What do you think is the worst radio market in the top 50?

[Gatekeeper007]

Just about every state in the US has some semi rural to rural area, not all but most do. Granted country music has changed and I often have a hard time thinking that Taylor is a real country singer but no matter what the case they say she is country and is selling out so I guess we go with it. Radio has problems this is very true but not all markets are bad and not all stations are either. Some are not so good and a lot of people will agree on this but still there is going to be some one that says hey I like that station, so what is the worst radio market in the top 50? It all depends on who you ask and if you don't like their answer just ask some one else and you'll get a different answer maybe the same maybe not.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Radio has problems this is very true but not all markets are bad and not all stations are either. Some are not so good and a lot of people will agree on this but still there is going to be some one that says hey I like that station, so what is the worst radio market in the top 50? It all depends on who you ask and if you don't like their answer just ask some one else and you'll get a different answer maybe the same maybe not.

I agree with your thoughts. Though this old country folklore does not address broadcasting, it probably applies in some way.

The tale is told of the old man sitting on his front porch along the Westward bound trail of old. As pioneers with families loaded in horse drawn wagons would pass his perch on the porch, some would stop to ask: "What are folks like here?" His reply was always this same question: "What were folks like where you came from?" No matter what their response, he in turn would answer: "That's about what you will find folks like here."

Those of us who have made up our minds radio programming today is crap will find that true where ever we go. Those of us who have made up our minds radio programming is really great will find that true where ever we go.

 

[TheBigA]

From where I sit, it's the "reality TV" approach to thinking. Folks have become too critical, looking to vote someone off the island, or send someone home with nothing. When you begin with the attitude of "What's the worst..." it's never going to be good. We can always find something bad about something. That's the wrong motivation.

 

[Savage]

GRC - melding national syndication with local programming can be done, and profitably - even on a station with modest resources like WYSL. We carry national talkers Quinn & Rose, Laura Ingraham, Fred Thompson and Dennis Miller, but we also originate more local talk than the local 50kw corporate blowtorch. And we make money on the local stuff, including local programs on politics-government, law, medicine, travel, food, gardening and outdoor sports. We do it on a station with four fulltime and two parttime employees.

And I enjoy driving my Hudson, too. (Not a Hornet, but a '50 Commodore...)

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

melding national syndication with local programming can be done, and profitably - even on a station with modest resources like WYSL. We carry national talkers Quinn & Rose, Laura Ingraham, Fred Thompson and Dennis Miller, but we also originate more local talk than the local 50kw corporate blowtorch.

And I enjoy driving my Hudson, too. (Not a Hornet, but a '50 Commodore...)

On another thread today... one about creating profitable programming for Overnight hours, I rambled on about "de-compiling" what other stations are doing and figuring out what can be copied, plagiarized or whatever in content ideas. (The example there was Steve and Johnnie Overnight on WGN-Chicago).

Even a station that has NO INTENTION of sounding like NPR or duplicating NPR content would be well served to "diagram the sentence" as we used to do in English Grammar classes and study how some NPR stations are doing what you are talking about.... carrying the winners like Morning Edition and All Things Considered and then filling the cut-away time with good local content. I would suggest that WABE in Atlanta is a master at that.

WABE does not create as much long-form segments in other time parts as I assume that you are doing.

Again, I am not proposing that anyone make their station sound like NPR or duplicate the biases that may or may not be present in NPR... just learn how to wrap yourself around the syndication as if the whole thing (local and syndicated) were programmed by one person or one committee.