syndicated jocks

I heard Elvis Duran in am--drive on an FM station in central Pa, (WLAN FM---clear channel owned).,
is it likely more stations willl opt
for syndicated jocks & voicetracked jocks ?
What happened to the theory that to survive ----radio had to become more local ?
has that theory been discarded in favor of being cheap ?

BigJimmy said:

What happened to the theory that to survive ----radio had to become more local ?
has that theory been discarded in favor of being cheap ?

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You heard one syndicated jock. He's on one station. In that town, there are probably over a dozen stations. Most of them have local jocks. May the best one win. It's competition. For ratings and money. The goal isn't just to save money, but to make money. Whatever makes the most money wins. My question to you is: Did you like Elvis? Was he good? Would you listen again? Those questions are more important to where he happens to be.

I don't like the idea of syndicated jocks & talk hosts
putting local air talent out of work, Air talent that often must then
sell cars or woirk for Walmart.

Do radio execs, PDs, etc. expect Rush, Savage, Elvis, Ryan, etc., etc., to live forever? When they DO retire/die/move on, are they going to feed repeats to affiliates for all eternity, or are they going to bite the bullet and start finding new talent to groom?

The ultimate sad part in all of this: there IS no farm team left to train the next in-lines. The overnight shift is non-existent on many stations, AM or FM, analog or HD, and

AM is dying in many areas, yes. Why? Aside from the increased noise floor from electronics....Subpar programming. There is wear on the talk. Pros like David Gleason (DavidEduardo) said that most people under 50 do not listen to AM. However, I believe he's ALSO made or agreed with the argument that if there's compelling programming on AM, people will search it out. More so in the age of FM translators for AM stations.

Why not create local/national news/talk programming aimed at the 25-34 demo and staff it as such? Ad agencies want 18-49 and that's dead center in the demo. Younger people defected to the web because there is no voice for them on air, liberal, conservative or anywhere in between, and with those eyes and ears go potential ad dollars.

RadioGuy2004 said:

The ultimate sad part in all of this: there IS no farm team left to train the next in-lines. The overnight shift is non-existent on many stations, AM or FM, analog or HD, and

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Part of this is radio's own fault. Many GMs are perfectionists, and expect(ed) everyone who works (or worked) for them to sound like superstars, yet only pay them minimum wage, if that. So jocks naturally got burned out, and quit. And radio replaced them with syndicators. I understand that some stations simply don't have the budgets to pay their jocks the big bucks, and if that is the case, then they should NOT pistol-whip those jocks, and expect them to sound like superstars. In other words, your demands of your staff, and what you are willing to pay for those demands, should line up. Otherwise, there will be high turnover.

BigJimmy said:

I don't like the idea of syndicated jocks & talk hosts
putting local air talent out of work, Air talent that often must then
sell cars or work for Walmart.

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I have been a "Wal-martyr," too, and I can tell you that that is no fun, either. Unfortunately, only a select few announcers ever become "superstars." I have been there, too, and I know what that is like, as well.

RadioGuy2004 said:

The ultimate sad part in all of this: there IS no farm team left to train the next in-lines.

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Oh dear, the never ending myth of the "farm team."

The big companies have hundreds of local DJs still doing shifts just like the old days. They all have their own farm teams. But the fact is that even when you had local DJs working night shifts, few if any ever got promoted to better shifts. Once you get someone willing to work that shift, you're not going to move him. Much easier to hire someone else. Cumulus COULD have taken one of their local jocks and turned them into the syndicated hosts for NASH. Instead they hired Blair Garner and Shawn Parr. So even with a farm team, companies prefer to look outside. Heck, the Yankees have a great farm system, but instead trade away their prospects for veteran free agents every year. Why should radio be any different?

But the key thing is that hopefully what we'll see is a complete new approach to radio, similar to what happened in the 50s after the radio networks began fading away. New people in radio who understand that radio is more than just spinning stax of wax and talking up vocals.

I love Elvis. Great Singer

Howard Stern Proved that live and local is a joke!

As far as I'm concerned, Howard Sperm is a joke.

TheBigA said:

Oh dear, the never ending myth of the "farm team."

The big companies have hundreds of local DJs still doing shifts just like the old days. They all have their own farm teams. But the fact is that even when you had local DJs working night shifts, few if any ever got promoted to better shifts. Once you get someone willing to work that shift, you're not going to move him. Much easier to hire someone else. Cumulus COULD have taken one of their local jocks and turned them into the syndicated hosts for NASH. Instead they hired Blair Garner and Shawn Parr. So even with a farm team, companies prefer to look outside. Heck, the Yankees have a great farm system, but instead trade away their prospects for veteran free agents every year. Why should radio be any different?

