The Buffalo News offers another column devoted to Brad Riter and WECK. It's good pub, even though Riter boldly pronounces music radio to be "dead." He may be prescient, but the EKG from the latest Persons 12+ trend seems to indicate WYRK, Star, Kiss, 97 Rock and WHTT have a pretty strong heartbeat.
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WECK's Riter Gets Ink
- Thread starter Element9
- Start date
Element9 said:
What do you expect him to say? In his current line of work, and at his age, music radio IS dead. That doesn't mean everyone else's experience is the same.
And he makes a good point. The only problem is that since WBEN has the lock on news & talk, what do all those other radio stations, including his, do?
I can't speak for what Brad says, but it it were me, I would demand of myself something more reality based. Something other than "I think FM music radio is dead, 100 percent. " Obviously he speaks in the present tense and as already noted,
- so while nobody knows the future of music radio or radio in general, taking that quote literally is a break from reality.
If that were me, I would simply say that while music radio still has the majority of listeners and WBEN & WGR currently continue to have the majority of talk radio listeners, at WECK we're trying hard to develop our own niche and getter a bigger slice of the pie, etc. WECK actually getting a bigger slice of the pie in the future - that remains to be seen - but that's what I say.
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Bob1370
Guest
Whatevr you think of his obituary for music radio, Riter does make a very valid point when he says immediately afterward, "But when it snows you're still going to need somebody here to tell you what's going on. When the Bills play, you're still going to need somebody here to tell you what's going on. ... I think live, local survives infinitely."
A canned jukebox (which is what too much of music radio is becoming) is indeed very disposable. But live local information and conversation is not just a kind of radio that can still thrive, it's what radio's future, both AM and FM, can and should be.
A canned jukebox (which is what too much of music radio is becoming) is indeed very disposable. But live local information and conversation is not just a kind of radio that can still thrive, it's what radio's future, both AM and FM, can and should be.
With that reasoning, I don't know why ANY station does weather. People should just buy a weather radio, or check it out on-line.
After all, weather's not of any concern here in Buffalo, and listeners will come back after they've tuned in the weather forecast elsewhere, right?
After all, weather's not of any concern here in Buffalo, and listeners will come back after they've tuned in the weather forecast elsewhere, right?
SirRoxalot said:
Weather is not of any concern now. Even in Buffalo, it's unlikely to snow in June.
And I've learned that you don't program stations year-round 24/7 around an occasional emergency. Hey let's do a traffic report at 3 in the morning, just because there once was an accident that closed the Thuway at that time.
BigA, you must not have much contact with the fairer sex. 12 months a year they want to know what's going on with the weather. What to wear and which shoes to pick in the morning. Jacket or sweater needed....since it can be chilly even in July? Whether Little League or soccer is a go on afternoons or weekends. How to dress the kids for school or day camp.
Any time our meteorologists blow the forecast and it's not as accurate as it might be, we hear about it.
Any time our meteorologists blow the forecast and it's not as accurate as it might be, we hear about it.
Weather is not of any concern now. Even in Buffalo, it's unlikely to snow in June.
Disagree. About the "weather" aspect... and given that I've lived in Buffalo most of my life, I still have reservations about the "snow in June" aspect.
BTW, the latest measurable snow in recent memory happened a few years ago on May 1. I remember it clearly because I put away the snowthrower the previous weekend.
As it's 57' and raining as I write, Savage's point is well-made and I know from my years at WGR Newsradio 55 ("Traffic & Weather on the Tens" and all that) you don't want to tell a bride-to-be and especially her mom that it will be "sunny and 77" this Saturday only to have it rain cats n dogs. You don't want the Lions Club on your tail because they didn't bring tents for their Chicken Bar-B-Q that was rained on, either.
Even (and especially) in Summer in Buffalo, weather is important. Folks who live here know there's a festival, lawn fette or family picnic every weekend, to say nothing of Thursday At The Square, Artpark, Buffalo Place, CanalFest and the grand daddy of festivals, Allentown. So while we're not dealing with blizzards, weather is still important in Summer, which is why our friends at WBEN rightly hammer the snot out of it.
As to Brad's comments re music radio: Youthful hubris. I hired him years ago at WGR. He's a good talk show host, but like all good talk show hosts, there's a tendency to overstate and stir the pot. It may be his world view and experience, speaking for himself and even his generation, but as of this day, unless he's filling out all 2750 in-tab diaries for Erie and Niagara counties, pronouncing FM music radio "dead" at this point is a bit premature. Curiously, I wonder if Sandy Beach and/or Tom Bauerle would concur, especially given that Star, Kiss and the Lake are only a few studios away?
Disagree. About the "weather" aspect... and given that I've lived in Buffalo most of my life, I still have reservations about the "snow in June" aspect.
