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More local programming bites the dust!

B

BSteve

Yesterdays (Macon)Telegraph reports that WIFN's Sports talk show host, Bill Shanks and a couple of other employees were fired. I guess they can blame the economy, but I sure hate to see any LOCAL programming dropped and replaced by a saellite feed.
When a few big companies were allowed to own hundreds of radio stations it marked the beginning of the end of local radio. Hope it is reversed some day.
 
What worries me is that one of the suggested cures will be worse than the disease. As part of the new and improved Fairness Doctrine (would not that which we call a skunk, by any other name, smell as sweet?) that Speaker Pelosi and others have publicly stated they intend to impose, is said to be requirements for local origination of programming. Nothing is said about the programming being quality, only that it be locally produced. As one who grew up listening to, and who began his career in, small-town radio, I would like to see more locally focused programming. But I do not believe the public will be served if we return to the days of the "ghetto hour" on Sunday nights, or to the practice of scheduling local public affairs programming during times when only insomniacs and entry-level board ops will hear them.

Nor do I think that the suggested addition of local ownership requirements of radio outlets will improve the situation. Local operators all over the country sold their stations to the clusters because the profit margins in local radio were growing ever more thin. Large radio groups are better able to absorb losses before they fail than were the small local businesses which used to own many, if not most, local radio stations. Also, the preferences of the audience has changed. Regardless which party is in power or whatever laws they enact, the broadcasting business is not going to improve until the economy in general picks up.

What to do about the reluctance of local owners to pay the salaries which attract and hold the quality of talent necessary to produce the quality of programming that today's listeners demand, I cannot say; nor do I have a clue about what to say to the large groups who think that radio is a one-size-fits-all proposition. All I do know is that some of the suggested remedies make me truly sad for a business I dearly love.
 
If everything comes from the satellite anyway, will there be any more need for local "stations" (actually, just terrestrial repeaters, in essence)?
Of course, it will have to be free, as SiriusXM is finding out.
 
Sadly, this is happening all over the country. It really makes a statement on the radio industry when the most innovative programmer in radio these days is the publisher of the local newspaper (Macon Telegraph's partnership with WPGA for the Kenny B & Charles show). I had the chance to see the latest ratings for Macon the other day. While radio has only lost about 3% of the general population (12+) over the last 2 years, the trends for the "next generation" of listeners should be a great concern to those in the industry today. Among 12-24 year olds, radio has lost 14% of its listeners in the last two years, and among 18-34 year olds the decline is 13%. Unless the industry can reverse this trend and figure out a way to reach the next generation, it cannot and will not survive. Radio has never had so much new technology (internet, MP3 players, music downloads, etc.) to compete with, and it has strayed from the one advantage it has over all of this technology - LOCAL PROGRAMMING. Concerning the reinstatement of The Fairness Doctrine - this is just a useless piece of censorship that the American people don't need, and the radio industry can't allow. According to one source, there are 1,387 news-talk stations in the country. This format is second only to country in the number of stations. So essentially this is 1,387 individual businesses that will either go out of business, or change the successful way they do business, with the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine. Radio has always had their own "fairness doctrines" - (1) the on-off switch, (2) the knob that changes the channel. And with today's technology providing programmable radios, search and scan buttons, its own "fairness doctrine" is alive and well. If Congress thinks we need more than that, it is totally out of touch with reality and totally oblivious to the people who hire and fire them.
 
Since many of those calling for "Fairness" in broadcasting mention one talk-show personality by name (Rush Limbaugh) as the reason for government regulatory intervention in program content, one may reasonably assume two things:

  • These people are, in fact, trying to silence an effective opponent of liberal policies.
  • They do not realize that, even if the Fairness Doctrine is reinstated, it is highly unlikely that stations will drop their most popular daytime program.

Oh, they may try to craft regulations or pass legislation to accomplish their goal, but I do not think that even the presently sitting Supreme Court will allow such a blatant violation of Mr. Limbaugh's rights, broadcasters' rights or listeners' rights. If this is allowed, then why not a proscription of any and every type of programming one might find offensive? For me, that would be NASCAR ... get 'em out of here!

Someone else may wish to ban Lonely Hearts advice shows; others, religious programs. As you can see, this could (will) get messy. Think of the science-vs.-creationism arguments many school systems are currently involved in.

Are we soon to see a patchwork of regulations similar to our obscenity laws where, in the name of "Fairness," prevailing local standards are used to determine what programming may or may not be broadcast? No! The whole issue here is that local management is not taking the proper, politically appropriate programming decisions; and must, therefore, receive instructions on proper (read that: approved) programming from government regulators. This is what proponents of the Fairness Doctrine truly desire.

