On Jun 23, 9:22 am, "David Eduardo" wrote:
"D Peter Maus" wrote in ...



In a stroke, anyone not in the desired demo/geo/psychographic pocket is
orphaned.

I agree with nearly all you say about radio being revenue driven with the
advertiser first in mind. But I do not agree here. Deregulation did nmany
things, but it did not kill the mass appeal radio station.

The mass appeal staiton was killed by the 1967 deadline to stop FM
simulcasts. FMs had t invent formats that were generally not duplicated on
AM to try to attract listeners. Oldies, AOR, Progressive rock (AOR without
listener input), etc. spran up all over the country. Each took a piece of
the audience of the Top 40 station.

Soon, country became cooler in the big city, and FMs and AMs adopted the
"hick" fomat and were successful, often at the expense of the MOR staiton.
And folks who grew up on Top 40 found AC and "chicken rock" (now called Hot
AC) to be more suited to their age.

The fact that most markets, in one fell swoop, went from having a half dozen
or so viable stations to as many as 20 created a need for fragmenting the
leading stations to create niche audiences.

As FM grew from the tiny shares of the late 60's to majority status by 1977
and to the 80% of listening position it has now, we have also seen things
like Docket 80-90 adding to the station inventory everywhere... cause for
further segmentation.

And all along, those formats, broader or narrower as they may be, had to
pass the single most important test of all; did they match an advertiser
need? If advertisers did not want a particular product, due to age,
ethnicity or image, the station either settled for low billings or changed.

Remember, it was not too long ago that Black staitons generally got perhaps
40% of the revenue that their market share should have commanded...
fortunately, advertisers have come closer to recognizing the minority or
ethnic markets in the US and are directing advertising towards them.

All these things determined formats, not deregulation.

The only thing deregulation (not to be confused with consolidation) did was
remove the burden of running programming that nobody listened to and content
(like news on a soft AC station in the noon hours) that the listener did not
want. Nobody was ever served if nobody was listening.

Fortunately, the requirements to program to no ears was eliminated.



The mass appeal radio station, fiercely competitive warfare within a
single format, and the huge and varied creative energies on the air that
come out of them, are over. Because the suits see no profit in it, when
they can make just as much money by doing what they're doing.

There are no mass appeal formats any longer. The Akon listener hates Kelly
Clarkson. The Waylon listener hates Rascal Flats, the Carpenters listener
hates contemporary AC. The Kingsmen listener hates REO Speedwagon. The Boy
George listener hates... well, er, ah, lt's try again... the Chapo de
Sinaloa listener hates Ramon Ayala. There is no consensus by any large
group, as we have been attracted to the subsets we like most.

When I listened to Top 40 before I ever thought I would program it, I
realized that of every three songs, i loved one, I accepted one and I hated
one. I was too young at the time to realize that Top 40 was really three,
maybe four, formats... AC, Pop and rock combined... because there were no
AC, Pop and rock stations. Biut as soon as AC and rock and pop split, each
took a portion of the listeners. Goodbye mass appeal.



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DE - Country (C&W) Music is not 'hick' - It's America's Music [.] ~
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