But the key thing is that hopefully what we'll see is a complete new approach to radio, similar to what happened in the 50s after the radio networks began fading away. New people in radio who understand that radio is more than just spinning stax of wax and talking up vocals.

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Yes, look at Cumulus. They have a very large farm team. Unfortunately, the entire Westwood One team has been put to pasture. Seriously, don't kid yourself. The "farm teams" of yesteryear have all but disappeared. And by the way, overnighters DID get elevated, IF they had talent. Otherwise, they didn't move up.

bossbill said:

And by the way, overnighters DID get elevated, IF they had talent. Otherwise, they didn't move up.

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If they had talent, they didn't start as overnighters. If they had talent, they found their way on the air in better dayparts. Speaking for myself, if I was fortunate to get a good overnighter who was willing to keep the hours, he stayed there until he got a better gig. Promoting an overnighter meant I needed to fill a tough slot. I never had the need to promote an overnighter because I had so many other choices. Personally, I only did one month as an overnighter. I quit on my own because I hated the hours, and my employer was very unhappy to lose me. I wasn't going to wait around for a possible promotion. But that's just me.

As I've said many times, there are lots of farms teams, but what usually happens is the talent gets married, has kids, and ends up staying in the small market for reasons that have nothing to do with radio. That didn't happen as much in the old days for lots of reasons. In my view, consolidation sort of leveled the playing field between big and small markets on a lot of levels.

In my area we had an overnight DJ on an easy-listening station who was a highly popular local personality for almost 20 years. His name was Joe Laznick, known on the air as "Little Joe" (an ironic nickname as the guy weighed at least 300 pounds,) and his all-night request show "Vacationland Calling!" was a fixture on KDAL. Joe was a musician and an avid stock-car racer as well (before radio he was an ambulance driver.) He was forced into retirement by illness (kidney disease) in 1984 and died three years later. That was around the time syndicated all-night programming like Larry King's show became popular, but I have little doubt that if not for his health problems, Joe would have continued at KDAL for some years thereafter. He was something of an icon in radio here.

Here's a link to a feature about "Little Joe," with photos and comments from friends and neighbors.

http://attic.areavoices.com/2012/05/22/remembering-kdal-overnight-dj-little-joe-laznick/

Didn't Kevin Methany (Kevin O'Brien) start with overnight/weekends?

Sorry for spelling, it's Metheny.

bossbill said:

Didn't Kevin Methany (Kevin O'Brien) start with overnight/weekends?

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Maybe...he's before my time, and I don't recall him on the air...just as a PD.

RadioGuy2004 said:

Do radio execs, PDs, etc. expect Rush, Savage, Elvis, Ryan, etc., etc., to live forever? When they DO retire/die/move on, are they going to feed repeats to affiliates for all eternity, or are they going to bite the bullet and start finding new talent to groom?

The ultimate sad part in all of this: there IS no farm team left to train the next in-lines.

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Pretty sure that while some syndicated personalities in music might have been inspired or influenced by an old timer early in their careers, they were not groomed to be the personalities of those who inspired or influenced them. They are their own personalities. It is best to enjoy what you have while you have it as time rolls on, because there no next in lines when it comes to syndication.

Silkie said:

It is best to enjoy what you have while you have it as time rolls on, because there no next in lines when it comes to syndication.

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You'd be surprised. They may not appeal to the boomer generation, but there will be new hosts who will find an audience and succeed.

TheBigA said:

You'd be surprised. They may not appeal to the boomer generation, but there will be new hosts who will find an audience and succeed.

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Absolutely. DJ styles have changed with the times all through radio's history. The stiff, formal style of the program hosts of the '30s and '40s no longer worked in the '50s and '60s. The '70s and '80s saw Top 40 jocks become less frenetic, and the too-cool-for-the-room album rock jocks flourished early, then too, modified their styles. The past two decades have seen a move toward upbeat jocks with goofy/crude shticks, plenty of celebrity gossip and less emphasis on the songs they play, which are increasingly treated as filler between ads and/or funny bits. None of this is the boomers' cup of tea, but neither was the staid, stiff style of the jocks of 30 years before to the young listeners of the '60s.

Although sometimes I wonder how the audience would react to a top of the hour ID of "You are tuned to radio station WJMN in Boston, Massachusetts, broadcasting at 94.5 megacycles. And now, we continue with the best of recorded music with a song by Jay-Z ..."