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What in the WORLD happened to radio?
- Thread starter Steven21
- Start date
Radknowski said:
Actually I do know that. It's why I can't understand why a local resident is constantly telling the world that "corporate" is shutting everything down. In other words, if local jocks are employed, and if they're doing well, why the endless rants about some imaginary "corporate" hell?
WYRK is #1. Last I checked, they're not locally owned. The #2 station, WBEN isn't locally owned either. They both answer to out of town corporate ownership. Yet somehow both employ a lot of people. Maybe not as many as they did ten years ago, but they still are basically locally programmed radio stations without a lot of interference from "corporate," right? So let's give the fiction a rest.
Now Citadel is another story. But in every horserace you have winners and losers. For every WYRK, you have to have a station they're killing. Not everyone can be #1. Not everyone can do radio the same way. Someone has to mop the floors. That's why we now have Citadel.
Oh, now I get it. As long as some people are still employed, everyone should shut up and stop talking about the dozens of people who have been cut - even from some extremely successful stations. And, you shouldn't complain if your pay and benefits have been cut, and you've been asked to put in significantly more time picking up some of the work that was performed by the talent that was cut. Just be happy that you're still employed.
We don't have Clear Channel in Buffalo, so we should ignore their existence - and the fact that companies like Citadel and Cumulus play "follow the leader" when radio stations are reduced to vapid voice tracking and out-of-town syndication.
The collapse of major corporate players in any industry affects the entire industry. Even the winners in this market have been affected by company-wide corporate edicts and multi-market deals that were bad for local stations. If Citadel and/or Clear Channel go down, it will affect station values and ad rates industry-wide.
We don't have Clear Channel in Buffalo, so we should ignore their existence - and the fact that companies like Citadel and Cumulus play "follow the leader" when radio stations are reduced to vapid voice tracking and out-of-town syndication.
The collapse of major corporate players in any industry affects the entire industry. Even the winners in this market have been affected by company-wide corporate edicts and multi-market deals that were bad for local stations. If Citadel and/or Clear Channel go down, it will affect station values and ad rates industry-wide.
Winner, winner! Chicken dinner. Let's put it this way, there are significantly fewer live jocks on the air in the Nickel these days and there are stations that are operating without News Directors, night jocks and midday jocks; all of whom were talented and productive... well, except for that chick who used to be on eBay when she was supposed to... ah, hell, that just ruins the image. Point is, there are a lot of people out of work and their stations sound the less for them not being there. For the most part, they're out of work because corporate made the decision to slice 'n dice, not local. Entercom's the best of a sorry lot. Regent's two steps away from disaster. As to Citadel... sheesh.TheBigA said:
Element9 said:
Things are tough all over. There are fewer people selling cars, fewer teachers in schools, and fewer people in ALL lines of work. Why should broadcasting be any different? Look...if this was only a problem in radio, you'd have a point. It's not, and the fact that the entire country is hurting, and it has an effect on advertising, means that there will be a lot of radio people out of work. That's just how it is.
Element9 said:
No, they're out of work because advertising has been down on average 20% for the last two years. And costs keep going up. Employees are caught in the squeeze. It doesn't matter if your station is owned by a corporation, or a mom & pop. People are being let go, and stations are having a rough time.
Perhaps the millions and millions of dollars spent on the failed HD radio experiment would have been better spent reducing debt, and maintaining higher programming standards. Radio has ridden out numerous recessions before, generally doing better than other media because it IS cost-effective.
It took a coalition of geniuses to produce a product like HD which cost millions on the broadcast side, yet has STILL failed to produce a SINGLE affordable, efficient receiver. Talk about forgetting the consumer.
BTW, "mom & pop" are doing much better on average than big corporate during this recession. So much for the "benefits" of centralized management.
It took a coalition of geniuses to produce a product like HD which cost millions on the broadcast side, yet has STILL failed to produce a SINGLE affordable, efficient receiver. Talk about forgetting the consumer.
BTW, "mom & pop" are doing much better on average than big corporate during this recession. So much for the "benefits" of centralized management.
SirRoxalot said:
Look, for 40 years, billions of dollars have been spent trying to improve the audio quality of AM radio, with the hopes that it would revive interest in it. The most frustrating part is the lack of direction from the government. The AM band has not seen any growth in the last 25 years. In fact, most of the negative numbers attributed to "radio" in general are mainly due to audience and financial losses in AM. There have been lots of failed experiments, not just HD. AM Stereo was another. Still, someone has to make investments in experimental technologies, or you'll never know if they'll work. I still believe there can be a way to digitize AM without requiring the entire population to replace their radios. I just don't know how.
