Future of RADIO
Guys, I have got to respond to this and clear up some total misconceptions.
While you are all whining like small children about one radio station, the whole industry is in panic mode. Most people who post here don't even understand.
When someone says about a station that the whole deck of cards is about to fall... apply that to every station, every format in every market in America. Something has happened that the radio execs at all these broadcasting companies hoped wouldn't: Advertisers finally woke up one morning and realized, nobody's listening. Nobody.
Sure radio has people who get in their car and turn it on on the way to and from work. But nobody's listening at home. Worse, the demo that advertisers used to count on to spend enormous amounts of money are NOT spending now. I'm talking about people over 50 (enter the discussion of JACK and MIKE). Traditionally, they've been catered to by advertisers because they have the most disposable cash of any demo. Still true. What's also true is with their 401K plans decimated a couple of years ago, their medical insurance worthless as the paper it's printed on, facing the loss of their social security benefits and the high cost of utilities & gas... these people are holding on to their vast disposable income waiting for the day that they are on a fixed income and need what little they've got.
Now... Stations all figured out a couple of years ago that the technology is finally to a point where they can cut the live jock out of the picture wherever necessary and save a whole pile of cash. So the previous poster is correct in that assumption. Trouble is, just like when in 1980 half the AM stations in the country dropped music for something else, that hastened it's demise, going jockless during certain dayparts and VT'ing others is hastening the whole damn industry's demise, because the less talent on the air, the faster the audience is going somewhere else to be entertained.
At this point let me send a message to Infinity and Entercom: You guys got it all wrong with JACK and MIKE. People who don't want talk over their music have their own massive CD and mp3 collections, and their I-Pods. Why listen to what someone ELSE picks/wants and then listen to commercials. No, people who are still listening to radio want to be entertained by an adult with a brain. And a sense of humor and creativity. You guys may get a short term shot in the arm at the one or two stations you flip to all I-Pod, all the time, but when it wears off, the audience will be gone, just like WRKO found out one day in 1980 when they found out all the listeners had gone to FM.
Ok, where was I?
Radio executives are looking at their sales numbers and panicking. The advertising community figured it out. Hit the stations hard that are playing to young folks who spend wrecklessly after being offered huge lines of credit right out of high school. Stations with the upper demos get blown off. Thus, stations that normally pull even a 6 share are getting flipped to something younger. Something. Anything. Prime demo, however still ain't the 18 year old teenage woman... it's the 25 year old who has a credit card and is super nuts about her image. Target years... 25-32. And even with the new focus, advertisers STILL don't want to spend that much because they know that the audience that heard their message 10 years ago is now listening to satellite, watching survivor island, listening to their I-Pods and home-burnt CDs - but they're NOT glued to a radio station.
Gentlemen... it is NOT about one station blowing off heritage jocks, or even less than heritage jocks to save a few bucks. It's about the whole damn industry scared sh**less that it's going to be completely irrelevant in short order if they don't do something right now.
And... ironically, I commented on this very board not six months ago that this day would eventually come. Still, everyone including the so-called experts are calling this everything except what it is. The realization that radio is old. Greying. And in desperate need of medical attention.
Very few things have the possibility of saving radio at this point, except (GULP!) IBOC. HD Radio will give these stations options that they desperately need to compete with all the other media out there competing for it's attention. Trust me, stations have as much competition now from your kid's "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" PS2 game as they do from the radio station across town.
I'm the first person to scream foul at what has been done to my favorite stations, WBCN included. But I understand what's taking place and everyone else better wake up, also. You guys who are in radio... get yourself skilled in something besides chatting over a song intro. Please. This is reality. Save yourselves, or MIKE might just come in and push you out the door. Or is it Jack? Or Jill? Whatever.
In the end, Radio is what it always has been. It's all about the MONEY. Entertainment can be done cheaper in other mediums now and that's why things are the way they are.<P ID="signature">______________
</P>
