a news person who understands that Raines Road is in Whitehaven, not South Memphis. That's, of course, if they even have news at all.
As a listener, I don't give a rat's butt how much it costs YOU to provide that; if you don't, I won't listen, and I suspect I'm not alone.
Don't take this personally, but understand this. If you don't have live bodies sitting in a studio in the town of license (or at least in the area) it is neither live nor local. Unless I want to listen to ESPN Radio, I want to listen to someone in MY town who knows what's happening, and I want a news person who understands that Raines Road is in Whitehaven, not South Memphis. That's, of course, if they even have news at all.
As a listener, I don't give a rat's butt how much it costs YOU to provide that; if you don't, I won't listen, and I suspect I'm not alone.
When I was working at the former WDXN in Clarksville back in 1993, the then-GM there called a mandatory meeting in which he basically bitched us all out for almost two hours! One of his "pronouncements" at this "meeting" was that stations were going on satellite because they could not find good announcers to work for them. I knew this to be pure rubbish, because he was paying us $4.50 an hour to work for him. (I think minimum wage was about $4.00 or $4.25 at that time.) But I feel fairly certain that it wouldn't have cost that much (per hour) to put the station on satellite. Stations go on satellite because it is more cost-effective for them to do so, NOT because they can't find quality announcers to work for them. The truth is that you won't find "good" announcers if you are paying them minimum wage, or only a little above minimum wage. The good people are out there, and they can be bought--for a price!
I eventually left WDXN because he reduced me from 43 hours a week to just 12! The only hours he kept me on were weekend overnights. And I felt that with my experience, I had proven myself to the point that I deserved better hours than that. Now I'm no egomaniac, but I considered that demeaning to someone who had been in radio as long as I had. I would have had more respect for him if he had simply told me he was taking the station in a different direction, and that he felt I didn't fit in with his plans for the station. Instead, he browbeat me until I got fed up and quit!
But I had the last laugh. Less than a year later, he got hit with sexual harassment charges, and had to leave that station with his tail between his legs! (I don't know if the charges were true or not, but it certainly seemed possible.) Meanwhile, that station has gone through dozens, of format, management, and ownership changes since then.
I eventually left WDXN because he reduced me from 43 hours a week to just 12!
The only hours he kept me on were weekend overnights. And I felt that with my experience, I had proven myself to the point that I deserved better hours than that. Now I'm no egomaniac, but I considered that demeaning to someone who had been in radio as long as I had. I would have had more respect for him if he had simply told me he was taking the station in a different direction, and that he felt I didn't fit in with his plans for the station. Instead, he browbeat me until I got fed up and quit!But I had the last laugh. Less than a year later, he got hit with sexual harassment charges, and had to leave that station with his tail between his legs! (I don't know if the charges were true or not, but it certainly seemed possible.) Meanwhile, that station has gone through dozens, of format, management, and ownership changes since then.
L
littlebigradio
Guest
for every big success story in radio, there are a half-dozen or more stories like Firepoint' s regarding station management. You're kidding yourself if you think they have an ounce of concern for you.
Disclaimer...or, as Juddy and I told Dave Brown that middle-of-the-night at 485 South Highland..."dishhhhh...ccclaimmmmer..."
I'm writing this after my December show on KHOZ, followed by three empty-stomach glasses of wine ... None-the-less---
Reading some of these threads, I get the feeling our alleged business is becoming a lot like our nation's political climate: you're
either air talent ... believing that the business is here for you to be a star, and should compensate you that way even if you
aren't ... or: you're ownership/management ... knowing that the only damned reason that tube glows, is so that you and the
stock-holders can make the most profit possible, even if it means true market stars of many years' tenure get axed when the year-end bottom-line probability isn't matching what you promised, and any relatability to your audience is written off as just some more of that crap from the days when there was a belief that the audience really paid attention to what you were blowing out through those glowing tubes. Stop for a second and freakin' THINK: is there, just maybe, a possibility that the real answer is somewhere out in that area that political sharpsters avoid--THE MIDDLE? The difference: if a political party can get just one vote more than 50%, it can rule the roost until the next election. But our business is different -- we can't let the
damned extremes battle it out, with that one-vote-more ruling the roost...and really expect the mainly-middle-ground foks to put up with what we try to shove up their woofers and tweeters.
Like I told Dale Daniels, to pass along to Tom Galloway, back in 1991: "Maybe it's not rocket science...but it is radio science."
I'm writing this after my December show on KHOZ, followed by three empty-stomach glasses of wine ... None-the-less---
Reading some of these threads, I get the feeling our alleged business is becoming a lot like our nation's political climate: you're
either air talent ... believing that the business is here for you to be a star, and should compensate you that way even if you
aren't ... or: you're ownership/management ... knowing that the only damned reason that tube glows, is so that you and the
stock-holders can make the most profit possible, even if it means true market stars of many years' tenure get axed when the year-end bottom-line probability isn't matching what you promised, and any relatability to your audience is written off as just some more of that crap from the days when there was a belief that the audience really paid attention to what you were blowing out through those glowing tubes. Stop for a second and freakin' THINK: is there, just maybe, a possibility that the real answer is somewhere out in that area that political sharpsters avoid--THE MIDDLE? The difference: if a political party can get just one vote more than 50%, it can rule the roost until the next election. But our business is different -- we can't let the
damned extremes battle it out, with that one-vote-more ruling the roost...and really expect the mainly-middle-ground foks to put up with what we try to shove up their woofers and tweeters.
Like I told Dale Daniels, to pass along to Tom Galloway, back in 1991: "Maybe it's not rocket science...but it is radio science."
- Status