Maybe you don't do budgets, but in most companies, they're not done in such a way that you can easily transfer capital expenses into programming. The engineering folks would simply spend the money on new computers. They'd NEVER give up some of their money to the programming people.
TheBigA said:
What, there's no level of management overseeing both engineering and programming? Any management STUPID enough to let that happen deserves to fail. And, you could buy ALL new computers with the money dumped into HD - and have money left over for a mid-day guy or two.
To put good people on would require getting rid of people who should never have been allowed anywhere near radio, anything having to do with radio, the people in radio, or associated with radio. When it comes to unemployment insurance premiums going up, quite frankly the owners, whether mom and pop types or corporations would rather keep the worst person, even if it means repeatedly breaching the public trust or destroying lives, including their own, so long as it looked like inexperience, error or coincidence that could be explained away - especially in a struggling economy.
B
Bob1370
Guest
"I still believe there can be a way to digitize AM without requiring the entire population to replace their radios. I just don't know how."
Actually, you don't need to digitize it. All you need to do is let stations modulate 50 hZ to 15 kHZ audio, like most transmitters built in the last 60 years are capable of doing (and most stations used to back in the day before the NRSC 10 kHz rolloff was mandated--I know KB did with its late-70s vintage MW50's). Tell them to broadcast in CQuam stereo. Then tell the receiver makers to enable their radios to pick up what the stations are transmitting, as a condition of type-acceptance. (As of now only the Delco car radios in GM cars of the last 10-15 years come close, and then only with premium speakers.)
Finally, forget about HD and let the AMs make the most of their analog capabilities. You'll get high quality audio with less bandwidth used and less noise generated.
HD makes more sense on FM where it gives stations the ability to feed three separate programs with good-fidelity stereo audio within their licensed spectrum footprint.
It'll be interesting to see if the FCC starts making sense, and stops making hash out of the AM band...
Actually, you don't need to digitize it. All you need to do is let stations modulate 50 hZ to 15 kHZ audio, like most transmitters built in the last 60 years are capable of doing (and most stations used to back in the day before the NRSC 10 kHz rolloff was mandated--I know KB did with its late-70s vintage MW50's). Tell them to broadcast in CQuam stereo. Then tell the receiver makers to enable their radios to pick up what the stations are transmitting, as a condition of type-acceptance. (As of now only the Delco car radios in GM cars of the last 10-15 years come close, and then only with premium speakers.)
Finally, forget about HD and let the AMs make the most of their analog capabilities. You'll get high quality audio with less bandwidth used and less noise generated.
HD makes more sense on FM where it gives stations the ability to feed three separate programs with good-fidelity stereo audio within their licensed spectrum footprint.
It'll be interesting to see if the FCC starts making sense, and stops making hash out of the AM band...
While it may be too early to write AM radio's obituary, there are signs that the patient is in need of intensive care. I love AM radio. There's a certain sound. You know what i'm talkin; about... that Big 8 processing. There's the heritage... Armstrong, Neaverth, Reynolds, Benny, Kaye... And there's a certain desperation that leads to what it can be called "compelling" and "creative" when the right hands shape and nurture an AM station.
All this having been said, I wonder what the exit strategy is for those who own and operate AM stations? Just like that house in East Buffalo, Riverside, or even Lancaster: Who's gonna buy it next? Certainly, guys like Dick Greene, Dan Fischer, Lou Schriver and Bob Savage are believers who write checks backed by their sweat and smarts. They're to be applauded for their efforts and faith. Still, I wonder what the next five years will bring, let alone the next ten years. Who's gonna buy that stick when these guys retire or worse, the station becomes part of an estate?
I was on another (patented) road trip last week and listened extensively to AM radio. There's more "bad" than "good" on the AM band. Indeed, some might argue the FM band as well, but I don't want to sound like a "between jobs" malcontent ranting about radio. There's enough good radio out there to satisfy the people who seem satisfied with the product offered by their favorite stations.
Even with 10k band pass or AM stereo, AM radio isn't the place where lower demos go; well, perhaps for sports talk or Brad Riter's afternoon show on WECK. But even baby boomers, largely as a result of FM's impact in the late 60s and 70s, get what they need on FM (if not CDs, mp3s or ipods.) It's not out of arrogance that I ask, "Where does AM go from here?" If I won the lottery tomorrow (highly improbable), I wonder if I'd buy an AM station. Much as I love the medium, I wonder if I'd buy an FM station?
There is however, a stretch of lakefront in Skaneateles of which I'm particularly fond...
