Smith Patterson at WSJS?

[stafferman]

I dug Smith Patterson too, from what I know about him.

But really, outside of us radio geeks, does the general public even notice the hosts, even the greats, these days?
Only people who had a shared history of at least listening to him would care, at all.

Given the shambles that WSJS seems to have fallen into, the number of those people must have dwindled downdowndown the last decade or so, and his departure is probably getting more notice here than it would if it had been covered on the radio, even if they stretched it out for a whole day.

Didn't Bart Ritner and Mike Blackman get the same essential treatment at WPTF?

You are right

But that just even adds to ridiculousness of their decision making. Alienating the little listenership they have left. AM Radio isn't all of a sudden going to "bring in" this new audience. You would figure they would try to hang on to the little base they have left instead of letting go one of the most known people at the station.

I think you also bring another larger point about local radio just becoming more irrelevant. Between Clear Channel Corporate Radio to companies like Curtis Media that own AM crap signals. It's just a mish mosh of junk. It was one thing when people had 4 tv channels and the radio but with Pandora, Satellite, iPod, mp3, smartphones, podcasts, etc etc etc etc.....other than us radio nerds, nobody really cares.

People always then respond saying "what about local news and programming?"

I think this situation with WSJS is the final straw to that argument. I guess they're kinda still committed to local programming but its insanely watered down. I've also been driving around on the weekends and heard dead air on WSJS for almost an hour, I doubt they even have board ops around on the weekends.

 

[quadraphonic]

Yeah it does seem like, despite the last 10 years, WSJS was one of the last hopes for things to swing back to 10 years ago....

 

[turkeydance]

same thing happened to local newspapers,
and WILL happen to local broadcast TV news.
if you're under 30, you don't care, anyway.

 

[rf_chaser]

same thing happened to local newspapers,
and WILL happen to local broadcast TV news.
if you're under 30, you don't care, anyway.

Will happen? It already does. There are always lawsuits on the news about older TV women getting the axe.

 

[deanmerrithew]

I do not care about radio politics or budgets or who is competent at their jobs or not, but what I do care about and what is important to me is that Smith Patterson is and always has been a class act and an excellent newsman. For almost ten years I roamed the halls of WSJS over night as a low life board op, and Smith would hit that door every week day morning at about 3:15 or so and stop by the control room to see what was going on. He listened to what I had to say, he always had a compliment. It could be about a snow closing list or something I had recorded for him. The opening each spring to the Easter Sunrise Service at Home Moravian was a must for him. He would have something good to say to me and then head down the hall to make his calls to the area police departments and start to put together his newscasts. I miss those interactions and now I am really going to miss his newscasts, until we find out where he will broadcast at next…….

 

[MaskMan]

Smith was first class all the way. I understand the economics of radio and I know sometimes changes have to be made. BUT, it's the way they did it that chaps my butt. After 30 years, you would expect someone to be retired with a little more fanfare. Say goodbye to him on the air, or let him say goodbye to his listeners. This was all handled in a real no-class way. Probably reflective of the fact that an ex Clear Channel person is now at the helm of WSJS. Does that surprise anyone???