Your localism requirements?

[willcail]

Here in Columbus Ohio there was a great local guy Joel Reilly. He was replaced with Glenn Beck. The local drive time host called the decision of replacing Joel with Glenn "stupid" and called Glenn Beck a moron. Now consolidation is never a good thing. Here in Columbus Ohio CC owns two AM stations. The second AM station is a Class C station on 1230AM. The only time that station shows a 1.5 share in the ratings when it carried the Lib Talk format. After two flips it hardly placing in the ratings. Now if a radio company "squats" on an signal(s) so that there will be no competition then I'd say it is time for a change. I don't think that if a station feeds off a Satellite and no local news/talk then that much change. If the PD have mic experience then get him on the air.

I would like to see about 55% local.

 

[justareporter]

Boy, we do spend a whole lot of time re-inventing the wheel don't we? Here is my "localism" plan that takes only a few sentences:

1. License holder must produce a minimum of 50% of all programming locally on his/her air.
2. All stations must have a fully licensed board operator on duty at all times. In the case of clusters, one operator may operate up to 2 stations.
3. Any station in a top 25 market must produce 75% of its programming locally.

No waivers or exceptions.

 

[gr8oldies]

Just, you still won't answer my question about how this applies to music stations. How much does the required DJ have to talk and what is he/she required to say? Or is it OK if someone is running a manual board?

 

[The Ultimate Warrior]

Boy, we do spend a whole lot of time re-inventing the wheel don't we? Here is my "localism" plan that takes only a few sentences:

1. License holder must produce a minimum of 50% of all programming locally on his/her air.
2. All stations must have a fully licensed board operator on duty at all times. In the case of clusters, one operator may operate up to 2 stations.
3. Any station in a top 25 market must produce 75% of its programming locally.

No waivers or exceptions.

Local does not mean good. You wanna kill radio, follow justareporters plan.

 

[gr8oldies]

Also, while we're at it, how much are you willing to pay in extra taxes to make sure there's an army of beauracrats knocking on radio station doors to make sure someone is watching the VU meters go up and down? The operator on duty is supposed to open the door at 3am to anyone who purports to be from the FCC? Not is my kid's working there! More than likely if your scenario came to pass, most surviving statiosn would shut down overnight (unless you're going to also mandate 24/;7 operation), thus guaranteeing no overnight tornado warnings. Who is in charge of making sure the 50/75% is being met? I love this idea that we're going to tell radio listeners, "dammit, you're going to listen to talk shows about city council whether you like it or not!". And why not makie this extend to broadcast television? Maybe Oprah belongs on cable, and the TV stations should have to have a local talking head show, and local games shows, locally produced soaps, etc.

About everything that can be said about the political angle has already been said. I can't understand comments about "being left out of the debate". It's only one spot on the dial many places. When I can't even get the weather from the Weather Channel without left-wing political propaganda telling me that "global warming" is all my fautlt, and the only solution is draconian, top-down regulation of my life, I think the liberal position is more than well represented. There's even political propaganda on a football pre-game show. Not to mention it wasn't John Mc Cain who won the last election.

 

[SeanMGilbow]

It appears a working example may be in order.

http://www.wakr.net
Continuously named Best News Operation in Ohio (Medium Market) by the Associated Press

http://www.akronnewsnow.com
Recognized with the Edward R. Murrow Award from the Radio-Television News Directors Association

WAKR plays oldies and is 10th in the latest Arbitrends released today. Sister station WQMX (country) is 2nd and WONE (rock) is 4th. The AkronNewsNow website is shared by all three and the owners have a public file on the WAKR website.

All announcers are local.

And this is the #75 market, whose leader has been another locally owned station, WNIR-FM, which has been talk (nearly all local) for more than two decades.

 

[justareporter]

Thank you Sean.

For challenged let me help you out: most good local talk show hosts never talked about just the city council. Most of them managed to get decent ratings, but syndicated guys were close to free. guess which ones most management picked?

Would I mandate 24/7. You betcha! Some of these stations will go dark. I'll help with the plywood and nailgun. If you can't make money running a local station paying minimum wage or better for a 24 hour board op do us all a favor and go buy a 7-11 or pump gas.

