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What in the WORLD happened to radio?
- Thread starter Steven21
- Start date
and KB takith away. Thanks Rox, from me too. I needed that!
Man that was GREAT!
Steven21 said:
Classic! The Koss Pro4aa cans with an electrical tape repair (how many times did you have to mend those leads?!?) --I still have mine, rewired a gazillion times!
The mid 80s was a great time to do CHR
Try to fit THAT act on a liner card...
J
JustPastBuffalo
Guest
Priceless. Gone too soon. Thanks Rox.
As it relates to the initial post: There are so many good personalities from so many cities, so many markets large and small. LA, NY, Chicago, Philly, Boston, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Cincy... and on and on. They may not be legends, but they're good. Unfortunately, there are fewer of them on the radio these days.
Still, it isn't as if all the live, local jocks on the radio these days are bad. To the contrary, there are quite a few talented men and women doing their jobs and doing them well. Unfortunately, they're doing their jobs and the jobs of other good men and women who have been downsized. It's survival mode. It sucks. But it is what it is.
We can't "wish" radio back to prosperity. The economy blows, owners have made questionable decisions and now, the rank and file are bearing the brunt of those decisions. Welcome to life in broadcasting, 2009.
As it relates to the initial post: There are so many good personalities from so many cities, so many markets large and small. LA, NY, Chicago, Philly, Boston, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Cincy... and on and on. They may not be legends, but they're good. Unfortunately, there are fewer of them on the radio these days.
Still, it isn't as if all the live, local jocks on the radio these days are bad. To the contrary, there are quite a few talented men and women doing their jobs and doing them well. Unfortunately, they're doing their jobs and the jobs of other good men and women who have been downsized. It's survival mode. It sucks. But it is what it is.
We can't "wish" radio back to prosperity. The economy blows, owners have made questionable decisions and now, the rank and file are bearing the brunt of those decisions. Welcome to life in broadcasting, 2009.
A few months ago I posted a link to a WLS reunion, including the great John Landecker.
THESE are the guys who inspired the very generation of broadcasters that are now getting royally f***ed over right now instead of being able to contribute to this indutry's history by leaving their own mark.
THESE are the guys who inspired the very generation of broadcasters that are now getting royally f***ed over right now instead of being able to contribute to this indutry's history by leaving their own mark.
It's interesting...if you transcribed what they were saying, devoid of the video (which is what radio is), you'd see a lot of station formatics, repeating the call letters, general yelling and screaming, giving away 106 dollars, and lots of self-indulgence. In other words, if you compare the content of what they said with what Alan Burns says DJs do today, you realize radio hasn't changed that much. And this is why listeners started to turn radio off in the late 80s. Too much yelling and screaming for no reason. Reminds me of Howard Hoffman's "Nine" parody. The only upside was the cocaine was free, a present from Columbia's Dr. Feelgood.
TheBigA said:
They started to turn radio off in the late 80's? Really?
BS. Where's your evidence of this? And even if it were so, your hypothesis is not provable, just speculation. Yes, boring jocks who blathered on about nothing are/were a big problem...a turn off...a tune out. DO NOT compare those jocks to the quality of talent being focused on here.
The better talent did a lot more than basic formatics. They added an energy and an ethusiasm more uncommon today than it was back then. The dumbing down of the hired talent by those who marginalize it's importance is the reason (among others) that listeners are not as enammered with radio these days.
TheBigA said:
Pure conjecture, nothing more.
Did it ever occur to you that maybe TSL went down because the music wasn't particularly appealing during that time? Do I have any proof of THAT? Yeah, about as much as you do that it was the jock's fault the TSL went down. The best jock around cannot overcome bad music selection.
By the way, what has any jock ever said at any time that was so compelling as to meet your criteria? It's not a talk show, it's energetic patter to spice up and polish up and sew together all of the many elements of a music show.
If you are 21 years old, if you are single, if you are into certain types of energetic music.... AND if maybe you partake of what was once called "amateur pharmacology" on a MASH episode, I can see where you may think that YouTube clip is the gold standard for what radio ought to be.
On the other hand, if you are 38 years old, toting youngsters to soccer games, maybe a single mom trying to get three little children calmed down for bed after watching today's sugar laced cartoon programs, it is possible you are a candidate to join a petition drive to get congress to outlaw radio like the clip. Yes, it was an ego trip for the announcers that had the skill sets to do that, and it looks good to the few young folks today that wish they could get paid to do something like that.... but if it is truly an audience builder, why isn't clear channel putting folks like that on their repeater radio feed to their stations across the country?
