IS THE DAY OF THE DJ ENDING?

[and.u.r?]

Is radio,at least in dying markets like Providence,getting to the point where the DJ is becoming the least important element on the air?We have one syndicated morning show (on Hot 106),out of town and locally voice tracked midday shifts,same with afternoon drive,irrelevant night shows with more voice tracking.With PPM results supposedly showing the DJ is one of radio's big tune outs are we heading to the point where everything beyond morning drive is going to be jockless or syndicated?

 

[DToTheJ]

Heading to the point? Methinks we're already there...

 

[Moonstruck]

So did management cause this by cutting costs to the point where people get on the air that are really not ready for the jobs they've gotten? I grew up so to speak in the 70s when beginners and weaker jocks were on overnight shifts only. If they were on days at all it was on the suburban AM stations that played music. Now beginner or not you're on during the day because no one is staffing live at night.

Most jocks have their heads in the sand when it comes to the idea of jock tune out and even those who admit it think they're the exceptions to the rule. Let's face it. We all get off on hearing our own voices and think the rest of the world does too. I hate to say it but other than mornings it's a wonder this profession even still exists today.

Young listeners don't care about the jocks other than the real active listeners who get off on saying they talk to jocks. The listeners who view radio as an important part of their lives are in age brackets where stations aren't courting them anymore. In other words if you really like radio and live personalities the stations don't want your type listening because of how old you probably are. If you're in the age group the stations want you consider radio and especially the people on it to be unimportant.

 

[xtreme11678]

i blame it all on cost cutting moves and nothing else

 

[McRadio]

Cost cutting has resulted in either syndication or voicetracking with no local flavor whatsoever. It has also resulted in people getting on the air that are not awful but really shouldn't be in markets and stations they work at. It isn't going to get any better and don't think when things improve that stations will revert to their old selves because they won't. When you come right down to it though (so far) PRO-FM and LITE haven't really been hit hard or hit at all. HJY still maintains. WCTK is about the most live the market has. It's the other two stations and I think we all know which they are. Sadly I get this sinking feeling we're going to hear about some layoffs real soon in the market though.

 

[BoredModerator]

I've noticed that Big Jim is doing overnights at HJY now. Was Missy let go? Is Battle VT'd?

 

[WKomm]

Forget PPM. I've been doing this a long time and through the decades I've seen endless research showing listeners hate DJs, we're the problem, blah blah and blah.

Yet every single time a station or format tries to go jockless, it fails. Listeners say one thing but mean another. Yes, "DJs" can be tune-outs. But radio personalities who are genuinely funny, controversial or just market icons are a huge asset. As long as radio exists, there will be a need for the human connection. Whether it's VT, syndicated - listeners want some kind of human interaction. What they don't want are guys who yak to hear their own voice, try to be funny and they're not and every other sin most "DJs" commit again and again and again.

The biggest threat to jocks will be if every cluster has an unwritten agreement to have no live talent on after the morning show. If everyone is canned (as in recorded - not fired) no problem.

Just my opinion.

 

[JohnnyHeadphones]

If Video Killed the Radio Star - then Technology Killed The DJ

I started in radio in the late 80's on overnights and weekends, back when we were playing carts and just starting to get into CD's.

Once things like computers, automation, and sydication became affordable and common, that was when PD's and GM's starting looking to cut costs in the on-air department. First I remember carts being eliminated and commercials being run off computers. Then the music was eventually run by computers. And before I knew it - a whole show could be pre-recorded and run by the computer.

It was the cost cutting minds that ruined radio at the expense of talent. I still think that a station with live personalities, active promotions, and interactions with the listeners is better radio than the products out there now. But with no place to develop live talent, syndication and voicetracking rules out.

Imagine if the Red Sox elimnated the minor leagues and started drafting players right from College and put them in the starting line-up. That would be a scary thing. But that's what radio did when it started going jockless or voicetracking shifts like overnights and weekends. There is no where for budding radio talent to hone their craft.

It makes me kind of sad to see how things like technology and bottom lines have ruined what was such a loved industry.

 

[Phil Karlips]

Johnny Headphones hit the nail on the head....all of what he says is what got my butt weeded out of radio...that and the fact that I lost two jobs to a format change from English to Spanish. Just listen....they are taking us over folks !

 

[McRadio]

I really don't think listeners inherently wish jocks would go away. I don't even think they mind straight liner card readers as listeners don't think the way radio people do. It's insiders who still scratch their heads about certain jocks who do nothing more than go through the motions but keep their jobs while some who actually have more going for them get cast out due to cost cutting or not being a good fit for the station. Liner card readers are always a good fit because by nature they don't clash with any programming elements. Dehumanizing radio has just left listeners indifferent more than anything else. The only real complaint I've ever heard from listeners is the age-old one about jocks talking over the music and that isn't as prevalent anymore in every format.

 

[nomorejeffs]

Imagine if the Red Sox elimnated the minor leagues and started drafting players right from College and put them in the starting line-up. That would be a scary thing. But that's what radio did when it started going jockless or voicetracking shifts like overnights and weekends. There is no where for budding radio talent to hone their craft.

Couldn't agree more, JH...and I'm speaking as one of those "budding radio talents" who jumped far too high far too fast. I started co-hosting a morning drive show after only six months' experience on weekends (and this was in a top-30 market). I had nowhere near the experience I needed, no one to teach me broadcasting fundamentals, and most importantly, no one to tell me when/how badly I was screwing up.

As a result, I habitually committed just about every DJ sin mentioned in this posting - talking too much, talking about irrelevant crap, trying (and failing) to be funny, etc. I had no sense of how to structure a good show, how to edit content, how to control guests or interviews...in retrospect, it was just a mess. The show (which for obvious reasons I'm not doing anymore) would have been so much better, had just one person been around to teach me a thing or two.

