John Summers

let me throw my 2 cents worth in...

Voice tracked radio is two dimensions. At it's best, it can be slick, tight and professional. It cannot be more.

A live person can add a third dimension. A live person can chat up the people who call. A live person can play a request or make a dedication. A live person can make a personal appearance and meet potential listeners. A live person can be part of a community of interest, and as such, build goodwill for his station. A live person can see beyond a liner and a playlist, to warn about impending disaster or inform about profound developments.

Now, not every live show host accomplishes these things; in fact, few do... and that's why voice tracking seems like such a good idea to programmers. A broadcaster knows better.

MikeShannon914 said:

it's a page out of the Chapman textbook.

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Is it the chapman textbook that has Platinum somewhere in the low 20's 25-54?

This has probably been mentioned before, but the reason just about all businesses are converting fulltime jobs to part-time en masse is simple.

Part-time jobs come with no benefits, insurance, etc. It's a head count issue. Nothing more, nothing less.

And while logical from an actuary's point of view, it still sucks.

If you look at the unemployment numbers, there are two things to think about. The number of people whose claims have reached their time limit, and people who've moved to part-time and are thus no longer reported. Yet they are still "under-employed" relative to previous salary AND benefits. And it is hitting everyone.

little1 said:

MikeShannon914 said:

it's a page out of the Chapman textbook.

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Is it the chapman textbook that has Platinum somewhere in the low 20's 25-54?

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Since when does Platinum aim for the 25-54 crowd? I see them as more of a, say, 45+. They also don't have a KVIL-of-Old "presence." Larry and Gail don't chat it up the way Ron and Suzie did. Vic Thomas is an old ABCRN guy, and still runs his local shift the same way: generically. Debi is (assumingly) not permitted to be as vivacious as she was on KLUV. Angie/Michelle Michaels is voicetracked, and will sound generic naturally. It's just a more sedate station than Chapman's ever been involved with. Of course, it skews older.

If Platinum's success is supposed to be tied to 25-54 exclusively, its sales dept must not be able to sell any spots, or they're just getting piggybacks from WBAP and KSCS, hmm? Or would you rather be selling the Twister?

Chapman's methodology worked at KLIF (when he was a student of McLendon's) and at KVIL for quite a long time. Maybe since the bar is set so much lower these days, people don't expect chatty, topical, LOCAL personalities, or to get real-time LOCAL info anymore, or to be 'pulled in' to a radio show to the point that the listener looks forward to it every day. I'm glad there's still a few positive examples out there, but for how much longer?

Once again Little 1 is amusing to me. He has no love /passion/care for a classic hits format nor does SaveDfwradio. So if you don't like the format be quick to condemn it,unless you happen to be an AE,then you can spin excuses and be quite creative( at least creativity can exist in radio here). Save DFW has been dismiised as one who never has worked in "radio" just a secretarial chair slide pot mechanic. Little 1 has been around but the sales smog has engulfed RJ in regards to programming.


Mike has written some point blank between the eyes statements that are irrefutable. Peter Z has grown in respect by me for coming out and stating his thoughts. I agree with Mike however as to when is it okay to "bank calls" and make them sound like "instant requests" when that person who phoned in ,did it two weeks earlier? You just lost a listener and there are probably a few more who didn't call in,but can easily tell it was fake,who now dropped you on the presets. I disagree with Steve from a business view point I understand what he is saying,but listners still want to react with someone at the helm and not a board op.Voice tracking can be "personality" but many over do it to the point the listener knows they are reading a script and its "Robbie the Robot Time". Another preset lost. Notice how much ratings have droppedin the last couple ofyears alone. Thinner slice of the pie you say due to the internet, cell phone and ipods? Cheap ,easy excuse. Its dropping because the quality has been in a downward spiral,and not one company exec is willing to ante up and get qualified talent that is talent to bolster it . With all the cuts going on, has anybody ever thought of cutting the bean counter accountant? Or at least relegating them to part time status for a change? How about he execs? ..Yeah didn't think so.

thunderradio said:

Once again Little 1 is amusing to me. He has no love /passion/care for a classic hits format nor does SaveDfwradio. So if you don't like the format be quick to condemn it,unless you happen to be an AE,then you can spin excuses and be quite creative( at least creativity can exist in radio here). Save DFW has been dismiised as one who never has worked in "radio" just a secretarial chair slide pot mechanic. Little 1 has been around but the sales smog has engulfed RJ in regards to programming.


