• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

T'was The Night Before Christmas 2007

R

RumourMonger

Twas the night before Christmas, When All through the station
not a dj was stirring, thanks automation
With prep sheets and headphones all locked in a trunk
Their positions not needed, Come! Holiday funk.

The GM's and Managers all snug in their bed
While visions of bonuses danced in their head
Away to the freestore ex-employees did flock
the same place they spoke for when they were a jock.

When from DC there came came such loud chatter
Did the FCC just say that local did matter?
To get the full word I turned on the news station
no word was forth coming.Crap! Syndication.

Desperate to prove I heard what I heard
I looked to the sky, the bird has the word.
Alas Sirrius and XM they're voice tracking too
just more canned programing for me and for you.

Yahoo and Google, I turned to the net
wiith my DSL modem at the speed of a jet
Found Nigerian Money and Hookers with humps
All not what I wanted, but my card balance jumped

And then on the home page of Radio-Info
came news of a union that many had hoped fo'
A mischievous picture of Randy Appeared
and even the Journal drew Sam with a Beard

On Tribune, On Local buy Entercom and Cume-less
what the hell buy Citadel, Westwood One and Emmis
time for fun, make some noise and go raise some hell
the chemistry is there with Michaels and Zell.

So I leave these thoughts whether probable or not
anything thing is better than the crummy hand we've got
To all in Radio-Info land I hope your future's bright
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!


Rumourmonger with apologies to Clement Clarke Moore
 
First of all, it is highly unlikely that Tribune will go on a big radio buying spree. This isn't 1996 anymore. And Trib is in debt, so they are going to watch their spending.

Second, there's a good chance Michaels will help Tribune focus on their TV properties, not their one AM radio property.

Third, why do people think that if Randy did get back into radio, all the voice-tracking and cookie-cutter programming will end? When he was at Clear Channel, he was the creator of the "synergy" concept that spawned voice-tracking and the KISS and MIX clone formats. He started all this crap, folks. So you can blame him, in part, for this mess you say exists today.
 
Absolutely!!! Best post ever! I needed to repeat Ohio Radio Man. A Christmas classic...a keeper!
 
cklw800 said:
Absolutely!!! Best post ever! I needed to repeat Ohio Radio Man. A Christmas classic...a keeper!
Click to expand...
Three-peat Ohio Radio Man. THE BEST POST EVER, a genuine classic. And with that, you all have a safe and happy holiday. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
 
ouuc-- damn! Why don't you get back to your regular hobby of pulling the wings off flies and leave the rest of us to enjoy what's left of the humor and creativity that used to be radio? Humbug.

That being said-- you are only thinking inside your sad little box when you opine that Randy wouldn't at least try to flex his considerable new muscle by coming back home to do what he does best, which is mess with the Jim Bryants of radio. Even if his focus is primarily in TV (which is just speculation at this point,) Randy wouldn't be Randy if he only played in the sandbox he was told to.
 
ouuc said:
First of all, it is highly unlikely that Tribune will go on a big radio buying spree. This isn't 1996 anymore. And Trib is in debt, so they are going to watch their spending.

Second, there's a good chance Michaels will help Tribune focus on their TV properties, not their one AM radio property.

Third, why do people think that if Randy did get back into radio, all the voice-tracking and cookie-cutter programming will end? When he was at Clear Channel, he was the creator of the "synergy" concept that spawned voice-tracking and the KISS and MIX clone formats. He started all this crap, folks. So you can blame him, in part, for this mess you say exists today.
Click to expand...

There's a lot of talk in the investment community that Zell will sell off newspapers, at least the L.A. Times, and buy radio. Radio station prices are down, and the newspaper business is a dying dinosaur. Also the Cubbies are on the block. And Zell just added Bo Wood to his board of directors.
 
