Radio Disney to be shuttered, KRDC to be sold

[Groove1670]

Well, the trick once you've moved an audience from a finite radio dial to an infinite internet is to keep them with you. As the press release said, the listeners have many more personalized options now for their listening. Even a dedicated Radio Disney app didn't do the trick.

It's Disney. They'll find another way. The biggest fire they have to put out is how to deal with the loss of a year's worth of revenue from parks, cruises and films.

With ABC, ESPN, Idol and many other platforms cross promotion is not that difficult, and you have outside promotion like IHeart awards shows etc for a Disney artist.

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

With ABC, ESPN, Idol and many other platforms cross promotion is not that difficult, and you have outside promotion like IHeart awards shows etc for a Disney artist.

Did you mean shows on Disney+ and Hulu to promote Disney artists? Yes ABC due to their broadcast rights for American Idol. I doubt ESPN wants Disney artists though.

 

[boombox4]

In a world of OCD and short attention span there are better ways to reach the Disney Demo. Alumi and college budgets usually keep the station on life support. Programming is usually poor and caters to a very nice audience.

WHUR and WRUF are good examples of College stations that program to a masses and in turn make money. Students get to participate in real world radio setting. These days playing obscure music and planning schedules on a white board is not.

On a editorial note: I've asked a few media instructors how much time is dedicated to the sales and marketing side of radio. The question is avoided or we are trying to work it into the lesson.

At the same time, college radio isn't meant to be a carbon copy of commercial radio. Attempting to do so defeats its purpose.

I saw what happened when a community / college station attempted to sound commercial. The first thing that happened was that the number of DJ slots were instantly slashed by about 80-90 percent. So much for incentives for students and volunteers to do the grunt work at the station -- necessary stuff like answering phones, helping with promotion, doing production, news writing, helping with music cataloging, or other computer related duties. The second thing that happened was that the station became an NPR wannabe -- and there were already two, highly successful NPR stations in the region.

The station did not end up competing with any of the commercial music outlets, nor did it make inroads against the NPR stations. The end result was that most students and volunteers at the station did not get on-air radio experience they needed should they have wanted to go on in radio. If it weren't for a rich benefactor it might have ended up going off the air.

College radio is intended to give students experience that they can use in the real world. Although it's a good thing for a college station to try to sound good on the air, with actual students behind the mic that's just not going to happen in most cases. It's a learning experience, not commercial radio. You don't get behind a mic for the first time and sound great -- be it playing music, or reading news. It is a process. I think sometimes it's easy for those who run college radio to lose sight of that.

In the case of Radio Disney we had an already professional broadcaster with slick, well produced programming, with pros behind the mic, and an operation backed by one of the largest entertainment conglomerates in the US, and that conglomerate decided to pull the plug over a period of several years. They had a good product, and most of the in-house pop hits that were promoted over the station were also very good. Instead of growing this product over the radio (whether OTA or online) they decided to limit it, and in the end they decided to get rid of it completely. Very sad, actually, but what's done is done.

 

[TheBigA]

At the same time, college radio isn't meant to be a carbon copy of commercial radio. Attempting to do so defeats its purpose.

To clarify, the examples in the previous post, WHUR and WRUF, are in fact commercial radio stations that compete in the commercial marketplace. They're owned by colleges, but not staffed by students or intended for instruction. That also applies to a number of other college-owned NPR stations, such as KUSC or KCSN or KPCC. On the other hand, there are college owned stations that are staffed by students, and used either as a student activity or as a teaching platform.

 

[JeremyAndrews]

How is K256CX’s coverage? On paper it looks limited to Arcadia.

As for 1110, they were running overflow play-by-play basketball from 710 this past weekend. Just trying to get an idea of who would buy it. I wonder with 710’s pending downgrade if they plan to eventually put ESPN Radio programming on it.

 

[david]

How is K256CX’s coverage? On paper it looks limited to Arcadia.

