Good article on what's wrong with radio

[Anyacat]

Dear Fred: Seen those movies and even, lo and behold, read the play (yes people can do such things and some people do)--I prefer the Cary Grant-Rosline Russell version, honestly, and even worked in the news business, and no Fred, we don't like it when ad people tell us what to write and they weren't telling is what to write even 10 years ago (although they were suggesting strongly), and yes Friend Fred, I honestly do know who owned what and what happened when they sold. And perhaps for you, newspapers exist for the advertising, but for me, they have always existed for the news and information (and I have been reading them for as long as I could read).

 

[fred flintstone]

Dear Fred: Seen those movies and even, lo and behold, read the play (yes people can do such things and some people do)--I prefer the Cary Grant-Rosline Russell version, honestly, and even worked in the news business, and no Fred, we don't like it when ad people tell us what to write and they weren't telling is what to write even 10 years ago (although they were suggesting strongly), and yes Friend Fred, I honestly do know who owned what and what happened when they sold. And perhaps for you, newspapers exist for the advertising, but for me, they have always existed for the news and information (and I have been reading them for as long as I could read).

I enjoy His Girl Friday, although the Hawksian romantic comedy overwhelms the newspaper story.
And there are news junkies who do read newspapers for news.
More often people read for ball scores, stock prices, racing results, comics, Dear Abby or to find out about the sale at Marsh... I mean Macy's.
Maybe in a perfect world newspapers would function as you and those j-students see them.
But applying to newspapers the same standards of reporting you see from newspapers, that's not how it works.
The job of the editorial department is to get you to buy and read the paper, so you'll see the ads.
To bring this back to broadcasting, here is what Faye Dunaway said to William Holden in Network:

I watched your 6 o'clock news today; it's straight tabloid. You had a minute and a half of that lady riding a bike naked in Central Park; on the other hand, you had less than a minute of hard national and international news. It was all sex, scandal, brutal crime, sports, children with incurable diseases, and lost puppies. So, I don't think I'll listen to any protestations of high standards of journalism when you're right down on the streets soliciting audiences like the rest of us.

 

[Anyacat]

Well, Fred, Cary Grant gets me every time, always did. Odd that you should mention Network because I think about that movie more these days, and may even want to see it again. I found it a chilling indictment of where we were headed when the film debuted and now it seems as if Nostrodomus, or at least Jean Dixon, wrote the screenplay. But you see there is a perfect world, or at lest as perfect as the imperfect can make it and that lies within--never give up, never give in and never let the turkey's get you down. Tilting at windmills is probably the only thing I do well...and so it goes.

 

[chuckydoll]

Proof of what's wrong with radio

Friday, 10/20: WMTR-1250 from Morristown NJ is holding a Beatles contest. To promote the contest WMTR runs an ad in the "Ticket" (entertainment) section of the Newark Star-Ledger. The grand prize is -- I'm quoting from the ad -- a trip for two to the home of the Beatles ... LONDON, ENGLAND!

Saturday, 10/21: I'm driving down I-295 in New Jersey. I punch up WOGL-98.1 from Philadelphia. Station positions itself as "The greatest hits of the 60's and 70's". What song do I hear on WOGL? "Let's Groove" by Earth Wind & Fire -- which came out in 1981. Not only that, the station played the album version and cut it off before the coda.

And radio people wonder why ordinary people prefer an iPod!

 

[fred flintstone]

In case anybody missed the point....

The Beatles were from Liverpool (at least when they started as a group).
Of course, if you call the station, they will probably give you some line about the Beatles moved to London and it was their home at the height of their recording career.
If they offered as their prize a trip to the home of John Lennon, they could save a lot of money: Just an off-peak ticket from Morristown to Penn Station on NJT and a Metro Card with four bucks on it so you can take the subway up to the Dakota.

Of course, I remember some complaints on this site about Real Oldies stations playing Beatles cuts (or other post-BI cuts).

 

[TheFonz]

Of course, I remember some complaints on this site about Real Oldies stations playing Beatles cuts (or other post-BI cuts).

If '60s/'70s radio won't play Little Richard, then I don't want Real Oldies playing the Beatles.

 

[radiofriend1]

Of course, I remember some complaints on this site about Real Oldies stations playing Beatles cuts (or other post-BI cuts).

If '60s/'70s radio won't play Little Richard, then I don't want Real Oldies playing the Beatles.

isn't that a bit jr high?

i'm sure the world will be a better place and radio in general will benefit when all these pissy lines are drawn for good

???

 

[TheFonz]

Of course, I remember some complaints on this site about Real Oldies stations playing Beatles cuts (or other post-BI cuts).

If '60s/'70s radio won't play Little Richard, then I don't want Real Oldies playing the Beatles.

isn't that a bit jr high?

i'm sure the world will be a better place and radio in general will benefit when all these pissy lines are drawn for good

???

