> There's not enough people who will want a softer lite.
> Sorry, those days are gone. I can see the 12 rock n roll
> dudes who helped The Zone to a dismal, violent death
> becoming the new P1's of a lite format. (Notice I make no
> judgement on the music, only the likelihood of the format's
> big enough appeal to make it a viable large billing outlet).
> While the lamest of the 70s and 80s (Air Supply, Ambrosia,
> Kenny And Dolly, Bread, Carpenters etc) has appeal, it's not
> enough to justify a format on a terrestrial in Chicago.
> Internet? Yes, Satellite? Yes, 50,000 watts, not a chance.
> It's not bad, it's just the way it is. For those who want a
> day of drab, sad (but great) music of the "lite" kind,
> there's plenty of ways to get it these days, radio just
> can't do it here in Chicago.
>
> I'm sure it's males who are posting about this in this
> thread and I gotta tell you that when it comes to Love and
> Lite, you're not who they're targeting and your opinion on
> what they're doing is like having an opinion on what Tampon
> is better to use and why. While they'd like to have you,
> it's a product for women (for the most part) at a certain
> age and time in their life. (I can't wait for the day when a
> classic love song is Wait by The Ying Yang Twins, don't
> laugh, it will happen and we'll all have a good puke
> together as a segment of that youth's demographic (in the
> future) will not get it).
>
> For now, unless you get a boob job, remove your yang and
> start waxing after you bear a child, you're not going to be
> in their view too much. It would be like a bunch of women
> complaining that their favorite radio station is playing
> Obituary, Kreator and Canibal Corpse, of course that's not
> going to get rave reviews from the soccer moms but then a
> radio station playing that wouldn't be expecting the moms to
> be listening either, once again, they'll take it or leave.
> The stations know who they're targeting and it's working.
> While you may not like a particular type of music and it may
> "suck" to you, that's your opinion. What "sucks" is relative
> to who you are, how secure you are in your own manhood and
> how you view music. Most snobs think we should all sit in a
> basement, smoke a bowl and ponder the meaning of our
> existance in the universe -anything that doesn't enlighten
> them "sucks". Most normal people just want to hear something
> that pleases them, something they grew up with and takes
> them back to those days, they don't get too deep unlike
> elitists who think they're smarter than everyone else
> because they listen to some obscure band Bob Dylan wrote a
> song for while smoking hash for a month. Like I said, it's
> all relative to who you are as a person and your peers,
> upbringing etc.
>
> Lite and Love are battling right now, they're battling for
> reality in the here and now and the reality is they're both
> doing well, well... one better than before and one doing as
> well as it has for some time now.
>
> The discussion gets silly when people start saying a
> particular music sucks. According to who? You and Greg Kot?
> We're talking dynamics that make a profitable radio statio,
> not your personal tastes that you think everyone should
> adhere to. What sucks for you doesn't mean it's bad, it just
> means for you and people like you it sucks it doesn't mean
> it should go away. If you want to be intelltucally honest
> then you really have to throw those notions away to get to
> what counts for the people you're about to target with a
> particular format. Lucky for us now, there's plenty of
> choices to assemble small numbers of people for such a
> niched format like LITE hits, at least in this market
> (suburbs may be different).
>
> Reality is dawning on radio. People of all ages have many
> avenues in which to discover, listen and enjoy music THEIR
> WAY and that makes it hard for radio because of it's
> uni-dimensionality. (exeptions being ethnic and urban).
> Before people had choices like they have now, radio was it,
> end of story. Now it's a whole new ballgame. People have
> choices at their disposal and unfortunately radio can't read
> every person's mind to determine what they want when they
> want so radio has a problem, that problem is solved by
> IPODS, Internet Radio, Satellite and many other products.
> Not good for radio but that's just the way it is, radio's in
> it's twilight. People now enjoy all the other products and
> there's still more to come. For the 18-34 year olds, they've
> been conditioned to use new technologies to find and listen
> to what they want, their way, when they want it. Radio can't
> do that, like I said, it's the way it is. It's not
> necessarily radio's fault, technology has caused as much of
> a demise of formats on the radio as the companies who paid
> way too much for them. Nothing destroys a monopoly like
> choice.
>
I'm a man that agrees with you wholeheartedly. I've been in the radio business for over 20 years. I'm not a huge fan of Q-101, WFMT or La Ley, but because there are people out there that do like these formats, those stations should be there.
On the other hand, I love music, period. My musical tastes are so diverse that there can never be one station that will play everything I like. I've even enjoyed some music on the stations I've mentioned above. If these stations weren't there, I'd miss them. I've never seen an AM/FM radio with enough presets to encompass alll the stations I'll listen to.
<P ID="signature">______________
DXer Peter Atkinson</P>
