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WOULD ANYONE CARE?

S

Starroamer2012

Everyone complains about the Clear Channel's of the industry cutting staff, automating and voice tracking all over the place. To them it is just good business. Spend less, make more.

But what would be the response of a station, regardless of format for this senario that had a live announcer on air 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? Would the public embrace this "new" idea or simply prove that automated stations fill the need? Would anyone care that the voice they are hearing is actually "live" or would it be unimportant?

Someone is going to start that trend if they can afford it and whoever that is will be seen as an inovator that will usher in a whole return to radio. Real radio, something you look forward to and feel that you are a part of.

Or is this just a pipe dream from an old timer longing for the good old days?
 
The public would NOT care either way.. The avg radio listener does NOT care if the DJ is .wav files stored on a hard drive. As long as the music and content is compelling to them that's all that's important.. That's exactly why WNCI can still be #1 and half the day the studio be empty.
 
as one of the "public" I could care less if I every hear a DJ.. Play the music. Unless the DJ is going to tell me song title and artist every time he is a waste of airtime.
 
ohgary said:
as one of the "public" I could care less if I every hear a DJ.. Play the music. Unless the DJ is going to tell me song title and artist every time he is a waste of airtime.
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That's exactly what I do on my show. I keep my talking to a minimum (7-8 minutes for each hour-long episode), I identify the artist right before each song (or batch of uninterrupted songs) is played, and after each song/songs I repeat the artist name(s) and provide the songtitle(s). For those streaming, also appearing on monitors is the name of the album that each tune comes from, as it's being heard.
I try to squeeze as much of the great music as I can into each and every hour, cause IT'S the star of the show -- and I'm a very, very distant second.
 
After the show's traditional welcome from me and a brief description of its philosophy, it's anywhere from five to nine spoken bits of mine that are interspersed in between fourteen to eighteen tunes. Generally my artist/song IDs (which usually include other assorted tidbits) each run 30-45 seconds long, and then towards the end of each episode, right after the evening's featured artists perform their second numbers but before the closing instrumental for that night, I deliver a little two- or three-minute sermonette that more often than not includes a trashing of all of the other radio stations in this town. It takes a little more time than I'd like it to take, but I think it's important.
WCRS is a non-commercial station, so even with my occasional interjections, listeners still get a solid 51+ minutes of music during every hour of "Yesterday's Top Secrets", minutes which are completely free of advertisement interruption. If anyone thinks I talk too much, they've never told me, and to be honest I don't think I could cut down on my own vocal contributions much without the show losing some of its spirit.
 
Jake, haven't listened to your show, but I admire your spirit! I'm a pop/rock veteran who believes when humans create radio, then other humans will listen!

When a person--disc jockey, politician, your neighbor--has nothing to say, and says it anyway they defeat themselves. Talk is cheap when it's not worth anything. Increase its value by turning it into real, useful, entertaining communication! Offer an experience a listener will care about.

Research tells us what listeners don't want to hear...but seldom about what they DO want to hear. Full song and artist identification for example. Traffic briefs, the weather outlook and something honestly funny on occasion. Identify with your listener and share the human experience.

More than anything, being a companion to your listener is something tough to "invent" in ten seconds. Takes time, attitude adjustment, a sense of empathy and a good dose of listening to callers, reading the Facebook postings, email messages, all the ways your listener is communicating with you.

When you communicate with your listener, your listener will communicate with you! My .02, offered in the belief better radio improves everything it blankets, catching a glimmer from the shine.
 
You mean real as in ... real repetitive? Real stupid? Real dull? You're right, 'CRS and I aren't any of those.
The Dispatch must think that "Secrets" is real and not imaginary, cause they've got it listed in their Highlights block again today. You should try listening to it sometime, Dave.
 
jakej: Please understand that my comments were/are meant to be constructive. I have not had the benefit of having heard your show. However, one thing I do know is that Air Personalities who host music shows are generally oblivious to how much they do talk.

