I want to hear a few stars of the airwaves.....
That's what you'll hear here, the stars of radio from the past 40 years as the same 400 songs are played over and over and over on about 20 radio stations.
Lots of stations here are killers. Kill the programming budget to meet the bottom line. Kill the promotions staff because who needs t-shirts and bumper stickers? Kill the engineering/remote staff because the sales department can't get enough money! Why give cash to air talent and engineers?
We have those too. The afternoon guy on 93.3 is in Washington D.C. The morning show on 95.7 is a world famous comedian. The jox on 101.5, 107.3, and 102.5 are boss when it comes to reading liner cards. The morning host on 620 is in Orlando, although he sometimes sounds like he's in New York City. A lot of the other weekday dayparts are jox who have been part time for years or production directors hoping the corporate suits like people holding down two or three jobs for one price.
That's good, because format isn't so important here either. Like Journey? Good,that's on six different stations now. The same goes for Boston, Bob Seger, REO Speedwagon, etc. Did I mention the same 400 songs are played over and over in this market?
but what you think are shining examples of good radio in the Tampa area.
XM is pretty good, although some people like Sirius. A CD player, or if you're into that "21st century tek-na-low-gee" an mp3 player is pretty handy. Don't travel with a jukebox though, that genre is already covered by most stations.
I'd love to, but radio has turned to crap here. You can thank the sales people turned general managers/operations managers who run Clear Channel, Cox, and CBS radio. You can also thank the smaller companies who own what's left in the market for not taking a chance or taking the bull by the horns when the bigger companies slash jobs and budgets to make some shareholder with a $500 necktie happy.
Seriously though, welcome to Tampa Bay and I hope you have a great vacation. Soak up our sun, enjoy the beaches, dine at our finest restaurants and tasty little greasy-spoon diners.
Just don't ingest too much of our radio... it could make you sick.
