Bill Drake said:
You can cherry pick figures all day but the fact remains that radio listenership is declining, and has been declining for years.
You really have to be a bit more specific here. Cume has not decreased... it is at the same levels it was at in the 70's and 80's, in fact. Daily and weekly usage are down, more in some demos than others... but since we first had comparable measurement, 1965, we have seen the cassette, cable TV, the CD, the DVD, the recordable CD, the personal computer, the internet, email, cellular phones, texting, social networking sites, satellite radio, cable tv independent channels, video games, MP3 devices, TiVo, DVRs, etc., etc., taking a piece, each, of leisure time.
Radio has done amazingly well despite all this. Interestingly, the findings indicate that the more other duties a person has in life, like jobs and families and bill paying and such, easy to use commercial radio increases in usage because it is simple and all-pervasive. And the biggest sources of alternative delivery are radio stations... the content comes from radio, not from an electronic invention... that is just a delivery device.
Citing a stated opponant and magnificant misunderstander of radio like the music industry and its representatives is, of course, absurd.
The first article also contains excellent refutations about the current state of the industry and its mega corporate control. I am not attacking you personally, but it appears you work for one of these corporations. I can imagine no other reason why anyone would defend what radio has evolved (proving that Evolution is a fact!!) into....
I have been in the industry for half a century, and have seen the best and worst of all the stages of my career. While the current economic times are trying, the evolution of radio has progressed and will not stop. I see no reason to find more or less wrong now than ever.
As for those "worthless" teens, if you lose a radio listener by age 13, the chances are he or she will be lost forever. Of course the overpaid pencil necks who the research for corporate radio probably don't even realize that important salient point.
Actually, as I said above, we have considerable grounds to believe that radio becomes more useful after the teen years, but kids who grow up on iPods and personal music deliver are not going to be looking for Teddy Turntable the night rocker... the content will be much different, and very unappealing for an older generation.
Internet radio is not necessarily subscriber based. There are plenty of free options available
I see. Those DSLs and Cable services are free in Phoenix? There is a cost to the alternative, and, as you can see from the satradio folks the royalty fees may be passed on to users in some way or another. The ad supported model of radio is much more able to distribute its content via different channels as appropriate, vs. those that are tied to one channel of distribution.
People do not have to be held hostage to what the corporations are slopping out of their trough. And it is pretty sloppy; boring, bland and banal. You say this is what people want? Hardly.
You are certainly elitist. I actually talk to real listeners, often, and find that what they want is quite close to what they are getting. Of course, there will be the eclectic few who will dislike anything they find plebeyan, whether most people enjoy it or not.
People do not know what they want and will even ingest (in any fashion) toxic substances if said items are cleverly marketed.
People do wknow what they want, and I have witnessed listeners disect every song or every morning show bit with considerable criteria and skill. Based on that kind of input, radio programmers constantly improve their formats; those that don't will lose and usher in those who will run a station better.
Returning to my statement above that you appear to be supporting the corporate model for broadcasters. Yes, it SHOULD be returned to a cottage industry.
I worked for a number of years, fortunately as a teen, for a "cottage industry" owner. No benefits, no tolet paper, no raises, bad equipment. Those were the days of Richard Eaton, Don Burden, Max Richmond, etc., etc. Radio was such a small business it did not warrant the interest of banks, who would not finance stations so we had a strange collection of good, bad and mediocre owners. It is fortunate that those days are gone.
Oh, I forgot to mention another station, a Mom and Pop situation, where Mom called to have her favorite songs played when she had been into the gin bottle for a while. Now that was fine radio.
I suppose you ignore or trivialize the forgotten fact that radio operates on the public airwaves.
That concept was wonderful at the time of the creation of the FCC in the 30's when radio, and the few hundred stations that existed, were the only mass electronic communications media in the nation. Today, the safeguards for the people of the nation consist of the tens and hundreds of thousands of voices we can easily access.
It is a proven fact that local ownership best serves a radio or TV station: Decisions made locally that impact content and programing. Not decisions made 2500 miles away in a sheltered cubicle.
Ah, and the golden years of CBS and the Red and Blue networks were based, I guess, on localism...
In truth, whether local or not, good radio entertains and informs wherever the studio may be located.
Having mass appeal does not mean the industry must program to the lowest common denominator.
Radio programs to mass tastes. If, to you, that is the lowest common denominator, so be it. I don't look down at my listeners, and I find that they are amazingly perceptive and and aware, whether they have colllege degrees or not...
