The solution?

[ROCKTHEMIC]

What's missing? Creativity! Back in the 70's and early 80's, for the most part, the PD position was an off air position. Great things happened in the radio business during this time period in part because there was enough time in the day to actually focus on the product 100%. Formats were created, there were ground breaking marketing strategies and promotional campaigns invented, and the level of creativity and excitement was at it's zeneth. Why? Back then PD's weren't pulled in multiple directions. There are Programmers who do great things today and for that we should be thankful. Having been there I know how difficult it is. Who or what do we blame? Greed! We began the more for less strategy. Not one of our "most stellar" ideas. Now we are paying for it. It's not just a radio problem either. In order to get back to having fun again and making great radio we need to address this topic and plot a solution! Let's not let poorly guided "natural selection" decide our industry's future.

Discuss 8)

 

[whit979]

I have to say you're pretty much right. Beyond some notable exceptions, I think you just about hit the nail on the head. Not much else to say.

 

[ROCKTHEMIC]

The ugly solution, in part includes, is to start by turning off some stations and perhaps using them to simulcast the hot product in the building. Can't pay anymore to bring in more PD's so we must first reduce the number stations that require attention. Do the math, Fewer stations=larger listener share per station. If your in a "sell with the book" situation, shouldn't a larger audience make you money? It's also ugly because more people would have to loose their jobs. But the cream should rise to the top!

 

[franksandhotdogs]

I'll buy what Rockthemic says in both posts.  Part of it is more competition (ipods, cellphones, internet, etc.), and part of it is that we've de-valued our product (selling inventory at lower rates to beat the competition out of buys, because you can do that with lower overhead).

 

[TheBigA]

What's missing? Creativity! Back in the 70's and early 80's, for the most part, the PD position was an off air position.

I don't know about that. I worked for Thom O'Hair in 1975 in NY. He was a progressive radio legend from San Francisco who loved being on the air, and was good at it. He was also a radio visionary who came up with lots of creative ideas. He was also a multi-tasker who was good at doing lots of things. He loved writing memos and I still have a few from him.

Being an on-air PD was a chance to try out your ideas. Be the guinea pig and see if the phone rings. It's easier to take chances when you're the boss.

The off-air PDs I've known were more theoretical. More likely to trust outside research. They attend conferences. If you're an on-air PD, you can't go to conferences because you have a shift to do.

The ugly solution, in part includes, is to start by turning off some stations and perhaps using them to simulcast the hot product in the building.

Hey, love the idea, but that will mean fewer choices for the listeners. Less format diversity.

 

[ROCKTHEMIC]

I think we can find a way to play all the music listeners want and not over-saturate a given market! Hey it might even generate some interest in CD's again!

 

[TheBigA]

I think we can find a way to play all the music listeners want and not over-saturate a given market! Hey it might even generate some interest in CD's again!

Wow...you really are a dreamer. You must be from the 60s.

CDs are dead. They're not coming back. Playing more music won't revive a dead format.

The listeners want what they want. You can't play all the music they want because every individual person wants something different, and most won't sit through the songs they hate. There's no need to do that. Simply shut off what you don't want to hear, and go to your own private Idaho.

 

[BigHoss]

I am not a radio pro...just a pro listener I guess. To date myself I have heard Wolfman-Jack live before but pretty much grew up in the 60-70's on the Texas Gulfcoast.

Today I prefer antique rock as I call it from the 60-70-80's and wish there was more of it.

I guess I am a dying breed who likes broad play lists and local live dj's, who can comment on local things.

Do I have much hope with this type of format surviving much longer? In Houston is is about dead with all the termoil of late.

And why are the playlist so short? Man it seems like 20-30 songs over and over.

Thanks for any input...an old time workin' stif 'preciates it!

Robert in Houston

 

[ROCKTHEMIC]

Eerything has a shelf life! When current technology is replaced and excepted by the masses then it's over. A few years back computers were no longer sold with disk drives in them. DEAD! When CD players in cars and boom boxes are no longer available that's when the CD dies! IPods, the market is tapped no one is buying them, we've moved on to the next new thing. Radio is breathing, it has a good pulse, it's not on life support. The decision makers in the highest offices are once again screwing it up! It was time to get back to street level again, be one with the community and work harder to get back to what made it great! If the people love you they will save you! Instead we (they) sanitized it, made it generic and now we don't care so they won't care and failure is once again on the horizon!! Morons!