I would rather see Liberal interests produce programming to counter Mr. Limbaugh, which is entertainng, informative, thought-provoking and compelling; and which can compete effectively in the market. To date, no one has been able to do this, although some have indeed made ceditable efforts to compete.

There is one advantage to having the radio industry in the hands of the few, large corporations, I thnk: The larger companies (I hope) will be more able to lobby effectively against legislation to force what is a horribly stupid idea upon an already declining industry
 
Liberal counterprogramming has been tried OVER AND OVER! It does not get the ratings and it fails miserably on the financial front. I used to run the Air America station in Atlanta. The owners believed in the programming, but when the money goes away, so does the format. So what is the response? (Un) Fairness Doctrine. FORCE stations to carry counterprogramming. Sounds fair to me. You can't compete in the free market, so remove the freedom. That sounds like our government.

Now, for the point of religious programming, what about this point. Radio is under government regulation, and we are supposed to separate "church and state". So shouldn't we restrict religious broadcasting? (Yes, I'm playing devil's advocate, pardon the pun)
 
Do you mean to tell me that Al Franken and Randi Rhoades (I think I have her name wrong) were not able to attract an audience competitive to that of conservative hosts? ???
 
If the turns taken by this topic in the last few messages interests you, may I recommend another thread that you may find interesting. This group has done pretty well at keeping it from becoming an argument over conservative vs. liberal politics, but a discussion of radio programming and sales.

It helps to keep in mind that a number of the participants are based in New York (state) and Pennsylvania. ***

Give it a try: http://boards.radio-info.com/smf/index.php/topic,120386.msg972624.html#msg972624

*** (states where they may let a liberal finish his argument before they shoot him) ;D
 
Witchlover said:
Do you mean to tell me that Al Franken and Randi Rhoades (I think I have her name wrong) were not able to attract an audience competitive to that of conservative hosts? ???
Click to expand...

The above mentioned hosts HAD an audiance, but NO SALES! No one would buy time in their slots. To survive, we ran the weekend "paid programs". And no, I'm not making a liberal/conservative argument here. It's about programming and what you can sell to make money. We did a live remote with Al Franken and had a packed theater (around 2000 people showed up for a noon to three show). But we couldn't find a sponsor to buy the program. We had Randi Rhodes and Willie Nelson in for an event, and once they got fairly sober, they did a good job and we had a HUGE crowd. But we couldn't sell it. We did a live remote with Rachel Maddow (now on TV) and Chuck D, complete with musical guest MC Lyte, but no sponsor. It was standing room only. We did another live remote and fund raiser (for charity) with one of our local hosts, the B-52's showed up from Athens! It was a packed house again, and the fund raiser was a GREAT success. But not a sponsor would touch it.

So what is the answer? Programming wise, I think it could succeed. But at what cost?

As an observer, I've listened to conservative talk, and I've listened to liberal talk. The main difference that I see is in the attitude of the show. By that I mean conservative talk tends to be upbeat, with a bit of humor, and occasional hard hitting "dark" moments. Liberal talk by comparison seemed to ALWAYS be in the "dark" moment. The humor (when it was used) was dark, the delivery was dark, and anger was ALWAYS expressed! And to be quite honest, it was expressed off air too. We had lunch with Mike Malloy once, and that had to be the darkest event I've ever attended! He seemed to be ready to explode at any moment. It was very uncomfortable. I also know the engineer from Randi's former home station in Florida. He told me that they referred to her as "the Queen". He was upset that he had to build for her a "smoking" studio. Now you might say that this is just hearsay, but I worked with these people and all of my employees were offended by at least one "national" host during their employ. (The exception being Rachel Maddow and Chuck D. They were totally professional and very nice to hang out with. I wish those two continued great success. I wouldn't give you a dime to help any of the others.)
 
A classic explanation of talk radio situation, JohnAllan!

He doesn't present himself as a partisan crusader, but the one on-air talent I can think of who is liberal but does not come across as "dark" would be Larry King. Has he no spiritual descendants in the business?

About the conservative talk stars: It is deeply camouflaged beneath the layers of humor and efforts to at least appear to be civil, but isn't there a recurring theme of "darkness" on the conservative side also? Maybe in the message more than in the performer?

Think about the irony. The team accused of delivering a Pollyanna message does it with with a dark personality, while the team credited with a Pollyanna personality may be delivering the darker message.
 
