I’m 63 and KYW is nothing but one commercial after another.If you’re looking for breaking news,30 years ago KYW was the place to go, now it’s the last. That station is run by the advertising executives. I’m down to the traffic report to make sure it jives with what my apple maps info says,it’s commercial, commercial,commercial,commercial,then traffic and transit brought to you by Barbera on the Boulevard and in the report it’s the Mealeys jam cam,then weather then one commercial after another..You can go on and on,about the station being on am or fm, or demographics or whatever you want,that station is a shell of what it used to be
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KYW
- Thread starter Route 222
- Start date
It's the cost of doing business. I think if you listen to tapes of the station from 20 years ago, you'll hear the same thing. It just bothers you more now because people want everything for free.
Hmmm. I sorta got my white fur ruffled a bit by that 'for free' observation, Big A.
Now, I'm a few weeks older than TransManJoe*, you understand. And as a former radio DJ pro (last two tenures in Philadelphia, mind you :- ) I really will not fathom how having spent any of my hard-earned money for three terrific AM DX radios the past ten years or so makes me eligible for any sort of entitlement. The last gosh-darned one was a refitted $500 Hammarlund HQ-180.
Things that I've have been free here for decades shall remain as free as possible. Free greasy onion packets for my rare hot dog ..... free rest rooms ..... free napkins and straws .... free 1-800 calls .... free radio advice on the Internet .... free illegal music downloads from Napster ..... free air for the car tires ....
This largesse was handed down to us.
I don't want 'everything' for free.
Just the traditional essentials. The way our World War II folks said life should be.
Modern marketing and avarice can climb all over each others' biscuits for the scarce profits in 2019.
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Well, okay. Maybe I'm 370 weeks or so older than TransManJoe, lol
Now, I'm a few weeks older than TransManJoe*, you understand. And as a former radio DJ pro (last two tenures in Philadelphia, mind you :- ) I really will not fathom how having spent any of my hard-earned money for three terrific AM DX radios the past ten years or so makes me eligible for any sort of entitlement. The last gosh-darned one was a refitted $500 Hammarlund HQ-180.
Things that I've have been free here for decades shall remain as free as possible. Free greasy onion packets for my rare hot dog ..... free rest rooms ..... free napkins and straws .... free 1-800 calls .... free radio advice on the Internet .... free illegal music downloads from Napster ..... free air for the car tires ....
This largesse was handed down to us.
I don't want 'everything' for free.
Just the traditional essentials. The way our World War II folks said life should be.
Modern marketing and avarice can climb all over each others' biscuits for the scarce profits in 2019.
* * * * * * *
Well, okay. Maybe I'm 370 weeks or so older than TransManJoe, lol
When was the last time you got free air for your car tires? Every gas station I go to has a pay machine attached to it's air compressor. Unless you buy tires.
Commercials are the only revenue stream radio has. They can't put a charge on your credit card. They can't put their programming behind a pay wall. That's it. So you get radio for free. You just have to be willing to listen to the people pay the bills. That's the cost of doing business. Even public radio has to acknowledge the funders.
At least two gas stations near me (and I only go to three regularly) will turn on those machines for nothing if you ask the clerk during business hours. There are even signs on the machines telling you to go inside and ask, providing the station is open. This is peculiar to my little city in Connecticut?
Air is still free in Allentown, and those sponsorships on KYW don't bother me too much. It's well done compared to what I-Heart does here on their News Talker: "This report brought to you by..." except those spots are interspersed in breaks with NO REPORTS of ANY KIND. Also morning drive traffic and wx together gets split by a 30 second spot. Yes it is the cost of doing business and the industry is certainly in trouble, but at some point I think listener fatigue becomes so high that they just leave, and the ad revenue follows not long after.
Did you buy gas first? My point is there's a pay machine attached to most air compressors. Sure there are a few exceptions, and sure if you go inside and ask, they'll give it to you. If you switch stations during commercial breaks you don't have to listen to all the ads too. But these are things that require action.
I think the real issue isn't the cost of the air for the tires, it's the way you are treated by the business. That translates into similar issues with lack of or bad service in many retail stores. That is why people make the effort to order so many products (not air) online. Then online, you may pay more or less than the store. You may have to wait a bit longer and maybe not pay shipping or sales tax, etc. But, you avoided the blatant lack of appreciation.
BigA, I think that is where radio is most out of touch in an instant pleasure world. 30 and one minute commercials for 8-11 minutes is literally hours to listeners today. Radio spots need to have evolved in the last two decades. But, you know how impossible and tough that change will be. It's tough when the very necessity item is the item that drives customers away. Radio has had to say it with fewer words thanks to PPM and changing listener patterns, but yet we still use an old school formula for spots that drag on and on. Gotta say more with less and yet.... Tough!
