As bad as consolidation has been for the workers in the radio industry, it has made things better for radio listeners
Oh, yeah! Have another mega-owner take over a station.....have some VP of something send a list of the 500 song playlist from corporate HQ to the so-called Program Director......and spoon-feed a dumbed-down public that this station's the best thing since sliced white bread. I can listen to most stations in this market and hear songs that can be easily heard on other stations in the same market. The best example is the AC/Hot AC formats. Take WLTJ, Bob, Star and WSHH. Listen to an hour of them or so and tell me you don't hear songs that at least 1 of the other stations plays at some given point. The same can be said for country.....even though there are just 2 stations directly in the market, there are other stations that come into the market's coverage area depending on where you're located at the time.
So, do tell where the listener actually benefits from that. It still boils down to what a station does BESIDES the music that seperates them from their competition. 'DVE may own the classic rock music franchise in Pittsburgh, but they play the same classic rock that pre-BOB played. So what keeps listeners tuned in? Personalities. LOCAL personalities. LOCAL.
And before you come back with arguements that radio listeners AREN'T being spoon-fed, just listen to BOB's television ad. While you're being dazzled with fast-moving graphics, listen to what the announcer's saying. "Bob plays everything he likes, and nothing that he doesn't like." And, without so much as catching a breath, the next line is "BOB 96.9FM, We Play Anything." In less than 5 seconds, BOB has just made a condradiction. One sentence says he's selective, and the next he's not. This is a very good example of dazzling with brilliance AND baffling with...... well, you get the point.
Consolidation has resulted in far more programming choices for listeners than in the old days. Now that one company can pursue five or six market niches, we don't have to contend with five or six stations all attempting to capture the imaginary "mass market" by being all things to all people.
Niche as in what? All 80s....."Jammin' Oldies"......"Outlaw Country" What you probably would have is a station that comes on as one "niche" format, come out of the box with promotions & advertising to the nines, then after 6 months or so go into "cruise control" and just blend in with all of the other stations in the market. The owner then will flip format after a couple of years and diss the "dumped" format just so the owner's hide can be saved somehow. It'll never fall back on the owners, it'll always be something else to blame.
If it wasn't for Clear Channel being able to thrive by letting each of its stations go after a different audience, we'd see 'DVE, 3WS, The X, and 104.7 all programming more or less the exact same things in order to compete with each other.
While the examples you just gave all have different formats (rock, oldies, alternative & news-talk), they all go after the same age demographic. It's just what the listener wants to hear at a particular time that determines the station of their choice. It's totally foolish for a owner to program multiple stations that have similar music choices. While BOB may have increased it's audience over what it was getting as classic rock.....it's not much higher than their 1st full book out (Winter 05-06). And while they may have taken listeners from other owners' stations (3WS, Star and WSHH are down), it has done little, if anything, to boost their sister station.
As for lack of local content, that's a major issue to people who want to work in radio.
I object to a point. There are still listeners who interact with LOCAL personalities. It's up to those in local radio to talk about issues that relate to their audiences. There are still a number of local personalities who talk about local issues, regardless of what topic it is, and gather responses. Okay, most of it seems to be the Steelers, but this IS a region that vicariously lives through its pro football team. If a radio personality's talking Steelers, someone's listening and possibly calling the show. You may not care for the subject, but someone else DOES and WILL call in. It's not just an issue for those in radio. Listeners DO know when a jock's in the station or not. It doesn't have to be just calling in on a topic......someone may want to hear a song, or have questions. Having a jock pick up the phone actually connects the station to a listener.
But to people who live in Pittsburgh and who only want to be entertained by what they hear on the radio, that's a non-issue.But that is NOT representative of ALL of Pittsburgh. You may be in this catagory, but you don't speak for everyone. Not everyone follows your drum beat.
When Joe Listener turns on his radio, all he cares about is whether he likes what he hears. He doesn't care about where what he's listening to is coming from.
Is this opinion or fact? If you think this is fact, please give me your source for this because you're trying to speak for all Pittsburgh radio listeners. I'm sure there would be some listeners out there who disagree with your opinion. While I agree that there are listeners who aren't swayed by how local a station is, and to what extent, there is a certain percentage who still depend on LOCAL stations for many reasons. You may not fall into this catagory, but again not everyone would agree with you.
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