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Something in the Air: "stations going news-free"... (WRKO)

raccoonradio

raccoonradio

Read a book called Something in the Air by Mark Tucker, all about radio. This caught my attention:

"When the FCC said stations could go news-free, many music stations quickly did just that."

It says how stations "outsourced" the job. "Metro Networks, a company that provides short news
and traffic reports from one central studio, often serves dozens of stations in a single market."

Sound familiar? That's what WRKO (admittedly NOT a music station) did in November...The book brings
up interesting points. Yes, the media consolidation is 'good for business' but they do radio on the cheap
and put people out of work, and often produce homogenized (and often boring) radio. So I guess
we can all just go out and get XM radio instead.

XM, a company partly controlled by...Clear Channel. (P. 302: "This is no return to the days of
free form radio --XM is a huge public corporation whose investors include not only major
automakers but the dreaded Clear Channel itself."
Yikes.
 
Thunderclap Newman, "Something In The Air", one of the great revolutionary songs. From the film
THE STRAWBERRY STATEMENT.
 
Don't get the exact purpose of this, and while it may be a fall from the "glory days", most people in Boston or any other market don't listen to radio in other markets. Even on vacation or when streaming, they don't pay much attention to what you're talking about. Sure, Metro quality sucks (CC does the same thing, piping casts from WTAM/Cleveland to Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Akron, Wheeling, et al, etc.), and WRKO losing its news staff is a bad thing, but it's overblown in the industry. People aren't leaving radio in droves, and the little erosion there is is just out of the reality of time management and technology issues.
 
>>People aren't leaving radio in droves

One can only hope that it isn't the case...

>>WRKO losing its news staff is a bad thing

At least some of them have caught on elsewhere, like Rod Fritz who has turned up on 'RKO again
via Fox NewsRadio (and I heard him once again up in VT, where WVMT carries those 'casts)
 
raccoonradio said:
The book brings
up interesting points. Yes, the media consolidation is 'good for business' but they do radio on the cheap
and put people out of work, and often produce homogenized (and often boring) radio. So I guess
we can all just go out and get XM radio instead.
Click to expand...

Since when has radio NOT been done on the cheap? "Job security" and "radio" were seldom used in the same sentence even back in the good old days.

I'll pass on XM thanks. Mostly the same ol', except you have to pay for it.
 
raccoonradio said:
XM, a company partly controlled by...Clear Channel. (P. 302: "This is no return to the days of
free form radio --XM is a huge public corporation whose investors include not only major
automakers but the dreaded Clear Channel itself."
Click to expand...

CC owns less than 2% of XM stock, which is not enough to constitute "control." It would have been nice if Tucker had bothered to look past this very durable urban legend and actually find out the facts.
 
oops, meant Marc Fisher! May have been thinking of a critic named Ken Tucker...I did a review of
it for amazon.com and got his name right there.
 
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