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WEBN-FM on the rocks
- Thread starter BruceB
- Start date
Remember the Dawn Patrol? Fools Day Parade? And an annual fireworks show complete with a custom soundtrack from a reel-to-reel audio tape editing giant (imho). Remember the Wildman living on a billboard until the Bengals won a game??
Remember when you could call a radio station and get a jock to do a phoner or just take a request???
I have been to 102.7's studio recently mid-day and it was empty and dark. Now back in the old days...the only reason a studio would not be inhabited (imho) is if the jock put on Stairway to Heaven so he or she could sneak a bathroom or a smoke break.
I'd like to ask the radio people out here....which way is the right way??? The way it is being done today or the way it was done back then???
Remember when you could call a radio station and get a jock to do a phoner or just take a request???
I have been to 102.7's studio recently mid-day and it was empty and dark. Now back in the old days...the only reason a studio would not be inhabited (imho) is if the jock put on Stairway to Heaven so he or she could sneak a bathroom or a smoke break.
I'd like to ask the radio people out here....which way is the right way??? The way it is being done today or the way it was done back then???
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Being in my 70's, and some folks will say that the older you get, you don't like change, I liked it when you were at the station, spinning records, talking to listeners on the phone and putting together a show. While I realize that automation and AI are here to stay and are cheaper than staff...... I do like the live person who controlled the airways. That's one reason I listen to mostly Sirus radio, especially the 60's and 70;s.
That's an interesting statement, considering the jocks on SiriusXM are prerecorded.
And I will repeat again the best example of why we don’t look at 6+ or 12+ numbers: for about its first two decades, WFAN in NYC was around 15th in ratings but the highest billing station in the country.
But it was #1 in a target group much wanted by advertisers. And, like nearly all ad agency buyers and planners, they never look at 12+ share data.
Does anyone know why radio stations used to be run by a live local staff and are largely not today (imho)?
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The economy stinks. Advertising has dropped off a cliff. Can't pay people if you have no money.
Plus there's really no demand for live people to staff radio stations. People have lots of other options. Maybe you've heard.
Not all of them. Phlash Phelps' morning show on the '60s channel has been live since the pre-Sirius takeover years. Not sure if it's the case now, Pat St. John was live in the afternoon as of a couple of years ago.
You should hear commercial radio up here. The holiday shopping ads are gone, of course, but so are a bunch of others that had been running well before the season. One station now has three commercial-free music hours a day. Another is starting its pre-TOH music sweep at :40 rather than :50, And this is going on even with bottom-feeder time share escape scam ads still running, albeit less frequently than before. As a listener, I'm enjoying the extra songs, but it's impossible to ignore the fact that businesses are abandoning the medium of radio in increasing numbers every year. All the statistics about how listenership hasn't fallen off as much as some believe it has don't really matter if the ad money is being spent somewhere else, or isn't being spent at all.
In addition to BigA's response regarding cost and demand, let's also consider technology.
In the 50's when I began in radio, stations needed people live every hour the station was on the air because everything was manual and most things were prone to frequent failure.
As we moved from tube technology to solid state... as we got cart machines and then automation gear.... as the FCC relaxed operator license requirements... stations no longer needed people there at all times.
The technology made it possible for a show host to record in 20 to 30 minutes or so all the content for a 4 or 5 hour airshift. Or for the transmitter to sit outside of town unattended except for a visit every week or two by the engineer. Or for the music log for a whole weekend and the following Monday to be done in a couple of hours on Friday. Or the commercial log completed by one person in just a few hours of work, compared to several people needing all day.
In addition to technology, let's also consider the music.
At one time, rock radio was integral to the music business. It was a very mutually beneficial system. Record labels were very dependent on radio to play their artists. The artists were dependent on radio announcing their concerts. Radio benefited by getting new releases first, tickets to concerts for give-aways, and other promotional items.
