Agreed, that was one of the reasons behind my comment: "His may be a somewhat bad example as there are a number of reasons he (Demento) went from a few hundred affiliates down to about 1/2 dozen in later years when he himself was managing syndication after once being with Westwood One". Demento/Hansen was also making some pretty stiff demands of the (increasingly dwindling number of) stations that continued to carry his show in later years, especially when, as an independent with a program that's anything but mass-appeal, he really wasn't in the best position to do so. In addition to other factors, that also cost him.
LOL, I'm reading this while listening to the Memorial Day 500 on my local Classic Rock station! (My money is on "Stairway to Heaven" for number 1!)
Exactly. Unless it's sports, advertisers have moved away from sponsoring this kind of show. Or for that matter, weekends in general. It takes time and effort to put a day, or several-day long music special together, including any preparation which includes research and promotion. Many stations have found little to no ROI to doing so.
I helped originate a stream that airs many of the syndicated shows I had on a high school radio station for 20 years before I retired, with the new radio team dropping all of those shows. PM me for details if you are interested.
It felt much like their normal programming, with a one hit wonder that’s typically part of their music mix given a little extra intro hourly. Nothing wrong with that and if they got a little extra pocket change from a sponsorship of mostly regular programming, cool for them. Maybe the mix was altered a bit to ensure those one hits came up every hour, sure, but outside that frequency, the playlist was perfectly normal.
