Radio is in BIG trouble

[gr8oldies]

Ask any 100 people on the street with no connection to radio what "homogenized programming" is and you'll get a blank stare. This idea that if you just kill the liner cards and promos and let jocks just free-form that it will bring ratings and revenue to 1970s levels can't be backed up other than your wishing it were true. Listen to almost any college station with three or four people in a room talking about nothing and tell me that's the key to entertaining radio. I'm really supposed to let my night and weekend jocks just open the mike and babble about whatever they want?

As far as "homogenized programming", outside of people who did or did work in radio, I can produce lots of people who are happy they can hear Rush, Delilah, or K-Love when they travel. They aren't saying "dammit, I wish Atlanta had a different love songs hostess", or a different contemportary Christian station.
There isn't this demand for talkative DJs and comedy bits between every song that you think there is. People can click off what they don't like anytime.

 

[davideduardo]

"Interactive" has been around since the 78 RPM record came out. When it comes to radio, people complain more about "homogenized programming" than any other factor. They complain about "annoying jocks" who offer no meaningful content - i.e. promos and liner cards - every time they crack the mic.

In talking with people today, the complaints are mostly about bad records and jocks that talk too much. Outside of mornings, most say they wish the jocks would shut up and play the music.

Rick Sklar, Bill Drake, and Lee Abrams are appalled at what corporate radio is dishing out. Ask 'em. They'll tell you that they never intended for radio to take formatting and research this far.

It would be hard to ask Rick or Bill, as they are not among the living. And Abrams was vilified in his peak years of the Superstars for reducing playlists to just a few hundred songs and shutting the jocks up.

I deleted the part where you call people who disagree with your viewpoint "stooges,"

 

[adma]

Listen to almost any college station with three or four people in a room talking about nothing and tell me that's the key to entertaining radio.

Yes, but you're speaking for the sorts of people whom said college-station audience would dismiss as redneck hillbillies from Jesusland...

I can produce lots of people who are happy they can hear Rush, Delilah, or K-Love when they travel. They aren't saying "dammit, I wish Atlanta had a different love songs hostess", or a different contemportary Christian station.

 

[adma]

Here's the key thing to know: If listeners go to other media, they're going to find the programming isn't built like a traditional radio station with DJs playing music and giving news & weather. So if that's what they want, they're not going to find it on an ipod or at pandora. The real fact here is that the audience for what traditional radio has been doing is going away. They don't want what traditional radio has been doing for the past 50 years.

What I'm talking about is a complete sociological revolution in what the public wants. It's very different. So losing staff or programming only matters if the public actually wants it, and if it's available in the traditional sense somewhere else. So far, it appears the answer to both of those is no.

And that might be the most fundamental thing here--courtesy of one of those so-called "corporate shills".

Look at it this way, re these arguments on behalf of "immediacy" and "relatable personalities" and whatever else: roughly similar arguments might have been voiced decades ago on behalf of the continued survival of, say, vaudeville entertainment. Didn't matter; what killed vaudeville was an earlier "complete sociological revolution in what the public wants". Ultimately, the fix was in...everyplace, big or small. That's not to say that the best elements of vaudeville didn't survive in some form in what replaced it: cinema, radio, television...but vaudeville itself was dead, except as an archaism.

In this light, it may be saying something that perhaps the biggest boon the internet's been for radio hasn't been in the realm of streaming audio or interactivity or added platforms ad infinitum, but as a readymade radio museum available to all. Pre-WWW, we simply didn't have the readily available resources for radio history and radio greats and the vintage airchecks--now we do, and it's incredibly fascinating. But it also has a way of framing the medium and its past greatness as more of a "museum piece" than we counted on through our raw memories--not in a bad way, mind you, but perhaps for those still in the profession or with an investment in its current survival, it's an inadvertently mixed and blurry blessing. With a documented/presented past this illustrious--or in certain lights we're only discovering now, this anachronistic (would today's audiences really go for those old Sklar/Drake-style pitches, PropaPHgandaistic corporate shills and all?)--who needs a present that's only weakly, awkwardly recollecting said past that it's self-consciously hitching itself to?

Sure, this on-line museum may not have the type and scale of mass audience that we remember: what matters is that it has an audience at all, and is readily available to said audience--besides, in the Web era, the old economies of scale don't matter unless you're actively investing in them. It's no longer like when a station or format just dies or a song falls off the charts, it's totally lost to posterity, never to be heard again--something which might have been my naive assumption some 30+ years ago.

