Why Do We Need to be Punished by Bad Radio?

[musicfan101]

As I flip through my portable sony walkman, I search for something interesting to listen to. There is absolutely nothing good on AM or FM. I don't get it we live in the biggest or second biggest market in the U.S. . Why are all these great stations disappearing? I just can't believe that some formats are too expensive or they didn't make enough money, we live in a area with over 15 million people, that should equal more money, right? It's just really frustrating seeing San Diego having 4 modern rockers or seeing Washington D.C. still with a FM hot talk format. Was Adam Carolla right? Is there a shortage of intelligent people in L.A. ?

 

[radiojomo]

Who still has a Sony Walkman on them? HAHA
No offense Music Fan! I think what Adam said was true! Most smaller markets have better sounding radio stations than in LA and NY. This has to be because markets like LA and NY have more to deal with regarding sales and larger audiences to deal with than a station in i.e. San Diego. BTW, are you talking about 91X, FM 94/9, ROCK 105.3 and KPRI?

 

[musicfan101]

Who still has a Sony Walkman on them? HAHA
No offense Music Fan! I think what Adam said was true! Most smaller markets have better sounding radio stations than in LA and NY. This has to be because markets like LA and NY have more to deal with regarding sales and larger audiences to deal with than a station in i.e. San Diego. BTW, are you talking about 91X, FM 94/9, ROCK 105.3 and KPRI?

HAHA...I know, someone needs an upgrade lol. Those sure are the San Diego rockers I referred to. Can all of this truly be blamed on the economy? I'm still curious why Free Fm failed in San Diego? You would think that would be one hell of a market for that. When it comes to stations like Indie, you would think L.A. would have more culture than that and appreciate that format more. Speaking of Free Fm/KLSX, I have two questions: If KLSX departed because they missed Howard Stern, why did it take them three years to leave the airwaves? If Free Fm had the same marketing strategy as they do with AMP radio (putting stickers in every corner of LA and OC), or trying to attract younger listeners would they still be around?

 

[calguy]

Radio in LA has been accused of being boring pretty much since the early 80's. But seriously, I've traveled around and radio is pretty much the same here in LA as it is everywhere else. Thanks to technologies like ISDN and MP3 you can hear the same voices on imaging in most markets and because only a handful of companies own most everything, there is a further homogenization of sound.
The industry has been around quite a while, so just about everything has been done before, and before that, and so on.

There is little to make one city more unique than another and again that's because everyone gets their marching orders from the same bosses. Radio has done a really nice job of using technology with hard drive based operating systems like Audio Vault and Prophet that allow voice tracking to be easy to do and to sound like the talent announcing that last song is right there in your hometown. Problem is, most of these companies misuse the technology to replace good local talent with overworked voices spitting out bland content dictated to them by the suits in some ivory tower. They've eliminated thousands of jobs to the point that the poor people still working in the industry just barely get the job done. They're tired people. Here in LA there are talent pulling 5 and 6 hour shifts 6 days a week. At Clear Channel they've told talent that they'll have to track at least one daily show for another market and to do it without making any more money. These people shut up and do the job because they don't want to get fired. The funny thing about all of this is that the same people in upper management are still there making obscene amounts of cash while they keep firing more and more of the people who actually do the work all the while claiming poverty. Thanks to deregulation and greed the industry is killing itself...

It’s all pretty boring and kind of pointless…

 

[romer979fm]

Most smaller markets have better sounding radio stations than in LA and NY.

until the local jock in the small market opens the mic...then there's no doubt who has the better sounding stations.
the talent across the board in LA with very few exceptions is still actually quite good. ignore the music and listen to the jock.

 

[OC Radio Geek]

As I flip through my portable sony walkman, I search for something interesting to listen to. There is absolutely nothing good on AM or FM. I don't get it we live in the biggest or second biggest market in the U.S. . Why are all these great stations disappearing? I just can't believe that some formats are too expensive or they didn't make enough money, we live in a area with over 15 million people, that should equal more money, right? It's just really frustrating seeing San Diego having 4 modern rockers or seeing Washington D.C. still with a FM hot talk format. Was Adam Carolla right? Is there a shortage of intelligent people in L.A. ?

