Over the past few months I've read with growing amusement the opinions posted on this site. Although some of them have merit, most are nothing more than diatribes coming from a generation of announcers who missed the best years to be in radio....and they know it. Allow me (if you will) to give you an informed opinion on radio in the Tri-Cities as it was and as it is today.
Let's begin with WXBQ - the Tri-Cities #1 station: There's nothing amazing about XBQ or the numbers they have. They attained the position they have today beginning with the spring book of 1991. They took it from WTFM who fluked into #1 during the Fall book of 1990. But neither of these stations numbers jumped because of anything their management did. Hip hop sent CHR into the toilet and QUT tumbled from the pedestal they had they ruled from for over ten years.
WQUT - the Tri-Cities #2 station: With the exception of Jeri George, the jocks at that station are doing nothing more than riding the image and branding that the jocks & music of the eighties gave it.
WTFM - the Tri-Cities #3 station: A reactionary station. They watch and wait; they wait for every other station to decide on what course they are going to take, and then they take what's left. A station with a lot of potential, but to short-sighted to be a threat to anyone but themselves.
Electric 94.9: This is the most dissapointing station in the Tri-Cities. Only in Northeast Tennessee could you have a stick with that kind of power & coverage and no one be held accountable for the numbers they pull. I don't see how their PD can look his staff in the eyes.
Z-Rock & K-Rock: This is very simple. If you want to know what Z-Rock is gonna do, just listen to K-Rock about a week before you want your answer.
And now we come to the jocks. They are victims in the truest sense of the word. If you make a living as a radio jock in 2006 corporate radio YOU ARE GOOD. All of the wannabe's have been weeded out. But it doesn't matter; if management could program a computer to do production and remotes there'd be no jocks. Radio management in the 21st century has all but destroyed the passion that brought these talented people to them. And one other thing: An 8 hour work day for a jock? Announcer pay has always been low but the trade-off was that after your airshift and production you got to leave. The morons that came up with this are the same ones who try to fit creativity into a color-by-numbers book. The end result of all this can be heard on the airwaves everyday. In short, it's the state of radio in the Tri-Cities.