I think the whole radio industry is in denial about the number The Big A just referenced. Every year they find some way to take the ratings number and make it look like radio is better than ever.... and yet if you will go to some Internet discussion site where the technicians and engineers of the industry gather to talk shop, you will find that they ALL say the same thing: Their own children, who get their music lessons and orthodontic braces paid for by pay checks from the radio station DON'T LISTEN TO RADIO!
On the lighter side: when I listen to that clip on You Tube, all I can think of is that scene from the movie "When Sally Met Harry" that ends up with the lady saying: "I'll have what she had."
On the other hand, if you are 38 years old, toting youngsters to soccer games, maybe a single mom trying to get three little children calmed down for bed after watching today's sugar laced cartoon programs, it is possible you are a candidate to join a petition drive to get congress to outlaw radio like the clip. Yes, it was an ego trip for the announcers that had the skill sets to do that, and it looks good to the few young folks today that wish they could get paid to do something like that.... but if it is truly an audience builder, why isn't clear channel putting folks like that on their repeater radio feed to their stations across the country?
I think the whole radio industry is in denial about the number The Big A just referenced. Every year they find some way to take the ratings number and make it look like radio is better than ever.... and yet if you will go to some Internet discussion site where the technicians and engineers of the industry gather to talk shop, you will find that they ALL say the same thing: Their own children, who get their music lessons and orthodontic braces paid for by pay checks from the radio station DON'T LISTEN TO RADIO!
On the lighter side: when I listen to that clip on You Tube, all I can think of is that scene from the movie "When Sally Met Harry" that ends up with the lady saying: "I'll have what she had."
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
Obviously, the clip I linked to is just a taste of :-X a terrific hot rockin' flame throwin' top 40 jock of the 80s. 43 year-olds were NOT the target demo. Guys like Jojo, Bill Lee, etc. made the format a lot more fun to listen to and provided a great example of how good you should sound to crank out the hits on a P1 CHR.
Is it compelling? No. Is much on-air chatter compelling today or yesterday? No. But that wasn't the point of the post. You're analyzing a creative medium with the eye of an accountant. Yes, it is a business, but for those who got into it for a whole host of reason---ones you'll never fathom---it was an outlet for fun and creativity---even if that simply meant nailing every post with a one-liner.
Ulimately, it's just radio. Wall St. thinks that way and apparently so does the big "A".
TSL has dropped since the '80s. Nice of "TheBigA" to finally recognize that fact.
What's changed since the '80s? Consultants convinced management that music was the lure for listeners, and that pre-programmed, computer generated playlists would be more effective than jocks selecting songs from various categories. Not only that, but de-emphasizing the role of the air personality would allow management to pay less for talent, and avoid creating "stars". If the music was the "star", and air personalities were locked down into a strictly controlled format, they became less recognizable, and more easily replaceable.
That's how we got to the situation we're in today. Isn't it striking that 90% of the "talented" jocks came up in the era before consultants and over-zealous research sucked the life out of the industry? Morning radio is generally the last bastion of "personality" radio, and though it generally brings in the most money, many people in management consider a morning show to be a "necessary evil" because talent requires actual attention.
As the "value-added" portion of radio programming has declined, so has TSL. Being a jukebox just ain't getting the job done - especially now when there are so many alternate sources of listener-selected music. So, what's corporate's answer? Cut jocks, reduce local content, and tighten playlists.
And they wonder why listeners opt for alternatives.
What's changed since the '80s? Consultants convinced management that music was the lure for listeners, and that pre-programmed, computer generated playlists would be more effective than jocks selecting songs from various categories. Not only that, but de-emphasizing the role of the air personality would allow management to pay less for talent, and avoid creating "stars". If the music was the "star", and air personalities were locked down into a strictly controlled format, they became less recognizable, and more easily replaceable.
That's how we got to the situation we're in today. Isn't it striking that 90% of the "talented" jocks came up in the era before consultants and over-zealous research sucked the life out of the industry? Morning radio is generally the last bastion of "personality" radio, and though it generally brings in the most money, many people in management consider a morning show to be a "necessary evil" because talent requires actual attention.
As the "value-added" portion of radio programming has declined, so has TSL. Being a jukebox just ain't getting the job done - especially now when there are so many alternate sources of listener-selected music. So, what's corporate's answer? Cut jocks, reduce local content, and tighten playlists.
And they wonder why listeners opt for alternatives.
