Why Should ANYONE Pursue a Career in Radio?

[TheRover]

What would a Golf Course look like without the rules? A 7,000 yard weedy cow pasture covered with B*LLS**T. Sound familiar?

I'm in your camp on this one my friend. Back when we had "rules" a lot of people with investor-only mentality took a look at radio and walked away.

The lack of "rules" has brought the same disaster to our business that it brought to Wall Street and banking and real estate.

Rules / Standards are Good. They give a Framework to create in.

The Movie Industry used to have content rules.

Broadcast TV used to have standards. But now they can say F*** and S*** all the time, just as long as it's bleeped.... Nudity can be shown, just as long it's blurred over...
And blood and gore, well you can now see what used to be "R" Rated Violence any day of the week... Yes Standards are Good, and they are meant to keep us from spiraling down to the Bottom.

Whatever the "Letter of the Law" is on the books now....
The "Spirit" of the Law was abandoned a long long time ago.

Radio overall today offers mostly consultant-driven sand for the thirsty masses to drink.... but with just a few Oasis's here and there, that give you water to drink. A cool cup of water...

 

[justareporter]

Jodavidvox makes some excellent points. You can best sum all he suggests as making stations do more than just exist for the purpose of re-broadcasting someone else's material. You want a license....you have to work for it and earn it. "Showing up" and owning the transmitter ain't enough.

As for some stations going dark...who cares? If all the do is re-broadcast someone else's material all day and night I can find that anywhere.

50% local content or no license.

Pretty easy.

 

[gr8oldies]

Is music recorded on national labels "local"? Guess we need 12 hours of local bar bands on music stations. Anyone going to listen? If it's local DJs playing national music, how much talk is going to be required from the DJ and what are they going to be required to say? If the receptionist walks back into the studio and reads the weather live twice an hour is that enough? If not, why not?

 

[MikefromDelaware]

Rules / Standards are Good. They give a Framework to create in.

The Movie Industry used to have content rules.

Broadcast TV used to have standards. But now they can say F*** and S*** all the time, just as long as it's bleeped.... Nudity can be shown, just as long it's blurred over...
And blood and gore, well you can now see what used to be "R" Rated Violence any day of the week... Yes Standards are Good, and they are meant to keep us from spiraling down to the Bottom.

Whatever the "Letter of the Law" is on the books now....
The "Spirit" of the Law was abandoned a long long time ago.

Radio overall today offers mostly consultant-driven sand for the thirsty masses to drink.... but with just a few Oasis's here and there, that give you water to drink. A cool cup of water...


This is where NPR and college radio stations come in to play. They are the radio stations that offer programming that is different from the consultant driven commercial stations. Over the past year, my listening to commercial AM or FM stations has dropped off to almost non-existant. I listen mostly now to the two local NPR stations in my area (WHYY-FM for NPR news/info/entertainment; WRTI - Temple Univ for Classical Music/Jazz) and sometimes to the U of Del WVUD for some of their unique music like blue grass, big band, classical, jazz). I also sometimes listen to a non-comm Christian station that plays some interesting orchestra/choral arrangements of religious music. Non-comm radio is the venue where you'll hear unique programming (both musical and spoken word) that the commerical stations just won't bother with.

Oh, by the way, I do not work for a non-comm radio station, but was a weekender working in commerical radio for over 30 years (have retired from radio), so I don't have a financial interest in my promoting non-comms, but have really appreciated their efforts to offer something better than what passes today for commerical radio.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

If it's local DJs playing national music, how much talk is going to be required from the DJ and what are they going to be required to say? If the receptionist walks back into the studio and reads the weather live twice an hour is that enough? If not, why not?

Re-focus for a moment. Think city government. Think taxation policy. When cities grow out and around a farm, we hate to see a city tax or zone a farmer out of business. We have some sympathy for the heritage of our agrarian history and we nod in assent as tax law continues to recognize that land being farmed cannot pay the same property taxes and the land across the street in a shopping mall or in mid-rise office buildings. But when the farmer dies and his heirs let the farmland go to weeds while they wait for the value of the land to go up and up and up before they finally sell, we also nod our agreement when the tax assessor and the city council say: You should do something to make that land productive. We are going to tax your land just like the land around it. Your neighbors have an expectation that it should be used for (as the city planning people would say), it's "highest expected potential".

To "grind records" whether local or national, and have a clerk walk into the studio and mouth a couple dozen words twice an hour is the equivalent of letting 80 acres in downtown Dallas or Denver or Manhattan to sit idle and grow ragweed, sage grass, persimmon sprouts and tumble weeds..... while the neighboring properties generate taxes to support a police department, fire department, water supply, and a storm sewer system to handle the run-off water from the vacant land.

It's a very, very crude term and image that I think I first heard while hanging around a farmer's blacksmith shop: People who have been granted a broadcast spectrum license should either "crap or get off the pot" so someone else can.

Now, this is not a perfect analogy. There are stations grinding out music and no other socially redeeming content that are generating revenue and paying taxes. That's not the picture at work here. The city needs tax money from land. The public, the civilization needs 'useful content' being generated by every assigned license. We will spend the rest of our lives haggling over what constitutes 'useful content'.