As an exercise, you may want to write down your entire script for the show (if you don't do so or have never done so), study it and find ways to edit. You may be surprised how much is superfluous. There is an art to editing and brevity. In my opinion, I would cut out the trashing of other stations. It can make you come off as bitter or jaded. Give them a reason to listen to you. They're already NOT listening to something else. Just let your product speak for itself. That's just my opinion, though. I wish you the best with your show!
 
You're in luck then, cause they're slated to be one of our featured artists after Rising Sons and Throwing Muses complete their current run in that capacity! It'll be the Monkees and Modern English each contributing a couple songs to all of my June shows, in honor of the first band's appearance (well, three-quarters appearance) in Columbus that month. And I think you'll be surprised when you tune in at how greatly improved our reception is now ... and at how many great songs the Monkees really had, beyond just their hits!!
Al, no offense taken, everything's cool, and I appreciate your interest in wanting to help me. Actually, I do prepare a script, um, sort of, and then end up hacking out a good bit of stuff, usually due to time considerations more than anything else. I get carried away and end up writing way more than I have room for, but what I'm left with I really do consider to be the bare minimum. You may be right about the trashing though, and I'm going to restrain myself from doing it tonight and tomorrow. Well, except for maybe just a little itty bitty thing or two that might, uh, accidentally slip in! ;)
 
jakej said:
You may be right about the trashing though, and I'm going to restrain myself from doing it tonight and tomorrow. Well, except for maybe just a little itty bitty thing or two that might, uh, accidentally slip in! ;)
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I'll be lost if I don't hear at least some trashing of all the other Columbus radio stations on Yesterdays Top Secrets. That seems to be a mainstay
of most all the shows. At least jakej is a equal opportunity trashier of Columbus radio. He's trashed EVER single radio station in Columbus at one
time or another. :D

Dave Sarnoff said:
jakej said:
You should try listening to it sometime, Dave.
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Next time I'm in the WCRS parking lot, I'll try to pick it up.

God knows I can't get enough of the Monkees.
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I pick up the station at 98.3 pretty well near German Village. The new owners have put a lot of work at the studio and tower site so the station
audio is pretty good... I'm pretty impressed now.
 
If it's possible to return to the topic, and steer away from the passive-aggressive games for a bit -- I think people will care if there's a live announcer, when the tornado sirens go off at 2am Tuesday, or even 8pm Sunday, and there's no on on the radio giving useful information about the warning and explaing what's showing up on the radar.
So many stations - so where do I dial to get what I need to know? chances are, no one will tell you much of anything.

Happened to me once on I-71 driving back from Cleveland. I was in that area that's not really close to any major cities, but the search button on the radio would still stop at nearly every frequency, finding every little country and pop station on the dial, but having no idea who really served that area. The sky was amazingly black a few hours before sunset, and it looked bad. I was a few minutes from a rest stop, which happened to have a speaker for NOAA weather radio. Tornado warning. Big glass window in the rest stop, but about two dozen people all gathered together, dogs and all, to wait it out. A few cocky guys went back out to "make good time." Fortunately, nothing happened there, and I don't recall if anything hit that night elsewhere in N Central Ohio. Point is - AM was too staticky to hear much, FM was mostly irrelevant pap, and even WTVN didn't seem to have anything useful to say for the area just 80 some miles to the north.

Of course, a live announcer also need to mean someone who is trained in doing more than reading, and who understands the geography that particular station reaches. Guess that's why people turn on their TV now instead of what used to be that big radio station mom and dad always listened to for emergency weather updates (if you're lucky to have a couple of stations that have news staff on duty at odd hours). Or maybe they'll have the patience and time to do an internet search for the national weather service's radar and warnings, if they can decipher the clunky ways NWS displays its weather "products." That is, until the power goes out, and the only link is the battery-operated radio.
 
allstar2003 said:
dawg4life said:
I don't care about any station in Columbus including Top Secrets. No offense to jakej.
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Then why are you posting in the Columbus thread? ::) If you don't care, don't post!
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Oh I care... It's just that that type of formats that I care about and that I've wanted to see back in Columbus for the last 18 to 20 years still haven't resurfaced yet. Therefore, I don't care much for what we've got even though we're slightly better than what we were just a couple of years ago.
 
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