Why Doesn't Corporate Radio Allow "Goodbyes"?

[eacalhoun1]

This is beyond my understanding--of course, the only life I've known is working for "Mom & Pop" radio. The "human" side of radio is referenced so many times on these boards when heritage stations are blown up. What would it hurt to give listeners a day-long goodbye? On Oldies 93.1, it apparently ended after the 8:50am traffic report, with no warning. On WFMX a few months ago, the announcers gave very "buried" clues throughout their last day in Statesville. I wish someone from corporate radio would post here and enlighten me.

Eric

 

[berlin201]

This is beyond my understanding--of course, the only life I've known is working for "Mom & Pop" radio. The "human" side of radio is referenced so many times on these boards when heritage stations are blown up. What would it hurt to give listeners a day-long goodbye? On Oldies 93.1, it apparently ended after the 8:50am traffic report, with no warning. On WFMX a few months ago, the announcers gave very "buried" clues throughout their last day in Statesville. I wish someone from corporate radio would post here and enlighten me.

Eric

Good point... these recent format flips in the Triad remind me of similar incidents in Raleigh and Charlotte two years ago; in both cases, CC butchered the oldies station (WWMG Magic 96.1 in Charlotte and WTRG "Oldies 100.7" in Raleigh); the last song played on both stations was Don McLean's "American Pie" with its catch phrase "the day the music died." Then, without warning, both stations began stunting after that, airing the "Kiss" loop (heard most recently on WFMX) on WWMG and simulcasting the other CC Raleigh stations on WTRG. Six months before the WTRG flip, they did a "Sign-off" teaser that led listeners to believe a format flip was coming, but instead it heralded a contest giving listeners a chance to win a whole bunch of money. When the format flip did come, it came with no warning. The closest thing to a warning that came for any of the recent flips in the Triad came before the WGBT flip; in that case, on the last couple days before the flip to Spanish, they ran a line directing 94.5 The Beat listeners to either 96.1 The Beat in Charlotte or to G105 in Raleigh.

 

[XTalker]

Here's the deal on goodbyes - and it's not just corporate radio - but has been a practice in stations for years. There two basic reasons is seldom happens:

1) Managers are afraid the departing announcers will say something bad, do something stupid, or say something that generates thousands of phone calls from listeners who disagree with management's decision!

2) It serves little or no purpose from the station perspective - particularly in a format change. There is nothing that a departing air personality can say that will benefit the new direction of the station, so why take the change.

In most cases, the people who are going don't even know it. The FMX deal was really unusual, since everyone knew something was going to happen to it. In the case of 93.1, my guest is very few of the air staff actually knew anything. They were probably told while American Pie was playing on the air!

 

[chromiumboy]

X Talker is right on the money--from management it's all downside and no upside, especially if the announcer in question is possibly going to wind up across town on the competition.

Times have changed, though. I was part of the staff at WQDR when it flipped from Rock to Country in 1984. Not only did we all have many chances to "say goodbye", the coming format change was even covered in the station's newcasts! I was on the air the afternoon we "broke" the "news"...followed the news with "Are You Ready For The Country" by Neil Young...and began fielding the literally hundreds of phone calls. This was about 6 weeks BEFORE the flip...and the format morphed into the closest thing to free-form commercial radio has ever seen in Raleigh-Durham. We even had TV news crews coming in and interviewing us about the format change. It was unreal.

Indeed, 6 weeks later when WRDU signed on as a rock station a few days before the WQDR flip, many of us ex-QDR types were there on air...and the sign-on was covered live on TV.

Times really have changed.