RadioBanter - View Single Post

David Kaye · April 19th 10, 09:51 PM posted to rec.radio.broadcasting

(Scott Dorsey) wrote:

THAT is interesting. That's something worth talking about... how we got
into the situation where the whole extended band was created. THAT is an
important part of radio history.

The history is this: Extended band channels were offered to daytimers under
the promise that they would abandon their daytime channels and go fulltime in
the extended band. I believe KNBA 1190 was the first or second station to
take up this offer to move to 1640. But they never left 1190. I forget the
excuse they used.

So, what kind of tour could KDIA/KDYA do? "See, we have two stations because
we promised we'd move from one channel to the other and they we went back on
our word." I don't think that would play very well.

What is interesting about the station isn't anything that is in the station
itself, it's how the industry got to be where it is and how the station got
to be there.

But when people go visit a station they want something fancy and technical and
unlike their ordinary lives. What I'm saying is that what they're going to
see in a radio station is nothing that far removed from what they see
elsewhere. Radio is a mature medium. There's not much more that can be done
with it. It's like Microsoft Word 2002. It's a mature product and all that
can be done now is tweaking the bells and whistles, and moving the furniture
around.

No, but there's a _lot_ to talk about. Everything is in little boxes in
racks that look like every other rack in every other industry, but how it
got to be that way is the story of radio.

Generally speaking, history is not a way to interest someone in a career.
History tends to be the domain of old folks. I didn't realize this until
quite recently when a friend didn't want to go visit a private library with me
to look up old books and magazines about the history of BART. He's a transit
buff, but had no interest in learning about BART's past, only what they're
currently doing and how they can change things to make it better in the
future. He's, uh, maybe 25 or so.