Mike has written some point blank between the eyes statements that are irrefutable. Peter Z has grown in respect by me for coming out and stating his thoughts. I agree with Mike however as to when is it okay to "bank calls" and make them sound like "instant requests" when that person who phoned in ,did it two weeks earlier? You just lost a listener and there are probably a few more who didn't call in,but can easily tell it was fake,who now dropped you on the presets. I disagree with Steve from a business view point I understand what he is saying,but listners still want to react with someone at the helm and not a board op.Voice tracking can be "personality" but many over do it to the point the listener knows they are reading a script and its "Robbie the Robot Time". Another preset lost. Notice how much ratings have droppedin the last couple ofyears alone. Thinner slice of the pie you say due to the internet, cell phone and ipods? Cheap ,easy excuse. Its dropping because the quality has been in a downward spiral,and not one company exec is willing to ante up and get qualified talent that is talent to bolster it . With all the cuts going on, has anybody ever thought of cutting the bean counter accountant? Or at least relegating them to part time status for a change? How about he execs? ..Yeah didn't think so.

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thunderradio: Would you please tell everyone on the board how many conversations you have had with me? How many chats/emails have we exchanged? Let me give you a little help here. ZERO. I do not know who you are and you do not know who I am. Yet you publicly make false assumptions about me, my radio experience, etc. I advise you to speak for yourself, as that is only person that you truly know about.

It's no news that listeners can get their music, news updates, weather and traffic anywhere. (Cell phones, iPods, etc.). So what is going to make a person want to listen to a radio station? Personality and conversation. Not a person who front sells, back sells and kicks off 40 minute sweeps. I can get an unlimited music sweep on my iPod without the annoyance of someone telling me that I am listening to "The Supremes" for the 1000th time.

The bar has been raised for on air personalities. The listener has to be given something that they cannot get in a voice track. I believe that program directors would gladly get rid of VT'ing if they had a body in there that could do better. Better personalities = more listeners. More listeners = more advertising. More advertising = more revenue and we all know that it is always about the almighty dollar. Just adding my $.02

MikeShannon914 said:

Since when does Platinum aim for the 25-54 crowd? I see them as more of a, say, 45+. They also don't have a KVIL-of-Old "presence." Larry and Gail don't chat it up the way Ron and Suzie did. Vic Thomas is an old ABCRN guy, and still runs his local shift the same way: generically. Debi is (assumingly) not permitted to be as vivacious as she was on KLUV. Angie/Michelle Michaels is voicetracked, and will sound generic naturally. It's just a more sedate station than Chapman's ever been involved with. Of course, it skews older.

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?
So even Chapman isn't using Chapman's textbook, right?

Chapman's methodology worked at KLIF (when he was a student of McLendon's) and at KVIL for quite a long time. Maybe since the bar is set so much lower these days, people don't expect chatty, topical, LOCAL personalities, or to get real-time LOCAL info anymore, or to be 'pulled in' to a radio show to the point that the listener looks forward to it every day. I'm glad there's still a few positive examples out there, but for how much longer?

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So it worked 40 years ago, it worked 30 years ago, but now nobody is using it. Look, I thought Pong was really cool when it came out. And I still have a Super Nintendo sitting in a box somewhere- but video games have moved on. Isn't it possible that radio styles have moved on?

Now, I get that there's people that love the old school stuff. But at what point do we get to William Shatner's SNl address to the Treekie convention. Grow Up, move on, get a life, etc...Okay, i get that you like how things were done 20-30 years ago. But things hvae changed.

We can discuss if it's for better or worse,, but things HAVE changed... Chapman's textbook worked great when there were 20 stations in this town. Now we're seeing ratings reports with 50...Things change...

thunderradio said:

listners still want to react with someone at the helm and not a board op.