 

[MaxGM]

I’m sorry; I have never bought the “lost training ground” argument. Yes… I know we lost it with computer technology but those who would have used that training ground by and large aren’t interested, and haven't been in a long time.

I am old enough to remember when young people lined up at the local stations to get ANY menial job just to get inside a station and POSSIBLY get a job as a board op, pulling records, ANYTHING. I think I might have been in the last generation that had an intense interest in getting into radio. I started part-time in 1974, first full time gig in 1978. Six years later as an Assistant PD in a top 50 market finding part-timers was difficult! Five years later it was next to impossible. And this was a still a few years before computer automation was in widespread use. (I never will forget the Super Bowl Party I threw in ’86. I was back at the station board op-ing the game ‘cuz the PT didn’t show while the party raged on at my house. SWEET!) It just got worse as time went on.

This did coincide with the advancement of computer technology in radio. Have we overused computer technology? Yes. But that alone is NOT the reason the younger generation lost interest in the biz. And… most of those that show interest now are only interested until they find out that they have to be at the station on a weekend day or, GOD FORBID, in the evening!!!! If I had to depend on a live person to work an overnight shift in ANY market I have worked in the past 30 years I would probably have to sign the station off at midnight most of the time.

Lots of kids still want to play Baseball. They haven’t wanted to play radio in a LONG time. I know there are exceptions, but there are not enough of those exceptions to staff the stations.

Of course now with all of the layoffs there are plenty of talented, and experienced, people available. Sad.

 

[dxer720]

I'm about MaxGM's age. I was (& still am) one of those with the radio drive. When I was a kid, I played radio. I went to radio school, where I learned that a radio job isn't manual labor, but it is "work". I lost count of all the ballgames & church services I've board-opped. I never even opened a mic my first day at the controls.

I never became a GM though.

I'm one of the few that still feels the joy in radio that I felt as a kid playing radio fro a tape recorder or, if I was lucky an actual person or two. I still enjoy connecting with the listeners. Whether I'm their background, or they hang on my every word, they are what's important.

I've also been very fortunate not to be cost cut lately.

I my opinion the young ones of today don't have the love & commitment for any job they do. Not only in radio, but any other industry it seems.

As far as Syndication & voicetracking: Local talent hasn't connected with the listener, so we'll bring in someone everyone's heard of. Isn't that safe? This is nothing new. From the first radio networks of the 1920s, we've found there's someone out there people want to hear. There will come a day when the big-name talent will start pricing themselves out of many markets (especially the smaller ones) & stations will scramble for PEOPLE to fill the time when no one listens to the computers.

 

[thorn1]

There are very few good jocks left. Very few. It's become a secondary job for radio people who must perform a variety of other tasks during the course of the work day; promotions, production, music, programming, WEB work....It is a sad state of affairs. Gone are the great jocks of the 70's, 80's and 90's (pre-corporate radio). The future is grim-first is was consolidation, now a dire economy at a time in radio when the ship was already sinking due to new technology.

The logical step for radio companies is 'network' radio. One jock, a hundred stations (Ryan Seacrest). Voice tracking only works if the talent approaches it as an art-form (like great live jocks of years gone by). At this point, most voice-tracking is an after thought, an 'end of the day chore' for a radio employee who's already expended their creative energy.

Why listen to someone voicetracking, or doing a crappy live show, when you can find the music you want on the internet? LIVE 365, Pandora, etc....Kids are getting their music from utube...and my space..Not only is the day of the DJ ending.....radio is dead. Bye bye.

 

[Runrigger]

I got into radio in the late 70s & out a few years ago, not out of any bitterness & not because I didn't enjoy even the bad jobs but I just wanted more stability. I wasn't out of work when I left but wasn't about to pull up roots if the need arose so I just had to make a decision. I've had the opportunity to weekend since then, but just can't devote the time. That said, ex-radio or not I'm not a critical poster.

I can get the music anywhere. What I want in a station goes beyond that & goes beyond morning drive which is where most stations put all their energy. Stations need to develop an atmosphere that goes beyond the music so listeners come back the way they hit a bar where everybody knows their name. It isn't easy to program a station that becomes part of peoples' lives so too many are just abandoning all efforts after 10AM. I work in a corporate environment & it's the same everywhere. The inmates are running the asylum. If those in middle management consider you a safe person to confide in they will even tell you much of what they do is counterproductive BS. If you gave most PDs more creative control and didn't waste their time with meetings & conference calls they would be putting out a better product.

For me, the 2 stations in Providence that know their listeners & give them a consistent atmosphere that draws them back daily are HJY & CTK. Both have gone through some changes over the last couple of years, but regardless of staff changes the end result is still that they don't sound much different than they did before the changes so not only does the PD have to have a clear vision of how he wants listeners to perceive the station, but the staff has to get it too.

And I have a major problem with radio stations trying to recapture audiences that have abandoned radio. Naturally there has to be some effort in this direction, but in general it isn't going to happen. People who have abandoned radio want something different when it comes to entertainment. Keep trying to target them & the listeners sticking with the medium will abandon it. Cater to the ones who still listen.

 

[McRadio]

The problem of too many stations putting all their eggs in the morning drive basket is covered in that Value Of Air Talent article on this site's home page. Everything after mornings amounts to stations being music outlets and nothing more and let's face it, nobody is giving listeners anything unique when it comes to music but then unique doesn't work for your average listener. As far as voicetracking too many are just not good at it and like someone said, when you tackle it at the end of your workday you're already drained so it's just a duty. That whole concept of a station being a consistent neighborhood type thing is being done on most morning shows. Some demos might also add PRO-FM as a station with a consistent personality after mornings but I wouldn't agree. WBRU might also be one and ironically they're targeting an audience not known for any loyalty to radio.