Lighten up. Radioguy. Today's radio is a joke and we're just having fun with it.

 

[majicjim]

Can you say..."stupidity,arrogance and greed" ???????

 

[radiofriend1]

the JOKE is people who bitch & whine about radio vs. those ACTUALLY DOING GOOD RADIO

we all have a choice where to direct our energies. some insist on being part of the solution but the others are part of the problem

it IS just that simple

 

[muskrat14]

OK, let's put some of those people to work and see the kind of great radio they produce. Oh wait. Can't do that. The current management crop has decided that "less is more" with people, too.

What you see as "whining" others of us see as frustration that we're not being utilzed to our fullest potential. Radio today, for the most part, is a big steaming pile. And I work in it. I'd like to change it, but that would require time, money, people and inspiration. Management won't let us have the first three, and wouldn't know the fourth if it bit 'em in the ass.

Don't mistake this as a plea to return to "the good old days." That's not what we need. However, we need people that know good radio, and that starts with people who actually did it -- and if you got into radio anytime in the last decade, you ain't it.

Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.

 

[LeChat]

What are you some kind of Communist? Actual people on radio? Why that would cut into advertising dollars and advertising dollars is the only reason there is radio in the first place, act any consultant or corporate radio weasel.

 

[DougD]

the JOKE is people who bitch & whine about radio vs. those ACTUALLY DOING GOOD RADIO

we all have a choice where to direct our energies. some insist on being part of the solution but the others are part of the problem

it IS just that simple

Point out some GREAT radio. There isn't really that much in soundalike markets.

I ask the question again: when is the last time you or anyone you know (DXers excepted) put up a special antenna or did something different or went out of your way to tune in a station from another market.

I bet it's been like decades.

The reason why is obvious.

1-person "newsrooms."

No new people allowed to work overnights (great way to kill radio recruitment). Just VT everything...

Wall to wall syndication on AM talk stations.

Major city FM morning drive going syndicated.

Repetitive playlists.

Oldies programmers not knowing what oldies are anymore.

On and on and on.

 

[radiofriend1]

so than -- after all the blah blah blahs-- IS YOUR POINT?

hey blame cuban am interference as much for the downturn in dx-ing

OR the fact that **back in the day** there were way fewer local radio choices and music on AM was still popular--- FFWD 30 yrs and there are 3-4 times more local signals (due to move-ins and etc) plus 95% of music formats nationwide are on FM...................

 

[DougD]

Yep, that sure has made radio better. It's all so bland and so corporatized. More stations= more programming. Right.

500 channels and nothing's on.

Hopefully, radio's blind owners may one day realize competition forces them to do something different.... like more creative programming, hiring staff again, etc.

 

[DougD]

Here's more proof of how radio sucks.

http://www.radio-info.com/smf/index.php/topic,53604.0.html

The market's like only radio station that has a real news department fires one of their principals.

Dumb a-- run radio now.

 

[radiofriend1]

Here's more proof of how radio sucks.

http://www.radio-info.com/smf/index.php/topic,53604.0.html

The market's like only radio station that has a real news department fires one of their principals.

Dumb a-- run radio now.

**RADIO SUCKS** because some guy in tampa lost his job?

has it never occoured to some of U that radio HAS NEVER BEEN a very secure business? don't U realize good radio people have lost their jobs long before 2006 and even way before consolidation? can't U count the number of new and move-in stations around the country since the eighties and understand that there are still probably more radio gigs in significant markets (becuz sitting in gomersville GA a station might employ and half-dozen maybe 10 people but when it gets moved into atlanta that number at least triples)?

[EDIT]

[EDIT--personal attack.]

 

[Anyacat]

OH, no, I think that radio sucks for many reasons...

 

[DougD]

can't U count the number of new and move-in stations around the country since the eighties and understand that there are still probably more radio gigs in significant markets (becuz sitting in gomersville GA a station might employ and half-dozen maybe 10 people but when it gets moved into atlanta that number at least triples)?

[EDIT]

[EDIT--personal attack.]

Oh yeah. All those new jobs filled by voice tracking and 20-somethingers.
You apparently didn't read the other posts.
Cumulus, Cheap Channel... Yep. They're adding many positions.

When a respected radio newsman loses a job in a market that doesn't have many of them- perhaps 2-3, that's big. It isn't just some guy losing his job.
He's not likely to get a job at a competitor because the competitors aren't doing news, get it?

Did you read how the lame brains run their stations in that market? The cluster is mostly on auto-pilot.
Those people know what they're talking about. They've likely lost their jobs.

 

[radiofriend1]

Yep, that sure has made radio better. It's all so bland and so corporatized. More stations= more programming. Right.

500 channels and nothing's on.

Hopefully, radio's blind owners may one day realize competition forces them to do something different.... like more creative programming, hiring staff again, etc.

again: change it, deal with it or get out. but the whiny rants are o-l-d and get nothing accomplished