Remember when radio was family?

[TheBigA]

So, your basic response is:

Get out of radio.

You have trouble with reading comprehension.

I clearly said MOVE. Get out of Buffalo. If you don't like the working circumstances there, and you feel you have to work for companies that give you mental anguish because there is no choice, move to another city.

But if that doesn't work for you, because of your family, then yes..find some other occupation. See if they're more benevolent. Based on what I see, they won't.

You denigrate talent

Once again, absolutely wrong. I believe in EMPOWERING talent. But the catch is they have to be talented in the first place. Radio is filled with people who call themselves talent, but aren't talented. Talent is unique. If someone has talent, they don't have to take any job or work for less. They can name their price. But they need to have talent.

But if their talent isn't really unique or marketable, then yes, find another line of work. Too many untalented people in radio.

 

[SirRoxalot]

I know several local stations that would like to hire more and/or better talent - and generate the profit needed to do it. Unfortunately, that profit is going straight to corporate to stave off foreclosure because they overpaid for stations in other markets that aren't profitable.

Too many untalented people in radio.

You may be right - especially in the management ranks - as demonstrated by the current state of several of the largest broadcasting companies.

 

[Stewy]

Make a ham sandwich and come sit with me on the courthouse steps Pocket, as you point out, we haven't much longer to wait.

Wait for what? Godot? Unless you plan on buying some stations, don't waste your time waiting for the past to return. And the past was not as good as you think it was.

For one that types tremendous quantities, you surely must not read too closely. Wait for what ..... ON THE COURTHOUSE STEPS. OK, here a hint, "....to be auctioned to the highest bidder ....".

 

[12 In a Row]

Great advise I received years ago, NEVER love a company big or small, they won't and can't love you back. And, if you really want to relate to your listeners, find friends out of the business.

 

[TVradioguru]

Great advise I received years ago, NEVER love a company big or small, they won't and can't love you back. And, if you really want to relate to your listeners, find friends out of the business.

Wow, those last two comments are spot-on! As un-warm and un-fuzzy as it sounds, you're absolutely correct. Employers, no matter what the industry, value workers if you are productive and work toward the end-goal of making money. But life changes and evolves. The big thing today won't be tomorrow. You either adapt and be the best at what you do or find another line of work.

 

[SirRoxalot]

Great advise I received years ago, NEVER love a company big or small, they won't and can't love you back. And, if you really want to relate to your listeners, find friends out of the business.

I don't think that anyone "loves" a company. If you're lucky, there's mutual respect and fair compensation for the job done.

The statement "if you really want to relate to your listeners, find friends out of the business" is precisely what's WRONG with the radio business these days. That's a perfect example of the type of short-sighted management that's plaguing radio, and leading to the revenue performance that's WORSE than TV, newspapers, and virtually every other type of "old" media.

Simply, if you don't have listeners, you won't have advertisers. No advertisers, no money coming in. If you're nothing but "somebody else's iPod", you're going to lose.

Spin that any way you like, but that's the basic problem with most corporate radio today.

 

[TheBigA]

The statement "if you really want to relate to your listeners, find friends out of the business" is precisely what's WRONG with the radio business these days.

Everything is management's fault to you. I have lots of friends in other lines of work, and they all tell me they prefer to socialize outside their occupations. That way, they're not just talking about how work sucks all the time (sound familiar?)

I think it's healthy and important for radio people to talk with people outside the industry because they're our customers. We need to know what they're talking about. Get out of the studio, stop talking about ratings and dayparts, and listen to what the people are saying. I've worked in a lot of one-industry towns and it's always a shock when you leave that place and go where REAL people are. I think everyone in radio could benefit from that. I think everyone on the air needs to spend time off the air with their listeners, developing friendships and fans with them that will go beyond the job. That's what on-air people USED to do.

 

[SirRoxalot]

I will issue a mea culpa here. I misread the original statement as meaning that it was not important to relate to listeners. As I re-read it, I see that in my haste I interpreted it incorrectly.

I will even agree with TheBigA's statement IN TOTO.

I do find it incongruous that someone who seems to understand the importance of relating to listeners and understands what it takes to do that believes that you can do it remotely voice-tracking from another market...

 

[TheBigA]

I do find it incongruous that someone who seems to understand the importance of relating to listeners and understands what it takes to do that believes that you can do it remotely voice-tracking from another market...

Once again, you misunderstand what I say. My view is if talent isn't going to do anything but their shift, isn't going to socialize with listeners, do personal appearances, or anything beyond the control room, then it might as well be piped in from someplace else. Being on the radio should be more than a shift. Anyone who has ever gone anywhere as talent knows that, and knows it's a personal investment of their time, not something they're assigned to do by management.

I'll also say that I know a few syndicated hosts and voicetracked hosts who go out of their way to do personal appearances in markets outside their base. The successful ones take a personal interest in all their markets. It can't be just phoned in.

 

[TVradioguru]

Spin that any way you like, but that's the basic problem with most corporate radio today.

But radio has always been run by corporate owners since the beginning of the medium.