BTW...that Board op could also be the local talent doing a talk show or writing a local newscast.

All I read about when it comes to localism is how we can't afford this and there is too much regulation that. What a bunch of whiners. Radio stations are a license to print money if you actually have a vision and work for the goal. Sure, some will die off but the good ones will survive.

This station appears to do 8-9 hours of local radio a day and they are way out in market I don't know what but Youngstown can't be a top 25:

http://www.570wkbn.com/pages/program_schedule.html

I'll just "betcha" they're making money...they HAVE to be as they are owned by Clear Channel.

 

[SeanMGilbow]

Thank you Sean.

For challenged let me help you out: most good local talk show hosts never talked about just the city council. Most of them managed to get decent ratings, but syndicated guys were close to free. guess which ones most management picked?

Would I mandate 24/7. You betcha! Some of these stations will go dark. I'll help with the plywood and nailgun. If you can't make money running a local station paying minimum wage or better for a 24 hour board op do us all a favor and go buy a 7-11 or pump gas.

BTW...that Board op could also be the local talent doing a talk show or writing a local newscast.

All I read about when it comes to localism is how we can't afford this and there is too much regulation that. What a bunch of whiners. Radio stations are a license to print money if you actually have a vision and work for the goal. Sure, some will die off but the good ones will survive.

This station appears to do 8-9 hours of local radio a day and they are way out in market I don't know what but Youngstown can't be a top 25:

http://www.570wkbn.com/pages/program_schedule.html

I'll just "betcha" they're making money...they HAVE to be as they are owned by Clear Channel.

Market 126--#1 in most recent Arbitrons

 

[gr8oldies]

OK guys...maybe instead of having federal appointees and even judges micromanage privately owned radio stations, maybe you'd prefer nationalization? Works for Hugo. Then there will be make-work radio jobs for everyone

 

[KFodor]

Here in Columbus Ohio there was a great local guy Joel Reilly. He was replaced with Glenn Beck. The local drive time host called the decision of replacing Joel with Glenn "stupid" and called Glenn Beck a moron. Now consolidation is never a good thing. Here in Columbus Ohio CC owns two AM stations. The second AM station is a Class C station on 1230AM. The only time that station shows a 1.5 share in the ratings when it carried the Lib Talk format. After two flips it hardly placing in the ratings. Now if a radio company "squats" on an signal(s) so that there will be no competition then I'd say it is time for a change. I don't think that if a station feeds off a Satellite and no local news/talk then that much change. If the PD have mic experience then get him on the air.

I would like to see about 55% local.

You know, you could try to file a license objection with the FCC...Whether it would work or not, they would take your comment on that.

 

[KFodor]

Boy, we do spend a whole lot of time re-inventing the wheel don't we? Here is my "localism" plan that takes only a few sentences:

1. License holder must produce a minimum of 50% of all programming locally on his/her air.
2. All stations must have a fully licensed board operator on duty at all times. In the case of clusters, one operator may operate up to 2 stations.
3. Any station in a top 25 market must produce 75% of its programming locally.

No waivers or exceptions.

OK - on our music FM's, 100% of all programming is produced locally. The local PD picks the music based on callout research and other factors. However, on talk stations, I don't think your 50% rule will result in better ratings - just jobs for mediocre talk talents who'll work for 25K a year discussing recipes, the chances of the local team going to tournament and the same trite, tired bits about potholes.

We have staff 24 hours a day/7 days a week. Just not on every station. (And frankly, I disagree with your "every station has to have a live operator" rule. Music stations which run by a computer on overnight can easily be managed by one employee during times of bad weather. It only takes one person to record an updated forecast or a weather alert. And, we are looking at other ways to improve our delivery of bad weather information.

We do more local news and public affairs programming than anyone in the market. Period.

But we voice track outside of morning drive...though staffers in the building during their airshifts pull necessary programming live, or tracked just ahead of airing as needed.