Actually, this is what I had heard: The numbers were there; the dollars were not. I never understood this. I will never understand this. The dollars ought to have followed the numbers, I should think. I encountered a similar puzzling dichotomy with religious programming. Many people in our little town listened to and said they enjoyed the format -- many of them were the local merchants -- but selling advertising on the station was very difficult at best.

As to liberal programs, I have to agree that they often are quite dark in tone. I did hear Al Franken once; he seemed to be very unhappy -- in fact, to me it seemed the whole theme of his show was to spew venom at any and every person who disagreed with Al Franken. I used to enjoy Alan Dershowitz (spelling?). I probably learned more about the Constitution listening to him than in high-school Civics. Even his was a very dark presentation. One can only absorb so much negativity, pessimism and mean spirited humor before saturation is reached and the program is abandoned. Why, I wonder, cannot the people responsible for this situation understand what, to me, is such a simple concept? Instead, they scream about "un-Fairness" and demand a government fix.
 
Witchlover: here is my theory on your quandary about "the numbers are there but not the money."

You almost have to be my age or older to grasp this concept. And what I am about to compose should not work today because there are so many young people who did not experience this time in our national history and they are today's coveted listeners and today's decision makers in many cases.

In the late 1800s and on up until World War II, being a socialist, being a progressive, being a liberal was practiced by a significant percentage of our U.S. population. Then came WWII, Hitler and the Nazis, and we in winding up that war ran head-on into COMMUNIST Russia and Joe Stalin. Pardon the expression, but in this country the "witch hunt" began. If it could be determined that you every went to a neighborhood meeting and signed an attendance roster and after the fact we learned that the organizers of that meeting included some people tied to Socialism and Communism, you were labeled a sympathizer. The cold war went on very intensely for 30 to 40 years. To be liberal became equated to being communist.

To this day people of my generation have to be gutsy and assertive to ever publicly announce that they are liberal, that they are progressive, that they are a DEMOCRAT. And when you go in and try to sell the owner of a local business the idea of buying sponsorship on a station or a program that claims to be liberal or even smells like it may be liberal, that person is likely to have at least some sub-conscious fear that I may end up on one of those "black lists" we knew back in the 50s and 60s.

What is the old business saying: No one ever got fired for buying a switchboard from The Bell System or buying a mainframe from IBM. To buy other brands, even if you did your research and knew you had a good product could be dangerous to your corporate career.

In much of America, there is this feeling you never get fired for siding with the conservative side, but it is risky to your business, your social life to be openly liberal. You have to be a good salesman to get past that fear with a radio schedule.

On the religious side, what appears to be a bit reverse of that happens. From 1900 to 1960 Christianity in America embraced Mainline Protestantism. (That trend began to crumble circa 1950 - 1960 because people saw some "social issues" where the mainline churches seemed to comfortable with socialism. )

Though the masses of protestants have move somewhat to the right of 1960s mainline thinking, they have not fully embraced the very conservative evangelical movement. Who dominates Christian radio? The very conservative evangelical movement. Not the mainline protestant church. Not the Catholic Church. Not the Mormons, Jehovas Witnesses, etc. Then in the business community that buys radio advertising you will also have Jewish people, agnostics, atheists, Buddhists, Muslims and others. None of these people are excited about Christian broadcasting as we know it, and don't ever want their business connected to any controversy that may be tied to Christian broadcasting support of rallies or marches on topics like Sunday sales of alcohol, illegal immigration. abortion or gay rights.

You never get fired for buying Top 40, Oldies, Sports or News/Talk. Being tied to Christian Radio at the wrong time, wrong location could be damaging to your career.

Slowly our society is growing past some of these "knee jerk" decisions but I don't we are there yet.
 
Your explanation is essentially what one local businessman -- himself a prominent member of the area's largest Methodist church -- told me: He was afraid that advertizing amongst the various sorts of programs we carried might be misconstrued by some people as his agreement with the likes of Falwell, etc. Notwithstanding the fact that he actually did agree with much Conservative Christian opinion, he simply would not "risk" advertizing with us. "Risk" was his word, not mine.

Things ought to be different as you say, but many people live one way publicly while holding to an entirely different philosophy privately. For me, life is complicated enough, so I live what I believe without apology; and I accept the consequences of doing this without (too much) complaint

By the way, I am a Classic 1957 model, just like the Chevy, so much of your experience in life is what I read in history books; and my personal witch hunt was quite successful. ;) Yes, I do know there is a little witch in all of 'em. That's what makes the hunt interesting!
 
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
In much of America, there is this feeling you never get fired for siding with the conservative side, but it is risky to your business, your social life to be openly liberal. You have to be a good salesman to get past that fear with a radio schedule.
Click to expand...