Radio is a dying dinosaur, too. That's why the prices are down. It's not a growth industry. That's not coming from me, but from the investment community. Some radio companies' stock prices are in the tank, too. Zell is looking to create revenue, and I don't think radio is the place to do it. Maybe he and Michaels disagree with what I say.

If they go on a radio buying spree, then I'm wrong. It's a just a prediction.

It's pretty funny that some people go ballistic anytime someone tries to write some serious analysis, but they get a woodie over some stupid poem and mindless fantasizing about things turning back to the way they were in the "good old days."

I said it before and I'll say it again: Randy Michaels is one of the architects of the type of radio that you Randy-lovers hate. He helped kill localism and creativity on the air. Synergy = Voicetracking + Cookie cutter formats. I know. I was there when it happened. No one ever seems to want to acknowledge that on these boards. As if it's some sort of blasphemy.

Notice I never said that the Zell-Michaels partnership was a bad thing. I just made a prediction on what I think they'll do.
 
Randy Michaels did both...he brought creativity to the air with the rebirth of WKRC and then WLW, plus WEBN and many others, and also oversaw the operating methods that brought us to the point where staffs are cut well beyond the bone. There are a lot of things that brought us to where we are, including the very PCs we are all complaining on. If it wasn't for Bill gates inventing the PC and Al Gore inventing the internet, we might well be plugging in carts, threading reel to reel automation tape and maybe even playing Green Day off a 45 at 2am. Would we trade the internet for a chance to do an all night shift on Saturday at midnight?
 
gr8oldies said:
Randy Michaels did both...he brought creativity to the air with the rebirth of WKRC and then WLW, plus WEBN and many others, and also oversaw the operating methods that brought us to the point where staffs are cut well beyond the bone. There are a lot of things that brought us to where we are, including the very PCs we are all complaining on. If it wasn't for Bill gates inventing the PC and Al Gore inventing the internet, we might well be plugging in carts, threading reel to reel automation tape and maybe even playing Green Day off a 45 at 2am. Would we trade the internet for a chance to do an all night shift on Saturday at midnight?
Click to expand...

Not to mention the voice tracking that Randy brought was not the boring you can tell its canned tracking that exists today. Though today air talent is so boring, sterile, and safe that can anyone tell the difference between a live liner card announcer and a taped one?
 
ouuc said:
It's pretty funny that some people go ballistic anytime someone tries to write some serious analysis, but they get a woodie over some stupid poem and mindless fantasizing about things turning back to the way they were in the "good old days."
Click to expand...
We'll stop having fun around here just because YOU DON'T LIKE IT.

Yeesh.
 
NOBODY knew how to run 1200 stations at once, because no one had done it. I'm sure even Randy Michaels knows in retrospect how many of those ideas, like "hub and spoke", really didn't work.
 
gr8oldies said:
NOBODY knew how to run 1200 stations at once, because no one had done it. I'm sure even Randy Michaels knows in retrospect how many of those ideas, like "hub and spoke", really didn't work.
Click to expand...

Good point. One person can only do so much. I read about PDs who are in charge of 2 or more stations. It's a pain just trying to handle one.
 
If we never played records, we'd still have studio orchestras.

Times change, rules change, needs change. You can fault Randy and the others when the new idea didn't work if you want, but we (some of us) learned valuable lessons from the mistakes and profitted from the successes. Some lost our jobs and started over. It's better to do than be done to. If you don't try something, someone else will and you'll be left on the sidelines to laugh or cry. This ain't a dress rehearsal. Take a chance. Have some fun. Make some mistakes. Buddy, have a drink.
 
It's the Wall Street morons who insisted upon unreasonable growth that have turned today's technology into a morass of boredom that is killing the industry.

Back to what this thread was about to begin with. Best post ever! Merry Christmas to all.
 
Amen to that, Inventor!

Radio can a money machine, but only in the way bonds are.

"It's the damn money men.... I'm supposed to do a thriller for Universal. They want Charlton Heston as a Mexican."
-- Orson Welles, "Ed Wood"
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom