David Kaye wrote:
John Higdon wrote:

It was explained to me by the owners of some very successful stations
that music is simply the glue that holds what a station really does
together and keeps the audience from tuning away. The station interacts
with listeners, in person and on the air. The station keeps listeners
informed about important local events. The station provides news and
timely information to help listeners plan their days and get about
smoothly.

In your 1977 world, yes, but people simply don't listen that way any longer.
Yes, there are your stations, which do that sort of thing, but the majority of
big stations are jukeboxes.

This is true, but it's also a really bad thing.

The vast majority of radio stations on the air don't actually provide any
real benefit to the public. They aren't relevant to the listener, and
people don't specifically tune into them. They just happen to hit the station
for their normal 2.4 minutes as they are scanning their way down the dial.

How can I get it across to you that radio broadcasting is so much more
than playing records into the airwaves?

In your world it is, but step outside your world and it's jukeboxes. Hell,
listen to KOIT, the most successful music station in town for over a decade
and what is it? It's a jukebox that sounds automated even when it's live.
The extent of community service they do is reading 2 PSAs an hour and giving
the weather forecast, something that could be done from Albuquerque.

What makes it sucessful, though? Do people really go out of their way to
listen to it, or do they just happen to turn it on because it's the loudest
thing on the dial as they tune by and it happened to be playing a song they
like?

From my perspective, I think much of what is wrong with radio is that the
bands are too crowded with stations that are all playing the same song at
the same time. I think the only thing that will save radio is for the
marginal stations to go dark. We need to see a _lot_ of stations going dark.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."