This is the only flaw I find with your premise. Every one that is "branded" conservative is also branded as a bigotted, greedy, homophobe, selfish person. And if you are progressive, you are championed as a great thinker that cares about everyone. Therefore, wouldn't the money follow the champion?
 
JohnAllan said:
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
In much of America, there is this feeling you never get fired for siding with the conservative side, but it is risky to your business, your social life to be openly liberal. You have to be a good salesman to get past that fear with a radio schedule.
Click to expand...

This is the only flaw I find with your premise. Every one that is "branded" conservative is also branded as a bigotted, greedy, homophobe, selfish person. And if you are progressive, you are championed as a great thinker that cares about everyone. Therefore, wouldn't the money follow the champion?
Click to expand...

It might... if people made decisions on "the big issues of life" based on LOGIC.

I'm not convinced the the masses make decisions about conservative vs. liberal, Republican vs. Democrat, faith vs. unbelief, marriage commitment vs. co-habitation of convenience on LOGIC. We follow in the footsteps of our parents. WE tune-in to the trend of our close friends that we tail-gate with or golf with or worship with. We latch onto a mentor who may have been a college professor, or someone who hired us way back when and pointed us in a certain direction. We sometime make these crucial decisions for the opposite reason: we are running from a parent who tried to force some -ism on us, a professor who got under our skin, or an employer who had philosophy that make us want to puke.

Someone has said that we who gather to discuss radio are often partial to whatever format, studio building style, or business concept was the "in thing" back in the day when we felt we were at our prime.

We seem to reserve logic for monumental decisions like: I've got to buy milk: Mayfield or house brand. Four door sedan or SUV, re-sod the lawn or aerate what we have and add some fertilizer. But be LOGICAL about my political affiliation and support? How quaint.

Actually, life can be quite complex. Forgive me when I become assertive about why people listen to this station or that station. My purpose is to poke and probe people who are sitting on a gem of wisdom but haven't shared it with us. Get someone off their duff who might share an idea here that would help me or you or someone to rethink what we support, and why we support it.

You did that for me with your post about the dark mood of so many people who are big time players in the world of liberal talk and discussion. Subconsciously I knew that.... but on my own I don't know that it would have ever bubbled up to the top.

So what this to do with what we discuss on R-I boards? Today's world of broadcasting does not seem to be a place where creative, bubble-to-the-top, new-direction thinking is a big factor.
 
Mr. Malone:
Here's something unphilosophical and shallow:
Cumulus is going to go bankrupt if it shafts its listeners. I am still sore about losing my oldies station and hearing those ads to tell us to buy ads. The marketplace will have to glean out the non-performers. I can see putting a cap on market ownership but the Fairness Doctrine and its guises will gain nothing but the Boston Tea Party from the American People. I also would like to see FEMA or the state emergency managers contract with a station in each market to broadcast emergency instructions in the event of a disaster. The public radio stations deal with statewide and regional emergency instructions but not so much for individual cities and counties. Remember CONELRAD? A nuke could hit Macon and ClearChannel would say nothing about it.
 
No arguement here. That's pretty shallow. Boston Tea Party? Radio hasn't made that big a stir since Orson Welles and "The War of the Worlds."

I matched your shallow and raised you one. ;D
 
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
Today's world of broadcasting does not seem to be a place where creative, bubble-to-the-top, new-direction thinking is a big factor.
Click to expand...

I believe this is because broadcasting is being run by accountants in faraway places who eat, sleep and dream numbers; but who have lost track of the fact that there is an actual world out there beyond their balance sheets and financial statements. New thinking equals challenging the paradigm; challenging the paradigm equals taking risks. Taking risks may mean an occasional failure, which will have an impact on the bottom line. On the other hand, a competitor may innovate and gain advantage over your company. What happens is that the bean counters get together in their industry meetings and agree to very discreetly limit creative thought so that no single company gains an advantage and no single company assumes undue risk.

Meanwhile, we, the listening public -- the ones whose interest the broadcasters are supposed to serve (or so they always assure us they are) -- are given no thought or consideration: After all, we'll tune in and listen slavishly to whatever uninspiring, cookie-cutter, formulaic aural fertilizer they chose to shovel out to us, and we will not complain. We always have.

Never mind that industry revenues are falling with the glide characteristics of a cinder block, and none of the industry insiders can seem to figure out why. Obviously, they are doing everything right -- it has always worked before. The problem must be with us -- the audience -- who do not understand the intracacies of the business, and don't really know what we want to begin with. Hey, it worked in LA ... NYC ... Chicagoland ... Frisco ... Des Moines ... ... ... .
 
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