Standards Listeners Are Such Spoiled Brats

[fred flintstone]

Seattle is one of the few large markets that still has a Standards station. And listeners are having a hissy fit. Management is trying to keep the format going and cutting costs, but that's not good enough for the entitlement mentality of radio's equivalent of welfare queens:RadioDailyNews.com:

Is it live? Is it local? Do you, the radio listener, care? Listeners, or more properly, former listeners, to KIXI-AM (880) apparently do. The station's move to drop local hosts for a nationally syndicated service called "Music of Your Life" has generated more response than just about any topic, format change or sudden departure of a personality in the eight-year run of this radio column FULL ARTICLE - Seattle PIhttp://seattlepi.nwsource.com/tv/273069_radiobeat08.html

The article points out some of these people protesting satellite music on the radio are going out and signing up for XM and Sirius in a deluded attempt to bite the hand that's been feeding them. Now instead of a free satellite standards, they can pay $12.95 a month.

 

[amlover]

Once they hear MOYL they will shut and listen. It's a great satellite service!

 

[jh]

Maybe passionate about their radio station would be a better way of putting it than "spoiled brats."Interesting they're going satellite, of course there they will not find any local announcers at all!

 

[fred flintstone]

Maybe passionate about their radio station would be a better way of putting it than "spoiled brats."Interesting they're going satellite, of course there they will not find any local announcers at all!

It's not their station. They did not invest their own money buy the station or to staff and equip it. They don't pay for the programming to which they listen. Advertisers pay the piper in terrestrial radio, not listeners. These a parasitic listeners with a sense of entitlement who do nothing but complain. And going to satellite radio (with no local announcers) for $12.95 instead of listening to advertiser-supported Music of Your Life for free is a childish and petulant response. So are the phone calls and emails to whine, bitch and complain. It's a free lunch, folks. You don't have any complaints coming. This is why radio stations should have unlisted numbers.

 

[tjthedj]

With an attitude like THAT, I know WHY terrestrial radio is dying.PS ALL of the satellite formats are "barter" paid for by a number of commercials given to the satellite service every hour - just like a network. If I was still a station owner (sold 4 small-market stations 20 years ago) I would be satellite too - instead of the doofuses who claim to be announcers but sound like they have as mouthful of sh** and would rather play their own crap instead of sticking to the format, o yea, and crabbing about working weekends and holidays.

 

[fred flintstone]

Tom, maybe it's different in small markets. But our job is to put on programming (music, news, talk, sports or whatever). It's not our job to talk to people on the phone: People who want to know the name of a song played last Wednesday. People who don't want to wait for the weather report to hear the temperature. People who are calling the wrong station. People who want to complain. People who are lonely. People who are drunk. People who want to hear some song that doesn't fit the format. People who us to drop what we are doing to look up something for them. People with dumb questions.Most people want to listen to the radio; not talk back to it. Radio stations need to be programmed for people who listen, not for people who to go on the radio to promote their own pet cause or idea, and certainly not for the squeaky wheels who want to tell us how to do our jobs.New business idea: Install 900 numbers for listeners to call. Hire people in India to talk to listeners for $2.00 a minute.

 

[leethalweapon]

[quote New business idea: Install 900 numbers for listeners to call. Hire people in India to talk to listeners for $2.00 a minute. [/quote]Or you could try and understand why your audiance acts a certain way, and then act on the information received. Surely you must know that people 60+ use the radio as a companion. I know (in talk radio), if I tune in to our overnight program, the people you hear are very different from the listeners during the day. Listen to callers at 3am in the morning, they are most likely elderly grandmothers who are lonely and can't sleep. The mid-dawn jock on the station I work at knows most of his listeners personally (believe me some of them are scary ;D). FYI, last book that measured mid-dawn figures (survey #1, 2006), we had 27.5% of the avaliable audiance. Next best was 16%.

 

[Mike Sheridan]

Standards Listeners Are people too

I must say this subject captured my interest and brings back fond memories working overnight at WFTL in Fort Lauderdale which was full of elderly people who called in looking for a friend on the radio. When I first started they called to bless me out! The station had been simulcasting with it's beautiful music sister station and some didn't like the change to regular A/C MOR programming. I patiently explained to them we were adding something new and that the music they liked was still being played on our FM. One of the most irate callers said I had been so nice in explaining it to her she would listen to me. Her attitude had been turned around completely.