All this having been said, I wonder what the exit strategy is for those who own and operate AM stations? Just like that house in East Buffalo, Riverside, or even Lancaster: Who's gonna buy it next? Certainly, guys like Dick Greene, Dan Fischer, Lou Schriver and Bob Savage are believers who write checks backed by their sweat and smarts. They're to be applauded for their efforts and faith. Still, I wonder what the next five years will bring, let alone the next ten years. Who's gonna buy that stick when these guys retire or worse, the station becomes part of an estate?
I was on another (patented) road trip last week and listened extensively to AM radio. There's more "bad" than "good" on the AM band. Indeed, some might argue the FM band as well, but I don't want to sound like a "between jobs" malcontent ranting about radio. There's enough good radio out there to satisfy the people who seem satisfied with the product offered by their favorite stations.
Even with 10k band pass or AM stereo, AM radio isn't the place where lower demos go; well, perhaps for sports talk or Brad Riter's afternoon show on WECK. But even baby boomers, largely as a result of FM's impact in the late 60s and 70s, get what they need on FM (if not CDs, mp3s or ipods.) It's not out of arrogance that I ask, "Where does AM go from here?" If I won the lottery tomorrow (highly improbable), I wonder if I'd buy an AM station. Much as I love the medium, I wonder if I'd buy an FM station?
There is however, a stretch of lakefront in Skaneateles of which I'm particularly fond...
JimPastrick said:
I think the answer is available by tuning up and down the dial. Other than the handful of major flamethrowers (usually one or two per town), the rest of the AM dial is foreign language, brokered religion, and second string right wing talk.
The real killer though is the age of the average AM listener. I think as AM content migrates to FM, the AM band will become more like downtown Newark.
Scaneateles, however, is still my all time favorite town name. Loved hearing it on TV when I lived near there.
Apparently, neither is "thought." But Skaneateles was once referred to by Professor Peachfuzz in a Rocky & Bullwinkle episode.
As far as "lousy radio" goes, I would opine the FM band, through sheer quantity and an utter dearth of anything resembling local content, far outstrips AM as a "vast wasteland" - at least in terms of the preferences and needs of the average listener. And - being the big fan of HD Radio I am - I will respectfully dissent from Bob1370's approval of HD-FM with full implementation of HD-2 and 3 subs. 32 kbps per stereo stream doesn't qualify as "high quality" in my book, notwithstanding the general wonderfulness of the HD codeo's data compression (sarcasm off.)
And I'm NOT a "between radio jobs malcontent." Not that Jim Pastrick is anything of the sort.
As far as "lousy radio" goes, I would opine the FM band, through sheer quantity and an utter dearth of anything resembling local content, far outstrips AM as a "vast wasteland" - at least in terms of the preferences and needs of the average listener. And - being the big fan of HD Radio I am - I will respectfully dissent from Bob1370's approval of HD-FM with full implementation of HD-2 and 3 subs. 32 kbps per stereo stream doesn't qualify as "high quality" in my book, notwithstanding the general wonderfulness of the HD codeo's data compression (sarcasm off.)
And I'm NOT a "between radio jobs malcontent." Not that Jim Pastrick is anything of the sort.
It is still the people in radio who make or break radio...in my humble opinion. Enjoy the good ones while you have them, because the day comes when they decide to start fading out a little bit at a time, and then increasingly until there is but a remnant of what used to be. It is as though they vanish from the face of the earth. So, again, enjoy and be thankful for a good time while you have them.
Savage said:
I think the "preferences and needs" are demonstrated every day in the choices the average listeners make. And they tend to favor FM over AM, regardless of the quality or geographical origination of the content. However, your own personal preferences and needs are obviously different, and you're welcome to them.
B
Bob1370
Guest
Count me as a believer that "if you program it, they will come." A top quality spoken word format with strong people presenting it, is still a winner in any decent sized market. People can talk about AM being demographically impaired. but in towns like San Francisco, Boston and Detroit, well programmed AM talkers and newsers are making out like bandits with 25-54 listeners. And anyone would love to have WFAN's demos with 25-54 men in NYC.
A truly good news or talk format station with a full market coverage signal and even a modest sustained promotional budget can make it bigtime on either AM or FM in damn near any market, and draw demos advertisers want.
A truly good news or talk format station with a full market coverage signal and even a modest sustained promotional budget can make it bigtime on either AM or FM in damn near any market, and draw demos advertisers want.
TheBigA said:
Oh gosh, how can you prefer Skaneateles over Cheektowaga (yay!).
When I lived in Northeastern Pennsylvania working at WARM, I also reveled in North Mehoopany, Sugar Notch, Korn Krest, and Nesquehoning. Now those are town names!
Nick Seneca
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