The radio sucks in my market

[Don62]

Let me restate, I agree with David on this one.

 

[TheFonz]

Name one viable radio station in the U.S. that has closed in the last five decades.

Not much overhead in running infomercials. I can't believe advertisers continue to think people actually listen to that crap. (What was the name & phone number of the company that ran the ad on KRLA at 3:30 this afternoon? I was driving and couldn't write it down). Or maybe they DON'T listen. Where are those headcount numbers you were going to get us?

 

[davideduardo]

Not much overhead in running infomercials.

In LA, it costs between engineering, electricity, legal, offices, transmitter site rent or taxes, ASCAP and BMI, management, sales, insurance, about a million to run even a smaller facility than KRLA. You really should not make statements about things you have no knowledge of

[/quote] I can't believe advertisers continue to think people actually listen to that crap.[/quote]

They do not renew if they don't get results.

Where are those headcount numbers you were going to get us?

Subscribe to Arbitron. They will give you then, the audience numbers for any station on any age range for any day down to the quarter hour in the new PPM.

¨Print can only give you how many papers were sold, not even how many were picked up at the door and even read.

 

[TheFonz]

¨Print can only give you how many papers were sold, not even how many were picked up at the door and even read.

C'mon. Few people buy magazines or newspapers if they don't intend to read them. And isn't it great to take those newspaper inserts along on a shopping trip? Sure beats calling the radio station to find out whose commercial you heard 3 days ago when you were navigating rush hour traffic on the freeway.

 

[KeithE4]

Newsflash: All publicly-traded companies, regardless of what their product is (broadcasting, cars, steel, or hamburgers), are mandated by Federal law to maximize profit for their shareholders. That is Job One. If that means producing a mediocre-but-money-making product with the least number of humans possible, so be it. Blame the SEC and Congress, not the corporate executives who are required by law to do this.

That is totally and irresponsibly untrue.

I can't find the exact CFR regulation or entry in the U.S. Code at this moment, but American case law says otherwise. One of the most famous cases predates commercial radio by a year - Dodge vs Ford Motor Company (1919).

"Doing well by doing good" may be noble, and if the stockholders say "OK," then all is well. But if the stockholders say to maximize shareholder value (those three infamous words that in-effect mean "screw the customers & employees"), then good deeds such as quality products/services/programming are out the window. Like it or not, the stockholders are the owners, and the owners ultimately call the shots.

Link: Wikipedia

 

[Bongwater]

I'm sorta surprised as to the relative lack of interest/response to this topic. Look at all the people who have switched over to satelite. I would guess that one of the reasons is that conventional radio sucked and sucked badly.
Here in Central Mass the FM band is cluttered with a lot of crappe from Boston, Providence, Hartford, Springfield. In SW Fla the stations from Tampa-Ft. Myers, Naples equally suck. The common theme-playing the same tired old "hits' (and at this point they need to be retired).
It was refreshing to go to Brattleboro VT this week hit the scan button, land on 92.7 and have the first song come from the Grateful Dead.
Are there any markets where radio doesn't suck?

No.

But that's depending on your particular taste. When you go to Vermont, a radio station playing the Grateful Dead or Phish is as common as urban/gospel stations in Memphis (Vermont is New England's answer to Oregon...or vice-versa...)

You go to Florida and you'll hear stuff like Easy Listening (the last refuge of that format.) and TONS of Carribean tropical. You go to Seattle and it's 1992 all over again with all the grunge that still gets airplay on all the rock stations. Southern California is almost entirely en espanol. Phoenix is a hard rock paradise (it was the last time I was there.) Tennessee is mostly country. Texas radio has the most conservative formats in any genre while in San Fransisco, anything goes. In Minneapolis, you're likely to hear a lot of the '80s old school funk that Prince put on the map.

New York City (with the FM band bursting at the seams with stations on EVERY frequency.) has probably the biggest variety of anything. Closely followed by North Puget Sound of WA state with Canadian stations taking up every available FM channel and programming everything from Punjabi talk to French hip-hop on them.

There are still areas of the US where you can drive for miles and maybe find only one or two signals, AM or FM. In Alaska, there are areas where the radio is just an electronic paperweight because no signals, AM or FM come in at all - even at night.

Just an observation....

 

[gr8oldies]

We are a very nationalized society. Unlike when most of us were growing up, teens and 20-somethings can communicate, share music and TV shows, etc with the other people in their school and their cousins three states away with ease on a daily basis. I really don't belioeve, outside of boards like these, anyone is saying "dammit if my top 40 station is a Kiss, the one in the next city better damn well be a Z and the one after that bettwr be a Q". So I and my cousin both have a "Kiss" that plays the hits? It'd be a little like me, when I was growing up, hearing Johnny Mann jingles on another station and saying "That's it! They've got the same jingles as CKLW. I'm never listening to CKLW again!!". People really don't think like that.

 

[Don62]

We are a very nationalized society. Unlike when most of us were growing up, teens and 20-somethings can communicate, share music and TV shows, etc with the other people in their school and their cousins three states away with ease on a daily basis. I really don't belioeve, outside of boards like these, anyone is saying "dammit if my top 40 station is a Kiss, the one in the next city better damn well be a Z and the one after that bettwr be a Q". So I and my cousin both have a "Kiss" that plays the hits? It'd be a little like me, when I was growing up, hearing Johnny Mann jingles on another station and saying "That's it! They've got the same jingles as CKLW. I'm never listening to CKLW again!!". People really don't think like that.

Non-radio people do notice that. I had a co-worker, unsolicited, who brought up the fact that an oldies station in Springfield, Mo., used the same liners as the oldies station in Kansas City, which has since dumped oldies.

And another worker there noted when the KC station stopped playing oldies and switched to pop and disco 70s (yuck) and worse, 80s pop.

I said, "Yeah, like others, they don't like older listeners and are trying to "update" their format."

He surprisingly said, "But look at the songs they're playing. They're not oldies."

 

[davideduardo]

I can't find the exact CFR regulation or entry in the U.S. Code at this moment, but American case law says otherwise. One of the most famous cases predates commercial radio by a year - Dodge vs Ford Motor Company (1919).

If failing to be unprofitable were a crime, nearly every biotech company's executives would be guilty. In fact, the management of about a third of the companies traded on NASDAQ are, or have been in the last few years, unprofitable. Sirius and XM have not made money for nearly 9 years, and have lost billions.

 

[landtuna]

Adding to David's comment.....

AFAIK there is no law mandating that private or public companies turn profits. There is an IRS rule that a sole proprietorship may be considered a hobby (for tax purposes) instead of a real business if it produces three straight years of loss but that doesn't apply to corporations.

There are business (legal, accounting etc.) and securities trading laws/rules that the company cannot be intentionally defrauded by its managers and must abide by the rules and regs pertaining to any investing in the company but managers are pretty much able to run the company as they see fit (in conjunction with the Board of Directors if they have one) so long as they remain within the rules.

Normally the investors (particularly the majority stockholder if a stock company) will start a removal petition if they feel the company is being mismanaged even though it has not done anything illegal. CEO's and Board members are usually given the bum's rush if they don't produce for stockholders or investors.

 

[crainbebo]

I wish I was In NYC! I would like the limted playlist WNEW (Jan-Mar 2003). The Blink one sucked, but Mix 102.7 wasn't that bad. Except for the DJ saying f**K.