I was having an interesting conversation with someone in the industry as long as I. The question was.. what happened to all the major radio talent? Where is the future talent? The answer is simple really; there is a long term 'talent time-line gap'. That era essentially ended when traditional Top 40 disbanded.

The pioneers of radio talent back when radio was the only choice for free music, set the bar for famous personalities from the hay days of Top 40 radio: The Wolfman, Larry Lujack, Gary Owens, Don Steele, Charlie Tuna, Tom Kelley, etc., all were working on the air during the same period of time. These people set the bar for other talent through the mid 70's by listening to airchecks of each other and attempting to outdo each other. During the 80's, Top 40 was replaced by alternative and AOR where the music was emphasized, not screaming jocks talking up the vocals, hitting the post, or whatever. Jocks as those remembered from radio vers. 1.0 era weren't cool anymore, and that style ended.

With the gap between the Top 40 mega-talent being over 30 years, it's no wonder that today's and tomorrows talent now have nothing to shoot for or compare themselves with. Fast forward to 2009, and PPM listening measurement has shown the vast majority of listeners don't want chatty or loud DJ's. They want free music, plain and simple. The choices of listeners or the evolution of the music industry has nothing to do with corporate owners of radio stations.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

The pioneers of radio talent back when radio was the only choice for free music, set the bar for famous personalities from the hay days of Top 40 radio: The Wolfman, Larry Lujack, Gary Owens, Don Steele, Charlie Tuna, Tom Kelley, etc., all were working on the air during the same period of time. These people set the bar for other talent through the mid 70's by listening to airchecks of each other and attempting to outdo each other. During the 80's, Top 40 was replaced by alternative and AOR where the music was emphasized, not screaming jocks talking up the vocals, hitting the post, or whatever. Jocks as those remembered from radio vers. 1.0 era weren't cool anymore, and that style ended.

With the gap between the Top 40 mega-talent being over 30 years, it's no wonder that today's and tomorrows talent now have nothing to shoot for or compare themselves with. Fast forward to 2009, and PPM listening measurement has shown the vast majority of listeners don't want chatty or loud DJ's. They want free music, plain and simple. The choices of listeners or the evolution of the music industry has nothing to do with corporate owners of radio stations.

What you write is very convincing, and sounds so very logical. But let me propose what could be a flaw in your logic. When I got out of radio I became a number cruncher, sifting through databases trying to make sense out of the facts about several lines of business.

The first thing I question is that "the Universe" as you see it sees only Top 40 Radio. That's your anchor point. I get the idea that you feel during the era of all the personalities you named, that is the only radio that existed. Your logic gets messy when you start trying account for the people who worked at stations of other formats of that time. Your logic get messy when you realize the "small market radio" may have been a bigger piece of the pie then than it is today.

I'm on the outside and I don't get to look at the PPM data but let me suggest you are extending the results of PPM reports so far out into areas that PPM may or may not support. For what... ten years now radio that is in the "big money" has trained listeners to listen for wall-to-wall music. There are still people out there who DO want to hear talk, people that will tolerate some talk mixed into their audio. Some of them are listening to News/Talk. Some of them are listening to Sports Radio. Some are listening to NPR. A lot of them have just turned the radio off because they are bored with wall to wall radio.

If I am pissed-off at the world of radio am I likely to agree to be part of the group that agrees to let the PPM device be a part of my life even for a short period of time. How do we verify that the sample base of people agreeing to be part of the PPM crowd is not a skewed sample base? It may take five years of experience before we have valid data on that question.

If the only people willing to deal with the PPM device are typical listeners to non-announced, not personality radio, then obviously the results are going to show that EVERYBODY hates talk coming out of their radio speaker. I question the validity of the whole process until we have more experience with the process.

 

[TheBigA]

That era essentially ended when traditional Top 40 disbanded.

In another thread, I dated it to the demise of music on AM. And actually, there's still a lot of personality on AM. They're just not spinning the stax of hot wax. But once music moved to FM, and the number of stations quadrupled, the energy and showmanship seemed to go away. I remember people saying you had to downplay personality on FM, that one would sound more strident trying to do the schtick people did on AM.

 

[davideduardo]

Fast forward to 2009, and PPM listening measurement has shown the vast majority of listeners don't want chatty or loud DJ's. They want free music, plain and simple. The choices of listeners or the evolution of the music industry has nothing to do with corporate owners of radio stations.

WHile I agree on the good point about "corporate ownership" being the root of all evil, I disagree on PPM.

If you glance at the consistent best performers in the PPM, and we find classic hits and country as major formats... both being, even today, driven by strong but brief personalities and deeper music lists. AC's that win big, like WBWB, are also known for good personality talent, although in a tight format. And, of course, the big urban and urban ACs as well as the reional Mexican and Spanish contemporary stations are big on personality with lots of music.

Chatty, no. Personality? Yes. In other words, just what Bill Drake implemented at KHJ in 1965.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

David,

WBWB is a CHR in Bloomington, IN. I'm curious which station you're actually referring to. WBEB in Philadelphia maybe?