What Is Rock Radio On Long Island?

[adverdude]

Much of the focus these days on this board seems to be Rock Radio and the tweaks at RCN, The rise of the Shark and assorted other Rock Radio conversations had me noodling around a few thought in my tiny brain. I actually felt compelled to post this topic. We can all agree that Long Island has a great Radio Rock history, and sadly what made Long Island Rock Radio great, no longer exists. To be honest with you Long Island actually has a great Radio history period. So I will move forward this way...

In my opinion and from my experience, all that Long Island radio listeners want to do is make an emotional connection with their favorite radio station. It doesn't matter if it's Country, Dance, Top 40 or Rock. Listeners/Consumers want something they can feel like they are a part of, and that no longer exists. They desire personalities that they can say is their neighbor, or a friend of a friend, or they had a beer with, or slept with , you get my drift. None of this exists. So when you "can't be with the one you love, love the one you are with." This theory speaks directly to why certain radio stations have survived as long as they have with their less than stellar formatics. Listeners on Long Island do not have much to grab onto that is locally based, so they grab what they have when they are not listening to their iPods, Sirius/XM, the New York City Stations or the internet.

Should the RCN, BAB, or Shark brain trust be reading this post, if you want to succeed, give your audience something to believe in. Give they something organic that changes with their environmental surroundings. Stop running automation and get some live bodies back in the studios. Stop playing Led Zeppelin 82 times a week, Pink Floyd 81 times, David Lee Roth Van Halen another 75 times, and Lynyrd Skynyrd 60 times. Dump the lighter rock tracks and stick with the awesome ones. Billy Joel is Long Island, he is a GOD, but play him in a lighter rotation If you are going to rock, then F'ing ROCK! Stop pretending! Take no prisoners, play the edgier classic stuff, play some of the New stuff and have a list of currents that are flavored in there from the 90's. Stop with this conservative horsesh*t and give the people what they want, something that they can call their own. I guarantee you all if given the opportunity I could singlehandedly in one day create the ultimate rock station that all of you would turn and say is nothing short of awesome musically! Why? How? Who? this does not matter, what matters is Long Island Rock Radio needs an enema! Someone needs to say it! If you are going to program rock or any other format, know your audience and give them what they want. If it's Metalica, Slayer, Megadeath, Pantara, Slipknot or System Of The Down, that people keep asking you for, find a track that works from that artist and play it. So what if you bump up against and older Who song or a burned out Hotel California. Taking chances like that, freshens the entire playlist that hour and gets people to keep listening. They always want to know what is next and when you confuse them by dropping in a Foo Fighters or Chevelle track after they just heard Zeppelin's Thank you and if you place it in between that Zeppelin track and go into Stevie Ray Vaughn from the Chevelle track, you got them again for another hour. Some of you can challenge me, but considering this has rarely been done or ever been done you are challenging me with nothing but opinion.

So what is Rock Radio on Long Island right now? Rock Radio right now is nothing more than a bunch of copycat formats that listeners may latch onto but never make an emotional connection with. In my opinion....

 

[FrankF]

You can thank consultants and the telcom act of 1996 for all of this, not to mention computers for the automation.

 

[Steve Green NEPA]

As well, Frank, the incursion of the new devices for leisure hasn't helped. The syndrome of erosion at the younger demo end had begun since before any of those devices, though. The kids were finding other ways. That somewhat indicts corporate petrification. Some companies sound as though they've been in fear of having to program their own music stations for fifteen years.

And as far back as around 1979, 'rock' had fragmented into too many niches to make mass-appeal sense. It's never reassembled.

A new (and genuine) musical spokesperson for the young might be required first. Bieber ain't it. Gaga ain't it. The last 'it' my own old ears found interesting, in terms of versatility, was REM, for crying out loud.

'Something different' is going to do it for youth, as far as radio is concerned. It might take, Heaven forbid, a polarizing social upheaval and the music such would create. After all, the original rock and roll developed during relative peacetime (albeit a brimming cold war) and AoR spawned from the Vietnam War.

All the years in radio here, Frank, and I don't have the solution. And that presumes that there's just one chief solution. If I did, I'd apply for a job at Adverdude's station, :- )
He makes some great points and indictments. Yet, in the end, it is highy unlikely that anyone over 30 is going to show or lead the way in unifying the school/college crowd.

Besides : if and when the time comes to get both male and female back in the same grand clubhouse for another go at a true mass-appeal pop format, I doubt very much that any of the older crowd will like the result one bit.

 

[jfrancispastirchak]

Note to Adverdude...
You are absolutely right, Rock Radio right now is nothing more than a bunch of copycat formats that listeners may latch onto but never make an emotional connection with...

I would speculate that many share your sentiments, especially post-WW ll baby boomers. Here' my own take: the cheapening of Rock Radio mirrors a greater pattern, the general lowering of the bar our country seems to not only tolerate, but embrace, in every dynamic of the new age lifestyle. This is happening everywhere, not just on Long Island.

As a Long Islander myself, I used to marvel at artists like Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughn, acts which had unique talent for fashioning an art form out of the raw quality of street corner blues. Ironically, recording artists of today do just the opposite, engineering the crudest and most vulgar "qualities" of the so-called urban sound and marketing it as is, i.e. RAP.

I can go on all day about my personal contempt for other, though thankfully dead genres, like disco, whose demise couldn't have happened soon enough, and nearly took the world of legitimate Rock Radio with it. Rock and Roll may not be dead, but is certainly on life support, thanks to the rush to cheapen it. And I believe the blame for this lies at the doorstep of promoters and advertisers, eager to reap the harvest of a new demographic market bound to replace us boomers with a cheaper sound that even Gen X-ers can enjoy. Regretfully, the industry has succeeded.

 

[adverdude]

Thanks jfrancispastirchak. It is a sad state of affairs. Perhaps there will someday be a station with a proper signal and an even better set of programming. One can only dream! Happy Holidays.

 

[jfrancispastirchak]

Thanks jfrancispastirchak. It is a sad state of affairs. Perhaps there will someday be a station with a proper signal and an even better set of programming. One can only dream! Happy Holidays.

...and a Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to you and yours as well!