As to my comment about stations disappearing, I was referring to both AM and FM.
So was I. The fact is that there are large numbers of stations in every market that can not compete with commercial formats supported by advertisers... they either go the religion / infomercial / brokered route or find some poor sucker who thinks they can do better.
The trend to specialization has resulted in lower overall ratings.
No, the increase in numbers of stations has produced lower shares. There are always 100 shares. Most are given to the top 10, 15, 20 stations depending on the market. So if there are more stations in the market, shares will decline. Markets that had 8 to 10 AMs in the 60's found themselves in the 70's with three or even four times the stations as FM became viable in that decade. And then more and more new and marginal AMs and 80-90 FMs came in...
Mind you, 35 years ago a class IV ruled this city with double digit shares. Nothing has changed in an important respect. Glendale, Tempe and all the other cities are still exactly where they were then.
35 years ago, which would be '74 to '75, when KUPD (FM), KBBC, KOY and KRFM all beat KRIZ... and when the survey metro was much smaller, AM noise levels were vastly lower, and two generations of Americans had not yet grown up on FM. Oh, and KRIZ, owned by Doubleday, was run by a very strong corporate management and programming orgainizations.
No one listens to AM radio because there is nothing there worth wasting time over.
In the top 100 markets, there are less than 225 viable AMs. All the rest, about 2500, don't have the coverage, night signal, etc., to compete. And AM sounds horrible... which explains why music formats migrated there decades ago. Add the interference from computers, CFLs, flourescent lights and dimmers and such, and AM today requires many times the field strength to get listening that it did 4 decades ago.
Top 40, or CHR, or whatever its pet name of the week, is nothing but a tool for the industry to sell its corporatized music.
I would be hard put to find two groups, radio and records, that are less interested in each other's interests. Radio sells advertising, not music. And the RIAA is out to backstab everyone who has been a friend of the music industry in the past...
I heard a robust discussion about Limpbladder at a media consortium forum and stand by my statement that his show was made available very cheaply for stations in certain markets.
I have actually put Rush on AMs in his early years. While EIB may have made some concessions to get key clearances in the beginning, the fact is that, once the show got the clearances and ratings it has since enjoyed, the fees in cash and the inventory taken were very significant.
His ratings have never justified the salary he makes; there is something mor afoot here than an allegedly popular mega mouth. 10% of the Crud Channel work force has been eliminated while Rushbo gets an obscenely bloated contract. What is wrong with that picture?
What Rush makes is no different than what Stern makes or what a star athlete makes... they are rainmakers for the stations they are on and make lots of money for the syndicator. There is nothing insidious in paying talent what talent is worth... otherwise, the talent goes where it will get what it is worth.
In fact, Rush creates employment for thousands by helping sustain for a few more years the AM band... he's a vast cume magnet, allowing local stations to do some local programming and the employ sellers, egineers, accountants and all the rest. Every radio star is worth a vast sum... as they help to keep radio viable.
Conservative talk radio format has peaked and at best can only hold its own for a while.
Actually, it will grow in the Obama years, as it did during Clinton's time.
I seem to recall it frequently tying with KOOL and their 200 song playlist or even with a mexican-formatted station...
And, with about a quarter of the market being Mexican or of Mexican heritage, why would a successful station appealing to their tastes in music and entertainment be such a surprising happening?
Methinks you are also splitting hairs about XEROK's city of license. Of course I will give you that it was Juarez. But the station was programmed mainly for El Paso. It also was a prerunner to voice tracking.
Prerecorded voice tracks go back to the 60's. And XEROK was not voice tracked... all programming was recorded, and run at the same time 24 hours later after tapes had been taken across to the transmitter in Juárez.
And if El Paso was important, then why not run 1 kw or 5 kw, and not 150 kw? They ran 150 kw so that they could sell the movie and rock show spots at night... "Opening tonight at the Chaparral Theatre in Farmington, the Rex in Pagosa Springs...."
The money was still in the skywave, just as it was for others like KOMA.
But at least it had some class. Even though it lost in the ratings to a 1KW Daytimer with its 100kw FM simulcast (KINT). And this was back in the mid-70's when FM was just beginning its climb to dominance.
In some markets, FM passed AM as early as 1973 or 1974, and it did so nationally by 1976/1977. XEROK beat KINT, but both were beaten by KAMA, a daytimer on 1060. Jim Taber's station had many personal and internal issues and it took years for it to become a factor... not due to FM being underdeveloped.
