Interesting that you mention Bubba. Stern was certainly the king of "burned by local hosts". Both Stern and Bubba are now flourishing unencumbered by censorship on Satellite. What I meant by "scripted" was "closely watched" and I was referring more to voice tracking across multiple markets on multiple stations in some markets. There is so much restriction to content by the corp owners that creativity has virtually gone out the window. If you want to hear creativity you need to listen to some of the talk on satellite. Lots of original thinking, great comedy bits and.....well the way it was referred to as great radio back in the 80's as previously mentioned on this thread. The FCC has also put the kabash on creativity forcing terrestrial stations to monitor every word their hosts blurt out. Censorship has run amock since the 04 Superbowl incident and the rampant onslaught of right wing conservatism. For the record I love the right wing conservative shows of Rush, Hannity and even Savage. I don't agree with everything they say, but they are entertaining. I do believe they have had an influence on this rampant censorship that Stern so vehemently railed against. Bottom line as I digress is censorship and the controlling powers of large corporate ownership has dulled terrestrial radio so much that it has given rise to the creative content of Satellite and the perpetuation of the IPOD.
It's going to be interesting now to see the battle on the three fronts: terrestrial, IPOD and satellite. As I mentioned in an earlier post on this thread, terrestrial will have to reinvent itself with local ownership, smaller budgets and smaller revenues. It will be good for them. You'll see local owners with a real interest in their station in that one market. They will let content rule and get the best they can afford. What you might see is promising new talent farmed locally that will gradually move to the national scene from local markets like DFW and Houston.
Revenues are dropping like big hail across the terrestrial radio landscape. And, its happening in TV as well. Between the expansion of the cable universe, the Internet, IPODS, Sat radio, HD radio, mandatory DT TV, the revenue pie will be cut into many smaller pieces. The revenue available to the traditional radio and TV mediums will NEVER be as big as it once was. Combine that with the dramatic ad spending reductions among the automotive manufacturers and airlines (typically 30-40% of station revenue) and you'll see massive station selloffs by their big corp owners like CBS, NBC, Newscorp. Declining revenues are no different than losses to them. Who will snap them up? Smaller local and regional owners that have a different mindset on revenue. The rumors are already out there about NBC selling off all their owned TV stations, CBS selling their radio stations, and now Newscorp (Fox) selling off all their stations except NY, LA and Chi. Change is coming. Watch out.