Agreed...there definitely is a shortage of good, solid radio stations out there. There are hardly any radio personalities on the air anymore! It is just music and station IDs most of the time. What happened to the Don Steeles, Robert W. Morgans, Big Rons, Bruce Vidals, Jack Armstrongs and the like? (By the way, that was a rhetorical question, I know what happened.) I loved radio when the On Air personalities were entertaining, engaging, exciting (the 3 E's of radio that I learned in school) and made you want to listen to their station. You were almost afraid to change the station during the commercial break because you didn't want to miss what would happen next! I also loved all the radio contests!! It was truly fun to try your luck and dial the phone like crazy for a few minutes and try to be caller #1 or whatever the caller # was. Those days are long gone!!!! I want them back!!! <end of rant>

 

[justpassingthough]

As I flip through my portable sony walkman, I search for something interesting to listen to. There is absolutely nothing good on AM or FM. I don't get it we live in the biggest or second biggest market in the U.S. . Why are all these great stations disappearing? I just can't believe that some formats are too expensive or they didn't make enough money, we live in a area with over 15 million people, that should equal more money, right? It's just really frustrating seeing San Diego having 4 modern rockers or seeing Washington D.C. still with a FM hot talk format. Was Adam Carolla right? Is there a shortage of intelligent people in L.A. ?

How does someone's choice in music equate with intelligence? You're making the drastic assumption that you, and everyone like you who enjoys the same music, is somehow better and/or smarter than people who like other music formats.

While I agree we are missing plenty of formats in LA, I don't think it has anything to do with a shortage of intelligent people. As several people have already pointed out, being in market #2 means we are in a highly competitive market where corporations feel they must go after sellable demos rather than diversify and serve as many audiences as possible.

 

[AM FM listener]

When criticizing the current state of radio in LA or anywhere else in the US, I think we are missing two key points.

First, commercial radio has always been about selling advertising, which means attracting large audiences of certain demographics. That usually means mass appeal programming whether it is talk or music. Niche forms of talk and music can only attract niche (small) audiences. Consequently, there will always be a lot of similarities among mass appeal formats across dial. If a station is Talk, Country or AC, we all know exactly what to expect. Back in the day, MOR, Beautiful Music, Top 40 and AOR were similar no matter what market you were in. In fact, one could argue that today's Talk, AC, Top 40 (CHR), Urban, Oldies and Rock formats have fragmented so much that we have MORE variety of mass appeal formats now than we did before. And, we have non-commercial radio, satellite, internet and iPods to satisfy niche tastes. I honestly don't think programming today is any worse than before, it just changes as styles and tastes change over the years.

Second, we have equally compelling radio personalities today as we did before. Limbaugh, Hannity, Dr. Laura, Noory, Seacrest, Mark & Brian, Kevin & Bean, Handel, John & Ken, to name a few, are extremely talented and hold their audiences for a long time.

 

[OC Radio Geek]

When criticizing the current state of radio in LA or anywhere else in the US, I think we are missing two key points.

First, commercial radio has always been about selling advertising, which means attracting large audiences of certain demographics. That usually means mass appeal programming whether it is talk or music. Niche forms of talk and music can only attract niche (small) audiences. Consequently, there will always be a lot of similarities among mass appeal formats across dial. If a station is Talk, Country or AC, we all know exactly what to expect. Back in the day, MOR, Beautiful Music, Top 40 and AOR were similar no matter what market you were in. In fact, one could argue that today's Talk, AC, Top 40 (CHR), Urban, Oldies and Rock formats have fragmented so much that we have MORE variety of mass appeal formats now than we did before. And, we have non-commercial radio, satellite, internet and iPods to satisfy niche tastes. I honestly don't think programming today is any worse than before, it just changes as styles and tastes change over the years.

Second, we have equally compelling radio personalities today as we did before. Limbaugh, Hannity, Dr. Laura, Noory, Seacrest, Mark & Brian, Kevin & Bean, Handel, John & Ken, to name a few, are extremely talented and hold their audiences for a long time.

Almost everyone of those personalities are in talk radio! I was referring to actual music radio DJs. Please see my last post.....