Now when it comes to that derogatory (or at least, reflective-of-a-derogatory-attitude) previous post of mine re college radio listeners vs "redneck hillbillies from Jesusland", remember that there's a vast in-between demographic out there, i.e. the sort who indeed find that Rush/Delilah/K-Love to be the epitome of Commercial Terrestrial Radio Hell these days--but not on behalf of college-station talking-about-nothing marginalia. Even if certain of them might have idealized that realm once upon a time, particularly in the 80s when it seemed the logical furthering and continuation of pre-AOR free-form FM. And if certain of them have "graduated" to a more "professional" level of listenership, it might just as well be as part of NPR's increasing demos. But by and large, that "vast in-between" is what fuels the current and impending universe of post-terrestrial, of downloads and Pandora--something that's born of the limitations of both commercial and college-style terrestrial. In its curious way, it represents the effective trickling-up into the masses of the 80s DIY college-radio spirit--even when the music and entertainment fare is anything but, uh, "alternative" or "left-field" or "weird". So, as a harbinger of the future, those ad hoc hippies and punks on campus radio actually won.

And what you find these days that traditional radio's spokespersons and critics and Jerry Del Colliano-esque barb-tossers are increasingly speaking in terms of "available audiences", which is but a nice way of saying "remaining audiences"--because for most of those who've decried radio's suckage in the past, that issue's resolved itself through technology and sociology. They're no longer "available". Radio people have to make the most with whomever's left; and that "whomever" is increasingly of the so-called backwoods, even if they exist in apparently considerable numbers. Roughly speaking, if we were to transcribe 60s culture to today, radio's realm might be Lawrence Welk, and the rock revolution, Beatles and all, would be totally elsewhere...

 

[TheBigA]

That may be the longest post you've ever made here.

I think the only reason FM radio as it is has lasted this long is because the boomer generation is so huge that it's shear mass is large enough to keep it alive. Statistically, it should have died at the end of the 20th century. And in a way, it did. The critics like JDC keep making it sound like we can bring back the past. We can't. Just as you said, vaudeville is dead. So was the first Golden Age of radio. The second Golden Age was dead at the end of the 90s. Now we're waiting for phase 3.

I really believe a day will come when the unlimited choices of the internet, coupled with the costs and inconveniences, will cause a revival of terrestrial radio. But it will come back as a very different medium. Just as the radio of the late 50s was very different from the radio of the 30s and 40s. Because radio is cheap, easy, and efficient. Coupled with the phone and internet, it can be better than it's ever been.

 

[TheBigA]

But, what do I know? You're correct, it's just my opinion - based on conversations with hundreds of people who USED TO listen to terrestrial radio.

Who are all, like you, outside the primary target sales demo. So who cares of they don't listen any more? The next generation (based on conversations I have with Gen Y) can't wait for all of you to leave radio (one way or another), so they can walk in and change it the way the boomers did in the 70s. They all know time is on their side.

Reading some of these posts reminds me of Hy Brown, who thought he could resurrent 1930's style radio theater and the audiences will sit around their console radios for Orson Welles.

 

[aunti-terrestrial]

But, what do I know? You're correct, it's just my opinion - based on conversations with hundreds of people who USED TO listen to terrestrial radio.

Who are all, like you, outside the primary target sales demo. So who cares of they don't listen any more? The next generation (based on conversations I have with Gen Y) can't wait for all of you to leave radio (one way or another), so they can walk in and change it the way the boomers did in the 70s. They all know time is on their side.

Reading some of these posts reminds me of Hy Brown, who thought he could resurrent 1930's style radio theater and the audiences will sit around their console radios for Orson Welles.

Actually, from all evidence and many, many sources, it's becoming a widely accepted canon that the next generation doesn't care about radio at all and won't miss it when it's gone.

 

[SirRoxalot]

There's little point in talking about radio programming with people who can't distinguish between "almost any college station with three or four people in a room talking about nothing" and professional, relatable air personalities.

Nobody cares LESS about radio than people under the age of 30. That's not their fault, that's RADIO'S fault. The age of people who don't care about radio is increasing, and will continue to increase because there's nothing of interest programmed for them. The number of Gen Y members who "can't wait for all of you to leave radio" is miniscule. They'd rather program their iPods or a niche web station than be associated with terrestrial radio, which they consider lame.

The last generation of radio listeners are the people grew up on radio that related to them. They're the ones who still seek programming that appeals to them, and whose frustration is growing because they're find less and less of it. They're the ones who notice that they hear "boring stations that sound the same wherever I travel". They're the ones increasing turning to Facebook and NPR for the human contact that they once percieved in radio.

Let's face it. Programming quality is no longer a consideration for several major players. "Cheap" has replaced "good" as debt loads eat up a greater percentage of the shrinking revenue. They're trying to ride out the results of an economic downturn married to cuts in sales and programming and overly optimistic revenue projections.