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I've seen the figure thrown around that less than 10% of TALK radio listeners ever call into a station, and it's got to be less in music stations. What if people have absolutely NO Interest in talking to a DJ, but just want to hear what they think is good music, hear conversation on topics that amuse or interest them, etc.

This is the kind of statement that gets thrown out around here all the time, taken as gospel, but backed up by absolutely nothing.

Voice tracking can be "personality" but many over do it to the point the listener knows they are reading a script and its "Robbie the Robot Time". Another preset lost.

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Another statement thrown out there as if it's fact. And you may be right, but then how do you explain KJKK's success? They're what, Top 5 (or close to it) 25-54? That's a successful radio station with NO DJ, no live interaction. It's Robbie the Robot 24-7-365 there. Yet more and more people are adding them to their presets.

So if Live jocks draw listenersand automation drives them away, and you have KJKK doing phenomanally well, then to channel Robbie, "does not compute, does not compute"...

Save DFWradio: "The bar has been raised for on air personalities.HARDLY. How do you explain declining ratings? The IPOD/Internet "excuse" is tiresome
"The listener has to be given something that they cannot get in a voice track."

Highly Agree!!

"I believe that program directors would gladly get rid of VT'ing if they had a body in there that could do better. Better personalities = more listeners. More listeners = more advertising. More advertising = more revenue and we all know that it is always about the almighty dollar. Just adding my $.02"

I highly agree there as well There is one exception There are hardly any TRUE REAL PROGRAM DIRECTORS ANYMORE. Its all some regional suit dishing out orders ,to markets they hardly have experience in,rarely visitied except for a 2 hour staff meeting,etc.

Once again The bar has not been raised, its been lowered below sea level. The suitsare too busy at the bar to think straight.

Little one: "So if Live jocks draw listenersand automation drives them away, and you have KJKK doing phenomanally well, then to channel Robbie, "does not compute, does not compute"

How do you explain the overall Jack format NOT doing well in other markets? DFW is a VERY VERY rare exception. Oh damn I forgot its all in sales,that's where it counts the most,not actual listeners.The other part is ,the other stations that pertain to that demographic in DFW are very very bad, so they go to JACK as a default. You may "spin" at your leisure,but before you do, leave the coat plus the tie in the office along with the laptop then go outside and talk to REAL people for REAL information including opinion.

No time for my daily soliloquy(s) but I will say that yes, for one, folks seem to congregate around Jack BY DEFAULT. No one else is playing a similar blend of music. Second, listeners KNOW what Jack is...it's a computer. It's automated. It has only one "personality." There's no mistaking what it is AND ISN'T. They know what they're getting when they tune in. When the same folks tune in to 102.9, they might not pick up on the voicetracking or lack of localism until after a few "listens."

L1, I think it's more a case of listeners being spoon-fed whatever the corporations want to feed them, and, like most of us white folk, we just sit here and take it. Spanish listeners don't stand for programmers messing with their stations...if they don't get a sense of community from their station, they leave it. (KLNO, for one, has had zig-zag ratings its entire life. Even once-popular syndicated Piolin has been moved to other Univision stations now. And now here's KJSA, skyrocketing into the mid 30s from near zero.) Spanish folks really do make or break their stations. Blacks, yes and no...some older ones stand by their religious stations and community stations; others would tune to a slow-jams type station and leave it there for good, if we had such a station here. The younger ones are like any other race---they teeter between The Beat, Kiss and K-104. POINT IS...white folks take what's given to them with no fight, no backlash, nothing...so I guess we get what we deserve.

And just because some concept doesn't fit your "contemporary" views on radio, L1, doesn't mean it's wrong, it won't work, it's outdated, etc. Give me some time for my next little move...I'll show you a few things that, if radio can still be viable for the next 5 years or so, can make some money AND show that maybe there IS indeed something to what I'm talking about. I can't save the whole damn industry, but I can sure do a few things to milk the last few dollars out of it before it's gone...AND do it with class, style, respect, and some old-school methodology.

So much for soliloquys.

And these last posts have---what?---to do with John Summers?