Then things started to change. In 1988, two of this country's biggest record labels were sold to foreign conglomerates. Then the internet made it possible for artists and labels to get their music directly to the fans, bypassing radio. Then the congress passed a law that forced digital users of music to pay royalties to record labels and artists. Because radio isn't digital, it didn't pay those royalties. The labels were very upset by that situation. So labels focused most of their resources on direct marketing of music to fans and streaming. Instead of making consensus music that worked well with radio formats, the record labels instead just made lots of non-genre based music that could be heard on streaming services,
That's where we've been for the last 20 years. Rock fans complain that they don't hear as many new releases on local radio stations. That's primarily because the music is less aimed for mass audiences, and is more aimed for individual fans. The artists realized if they super serve a small group of fans with lots of music and lots of freebies, those fans will be devoted to that artist for life. The artists are more in control of their music & marketing than they were 30 years ago. They have social media that has replaced mass media in speaking with their fans. So rock fans are now more fans of specific artists rather than fans of the entire genre. Because of this, they're also not fans of radio or other mass distribution systems. That makes it much harder to program rock radio stations, because the music has become so segmented that it's hard to play current music that everyone accepts. We live in a world where everyone can make their own playlist, and they don't need a radio station or a DJ to tell them what to like. So that inherently changes the role of radio and the people who work there.
So how do we get back to live local radio?
or is that even possible without the whole thing collapsing, being divested and starting over?
What do you mean by "get back?" There are lots of radio stations that are live & local now. WLW is mostly live & local.
What does it take? Money. Or the willingness by staff to work for less money or even free. That's how college stations do it.
As for music radio, what will it take to bring back record stores? Radio used to promote music sales. Now the business model for music is streaming, not radio. That change in the music business model obviously has an effect on radio.
The first question here is whether listeners want, need or require “live and local” programming. In most cases, and most formats, neither automatically makes radio better.
I do not see the close relationship between record stores and radio programming. I ran multiple music formats in Ecuador for most of the 1960s. For most of the formats, nearly all of the music I played was not available in local record stores. We spent lots of money, bringing music from Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, the United States, France, and Italy to play in our different formats and nearly none of it was ever produced locally by Ecuadorian record companies.
This did not seem to make a difference as in a 40 station market. I had four stations in the top 10 and over 50% of the total among upper income listeners. Those would seem to be the primary candidates for record sales, but the market was not big enough to support the production of most of the songs we played.
So the absence of retail record store availability did not affect at all the operation of my music radio stations. In fact, the unavailability of many hits songs was all the more reason to listen to my radio stations.
I think what Imliveontheair is saying is, can't we have personalities on our radio stations? We recognize that, thanks to technology, the DJ doesn't have to be live. But as radio stations get rid of live DJs, they also seem to be getting rid of personality. So often, a live DJ is replaced by nothing. Just prerecorded liners.
You may not be a fan of iHeart's constant cutting. But most iHeart stations have a personality around the clock, even overnight. Yes, that person is voicetracked, often from another city. Maybe he/she's doing it for multiple stations. But a few times each hour, the person tells you the artist just played and maybe has some info about the artist. Or the upcoming Super Bowl. Or the cold weather sweeping the country.
OK, we know it's not live. But it isn't just music, liner, spots, back to music.
You may not be a fan of iHeart's constant cutting. But most iHeart stations have a personality around the clock, even overnight. Yes, that person is voicetracked, often from another city. Maybe he/she's doing it for multiple stations. But a few times each hour, the person tells you the artist just played and maybe has some info about the artist. Or the upcoming Super Bowl. Or the cold weather sweeping the country.
OK, we know it's not live. But it isn't just music, liner, spots, back to music.
I don't either. That wasn't the point I was trying to make. At one time they had symbiotic business models. They don't anymore.
People had a relationship with rock stations like WEBN because of the music. Today people have a more direct relationship with the music, and it bypasses radio. Why? Because the music business model has changed from physical product to streaming. The change had nothing to do with radio or programming. There was nothing radio could have done to prevent it. The change had to do with the music industry getting a performance royalty from congress in 1997. That happened one year after radio deregulation, and some often feel deregulation caused this change. But it was the performance royalty.
Artists and labels now get paid when their music streams on digital platforms. That didn't happen before 1997, and they don't get paid when their music gets played on broadcast radio. The only people who get paid are songwriters and publishers. They aren't necessarily who people think of when they listen to music. There's really no point in having live & local DJs if all the music they're playing is by global artists who don't live in Cincinnati. That entire symbiosis doesn't exist anymore. The ONLY reason stations have a local presence is for local sales. Not programming. Except when there's money to support local news, talk, or sports. But not for music.
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