 

[KFodor]

Here in Columbus Ohio there was a great local guy Joel Reilly. He was replaced with Glenn Beck. The local drive time host called the decision of replacing Joel with Glenn "stupid" and called Glenn Beck a moron. Now consolidation is never a good thing. Here in Columbus Ohio CC owns two AM stations. The second AM station is a Class C station on 1230AM. The only time that station shows a 1.5 share in the ratings when it carried the Lib Talk format. After two flips it hardly placing in the ratings. Now if a radio company "squats" on an signal(s) so that there will be no competition then I'd say it is time for a change. I don't think that if a station feeds off a Satellite and no local news/talk then that much change. If the PD have mic experience then get him on the air.

I would like to see about 55% local.

Uh..that same station on 1230 pulled a 2-3 share as WFII...all syndicated. I know. I worked there then.

 

[KFodor]

Just, you still won't answer my question about how this applies to music stations. How much does the required DJ have to talk and what is he/she required to say? Or is it OK if someone is running a manual board?

There should not be any requirement...period...about the length of jock talk. That must be up to the individual station...and what it discovers it's audience wants. The forthcoming of the PPM will likely resolve that argument.

 

[gr8oldies]

PPMs answer seems to be "little to none".
Some of our posters would insist that it doesn't matter, jock talk must be mandated

 

[kaufcom]

Are you familiar with the 80-20 rule?

Thirteen years ago when Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996 which virtually abolished radio station ownership caps, 80% of talk radio programming was local and 20% was syndicated. Today 80% is syndicated and 20% is a local.

There are reasons for this:

• Dereg hasn't worked. Owners like CC have not experienced economies of scale by dumbing-down their radio operations to pay off their huge debt-load
• Radio like other media businesses have been in a steep decline over the past dozen years
• Costs associated with syndication are a fraction of local programming costs

I have no problem with syndication replacing local talk. However, I do have a problem with the fact that 93% of syndicated talk is controlled by right wingers.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Are you familiar with the 80-20 rule?

Thirteen years ago when Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996 which virtually abolished radio station ownership caps, 80% of talk radio programming was local and 20% was syndicated.  Today 80% is syndicated and 20% is a local.

If I found those numbers interesting,  where would I go to document them?

Are there similar comparison numbers going back 30 or 40 years?

 

[kaufcom]

If I found those numbers interesting, where would I go to document them?

Talkers Directory of Talk Radio

Are there similar comparison numbers going back 30 or 40 years?

No. However, prior to 1996 syndicated talk radio represented less than 20% of the talk radio universe.

 

[smedge2006]

OK - on our music FM's, 100% of all programming is produced locally. The local PD picks the music based on callout research and other factors. However, on talk stations, I don't think your 50% rule will result in better ratings - just jobs for mediocre talk talents who'll work for 25K a year discussing recipes, the chances of the local team going to tournament and the same trite, tired bits about potholes.

If only you had actually heard good local talk radio in its 1980's heyday rather than base your suppositions on the slanders directed by Limbaugh and other syndicators with a self-interest in disparaging it.

 

[amfmxm]

There is absolutely no chance that the FCC will ever try to impose any kind of "localism" requirement on broadcast licensees. Why? Here's why...

Let's suppose there's a local station employee in Eureka, California reading a newscast received from the AP News Desk (or whatever they call it now--you know, the computer that replaced the old "wire")--verbatim. And there's an AP employee sitting in Washington, DC reading that exact same AP newscast--verbatim. Is there some magical, mystical value to the Eureka listener in hearing exactly the same content voiced by a guy down the street instead of a guy 3,000 miles away? Hell, no. In fact, there's a reasonable chance that the guy working for AP may be (should be) a better announcer than the guy in Eureka. So is the locally-originated broadcast inherently superior to the networked broadcast... of the exact same content?

If you are an FCC commissioner--or worse yet, an FCC field inspector--charged with making that decision, which way do you go?

They don't want to be in that position... so they will not let that happen.

Local music? Whew! Even worse. The notion that any listener in any market wants--or more importantly, needs--to hear a local crooner instead of a world-class singer coming through the radio speakers is a very hard case to make. The FCC wants nothing to do with this.

So, as interesting as this lengthy thread has been, the entire idea is a non-starter.

And those of us practicing the craft of radio shouldn't lose a moment's sleep about it.

 

[gr8oldies]

Well there is Jerry del Colliano, in an article linked on R-I,claiming that listeners are "craving"local music,but I havent met any of those cravers.