MikeShannon914 said:

No time for my daily soliloquy(s) but I will say that yes, for one, folks seem to congregate around Jack BY DEFAULT. No one else is playing a similar blend of music. Second, listeners KNOW what Jack is...it's a computer. It's automated. It has only one "personality." There's no mistaking what it is AND ISN'T. They know what they're getting when they tune in. When the same folks tune in to 102.9, they might not pick up on the voicetracking or lack of localism until after a few "listens."

And just because some concept doesn't fit your "contemporary" views on radio, L1, doesn't mean it's wrong, it won't work, it's outdated, etc. Give me some time for my next little move...I'll show you a few things that, if radio can still be viable for the next 5 years or so, can make some money AND show that maybe there IS indeed something to what I'm talking about. I can't save the whole damn industry, but I can sure do a few things to milk the last few dollars out of it before it's gone...AND do it with class, style, respect, and some old-school methodology.

And these last posts have---what?---to do with John Summers?

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Pay close attention and you'll see that it veered from John to VT'ing 2 pages ago. And I'm not a fan of voicetracking. It's cost friends of mine good jobs. What I'm challenging is the accepted fact that listeners prefer live jocks to VT. My bet is that the average listener probably doesn't notice***, and may not care if they do notice. Do I have facts to back that up. No, not really. All I can do when someone points out that people prefer live and local to VT or syndicated is point to cases where that's just not true. Like Jack-FM. Or the Wolf's night show. Piped in from Nashville, right? Going up against VT'd KSCS nights and beating them IIRC. Seacrest beating KVIL, Kidd's generic syndicated show beating any number of local shows. etc etc.

***Any idea what average TSL at most stations is? Most listeners probably hear a break or 2 at most in an average listening session.

And if you can take the old school methods and make them work, good for you. I'd like to see you succeed. I don't LIKE a bunch of the things I comment on here, I just try to call them as I see them. Whether it be Clear Channels cost-cutting, or CBS voice tracking KLUV, or whatever, I don't like it, I;m just trying to offer my opinion as I see it on things. Like I said, I hope you do well. I'd LOVE to see someone take Chapmans playbook and make a station successful with it. I just think the cards may be stacked agianst that.

And one last thing- I don't think the industry is dying. I know a lot of people do, and they're certainly entitled to their opinion. but someone had a very perceptive post here within the last couple of days. People can get music from their phones, Ipods, computers, etc. Radio needs to offer them something more. And I for one have the faith that we'll be able to figure out what exactly that is. We just need to get rid of the ridicuolous debt service that a number of the major groups are dealing with (and trust me, that's fully half the problem. CC, Cumulus, Citadel, etc are cutting costs because they have huge debt amounts that they're trying to pay down in an economic downturn -it's a cash flow problem, same problem Tom Hicks has...) You know, it's entirely possible that it won't be a case of milking it as it dies, as getting in on the ground floor of a sea change....

Little One : "People can get music from their phones, Ipods, computers, etc. Radio needs to offer them something more. And I for one have the faith that we'll be able to figure out what exactly that is.

Well put. What is it that Ipods,computers, etc can't? Improve the entertainment with FUN , with LIVE , and LOCAL. Good grief it worked for 47 years approximately!! The corps got greedy,that's a given. In so doing they truly bit and devoured the hand that fed them.The office jocks have lowered the bar so much they too will be in the natural gas drilling business soon. What is old can be new again,but a lot of the decision makers (with the exception of Chapman) are too cowardly to try. This problem started totake root and grew like crabgrass before the economy tamked and they have contributed significantly to it with cuts, mergers, etc. Its time to cut the bean counters and the suits.

