oaktree said:
Yeah ... David's right. But you lose all sense of "localization" by doing radio the way he's talking about here. And I do think people recognize local from non-local. Does it matter? He says "No" ... I say "Yes."
I just think the whole "local is better" thing is mostly a crock. How many local night hosts do you see beating Jay Leno? You know why? Leno is the most entertaining, and most electronic media usage is driven by entertainment value. There is so little of interest locally in most places that a good "local show" is mostly not about local politics, news, schools, etc. It is just entertaining.
The FCC keeps regurgitating the localism pap, like a cow and its cud. Maybe the idea was born out of an exaggerated sense of the indivualism inbred into the American psyche, but whatever the cause, localism is much exaggerated in its appeal to listneners.
Ever hear Imus on KABC in LA? Ever hear Joey Reynolds on a California station? They both sound like they're talking about ... what else? New York City! It doesn't fit. It sounds awful and non-relateable.
But to hear Imus, Reynolds and others ... it sounds awful because they localize it to New York so much.
In the nations where they know how to do national radio, like most of Europe, Latin America, most nations of Africa even, they know how to avoid partisanship with one location. I don't care if some host is in a studio overlooking Times Square, for example. I care about the topics on the show, not its location. I participate in the operations of several networks, and learning to be location-neutral is not hard.
KISS-FM in LA would surely lose it's LA identity if it sounded "Clear Channel homogenized" if Seacrest were on in the Hudson Valley or on every other "KISS" station in the country. Now, maybe, with that many stations ... it wouldn't matter. Sounding "LA" might be alright. Or a "national" KISS network might just make it, too.
Unfortunately, music tastes don't run consistent across the US and this is why the Clear Channel Kiss stations range from Churban to rhythmic CHR to white Dakotas CHR. But Seacrest could be syndicated, as he is already a nationally known name due to the always-intellectual Star Search.
And David's right ... Lancaster/Palmdale is really in the LA market ... now merely "repeater" stations to fill in some holes. But still...people lost gigs in serving the Antelope Valley. Tough being in the umbrella of the number two market like that ... Where will it end? The regionalization may just continue. Remember ... 50kw AM's have huge signals often times. Why not get that same coverage with taking up tiers of FMs around a certain market and beyond? It can easily be done ... and soon, you have FMs that are very bit "the power" of big power AMs.
Fringe markets are the devil to be in. Riverside San Berdoo only has 30% of listening to local stations, the rest goes to LA. And most buyers don't buy the market, as they get it for free from the LA buys. The Antilope Valley is now such an LA overflow market and the merchants are chain stores and big box retailers, all of whom ignore the "market" as it is part of LA, even if most LA signals don't get out there.
The "networking" of FMs happens all the time in Great Britain and Scotland, too.
And France and Germany and Spain and Portugal and Italy and nearly every other European nation. Subsaharan Africa, where there is lots of commercial radio, has national networks from Ghana to Nigeria to Namibia, principally on FM now. Same in much of Asia, in places like the Philippines. And all of Latin America, even little nations like Costa Rica. I had a network in Ecuador in the mid-60's, and nobody worried about localism then... they just liked getting major market radio in much smaller markets.
Ah, American radio's next great frontier... What better way to start with a well-known brand ... KISS-FM?
It hit the US 60 years ago, nearly. Puerto Rico has always been one ad market, even if it takes a minimum of 3 TVs or FMs and maybe 5 am's to cover it. So everything is networked and has been since the early 50's. And in nations like Mexico consolidation happened in the 50's too... by the early 50's there were groups of 5 and 6 stations in Mexico City. Nations to the south have been doing cluster strategies for five decades, and have learned to do it well.