These same people would lift my spirits when I thought I was all alone at night and if I made a mistake, there were some who let me know about it! They knew what station they were listening to and who was on the air. In fact they knew the airstaff by name. When we said something they paid attention! This was not the case at other stations I worked for where they just wanted to yell out a request.

There was a man that called almost every night, his name was Evan and he always sounded so glad to be able to talk to me. We just made smalltalk nothing important really. He was very respectful and never talked for very long, maybe about 3 minutes tops but you could tell it really made his night. I used to hang up with him and feel good that I helped someone else make it through a lonely night. I also felt bad that it sounded like talking to me was the highlight of his night. He sent me a beautiful Cross Pen and Pencil set as a going away present when I left the station.

You can flame me about how sappy this sounds, I don't mind. You had to be there to appreciate it! Radio hasn't been as good since.

As for jocks that play just what they like, I happened to like most of what we played so it was never an issue. We had catagories that fit into the format clock but how we mixed it was up to each jock. A computer can't do this as well as a human. What was really great is we had a large record library. I don't think our listeners would have been able to handle the repitition of stations today which only have a 300 song playlist.

I disagree with whoever said the radio station doesn't belong to the listener. If not for listeners you're just talking to yourself! We also seem to have forgotten that stations are licensed to serve their city. It takes money yes, but it's not supposed to be just a cash register. There are only a limited amount of frequencies and it's a privilege to be granted a license by the FCC. That license comes with a responsibility. It's a shame so many have forgotten that. It has trivialized the industry.

 

[SuperRadioFan]

Mike, thanks for that

Sad but true, radio will NEVER be like that anymore. When we all knew what DJs were on and when, we felt we knew them 'personally'. The only comparable today for example are local talk show hosts like Bill Handel (KFI Los Angeles) and his crew. Music radio with personality has pretty much died along the passing of such legends as Scott Muni, William B Williams, Murray The K, Joe Niagara, The Real Don Steele, and Robert W. Morgan.

Kids today have ZERO idea what they've missed. :-[

 

[SUPERCASTER]

I also remember those wonderful listeners and real communities broadcasting served.
Now broadcasting is run into the ground like ENRON, probably with a similar result.

 

[GaryOmaha]

Re: Standards Listeners Are people too

Thank you, Mike, for a positive and uplifting comment about what used to be a positive and uplifting medium.

 

[jefflaurence]

Mike..you are so right. WFTL was an amazing little station (1400khz..running only 250w at night) but they ran that place with such class! And the notion that radio should just program to the "masses" and cut off all incoming communication is absurd! The call from the lonely listener is one of the best community services there is.

Thanks

Jeff Laurence
North carolina
www.jefflaurence.com

 

[DougD]

Tom, maybe it's different in small markets. But our job is to put on programming (music, news, talk, sports or whatever). It's not our job to talk to people on the phone: ... Radio stations need to be programmed for people who listen, not for people who to go on the radio to promote their own pet cause or idea, and certainly not for the squeaky wheels who want to tell us how to do our jobs.New business idea: Install 900 numbers for listeners to call. Hire people in India to talk to listeners for $2.00 a minute.

Wow. Someone supposedly in the COMMUNICATIONS business who doesn't want to communicate.

Listening to callers doesn't mean you have to agree with them or act on their suggestions.

It's thinking like this that's made radio a stepchild.

 

[fred flintstone]

Wow. Someone supposedly in the COMMUNICATIONS business who doesn't want to communicate.

Listening to callers doesn't mean you have to agree with them or act on their suggestions.

It's thinking like this that's made radio a stepchild.

We are in the MASS communications business.
We are not in the phone sex or tech support business. They make their living talking to people on the phone and probably even perform useful services.
Radio does not just happen. We aren't just sitting around, drinking coffee, with nothing to do but talk to listeners (who are lonely, bored, angry or anything else). At many stations, these calls get routed to the newsroom. Management won't take them. If there are live jocks or anchors, they are on the air. So people who are trying to make calls, set up interviews, put together pieces and write copy on deadline get interrupted by somebody with a dumb question - mostly dumb questions we can't answer. Our job is to get stuff on the air for everybody; not do telephone hand-holding.
If we need audience feedback, we hire companies to do research rather than rely on few atypical squeaky-wheel phone callers.
If I have time and a caller is half-way civil, I'll try to help. Mostly I don't have time and they are not half-way civil.