 

[gr8oldies]

If we're going to write "useful content" into law, it needs a precise legal definition. If you're going to write a "50% local content" law, that needs a precise legal definition. It would seem that that would elimintate music formats, or we'd have to write a legal definition of how many minutes per hour the DJ must talk, and what they must talk about. How dare listeners not want DJs, dammit, they're going to listen to them anyway. And damn it, they will listen to the city council and school board meeting, and whatever else they "need". One problem...you can't make anybody listen to anything they don't want to no matter how well intentioned you are. That's why we have stations that play continuous music and stations that carry "All Things Considered". Why in the world would anyone want to own a radio station full of unfunded mandates and have it be micro-managed from Washington DC? Which seems to be what many of you want. Or is it still "Uncle Sam, make the big bad radio compnay hire me as a DJ and talk as much as I want"?

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Concentrate. Puff your cheeks out. Maybe it will help your mind think more widely.

You have responded in a bi-polar mind-set. It has to be all the way over here, or it has to be all the way over there.

Letting big corporate American make the rules has done some good things for radio, and it has done some horrible things to radio. Letting government dictate "useful content" would be a disaster, a nightmare.

What I have proposed is that we seek to mark off a playing field that is equitable (whatever that means) and a playing field that encourages innovation. I don't know where to draw all the stripes and goal lines on this playing field but I can offer some trial balloons.

If there is to be any form of government involvement it should be by local government, not Federal. Federal retains control of engineering standards and frequency allocation, and the final up-and-down on who gets a facility... who becomes the licensee.

Right now there is a limit on how many licenses one company can have in any one market... and that is related to market size. Maybe put a max on any market that only 40% of the stations in a market can be owned by multi-market operators. Sixty per-cent would have to be owned by single station licensees, or by licensees who agree to own no more than one station per market in the 12, 30 or 40 markets they choose to operate in.

One of the things that used to limit who would enter the business was the requirement that an applicant to build a station had to file a personal financial statement to prove he/she had the funds to build the station and then operate it for the first years or so even if ZERO advertising income developed. I can assure you that kep some people from making applications. They did not want that much personal information in a public file. People had to live the idea of being a broadcaster... they could not be just a person who only loved to make money.

There are a LOT of things that can be built into the license granting mechanism that have nothing to do with Washington dictating how many commercial per hour or how many newscasts per day or how many boring public-interest-and-necessity talk-fests should be promised.

If everyone would cast their idea-net a little wider we might actually find a way to balance good radio with good business methods.

 

[Don62]

Is music recorded on national labels "local"? Guess we need 12 hours of local bar bands on music stations. Anyone going to listen? If it's local DJs playing national music, how much talk is going to be required from the DJ and what are they going to be required to say? If the receptionist walks back into the studio and reads the weather live twice an hour is that enough? If not, why not?

This is nonsense.
Like saying if a local TV newscast includes a couple of package reports from a national reporter ("Bill reporting from New York"), or includes a prerecorded segment from someone like Mr. Food, it's no longer a local show. Pure BS.

Whether a local host plays national music or develops some comedic lines of his own, it's still a local show. And people know it. Get that through you head.

 

[gr8oldies]

If you are going to be able to challenge a license based on not enough "local content" or make me as an owner spend money on lawyers to defend your challenge, damn straight you have to have a legal definition of "local programming". If jockless formats aren't "local programming" even if a local PD puts the logs together, than yes, you have to tell me how much in the way of talk elements are required by a local announcer.

 

[Don62]

If you are going to be able to challenge a license based on not enough "local content" or make me as an owner spend money on lawyers to defend your challenge, damn straight you have to have a legal definition of "local programming". If jockless formats aren't "local programming" even if a local PD puts the logs together, than yes, you have to tell me how much in the way of talk elements are required by a local announcer.

I don't see how anyone could call a jockless program "local." Only in that the computer is "local."

 

[quadraphonic]

Anybody can call anything anything and mean anything, even if it's a "non-conventional" definition.
It has to be defined by somebody if people are going to meet a quota.

 

[gr8oldies]

It doesn't matter if someone local programmed it, as far as setting the rules, etc? And what if the audience is just fine with it being jockless? They were fine with the old beautiful music stations being jockless..we didn't need some jock doing comedy bits and charachter voices between Percy Faith and Mantovani.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Not just this thread, but many of our conversations in the R-I Boards remind me of a bunch of computer analysts and programmers showing up for work as new hires for a special project. They don't know whether they're going to be doing a payroll system or setting up an inventory management concept for a four-state Toyota car distributorship, or an accounts receivable system for a small department store wanting to get away from today's wacky credit card venue and go back to local accounts of years ago.

So. While they are drinking coffee and waiting for the project manager to walk in and greet them and paint a picture of what project they are about to tackle.... they get into a heated argument over what programming language they should use for the project, what database application they should use and which hardware systems are socialist oriented and which hardware systems are free enterprise oriented. It doesn't matter what task is assigned to us for the 15 months we are told we will be here.... we are going to have these same arguments EVERYDAY in the break room.

