I believe a better word to use for all that has happened and continues to occur is “outrage” rather than surprise. My goodness, how can we have faith and confidence in anything anymore? Those in whom we place our trust and confidence from elected officials to company CEOs have plain and simple screwed up and have let us all down big time. Now we are all paying the price.
Never in my life would I have ever thought incompetence and poor business practices would result in bail outs and the like. We are rewarding those who don’t know what they are doing. This is nuts. I suppose we are so used to the crap hitting the fan each and every day that nothing “surprises” us as a society anymore.
Count me out being a Cool Aid drinker to blame this crappy economy on the current state of radio and why we shouldn’t be surprised talent continues to be let go. Commercial radio is where it is today because the decision makers have let the radio community down in many ways. This has been going on for years now. Can we really look ourselves in the mirror and believe that removing localism, information and entertainment from radio prepared her well for the future? Well, the future is now and radio has increased competition from technology and satellite. The emotional attachment I often speak about is gone. The NEED to listen is really gone too because radio is no longer an information source for anything local and how it relates to its listeners. For Jax, WOKV is a great resource but there’s a ton of FM music ditto-heads who aren’t even aware of its existence.
Look, I’m a capitalist in every way imaginable and I fully understand radio clusters need to make money. But the extreme approach of getting rid of virtually everyone on the air, even when the economic times were sound has bitten these guys in the proverbial butt. Radio is vulnerable and not positioned well for the future because of it. Call me nuts but I still hope someone is going to program a station to sound local and provide the community with its specific information needs.
Often, I think of the gem Cox Radio has in WOKV. It's like an information bonanza chock full of local interest for the listener. Again, while I can understand the need for some talent cut-backs, I wonder why Cox Radio hasn't utilized WOKV even more. The traffic and weather segments, I believe, could easily be incorporated into even automated programming on FM. A simple thing like this can result in a positive listener impact. To make my point, say it's a Saturday and you have to run to the airport to pick up your mother-in-law. While you may be inclined to just leave her there, let's assume you are listening to 96.9 and an announcement is made that there is a wreck on 1-95 and that you should use an alternative such as the Dames Point Bridge. Bingo! You have satisfied a listener and that's worth tons more in positive impact than the 1000 songs you have in your iPod. People need to tune in and those who will succeed will understand this. Radio is best when it sounds LOCAL.
If you look at politics, it seems there are extremes on both sides of the aisle. I never thought any extreme position – conservative or liberal- was always the best course. Radio has made extreme decisions over the years and I think what many of us are trying to say it should have been a more moderate transition. Again, I can fully understand the need to reduce payroll expense but I wouldn’t have cut out an entire weekend. Cost savings would have been achieved while continuing to make positive impressions on the listener with both entertainment and information. These two things alone differentiate commercial radio from an iPod.
I was never a fan of voice-tracking but even that is better than nothing in certain times of day. It’s not that I have completely changed my position but rather I can accept the need to look at cost-savings where it makes the most sense and with less listener impact. Advertisers need to feel they are getting bang for the buck. It's not happening now.
Brother Bear seems to remain optimistic radio has a future and will ultimately fall into the right hands. I can only hope he is proven correct down the road. With fingers crossed, I can only hope it isn’t too late.