 

[GaryOmaha]

???

I just read that last comment and I'm sitting here with my mouth open.

No wonder the industry is in such pitiful shape, if that's the attitude. No wonder I spend so little time listening to radio anymore, because everything seems so de-personalized and homogenized.

If the air talent is live (and that is indeed rare anymore) with all the technology they have supporting them, there's no reason *not* to answer the phones. (You no longer have to pull music, cue records, pull commercials, take transmitter readings, etc., etc.)

In radio, just as in every other business, one positive or negative comment by a customer represents many more by others who aren't speaking up. Those callers are a lifeline to the "real world" outside the studio!

Again, I respond: ???

 

[DougD]

Sorry us unimportant "listeners" ruined your day and kept you away from your cup of coffee.

I guess it's not your personal fault that the suits who sign your paycheck couldn't care less about their end users and pass (I mean piss) all those bothersome listener calls to you.

As for radio news, I rarely find more than one station in any given market (outside of NY, CHI, etc.) doing any serious job with news. That is, having more than one person on staff as a real reporter.

Examples: Tampa, Kansas City, Oklahoma City.

Usually, only 1 dominant AM is serious about news while the others have only a few people who don't really do any street reporting.

Now, back to your coffee. We'll leave you alone. And won't likely turn on your station or patronize your advertisers either.

Wow. Someone supposedly in the COMMUNICATIONS business who doesn't want to communicate.

Listening to callers doesn't mean you have to agree with them or act on their suggestions.

It's thinking like this that's made radio a stepchild.

We are in the MASS communications business.
We are not in the phone sex or tech support business. They make their living talking to people on the phone and probably even perform useful services.
Radio does not just happen. We aren't just sitting around, drinking coffee, with nothing to do but talk to listeners (who are lonely, bored, angry or anything else). At many stations, these calls get routed to the newsroom. Management won't take them. If there are live jocks or anchors, they are on the air. So people who are trying to make calls, set up interviews, put together pieces and write copy on deadline get interrupted by somebody with a dumb question - mostly dumb questions we can't answer. Our job is to get stuff on the air for everybody; not do telephone hand-holding.
If we need audience feedback, we hire companies to do research rather than rely on few atypical squeaky-wheel phone callers.
If I have time and a caller is half-way civil, I'll try to help. Mostly I don't have time and they are not half-way civil.

 

[fred flintstone]

Now, back to your coffee. We'll leave you alone. And won't likely turn on your station or patronize your advertisers either.

Learn to read. I said we are NOT just sitting around drinking coffee but callers seem to think that's what we are doing. You clearly have no idea what's involved in a radio operation.

No, most radio stations do not have news departments. Those that do, get most of the calls. Nobody else answers the phone outside of business hours. So, when we are working under deadline, we have to deal with people calling to b*tch about or ask about something that often has nothing to do with our station.

To paraphrase what William Shatner said to the Trekies: It's just radio. Get a life.
Radio, like most things in life, is a big con game.
We put on an act to get you to listen.
We lie to you to get you to listen and to buy things.
You think we care about you, but we don't.
It's a job. Nothing more and nothing less.
Most of us get out sooner or later because the pay is terrible and the working conditions are often worse.
We like our jobs about as much as you like your's.
Unlike people in most other lines of work I have observed, we still try to do the best we can.
But leave us alone and let us put on the best on-air product (as defined by the people who sign our checks) we can.
Don't hold us to any standard you don't live up to where you work.

We don't work for you.
We don't owe you anything.
You don't pay for radio; you've got no complaints coming.
If you think you can punish some national advertiser by not buying something they advertised on a station where somebody (who probably makes less than you) did not have time to talk you, don't expect the advertiser to notice.
And if you boycott some local advertiser trying to make ends meet to punish somebody who had something else to do and could not spend 10 minutes trying to find out the name of a song played three days ago, you are really petty.

People who call are not the real world. Just the wackos. Real people have real lives.

I stand by my original statment. You are spoiled brats.

 

[DougD]

I stand by my original statment. You are spoiled brats.

[/quote]

I have to disagree. They have every right to complain about something gone wrong in radio.