Excuse me for jumping in here folks as I am a newbie for this type of forum but, I am going to put my 2 cents worth in. I'm not a DJ nor have I ever worked in the business (I'm in aviation) but, I do know what I like and since I found KLUV several years ago I have enjoyed the way the DJ's interacted with their fans and each other. John Summers has to be one of the best at it! The way he graciously accepted teasing or encouraged it from the listeners and from Kym always made my trip home in the afternoons a LOT better. John, you made me laugh and you made me think about things outside of my own little world and I miss that You and Kym had a wonderful (on air) rapport together and you it will be sorely missed! And BTW, if you remember John, the plastic plane, if it doesn't make it due to cost, it'll be the best damn sewer pipe you've ever seen!
To be completely honest here, I've listened to KLUV exclusively for sometime due to the DJ's, not so much for the music. Don't get me wrong here, I enjoy the genre they play but, I would like to hear more of a variety (there was a lot) within this genre. The DJ's have bring a life to the radio that music alone just won't, although the music is wonderful to listen to, music by itself would just be plain boring (I hope the bean counters read this). Piping in the music or voice tracking as y'all have talked about previously would be just as boring and in some cases madening, for me anyway.
The sad truth for us all is; the bean counters do run this world and for many years it has been pointed towards youth and inexperience, which relates to lesser wages and cheaper cost. I've seen it in my business, I'm sure y'all have seen it in yours too and I think that is also part of our financial problems as well.
Just my opinion, I'll get off my soap box for now.
Thanks

MikeShannon914 said:

Steve, I know voicetracking was (is?) your bread and butter, and I "get" the concept...BUT...request shows should never be faked, the jock SHOULD be bantering some with the traffic gal/dude, and severe weather that often dredges up quickly during hot DFW summer afternoons SHOULD be addressed with more than a canned weather warning imported from WBAP/EAS (often, the weather sits well west of the metro, but will affect folks long before a "warning" is issued, if one is.) Friday afternoons, I like to hear a little 'nightlife' rundown or a weekend heads-up if things are going on of interest. Canned generic chatter about American Idol just can't beat what (insert jock name here) saw on a billboard on North Central Expwy coming to work this afternoon, or what some caller in Wilmer just told the jock on the phone. You especially should know the value of that kind of thing...it's a page out of the Chapman textbook.

It's STILL a shame what's happened to radio, but they WON'T afford to do it (the right way) anymore.

Your phone not working these days?

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VOICETRACKING is something I do on occasions, did fulltime at one time, but I wouldn't call it my "bread and butter"...I prefer live/local as much as anyone...I'm just saying IF YOU'RE GOING TO BE LIVE LOCAL then you better SOUND like it! I hear many live jocks in every city who do break after break that has ZERO local content...nothing innovative...little local input/relating...and wonder why would someone go to the expense of paying all that money for a live jock when Vt-ing would actually sound BETTER?! My challenge to anyone still live/local is to do a job so incredible that the company CAN'T live without you...either because of ratings/revenue or talent. I repeat, If every break sounds as good as Voicetracking...then you may as well save the money and VT!... Prove you are here...Give them a reason they CAN'T voicetrack your shift...
...and my phone works just fine BTW.

Steve just summed it up beautifully. It goes back to "Quality talent versus 'Quanity"talent. Todays stations are submerged with the latter. The broadcast schools ,the universities are NO LONGER turning out 95% good talent. Just pot sliders and mouse clickers,and a grade school phonics reading of the liner. So he's right,why paid top dollar for that? it begs the second question: Why get rid of seasoned veteran talent like John Summers and others like him? Youare diluting the product when you do. Why not cut the waste of sales people who can not sell the QUALITY not the quantity? In the case of KLUV or a classic rock station, the medium age of a AE is most likely 10+ years bellow the targeted demo.Therefore they won't listen to the station (unless by chance they have a client) and are not motivated by it to go whole hog and sell it. So its not their fault revenues fall short ,its got to be the talent. It's actually the upper office suits who count the beans, make reports ,and then decide who dies whom are usually in their mid 30's-40's and outside the demos of the aforementioned stations,so why they hell should they care?They have a sorta job security. It's the talents fault,eliminate them So you replace the them with someone younger, ,(who are not motivated by playing music outside their preference)keep the format and pay them cheaply as possible and have unrealistic expectations they will work out. We have too many suits with BIDDNESS degrees from the 80's who do not know the Biddness ,yet can make decisions about it. That folks is a weed that has been growing and firmly planted a very strong root that has caused radio to choke. Eliminate the weed and its seedlings, and you have a strong chance to have 'QUALITY TALENTED RADIO" once more.