BigA, I think that is where radio is most out of touch in an instant pleasure world. 30 and one minute commercials for 8-11 minutes is literally hours to listeners today. Radio spots need to have evolved in the last two decades. But, you know how impossible and tough that change will be. It's tough when the very necessity item is the item that drives customers away. Radio has had to say it with fewer words thanks to PPM and changing listener patterns, but yet we still use an old school formula for spots that drag on and on. Gotta say more with less and yet.... Tough!
Great point. Can't argue with what you say, but when you sell time, that's what you get. We sell minutes. I heard one :60 where the announcer had to stretch to fill the time. Long pauses. Dead air. But he paid for that time. So he gets to do what he wants. If it means tune-out, it's the time he paid for. Radio stations are only responsible for the time THEY control. A lot of these awful spots are produced by outside agencies, not the radio station. This is the conversation that goes on inside radio stations every day. It's not like we don't listen or don't know. It's that we have no option because there is no other revenue stream.
I'm supposing that it's my age (and like Miguelito says, my advanced 'resistance to change) which has me listening to
WCBS when I'm in that NYC signal metro, rather than to WINS.
Now, WCBS can get real wound-up at times themselves. It's just that I prefer their more laid-back style to that of WINS -- and KYW.
The 'teaser' aspect KYW uses also wore thin on me after a while. One such teased story from their top-of-the-hour list would jump out at me, and I'd wait for it, only to hear it eight minutes later -- represented as some throwaway :20 second reporter piece.
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Great teaser line from KYW's Tony Romeo one day. He was anchoring that afternoon. The story involved the volume of New Jersey Turnpike traffic through the Camden - Cherry Hill stretch of KYW's southeast signal.
So there's Romeo, using his Alan Alda / Hawkeye Pierce voice, with the teaser: 'And coming up -- counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike'. I've been a Romeo fan ever since. In fact, the wife now agrees that she can envision him doing his bureau-chief reports in a green bathrobe and a ten-gallon Stetson, with a martini in his hand.
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For me, a slower-pitched KYW approach would be more soothing. We * do * tune them in during impending winter storms, solely because they're the nearest PA news station to our house. But as the Big A warns me, 'Don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen (or words to that effect)'
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In some fashion, a reputable fellow up this way has run a car repair shop for years (ironically, he looks like the * other * Hawkeye; the original one -- Donald Sutherland). Robbie's shop has WHYY going through his offices and bays all day long. I guess he uses one of those cable / FM devices.
No music for his crew. Just WHYY.
So I ask if there's an audible news outlet in Phlly that's less frenetic than KYW yet more stimulating than WHYY ?
How did that Merlin thing on (?) 106.9 sound, pace-wise?
WCBS when I'm in that NYC signal metro, rather than to WINS.
Now, WCBS can get real wound-up at times themselves. It's just that I prefer their more laid-back style to that of WINS -- and KYW.
The 'teaser' aspect KYW uses also wore thin on me after a while. One such teased story from their top-of-the-hour list would jump out at me, and I'd wait for it, only to hear it eight minutes later -- represented as some throwaway :20 second reporter piece.
* * * * * * *
Great teaser line from KYW's Tony Romeo one day. He was anchoring that afternoon. The story involved the volume of New Jersey Turnpike traffic through the Camden - Cherry Hill stretch of KYW's southeast signal.
So there's Romeo, using his Alan Alda / Hawkeye Pierce voice, with the teaser: 'And coming up -- counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike'. I've been a Romeo fan ever since. In fact, the wife now agrees that she can envision him doing his bureau-chief reports in a green bathrobe and a ten-gallon Stetson, with a martini in his hand.
* * * * * * *
For me, a slower-pitched KYW approach would be more soothing. We * do * tune them in during impending winter storms, solely because they're the nearest PA news station to our house. But as the Big A warns me, 'Don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen (or words to that effect)'
* * * * * * *
In some fashion, a reputable fellow up this way has run a car repair shop for years (ironically, he looks like the * other * Hawkeye; the original one -- Donald Sutherland). Robbie's shop has WHYY going through his offices and bays all day long. I guess he uses one of those cable / FM devices.
No music for his crew. Just WHYY.
So I ask if there's an audible news outlet in Phlly that's less frenetic than KYW yet more stimulating than WHYY ?
How did that Merlin thing on (?) 106.9 sound, pace-wise?
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