15-20 and even more stations in many markets and NOT ONE appealing to that demo. Doesn't make sense to me, especially when highly profitable stations can help subsidize the lower ones, much like profits from railroad freight helped keep passenger trains going. Not every station has to go after the younger demos.

As for your coffee drinking, I was being sarcastic. I understand you don't have a lot of time on you hands. I used to work in radio and TV, professionally, not as an intern.

On one of of my jobs, at a medium-sized market, the inept owners decided to close the newsroom of the TV station.
They gave like 30 days.
They then decided to run some stupid children's contest. Every time some logo came on the screen like at 4:00 p.m., the tikes were supposed to call the station to win or something.

Guess what number the suits put on the screen? The newsroom hotline.

We all got tired of that stupid phone ringing. No one gave us instructions on what to do with said calls.

I got some nerve and forwarded the call to the boneheaded PD. Served him right. Let that jerk deal with all the calls and leave us alone to do our work.

 

[fred flintstone]

As for your coffee drinking, I was being sarcastic. I understand you don't have a lot of time on you hands. I used to work in radio and TV, professionally, not as an intern.

Glad you understand.

15-20 and even more stations in many markets and NOT ONE appealing to that demo. Doesn't make sense to me, especially when highly profitable stations can help subsidize the lower ones, much like profits from railroad freight helped keep passenger trains going. Not every station has to go after the younger demos.

News and talk radio appeals to the over 50 demos.

I like Standards and Real Oldies. I am in that age group. I am listening to XM Radio's Frank's Place as I type. I used to listen to Westwood One's AM Only on a couple of stations in my area until the service was re-formatted (later the stations changes formats). But the music is still available.

The railroads kept passenger service going because the ICC required them to. Passenger service lost money after World War II (it still does under Amtrak), despite service cuts and deferred maintenance. The railroads drove passengers away on purpose because they lost money on every passenger they carried. They drove passengers away in order to cut their losses (and ultimately to be able to drop passenger service). Radio's situation is different. Radio has limited bandwidth: Only room for so many stations and formats in any given market. SOMEBODY'S music does not get on the air. Ideally, an operator tries to make every station profitable. If a manager did as you suggest and operated some stations to make a profit and some not to make a profit (subsidized by the profitable ones), he would be fired. If corporate allowed this to go on, stockholders would sue. And remember, stockholders are you and me. Individual investors or people who buy mutual funds or people in retirement programs. Management rigs the voting rights so the little guy doesn't get much say, but if stocks don't perform, we don't invest (and that hurts). Would you buy stock (with your life savings) in a company that was managed as you suggest? Really!

Part of this thread, like many here, reflects are certain self-centeredness: My music SHOULD be on the radio because my music is GOOD and what they play (Other People's Music) is trash.

 

[kenhawk1160]

If I was still a station owner (sold 4 small-market stations 20 years ago) I would be satellite too - instead of the doofuses who claim to be announcers but sound like they have as mouthful of sh** and would rather play their own crap instead of sticking to the format, o yea, and crabbing about working weekends and holidays.

Total agreement. You get professional quality broadcasters with MOYL who are already household names, and it's a barter system, which has enabled small stations whose communities have shrunk to the point where they can no longer support a typical radio station's staff, to have local radio service. They would have gone dark long ago...even if they had a staff that they paid minimum wage. I don't knock the bird at all. And I don't agree with those who say that the listeners want to hear a local jock on the air. Most of these stations are still peopled with a one or two local staff announcers that do news, sports, production, etc. They're the ones who get out in the community and hear the most feedback.

The feedback you'll receive is either the music, the news or the weather. I doubt if it's ever to hear a particular DJ, outside of morning drive. Most station owners that use a satellite are able to pay the staff announcers better because of the money they save by going that route. There are others that are just plain greedy and keep all the savings for themselves, but the majority of them are decent people.

I don't support any idealist who's against satellite just because it puts a jock out of work. If a jock is that good, they shouldn't have a problem finding employment elsewhere. The satellite puts out a high-quality product (99 percent of the time), much better than what can be afforded on a local level with a limited budget. I bust my hump and put my heart and soul into my job, which is why I've been in the biz for almost twenty years. I don't complain about my salary, remote talent fee, having to work a holiday, none of that. Goes with the territory.