BTW, the latest measurable snow in recent memory happened a few years ago on May 1. I remember it clearly because I put away the snowthrower the previous weekend.As it's 57' and raining as I write, Savage's point is well-made and I know from my years at WGR Newsradio 55 ("Traffic & Weather on the Tens" and all that) you don't want to tell a bride-to-be and especially her mom that it will be "sunny and 77" this Saturday only to have it rain cats n dogs. You don't want the Lions Club on your tail because they didn't bring tents for their Chicken Bar-B-Q that was rained on, either.
Even (and especially) in Summer in Buffalo, weather is important. Folks who live here know there's a festival, lawn fette or family picnic every weekend, to say nothing of Thursday At The Square, Artpark, Buffalo Place, CanalFest and the grand daddy of festivals, Allentown. So while we're not dealing with blizzards, weather is still important in Summer, which is why our friends at WBEN rightly hammer the snot out of it.
As to Brad's comments re music radio: Youthful hubris. I hired him years ago at WGR. He's a good talk show host, but like all good talk show hosts, there's a tendency to overstate and stir the pot. It may be his world view and experience, speaking for himself and even his generation, but as of this day, unless he's filling out all 2750 in-tab diaries for Erie and Niagara counties, pronouncing FM music radio "dead" at this point is a bit premature. Curiously, I wonder if Sandy Beach and/or Tom Bauerle would concur, especially given that Star, Kiss and the Lake are only a few studios away?
So what you're saying is, "radio doesn't matter?" So why bother to post here if that's your view?
We're all here because we happen to believe: most people still choose radio. We like connecting to listeners and helping advertisers. If we didn't share this belief system we'd do something else for a living and instead post on the bus-driver or insurance-agent or zookeeper forums. (Fora??)
And no, of course I don't propose women will listen to a format they don't like just to get the weather. You made a blanket declaration "Weather is not of any concern now" because it's unlikely to snow in June. I don't think that's true.
We're all here because we happen to believe: most people still choose radio. We like connecting to listeners and helping advertisers. If we didn't share this belief system we'd do something else for a living and instead post on the bus-driver or insurance-agent or zookeeper forums. (Fora??)
And no, of course I don't propose women will listen to a format they don't like just to get the weather. You made a blanket declaration "Weather is not of any concern now" because it's unlikely to snow in June. I don't think that's true.
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Bob1370
Guest
"But you only need one station to do that. You don't need 35 stations all giving the same weather and news."
That's what you get in a totalitarian one-party state where differing opinions aren't allowed. Eberywhere else you need a station for every outlook, every generation.
That's what you get in a totalitarian one-party state where differing opinions aren't allowed. Eberywhere else you need a station for every outlook, every generation.
But according to you, poor weather forecasts at this time of year don't matter. I believe many people still get forecasts from the radio and as Mr. Savage and Mr. Pastrick noted, weather is important year-round. Just ask the people who planned events today and woke up to a 2 inch rainfall. Not everyone has all the latest gadgets on them at all times and especially when driving into an area, I feel that radio weather is VERY important. Of course we're getting further off-topic here but that's to be expected.TheBigA said:Ahhh God bless America...where you can tune in to 35 different radio stations, and get 35 completely different weather forecasts. Probably none of them right.
Looks, it's simple. Weather is a SERVICE for listeners. And it's a revenue-generator for stations. Buffalo is likely more weather-sensitive than a lot of big cities, especially sunbelt cities. We live for the summers, and are wary of the winters. That big lake to the west makes forecasting here as much voodoo as science. Things change rapidly.
Does that mean that you do 3 minutes of weather an hour? Hmmm, that might actually HELP KB's numbers. But for the average music station, dropping in a concise weather forecast at a predictable time every hour is a positive, not a negative. In LA where it's always sunny, it might be extraneous. Around here, LA is short for Lackawanna, and weather is ALWAYS of interest.
It's just a question of knowing the market.
Does that mean that you do 3 minutes of weather an hour? Hmmm, that might actually HELP KB's numbers. But for the average music station, dropping in a concise weather forecast at a predictable time every hour is a positive, not a negative. In LA where it's always sunny, it might be extraneous. Around here, LA is short for Lackawanna, and weather is ALWAYS of interest.
It's just a question of knowing the market.
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BRADonWECK
Guest
JimPastrick said:
You can call it hubris. I'll call it editing. A newspaper interview isn't quite the same as a live radio interview in that, in its final presentation, the questions are missing.
I was asked about the future of radio "10 years down the road."
Without knowing the question, my answer sounds premature. Now that you know what I was asked, would any of you have cause to disagree?
(Also, I'm glad you still consider me "youthful," Jim... but I'm 35 now and that was 13 years ago that you hired me. Yikes!)
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