adma said:
Thanks for the link. Good topic and information to help us back up from our conversation here and look for some big-picture logic. What does the train analogy (the ONE that you linked to) have to say to today's debate about broadcasting?
I think I already see some discussion trying to place the blame for poor train service today compared to say 70 years ago on government regulation which keeps free enterprise from functioning. I would offer the claim: That is a minor issue in rail passenger service. This will look like a tangent, but I will after offering some alternative possibilities about passenger rail service going down hill try to picture comparable tends affecting radio.
1. There was a time when rail was to some extent the only game available. My wife's ancestors migrated from where we live in Georgia today over to Western Arkansas in the era of the Civil War and just after. We have been doing genealogy studies and I am amazed at what the primitive railroads of the 1860s, 1870s and 1880s offered and the circuitous routes that were taken. It had to be hard travel but it was the best available at the time. Today I can drive my car on the Interstate and that in turn gives me a form of local transportation when I get there. I have total freedom to interrupt the trip to deal with upset stomachs, fatigue, constipation or whatever. The train does not react to how I feel. I can fly is time is critical and I am impatient about getting back to being productive.
2. The early, reasonable fast, efficient passenger rail service was THE early cash producer. The freight train was given secondary status and was required to get off the mainline onto a siding and wait and wait and wait until the precious passenger train passed through like a prima-donna. Then freight became the cash cow and today if we ride a passenger train it may be us sitting on the siding waiting for the precious, cash producing freight to roll on by at full speed. This may be the largest single reason why today's cross country passenger schedules are not as fast as as they were three generations ago.
3. We need to slightly debunk the idea that early trains were totally free-enterprise entrepreneur driven and that today's rather sad rail system in burdened down by government. Many of us who grew up or have lived in the Midwest and the West know that the abstract for our farmland that we sold when were not willing to return to Seedtick, OK and Redbug, AR to posses our inheritance.... the abstract dated back to the "rail-road grant". For building railroads across America the Federal treasury doled out mass undeveloped acreages to the railroads to bribe them to build railroad track like there was no tomorrow. Following the collusion between the railroads and the Standard Oil trust, massive anti-trust regulations went into place in the late 1800s and the early 1900's. Those slick railroad schedules of the 1930s, the 1940s were possible because there was massive subsidy and regulation of the railroads. Today's political mood in Washington has basically stripped the railroads of regulation and Federal funding and we wonder why American rail travel today is so 3rd worldish.
Now. Let's 1, 2, 3 the radio broadcasting scene.
1. From broadcasting's inception up until some date... we will disagree what the date is, but somewhere from 1950 to 1980, radio had something of a monopoly. Want the weather NOW, its on the radio. Want the cattle, hog and grain prices out on the farm? Its on the radio. Want to know when the political candidates will be in your county so you can take time to see them? Its on the radio. Will there be school today? Only on the radio. Many homes had no phone. Many homes had no radio. There was no TV. There was no Internet. Your choice was the radio, or the radio, or the radio.
2. Radio used to be on the main line and others were put on the side track. Got a CP to build your town's first radio station? Zoning was a shoe-in. Civic pride demanded fast tracing of such details. We as a community want OUR radio station. Today with cell phone people clogging up the zoning offices and the skyline, lots of luck on moving your tower. Want access to your politicians for interviews? Radio stations used to be ushered in like royalty. Today sit on the the side track. The Lobbyists get their time first, TV second, and maybe we will have some time and energy to see your radio reporter tomorrow.
3. In the early days of radio you had to file as part of your application a study, a report proving that you as the owner/licensee had enough capital available to build and operate the station for maybe a year assuming not the first red cent of advertising came in. You also had to file some justification that there indeed was a base of advertising revenue to support the long station in the long term. Here comes the change. Once you got your station going, you could stone-wall potential competitors for a long time challenging their claim that the community could support a second or third radio station. As much as broadcasters have hated FCC regulations and paperwork, the earlier system was very protective of the existing stations. And that horrendous requirement that you have a First Phone on duty and do all this renewal paperwork every three years made investors thinking about a second and third station in your market (or the 6th or 7th station in larger markets) think long and hard because the burden of all this bureaucracy scared away a lot of would-be competition. In some ways the hated government and regulators were among the best friends early radio had. Today we are enlightened and we have deregulated and starved the budget of the regulators until they don't have the manpower to harass us. And what has that done for us? It's killed our industry.
O.K. The logic is a bit over the top. Life is not all that simple. But many of the simple answers parroted over and over and over again on these discussion boards are pretty rag-tag and full of holes. We need some critical thinking and less political mud-slinging.
Now. Where did I put my slide rule. Need one of those to run a radio station right. ;D