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Eerything has a shelf life! When current technology is replaced and excepted by the masses then it's over. A few years back computers were no longer sold with disk drives in them. DEAD! When CD players in cars and boom boxes are no longer available that's when the CD dies! IPods, the market is tapped no one is buying them, we've moved on to the next new thing. Radio is breathing, it has a good pulse, it's not on life support.

Me thinks your logic system is not breathing, does not have a good pulse, and may be beyond life support.

You preach us a sermon about technology replaced and dying. Computers with disk drives. Cd players in cars. Boom boxes. You see even iPods as dying already.

But radio. It doesn't die in your sermon. Radio alone is able to maintain a pulse. Radio does not need and will never need life support.

Why not?

I'm one of radio's greatest living fans. I'm the guy who may find some little tourist town where I can establish a "radio museum" and charge the tourists a dollar a tour just to see how this ancient art worked. So I wish I could buy into your fantasy.

If radio has a future, maybe music is not part of that future. Whoops. I just carved the heart out of your sermon. Sorry about that.

 

[JimmyJames]

These "new technology" idealists' thoughts really only work in major markets and urbanized areas right now.

I've worked in plenty of markets where voice cellphone service is basically all you get. Maybe email.

3G/4G/pandora to your Iphone/etc etc. is NOT how a large part of America lives. There are a ton of blue collar adults who still get in their trucks to go work at the plant, and it's CDs or radio, or perhaps Ipod. But this illusion of so much choice isn't the reality in parts of rural America.

Take Northern Minnesota, up to the border. Lots of hunting, fishing, snowmobiling, and border crossing tourism between the US and Canada. Data coverage anywhere north of the central part of Minnesota is a huge gamble. There's either what you bring or there's radio. There's no broadband at deer camp, or in the tractor in the fields.

What do they have left for severe weather or news? You guessed it. Radio. I don't believe radio is dead yet but I think we've wasted a lot of opportunity and we'd better get back to local first. There's still areas it can work. I wouldn't be too thrilled about the urban areas anymore though. Younger tech savvy people don't need radio in the same way, and I think in many cases, we abandoned them first and technology was more than happy to pick up our slack.

 

[TheBigA]

I don't believe radio is dead yet but I think we've wasted a lot of opportunity and we'd better get back to local first. There's still areas it can work.

There's a reason you don't have 3G service there. It's the same reason that there's less live radio in markets that size. It costs too much, and makes too little.

 

[JimmyJames]

I didn't say those markets needed or could afford more live radio. I emphasized the importance of local content. You can hire some live broadcast school grad at minimum wages who still says nothing important. The idea is to be hyper local using the technology we have to do it, but that doesn't automatically mean paying someone with nothing to say to babysit the computer.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

I didn't say those markets needed or could afford more live radio. I emphasized the importance of local content.

Many small market stations have had a high school coach, or a county agenty, or a retail shop owner with a bit of pent-up creativity who would do a once a day or once a week broadcast of some kind.

I am convinced that one of the secrets of operating a very localized form of broadcasting is to assemble two or three dozen of these people and turn them loose. The arrival of "Podcasting" has resulted in some specialty hardware and software that would make it possible. Anyone who has a couple of extra sparks of genius to offer probably already has a computer. They acquire a decent USB mic and they can create their contributions at the place of their convenience at the time of their convenience. No more having to drive to the radio station at an hour when the studio will be vacant and the announcer on duty can engineer" the recording.

Even the "local boy makes good" who has a high flying career in some distant metropolis may have some "localness" to offer in short audio segments about how he views life (present and past) in Podunkville.... as he now is able to visualize it from his distant vantage point." (Repeat previous sentence, insert femal gender. That works, too.)

Big A: Aren't you the guy who pointed me to Godin and "Tribes"? This would be tribes grafted into the small radio station.