As for 1110, they were running overflow play-by-play basketball from 710 this past weekend. Just trying to get an idea of who would buy it. I wonder with 710’s pending downgrade if they plan to eventually put ESPN Radio programming on it.

K256CX's coverage as per FCCdata.org - Usable signal is mostly within the black and green
I'm located out of range, as am quite south of there, so am curious from SGV posters how impacted KGGI is from this signal.

 

[Groove1670]

Did you mean shows on Disney+ and Hulu to promote Disney artists? Yes ABC due to their broadcast rights for American Idol. I doubt ESPN wants Disney artists though.

All platforms. Don't limit content to one or two platforms. Why not a ESPN sports show for kids in the future? or Disney Kids special on ABC.

 

[ChannelFlipper]

To clarify, the examples in the previous post, WHUR and WRUF, are in fact commercial radio stations that compete in the commercial marketplace. They're owned by colleges, but not staffed by students or intended for instruction. That also applies to a number of other college-owned NPR stations, such as KUSC or KCSN or KPCC. On the other hand, there are college owned stations that are staffed by students, and used either as a student activity or as a teaching platform.

I always thought the purpose of college radio was to prepare the students for a career in public radio. Notice the earlier comment about not teaching the kids about sales and marketing.

 

[TheBigA]

I always thought the purpose of college radio was to prepare the students for a career in public radio. Notice the earlier comment about not teaching the kids about sales and marketing.

It depends on the college and the station. There are some colleges where the station is a "student activity," and no formal instruction by faculty can be done on station grounds. As for the teaching of sales and marketing, it depends on how the college is structured. Some don't even have communications or broadcasting departments. Marketing is usually handled in its own department. So it's a complicated thing, certainly not made easier by the view of some educators that traditional media shouldn't be taught, and instead they have departments teaching "audio" or "media" rather than radio & TV.

 

[boombox4]

I always thought the purpose of college radio was to prepare the students for a career in public radio. Notice the earlier comment about not teaching the kids about sales and marketing.

At the station I mentioned, several of the students and volunteers went on to have commercial radio careers. There also is a high school radio station in Seattle which generated people who went on to commercial radio. So, like BigA said, it varies.

 

[Kelly A]

At the station I mentioned, several of the students and volunteers went on to have commercial radio careers. There also is a high school radio station in Seattle which generated people who went on to commercial radio. So, like BigA said, it varies.

A lot depends on what the purpose of the station is. If curriculum is associated with classes, it's considered some form of vocational program. In order to survive inevitable cuts that come up, the program must demonstrate that it's success rate in teaching journalism or other electronic communications skills justifies the expense.

In the case of the Seattle station Boombox mentioned (which I'm pretty familiar with), starting in the 80's they had two challenges which were ultimately addressed: 1. Keeping student enrollment up to justify the program when the District looked at program costs. 2. Establishing a successful on air product that was more popular to a wider audience than just another high school sandbox-station. This provided a significant protective wall against cutting the program when times got tough. If the school administration, associated family members, and average members of the general public all enjoyed listening to the station, nobody wanted the optics of suggesting cuts to the program. In other words, the more popular one is, the more autonomy and maneuvering room you will be given. Just as with commercial radio; the challenge is maintaining it over time.

The icing on top, is when commercial stations see you as competition. As pissed as these stations are, they still hire your students because the students have already been trained in what to expect in a professional environment. I once had a PD from another commercial "HIT" station call me up and absolutely read me the riot act. He called me an SOB, and that I was exploiting kids to do my bidding (and beating his station in 18-24MF soundly) was unconscionable. After he got done, my only statement was: 'Let's think about this for a second; if you're being beaten by a high school station to the point you're this upset, you may want to consider switching careers.' He hung up on me.

 

[CTListener]

I always thought the purpose of college radio was to prepare the students for a career in public radio. Notice the earlier comment about not teaching the kids about sales and marketing.

