Radio RIP?

The passing of Bill Drake got me to thinking how much I miss my friend, the radio. I remember as early as when I was eight years old I wanted to be on the radio. My father worked in the same building as KILO in Grand Forks ND and I used to drive him crazy begging for a trip to the 5th floor to see the station's studios. I can't imagine what a studio tour would be like today - "and over here is the computer".

In Grand Forks sunset meant KQWB would sign off. CKRC and CKY would change their pattern and fade out but a good radio would start picking up WLS and KOMA. That was the hallmark of a good radio, how close to sunset would it pull in WLS? Now the standard for a good "radio" is how many hours the MP3 player will hold.

I'd wake up at 5am just so I could listen to Larry Lujack until 6am when some 500 watter out of Oklahoma City would sign on and ruin things. Lucky for me Larry would rerun the previous day's Animal Stories at 5:45. I knew my first car would have to be from Mr. Norm at Grand Spaulding Dodge.

When KSTP went to 15-KSTP and played more music per hour than any station in North America I was stoked. KDWB and KSTP battled constantly for a couple of years. Smokin' Joe would give the current weather and change the temperature - "right now it's sixty thr-- no, wait, it's sixty two....". I just ate that stuff up. I couldn't wait to get to Brown Institute and get my FCC 1st phone and get on the radio.

How many kids today are stoked over what they hear on the radio? What would propel someone in to a career in radio these days? Do they dream of voicetracking? "Oh yeah, I wanna voicetrack six shifts!" Maybe Bob and Tom inspire kids? Don Imus? Howard Stern?

Radio is such a wonderful medium and connects to people in such an intimate way - in the shower, in the car, in the bedroom, etc etc. Yet, the people running radio today just piss away those opportunities to connect. Outside of a few morning drive shows and talk radio where's the personality?

AM stations are almost a thing of the past in Canada. American AM stations are moving to FM. DXing AM is an exercise in futility unless you want to count how many stations carry Coast to Coast or enjoy suffering the clutter as the FCC clobbers formerly clear channel frequencies. I doubt many kids are listening to distant stations and thinking "I can't wait to get to on the air and do that!" Heck, how many people under the age of 30 even tune to the AM band? So if their inspiration is what they hear locally on FM in Rapid City then maybe the automation will inspire them for a career with computers.

Is radio destined to fade from view? Is there another Bill Drake in the wings somewhere ready to shake things up? I hope so. I miss my friend.

Part of it is that radio doesn't offer much (salary, working environment, etc.) to many of the people in it that have talent and produce compelling radio to keep them in radio.  Besides, not as many bodies aren't as needed with voicetracking/automation.  I didn't ever think of being in radio as a kid, and an internship at a radio station in Grand Forks (while attending UND), later doing swing, brought my foot in the biz door.

I think the problem is in the lack of talent and compelling content, not voicetracking. I've heard some really boring live shifts and some very fun voice tracked shifts. However, I think voicetracking and automation has been used poorly by station owners as a way to put more money in their own pockets.

The really scary thing that is happening now is that thousands of radio people are getting laid off as a result of the bad economy. When the economy comes back up, I'm almost certain that radio operators will not re-fill the positions. They'll figure that they've gotten by without the staff, so why hire them back and lose more money? The bar is being set even lower.

Luckily, a lot of big radio companies are considering selling off some of their radio properties, giving the local owner a chance to own a station again. Station prices are dropping so it could be possible. If that happends, I can see local, live content returning to radio. Local radio operators are more likely to serve their communities, instead of Wall Street like the large radio companies.

Ipod, MP3, satellite, internet, cell phones killed the radio stars.
Not to mention liner card talent, numbers crunching corporate geeks and Generation Y. They want more than an old fart trying to be cool on the air when they have twice the education, twice the reasoning power and enough brain power to make their own musical decisions.

36 million IPods in the country. 36 million program directors.

Lay a wreath at the transmitter site. It's over. Some of us choose to ignore the inevitable.

Certainly there's a lack of talent. But where does the talent come from? When I was 15 I remember talking to the jock at KNOX begging to "hang out" and just watch what he does. What would you watch today, the computer? What's on the radio to inspire a 15 year old to give a fig about the business? Bah humbug. Radio has survived a lot of challenges but I doubt radio will survive the number of people in radio who seem determined to cost cut it to death.

Radio: withering but not dead

By the 1970s, radio as I knew it in the 1940s and '50s was long gone. The marketplace had changed, and stations responded -- many of them not very well.

Seems to me every generation has an attachment to what they grew up with.....but technology has a way of changing things. Creativity knows no bounds, however, and I suspect some of us "old farts" with feet in both the past and the present have less angst about the state of broadcasting today than many of folks.

I don't think radio is dead -- just less prominent and less useful than it used to be. Tekkies with a bent on how to use technology to provide good local services could save the day.

Our challenge is in defining "good local services" for radio I don't believe there's as much of that around today as there was in the '70s. And certainly not as much as in the '50s. But there is a need -- and I'll bet some enterprising folks will find a way to make good local radio service fund and profitable again.

42,000 Pandora users just in Rapid City alone, according to Pandora's numbers. That should tell you how bad Rapid City radio sucks.

RCRadio said:

42,000 Pandora users just in Rapid City alone, according to Pandora's numbers. That should tell you how bad Rapid City radio sucks.

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It tells me how far technology has advanced. My local radio station doesn't let me skip songs I don't like. It cares not whether or not I like a song at all. It's a one way medium. Radio isn't going anywhere, at least not yet. Like the railroads, it will remain an important albeit diminished part of our lives.

DavidEduardo said:

Is that number based on registered users, or on users in the last week?

Many of the Pandora releases use registered users, while the weekly usage is considerably lower.

Of the 200,000,000 Pandora registered users, on average less than 2 million are using the service 6 AM to 12 Mid. That's a significant number, but to put it in proportion it is comparable to the total listening of just the New York City market... certainly impressive but nothing like the number that your quote references.

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They need to say over 200 million served (like the billion McDonald's slogan). Radio still has the lions share for now.

RCRadio said:

42,000 Pandora users just in Rapid City alone, according to Pandora's numbers. That should tell you how bad Rapid City radio sucks.

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Yes I, along with millions of other have a Yahoo email account. Do I use it everyday. No. I bet more people listen to Rapid City Radio than you think.

jharmon said:

Ipod, MP3, satellite, internet, cell phones killed the radio stars.
Not to mention liner card talent, numbers crunching corporate geeks and Generation Y. They want more than an old fart trying to be cool on the air when they have twice the education, twice the reasoning power and enough brain power to make their own musical decisions.

36 million IPods in the country. 36 million program directors.

Lay a wreath at the transmitter site. It's over. Some of us choose to ignore the inevitable.

Click to expand...

Wow. Thank you for the declaration that radio is dead. I will pass it on th the thousands of stations (including me) that are doing just fine.

Field_strength said:

I think voicetracking and automation has been used poorly by station owners as a way to put more money in their own pockets.

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Automation, and voicetracking is nothing new it has been around for 35 years. The technology, has made it easier. When done properly, it sounds better than a live show. Where we agree is keeping local and compelling content at your station(s). We have lost the spark, and thinking out of the box.