Should anyone pursue a career in radio? If radio can't define the "Scope of the Project", If radio can't define the destination that will signal the end of our journey, why would anyone sign-on and commit their career to such an undertaking.

This conversation also reminds me of the airline pilot called in on his day off because so many other pilots called in sick. He shows up at the terminal and immediately begins telling the fuel crew how much fuel he wants and which tanks to put it in for balance. "But Captain.... they haven't told you yet what city you will be flying to, and how many passengers will be on board. How can you know how much fuel.... and where to put it for balance?"

Some of you are in major metro cities. That's the only kind of radio you can picture. Some of you live way out in Podunk. (Can you say Russell, KS? or Fort Stockton, TX?) You probably see a different picture! And then there are those of us who live at the margins between the two.... we occupy an air that get polluted with radio from both kinds of communities.

Yup. We played Percy Faith and Montavanni jockless. And the result is? I certainly can't find it on the dial anymore where I live.

I perceive 'having a jock' and having 'a human being that talks from time to time' being two different concepts.

Back when I was on the streets of small town America selling radio, we didn't have many "chain stores" back then, and when we got a new store manager for one, it was likely his first or second stop as a store manager. Early in your conversation it was helpful to determine where he grew up (city or rural) and was he a radio listener. Selling small town radio advertising to a boy who grew up in the city tended to be a pain in the butt. We had our view of what the audience expected to hear. He had his view of what an audience would respond to.

So President Obama appoints you to the FCC and all these proposals for rules and rules changes bubble up from staff for possible action. It won't take you long and very many hostile letters from broadcasters before you realize that what is an excellent rule for Chicago really sucks BIG TIME as a rule for Ft Stockton, TX.

Come on, guys. Fewer insults. More creative thinking. Why Should anyone pursue a career in Radio?

 

[Don62]

It doesn't matter if someone local programmed it, as far as setting the rules, etc? And what if the audience is just fine with it being jockless? They were fine with the old beautiful music stations being jockless..we didn't need some jock doing comedy bits and charachter voices between Percy Faith and Mantovani.

Just wait until a tornado bears down on a small to medium-sized radio market city, as happened some years ago.
The major AC station was jockless on a Sat. night, running Delilah, Tesh, ET or something. While the other stations at a minimum had weather warnings, or went to TV audio, and sounded the tornado alarm, with some going live from the road, Magic 108 just kept business as usual. Normal programming. Even ran a prerecorded weather spot featuring the voice of a local TV meteorologist who of course said nothing about a tornado warning or even a watch. "Sunny skies today..."

The station never got it and got its but kicked, deservedly so.

In my email to the station's pd, she said the intern that night wasn't doing what she was supposed to do. Right.

 

[MikefromDelaware]

Just wait until a tornado bears down on a small to medium-sized radio market city, as happened some years ago.
The major AC station was jockless on a Sat. night, running Delilah, Tesh, ET or something. While the other stations at a minimum had weather warnings, or went to TV audio, and sounded the tornado alarm, with some going live from the road, Magic 108 just kept business as usual. Normal programming. Even ran a prerecorded weather spot featuring the voice of a local TV meteorologist who of course said nothing about a tornado warning or even a watch. "Sunny skies today..."

Aren't these stations hooked up to the local EBS network for their region? We have stations here in Wilmington, DE at times that are on auto pilot, no one in the building, other than the EBS flagship station here WSTW-FM. I used to work at WILM on weekends, we were hooked up so that the EBS alerts could and would come automatically even if no one is there. So I don't understand the problem. Each station where this tornado struck should have had EBS warnings going out via the EBS system there (as the flagship station is required to have someone there at all times to be able to activate the EBS alerts, as I recall the rules). If that didn't happen, then the FCC should be asking some very pointed questions and requiring all stations there to be hooked up to the EBS network there so that doesn't happen again.

Now a thought occurs to me, as Wilmington is very close to Philly and many Wilmingtonians do listen to Philly radio rather than Wilmington radio, I don't know if the Philly stations would recieve an EBS alert from the Wilmington EBS flagship or only from the Philly flagship ( so it might be possible for a person in Wilmington to not get the EBS alert if listening to a Philly station; or do both EBS systems send out info to both markets to insure the info getting out to all the area radio stations even though they are in two seperate markets).

Maybe someone who knows how the EBS system works better than I could offer some clarification.

 

[TheRover]

Why in the world would anyone want to own a radio station full of unfunded mandates and have it be micro-managed from Washington DC?

Well, the music playlists are already micro-managed from [NY, Altlanta, San Antonio....Pick your Conglomertae HQ...) for "local" radio.

I don't see the difference, really.....

Anything playlist outside of a "Hits" format needs that personal touch.

So..... the "lack" of the personal touch, whether it is due to being micro-managed from DC, or from NYC makes NOOOOO difference --- to me.

Either way..... the song selection is still micro-managed....