During my years at Syracuse (as a newspaper major) in the 1970s, a group of students dissatisfied with the typical student-radio experience offered at WAER (freeform, DJ-selected music, freedom to ramble on between song sets, etc.) set up a carrier-current operation with the made-up call letters of WJPZ. The station stuck to a tight Top 40 format, with high-energy presentation that stressed "hitting the post" every time with talk-up and absolutely no straying from what was on the playlist. The intention was to give students a taste of what real, commercial radio was like. In less than a year, WJPZ was a Part 15 operation at 1200 kHz and had its student staff selling ads to campus-area pizza, sandwich and record shops. Today, WJPZ is a legitimate CHR at 89.1, still giving SU students a chance to work at something as close to a "real" radio station as any school can offer.

Are there other schools doing anything like this today?

 

[TheBigA]

During my years at Syracuse (as a newspaper major) in the 1970s, a group of students dissatisfied with the typical student-radio experience offered at WAER (freeform, DJ-selected music, freedom to ramble on between song sets, etc.)

It's a long story, but the university was not happy with the free-form approach at WAER. They felt it was bad for the school's image. So they got professionals involved, and turned it into an NPR affiliate, basically competing against WCNY. A few years ago, the station moved out of the university building into its own building. WJPZ is now the student station, with a very active alumni association.

 

[SarahB98]

Lemme guess Disney will own K-Mozart

 

[davideduardo]

Today, WJPZ is a legitimate CHR at 89.1, still giving SU students a chance to work at something as close to a "real" radio station as any school can offer.

Are there other schools doing anything like this today?

Interestingly, back in the early 60's when I was looking at colleges, Syracuse was at the top of my list because it was, even back then, the most realist in its broadcast and media focus.

 

[CTListener]

Interestingly, back in the early 60's when I was looking at colleges, Syracuse was at the top of my list because it was, even back then, the most realist in its broadcast and media focus.

I had some amazing professors, and all of them made sure we understood the practical editorial and business nature of newspapers. Considering this was the mid-'70s and most of us had visions of instantly becoming the next Woodward and Bernstein, that was quite a feat.

One professor I remember vividly is Jay Wright, who taught "Journalism and The Law." He brought in Fred Graham of the New York Times to talk about covering the Supreme Court, had all of us cover and write a story about some trial going on at the courthouse downtown, pounded libel law into us. But what I remember most was his policy of grading any paper with a misspelled name in it with an "F." The lesson was that credibility is instantly lost if you can't even get something as basic as the name of the person you are writing about correct. I remember sitting next to a classmate who was absolutely devastated when Wright returned her assignment with an F grade, but she never got a name wrong again and graduated with no problem. I remembered that every time I wrote a story or, later, got a story to copy edit.

 

[ChannelFlipper]

I had some amazing professors, and all of them made sure we understood the practical editorial and business nature of newspapers. Considering this was the mid-'70s and most of us had visions of instantly becoming the next Woodward and Bernstein, that was quite a feat.

One professor I remember vividly is Jay Wright, who taught "Journalism and The Law." He brought in Fred Graham of the New York Times to talk about covering the Supreme Court, had all of us cover and write a story about some trial going on at the courthouse downtown, pounded libel law into us. But what I remember most was his policy of grading any paper with a misspelled name in it with an "F." The lesson was that credibility is instantly lost if you can't even get something as basic as the name of the person you are writing about correct. I remember sitting next to a classmate who was absolutely devastated when Wright returned her assignment with an F grade, but she never got a name wrong again and graduated with no problem. I remembered that every time I wrote a story or, later, got a story to copy edit.

Excellent teaching and learning. Some of the most important things to learn are some of the simplest.

 

[Radio Nerd]

Radio Disney is only available on the Radio Disney app and the iHeartRadio app as of 10:42 pm CST on 1/21/2021. Wonder what time they will pull the plug??? Any guesses?

 

[boombox4]

There are off the air as of now. Just a logo and links to legal information.

 

[MarioMania]

I'm on the Santa Clarita SDR

I'm still hearing Music, But it's not Country