Steven21 said:
When it doubt, blame someone else. Look...you attribute everything that was great about radio to the video example you gave. I brought up the point that if you evaluate what they were saying, it's not much different from what you hear today. You want energy? There are lots of CHRs and Urban stations that do this exact presentation today, and it hasn't much changed in 25 years. What to me is compelling? The most compelling thing in JoJo's whole rap was that I could win $106 if I just kept listening. Wowie Zowie. That'll get me through the next commercial break, or the next disco tune. Yep. This kind of radio is being done around the country right now. But no one cares, because anyone can do the exact same thing in their bedroom on their home computer. Except they get to pick the music. And THEY are the stars.
SirRoxalot said:
"Finally?" I have never disputed it. Maybe you need to school Steven21. Consultants have been around since the 60s. Music has been a lure since the 1920s. Pre-programmed playlists were being done in the 60s before there were computers. In fact I can tell that JoJo was playing music off one of those playlists in the video. They ALL were. They were working for corporate radio as it existed at the time.
The problem began when "air personalities" started taking the drugs given to them by the labels, taking the money, the swag, and everything else, and jeopardizing the license because of their own self-indulgence. All this is documented in numerous books and even a few movies on the period. You can see some of the results of the drugs in these video clips. I won't specify who in particular, but I've talked with some of those jocks in those videos, and they told me they were using cocaine at the time. Not very professional if the purpose is to serve the community.
B
Bob1370
Guest
IIRC it was media consultant Guy Zapoleon who first pointed out a few years ago that use of radio, in terms of the percentage of available 12+ listeners actually using commercial radio on a regular basis, peaked in 1989. That [eak was reached around the time of the last big radio programming revolution, when the current generation of talk hosts and foreground music personalities began hitting the airwaves and the whole range of formats we hear on radio today began crystallizing into its current form. (Sure, there have been some variations on familiar themes, but classic hits is really the same format now that oldies was in 1989--playing the hits people in their 30s remembered listening to in their teens.) Radio is still used by most 12+ Americans...but not as often, and not for as long, as they did 20 years ago. That's what Arbitron numbers tell us.
Have we developed any new ideas, recruited new talent, sent new messages that connect with listeners as they change around us? An honest answer would be, "not to the degree we should."
Now radio still reaches a lot of people, and it's still cheaper and more user friendly than the other means of audio entertainment people are using today, whether CD changers, iPods, satellite or in-car MP3 players. We can get a lot of straying listeners back, to at least give us some of the attention they now give to other media. But we have to serve them better. What we have to do now, is get out of the rut of programming mechanically, bloodlessly and on the cheap. We need to blend the best practices of all of radio's most successful eras, including localism, personality, energy and creativity, and do it in a way that resonates with today's tastes and values. For some radio stations that'll mean minor tweaking of the kind any good PD should be doing as a matter of course.
But for some, it'll mean taking an axe to the satellite or hard drive. They'll need to begin the development of local personalities and local presence in the community that they should have been doing years ago.
For talk stations, they will need to do all that plus rethinking their basic message to see if they're turning off, or even insulting, the emerging generation of adult listeners. it'll mean reading the election returns and understanding that what your core target audience responded to and believed in 15 or 20 years ago in the age of the Contract with America is not what your target audience responds to now. The 35-54s of 1989 are now 55 to 74 and you can't sell them easily if they're still your core and you haven't recruited anyone younger. Most of today's 35-54s voted the other way and your programming needs at least to recognize that fact and stop insulting them and their outlook and values all the time when your hosts crack the mike.
Have we developed any new ideas, recruited new talent, sent new messages that connect with listeners as they change around us? An honest answer would be, "not to the degree we should."
Now radio still reaches a lot of people, and it's still cheaper and more user friendly than the other means of audio entertainment people are using today, whether CD changers, iPods, satellite or in-car MP3 players. We can get a lot of straying listeners back, to at least give us some of the attention they now give to other media. But we have to serve them better. What we have to do now, is get out of the rut of programming mechanically, bloodlessly and on the cheap. We need to blend the best practices of all of radio's most successful eras, including localism, personality, energy and creativity, and do it in a way that resonates with today's tastes and values. For some radio stations that'll mean minor tweaking of the kind any good PD should be doing as a matter of course.
But for some, it'll mean taking an axe to the satellite or hard drive. They'll need to begin the development of local personalities and local presence in the community that they should have been doing years ago.
For talk stations, they will need to do all that plus rethinking their basic message to see if they're turning off, or even insulting, the emerging generation of adult listeners. it'll mean reading the election returns and understanding that what your core target audience responded to and believed in 15 or 20 years ago in the age of the Contract with America is not what your target audience responds to now. The 35-54s of 1989 are now 55 to 74 and you can't sell them easily if they're still your core and you haven't recruited anyone younger. Most of today's 35-54s voted the other way and your programming needs at least to recognize that fact and stop insulting them and their outlook and values all the time when your hosts crack the mike.
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