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| From | <zoogang@cox.net> |
| Subject | Re: OT: past/future of radio [was: podcast survey] |
| Date | Wed, 11 Oct 2006 14:22:43 -0400 |
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Farrar:
The day the big fish started buying up all the little fish and deregulation rolled into markets was the day the music began to die.
Gosh, I hope this is interesting to the list.
Do you know a station called KPIG, out in San Fran, I think? I used to write about them back in my radio reporting days for Radio World newspaper. They had the ultimate format of which you speak--play whatever you want, so long as it's good. So, you'd hear Don Ho (your mileage may vary on this one) and Genesis and Perry Como in the same set, and somehow it worked. The jocks were passionate. And then the station got bought out and they had to start incorporating hits. Well, that's the way it goes, and, of course, the station got less and less interesting, through no fault of their own.
HD radio amounts to a band-aid to ward off the effects of satellite radio (it's essentially satellite-lite, yes?). The National Association of Broadcasters can fuss all they want about satellite, but it's here to stay (I was in on those early discussions when I worked for the Electronic Industries Association, and boy, were they tense). I think if those small mom-and-pop local community stations want to stay in business, they'd best get ingrained a little more in their immediate surroundings and be the voice of the local people.
I just don't see terrestrial radio regaining the feel of its glory days. As a news and information medium, and as a local community forum, perhaps in some small way, but satellite is in all other ways the place to be for the forseeable future.
Alan
---- Farrar Hudkins <fhudkins@gmail.com> wrote:
> Alan,
>
> Yes, I agree that radio is in a sort of sad shape that it wasn't in 30
> years ago. I think partially it has to do with DJs jumping from station
> to station, stations jumping from format to format, like mountain-goats
> leaping from crag to crag, so the listeners can't really feel like
> they're well-acquainted with their hosts. At the station where I work
> (which is a classical/jazz/NPR station, by the way), it took a while
> before listeners began to know me by name, and then I felt more
> comfortable putting more of my personality in there. It was three years
> before I was invited to MC an event here in town, and I did my first
> remote broadcast -- last week! -- over five years after I first started
> here. (And I've had the afternoon slot for four years.) And only now
> have I started to be hired for professional voice-over work.
>
> Interestingly, one of the things mentioned at our last staff meeting was
> that since our jocks are so well-known (and post-hurricane our station's
> profile has been raised much higher), our GM wants to "market our air
> talent." Old-fashioned idea, but still good. (Meanwhile, Arbitron is
> soon going to put public and commercial stations on the same page.)
>
> But back to them changes: A co-worker of mine talks often of a station
> he worked for (in Seattle?) that had the best leeway and most fiercely
> devoted listeners he ever encountered. The suits just said "Play
> whatever you want, as long as it's good." You'd hear something from Pat
> Metheny's "New Chautauqua" next to a Schubert quintet, maybe --
> literally anything would work if you could find a segue, theme, mood,
> whatever. That would be my dream job. Naturally, though, that station
> closed down before I was born.
>
> I do, however, see light on the horizon: in spite of satellite and
> HD-radio, I don't think it will be too long before we will have wireless
> Internet all over the country, and your iPod, car stereo -- or whatever
> player of choice -- will be able to connect to a list of Internet audio
> streams, and let you choose one. Compression/decompression and bandwidth
> limits are improving steadily (have you heard a 48kbps AAC stream
> lately? Wholly Jebus, that sounds good for that bitrate...), and I hope
> that we will have, to steal viciously from Thomas Dolby, another "golden
> age of wireless." I think that it may be a path back to the eclecticism
> (and jocks programming their own shows, which I miss) that radio used to
> have in mainstream audiences.
>
> And I of course hope to be on that train. :)
>
> Some day...
>
> -Farrar Hudkins
> (...still hanging on to FM for the moment.)
>
> zoogang@cox.net wrote:
> > Interesting comments, Farrar.
> >
> > Radio is a whole 'nother beast these days. When I listened to radio in the sixties and seventies, deejays were king. They even had their own fan clubs! You listened to a particular DJ and they became your friend. This one-to-one broadcasting made listeners feel they were part of the DJ's family.
> >
> > Today, as terrestrial radio has become more and more impersonal, DJs have become similarly less important to the on-air mix. It's what we used to call, back in the day, "reading cards." Time, temperature, maybe intro the song. Don't talk over the intro of a song, don't talk over the end. The music is what matters most.
> >
> > And I believe that is true with today's terrestrial radio stations. You could slot in any old announcer (please don't take offense, Farrar) and you'd get the same effect. I don't believe that radio is an art today. It is a vehicle, a means to a bottom-line end.
> >
> > That said, I do believe that background on an artist, or information about a particular song and, say, who might have done it before, personal anecdotes, makes the listening experience a better animal. You can play the same songs at home--you don't need a DJ to do that for you. What you get with a good DJ is personality...a spin on the radio experience, if you will.
> >
> > Cousin Brucie, after being let go by WCBS-FM in New York (along with all of the other DJs), is now on Sirius and is sounding as good as he ever did. His personality shines through over and above the music. So, what I get listening to him is, well, him. For me, the music is a bonus.
> >
> > Putting a 90 second cap on talking between songs is, to me, plain silly, unless the DJ can't fill that 90 seconds or more with something substantive. In fact, a DJ who only reads what he's told to read or only says what he's told to say really has no reason to be there in the first place. That's one step above automation, one step away from erasing the human element of radio altogether.
> >
> > Nevertheless, what do I know? When I worked for a small beautiful music station in Delaware back in the late-1970s, the owner had a sign in the studio that said "Say your name only once or twice a shift. If you're doing a good job, people will know who you are." I thought that was ridiculous. But on one of my days off, soon after starting at the station, I went to buy a magazine in town and the cashier thanked me for paying her...by name. I said, "How did you know who I was?" "You do a good job," she said.
> >
> > And so it goes. Just my two cents.
> >
> > Alan
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