Carry on, gentlemen. You're committed to your way of doing business, and it's driving you into bankruptcy. The sooner that happens, the sooner radio can move beyond you to its next incarnation.

 

[Tom Wells]

But, what do I know? You're correct, it's just my opinion - based on conversations with hundreds of people who USED TO listen to terrestrial radio.

Who are all, like you, outside the primary target sales demo. So who cares of they don't listen any more? The next generation (based on conversations I have with Gen Y) can't wait for all of you to leave radio (one way or another), so they can walk in and change it the way the boomers did in the 70s. They all know time is on their side.

Reading some of these posts reminds me of Hy Brown, who thought he could resurrent 1930's style radio theater and the audiences will sit around their console radios for Orson Welles.

He did resurrect it and I listened most of the time when it first ran. Didn't have a console yet.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

Rick Sklar, Bill Drake, and Lee Abrams are appalled at what corporate radio is dishing out. Ask 'em

You're aware that Mr. Drake passed earlier this year?

 

[Silkie]

Ask any 100 people on the street with no connection to radio what "homogenized programming" is and you'll get a blank stare. This idea that if you just kill the liner cards and promos and let jocks just free-form that it will bring ratings and revenue to 1970s levels can't be backed up other than your wishing it were true. Listen to almost any college station with three or four people in a room talking about nothing and tell me that's the key to entertaining radio. I'm really supposed to let my night and weekend jocks just open the mike and babble about whatever they want?

You might be surprised to know that there is the rare station that does joking voiceovers about their babblers.

As far as "homogenized programming", outside of people who did or did work in radio, I can produce lots of people who are happy they can hear Rush, Delilah, or K-Love when they travel. They aren't saying "dammit, I wish Atlanta had a different love songs hostess", or a different contemportary Christian station.

Or any other great to whom a person is true blue, loyal.

There isn't this demand for talkative DJs and comedy bits between every song that you think there is. People can click off what they don't like anytime.

Some think there is, or else they pretend there is because of the cheap salary factor.

 

[TheBigA]

Actually, from all evidence and many, many sources, it's becoming a widely accepted canon that the next generation doesn't care about radio at all and won't miss it when it's gone.

That's OK. When I was 20, I didn't listen to radio either. Everyone on it was too old.

The next generation will care about radio when THEY are running it.

 

[TheBigA]

The sooner that happens, the sooner radio can move beyond you to its next incarnation.

What you fail to understand is that it's already in the process of doing that. You're simply too wedded to the past to recognize it.

 

[SirRoxalot]

Well, it appears that we're getting closer to putting a lot of radio stations into the hands of new owners.

 

[TheBigA]

Well, it appears that we're getting closer to putting a lot of radio stations into the hands of new owners.

None of whom will be an improvement over the old owners. Regardless of their debt situation.

 

[Silkie]

Well, it appears that we're getting closer to putting a lot of radio stations into the hands of new owners.

Even the "mom and pop" stations are not really mom and pop stations anymore. They just don't own as many television stations, radio stations and newspapers as some of the larger conglomerates. They're already starting to dump some, on top of those they were required to get rid of as a result of owning more than allowed.

 

[SirRoxalot]

Talk about "wedded to the past"...

If radio has a chance to be relevant, it has to innovate. You can't innovate when all of your revenue is going to the bank. If new owners with less debt don't create radio that's relatable to the listeners, and serves the needs of advertisers, they'll go out of business too. Sooner or later, radio stations will be owned by people who know how to create programming that listeners want, and advertisers will pay for.

 

[Silkie]

Unfortunately there are those that are trying to innovate using garbage that got passed along down the line that has nothing to do with anything other than they are using exactly what put others out of business; they cannot, IMO, just recycle as though they are doing laundry or running a dishwasher to wash it all out when, at best, they can only speculate about where they are actually supposed to be starting from.

 

[adma]

Reading some of these posts reminds me of Hy Brown, who thought he could resurrent 1930's style radio theater and the audiences will sit around their console radios for Orson Welles.

Though actually, that's not unlike the impulse I referred to more sympathetically re the Web as a boon for radio museology available to all. Of course, it might not be a "mass audience" thing the way such radio used to be...but in this age of the Long Tail, it doesn't really matter. Just being "out there" and "available" is enough.

 

[adma]

That's OK. When I was 20, I didn't listen to radio either. Everyone on it was too old.

Ah, but *when* were you 20? That might make all the difference.

Besides, these days it isn't just a matter of being "too old"--it's also a matter of the medium being associated with tasteless sleazebags, far-right nutcases, and backwoods stupids of all ages. Essentially, radio's meal ticket of the past score years has skunked out all but the yokels and hard-of-thinking.

It's not a generation-gap thing, the way it once might have been. More of a cultural-gap thing, these days...