Something to keep an eye on...

[Yeziknoradio]

I'm not sure how things are in the States, but North of the Border it looks like the Children of baby boomer seniors are the best bet for Radio Audience down the road. (more than in the past...)

http://finance.sympatico.msn.ca/savingsdebt/insight/article.aspx?cp-documentid=4697124

 

[hammondo]

Too bad FEW people in THAT generation think radio is any good. Those are the MTV, i-pod and on-line people.

 

[Yeziknoradio]

Too bad FEW people in THAT generation think radio is any good. Those are the MTV, i-pod and on-line people.

And who's fault is that?

If today's radio were around when I was in my late teens, early 20 somethings
I'd be listening to casettes or cds instead.

Time to go back to the way radio was...

 

[hammondo]

Yez said; "Time to go back to the way radio was"

...You are right, but it will never happen. There is WAY too much bean counting, now.

 

[Yeziknoradio]

Yez said; "Time to go back to the way radio was"

...You are right, but it will never happen. There is WAY too much bean counting, now.

Radio has always been a business before it can be anything else, but if it does not (at the very least) restore the "Farm team" so there can be a very good place to start, or polish up, there will never be a "proper" talent pool.

I don't want to tune into a morning show that is occupied by weak talent that isn't ready yet for that market.
(respectfully, I too refrain from "begging" to be the next morning guy in what may very well be your market...I know I'm not ready...)

I also do not want to wake up to a voice track that claims my town is sunny and nice when it's pouring rain!

Again, like I said...if radio today were around back in the day, I'd listen to cds and casettes too.

If you can't run the business properly, please sell it.

Thank-you.

 

[hammondo]

"If you can't run the business properly, please sell it."

Sounds like a statement from 1955, when it meant great community oriented programming that well served the city of license.

Today, "properly" means automate and SQUEEZE every nickel out of it.

 

[Yeziknoradio]

Today, "properly" means automate and SQUEEZE every nickel out of it.

Yes, automate and squeeze every nickel...who cares if...

In the early morning of Jan. 18, 2002, a Canadian Pacific Railway train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed just outside Minot, N.D., spilling roughly 240,000 gallons of anhydrous ammonia into a woodsy neighborhood on the outskirts of town. The resulting toxic cloud grew to some five miles long, two and a half miles wide and 350 feet high, enveloping the homes of approximately 15,000 people.

Yet no such information was available on the radio AT ALL!

This should be illegal!

 

[hammondo]

Well, Yez, yes it should be illegal, but ....maybe the goofballs in your shameful story who owned the local radio didn't know HOW to sell advertising(?), or LOVED Howard Stern (?), or said, "WHO NEEDS NEWS?"

I hope you realize my last post was with "tongue in cheek."

The story YES cited is the kind of NEWS radio people DO BEST!

Is Minot a CC town? I can't imagine nobody cares about NEWS there.

PERSONALLY, I also can't imagine owning a radio station (and I've owned 4 and sold a few construction permits) that did NOT have news unless my competitors had it ALL COVERED well already (fat chance).

....But I'd still find a news niche where I could beat them.

 

[davideduardo]

[

In the early morning of Jan. 18, 2002, a Canadian Pacific Railway train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed just outside Minot, N.D., spilling roughly 240,000 gallons of anhydrous ammonia into a woodsy neighborhood on the outskirts of town. The resulting toxic cloud grew to some five miles long, two and a half miles wide and 350 feet high, enveloping the homes of approximately 15,000 people.

Yet no such information was available on the radio AT ALL!

This should be illegal!

This is how total lies that are "urban legends" get perpetuated. You should be ashamed for having posted this false and untrue data.

The real fact is that the radio stations, which like most small market stations at night, were automated.

The real fact is that the stations (a Clear Channel cluster) had all the necessary EAS gear installed and working and could have carried all the messages anyone sent.

But....

The real fact is that the local Minot government authorities had not installed their EAS equipment and had not gone to emergency training as required. The government authorities could not activate the EAS because it was not installed and they did not know how to work it. They were incredibly derelict in their duties.

The real fact is that at 2 AM in rural North Dakota, even if the EAS had been activated, maybe one person in a thousand would have been listening... pointing out one of the failures of the EAS system. Since at no point in the day are more than about 23% of Americans using radio, at all times more than 3/4 of all persons will NOT hear an EAS notice, and in hours of the night and overnigh, even fewer will hear.