"Michael Lawson" wrote in message
...

"David Eduardo" wrote in message

The "DJ clips" in Cincy are live in most cases. they are just not
very long,
and are what the format requires. They are not coming from San
Antonioo or
someplace else. they are live in the market. Don't you understand
taht,
outside of mornings, FM music listeners do not want talk, they want
music?
This is why off-prime shifts can be pre-prepared with voicetraced
jocks in
smaller markets.

I'd argue that except for the talk and news
stations, most people don't want talk in the
mornings, either.

Actually, this has been "tested" over and over. At some point, every
programmer is tempted to "take the opposite path" in mornings by doing a
totally music bassed format. After we try it once, we do not make the same
mistake twice. Depending on the format, a degree of talk is required. An AC
might require just news and traffic in brief (what we call "service
elements") while a CHR requires a team show with a lot of goofiness between
the songs.

There are literally no cases where "shutting up and playing the songs" works
better in mornings. Generally, that approadch works far worse. And my
evidence of this is looking at hundreds and hundreds of staitions over the
last 30 years.

I stopped listening to
commercial radio in the mornings when the
signal to noise ratio plummeted to where
if I was lucky, I'd get a song once every
15 minutes. If that.

You are the exception. Or the staiton you liked may hve overdone its attempt
to be entertaining. Or both.

For example, the #1 show in the morning in LA, the US' largest media market,
has, at best, one song an hour. The rest of the day it is music based.

When stations are "blown apart" it means that they were not
successful. It
means they were losing money. From the mid-50's through the
mid-90's, fully
half of all US radio stations did not make money, you know.
Technology and
consolidation have mitigated this situation to some extent, but
there are
many bad facilities and many overly-radioed markets where money will
not be
made.

Yes, but if a station is losing money by the bigger
station using a third party as a shill to drive the
competition out or by lowering advertising costs
to the point where the other station can't compete
smacks of Walmart-ism and the sort of things that
Standard Oil used to do. Legal? Probably. Ethical?
No.

I was not speaking of a third party. Pre-consolidation and after it, it has
been illegal for a broadcaster to have any relationship with stations they
do not own or legally lease (LMA).. Such "transfer of positive control"
whithout FCC permission would result in loss of license. Nobody is going to
do that.

However, if you refer to a group of commonly owned stations using one of
them to flank or counter a competitor, this is no different than one car
company coming out with a convertible because the competitive company has
done the same thing, and giving better price or more accessories to swing
buyers. This is no different than a supermarket selling milk at a loss (very
common) to get people in the store, knowing they will buy other things, too.

Using assets to one's own advantage is hardly lacking in ethics.

If a station tanks in Arbitron, and stays tanked, it changes format.

Unless the owner can afford the losses, or decides
to move toward a public radio or community radio
oriented format.

Very few owners can take losses on radio staitons. They run out of money,
and sell. Or they change format.

There are very few cases of commercial stations becomming non-commercial,
and these tend to be cases where large, well financed public broadcasters
buy commercial stations to improve reach, not where an existing commercial
broadcaster has gone non-commercial. In fact, I can not think of one cae of
that having happened.

The beauty of a WAIF is that the
members run the station; everyone who contributes
money to the station has to sign up to do some
work at the station.

WAIF is a non-commercial station, on the non-commercial part of the band. It
can not be commercial, ever, without buying a station form 92.1 upwards and
moving.

Non-commercial stations, which have a different income and financial model,
depend on contriutions and grants. Commercial stations depend on
advertising. In this context, it is neither fair nor relevaant to compare
them.

They also can participate in
the staff meetings, too, and can have their own
radio show if they get a slot open. It might not
work for the big broadcasters, but the big broadcasters
aren't exactly playing shows like the "Rockin' Surfin'
Show"or the "German Tunes of the Queen City",
either.

With good reason.

That is not usual in radio, as it is hard to get those Hungarians
and Sikhs
to sepak American English over the WAN to record the voice tracks.
Most
radio staff is sales, which is necessarily live and local.

You'd be surprised at what language coaching can
do.

I have been working with one talent for nearly 12 years to get him to drop a
regional accent. It is not easy. One thing is for an actor to learn an
accent for a script... but radio hosts and jocks improvise, and get
emotional. The real accent comes through.

We are talking about radio. What you describe is far less prevalent
in radio
as radio staitons can not centralize.

They centralize as much as they can.

Any company, whatever the business, will centralize what it can for
efficiency. Usually, this is stuff like accouts payable, etc. A local radio
station has to have local sales, management, traffic, production,
engineering, collections, etc. Programming may or may not be local (the
original model of radio is non-local, remember) depending on where the best
programming comes from.

Outside of the largest markets, almost all radio sales is local. That
requires local staff and management. There is no way to sell the local Ford
dealer by phone.

This is normal when formats shift. But the formats shift due to the
inability of the existing one to get good ratings. This has been the
case
since Top 40 was invented in August of 1952... jocks who get bad
ratings get
fired. Stations that get bad ratings change format. In the end, the
total
employment does not change much... but the individuals change as the
formats
change. All of us in radio knew this when we started in radio. It
is, like
all entertainment businesses, inherently volitile. How many TV shows
get
cancelled in thier first season? the folks working on them go on to
other
shows, or wait tables in Studio City or Burbank.

It is more volatile than ever before; there is no
patience with letting series develop. There are
many famous examples of shows that were
given a bit of patience and the station was
rewarded with a hit down the line.

TV shows are not developed by stations.

TV shows are developed, mostly, by production houses. They are sold to
networks, which run them. If the ratings do not produce revenues, they are
cancelled. Because audience measurement is instantaneous, the responses are
faster than they were 40 years. ago. All of this is "dictated" by
advertisers, not by the individual stations involved.

The less
patience shown with media by the bosses,
the less likely it will be to build audiences with
anything other than the instant hit.

Part of the reason for lower patience is the change in TV. In the 60's,
there were 3 networks and essentially no independent competitin outside of a
few indies in the top few markets. Now, every market has hundreds of
channels via cable. The networks are a small part of this, compared with the
past. So they have to create hits instantly or lose to cable alternatives.
The increase in options is paid for with a decrease in risk taking.

I also don't think that it's an accident that when
this volatility began to increase, the prevalance
of the Morning jock yapping began to increase
as well.

There is no relationship between TV and radio jock talking. Radio is not
measured by the same standard or method as TV. Advertisers do not compare
the media, and buy them separately. Radio's content is determined by what
goes on in each local market: the competitve array, the availble dollars
based on market revenue, coverage, etc. TV has nothing to do with it.

The DJ is the face of radio to the listener, not the
ad man or the station manager or the best boy.

Listeners, on the average... and I mean 99% of them... look at a station as
a utility. They like it or do not. It has the right mix of music and jocks,
or talks about the right subjects, or it does not. Jocks are not the face of
the station, unless you refer to morning high profile talent or talk hosts.
Otherwise, the talent is the "glue" that makes the station all come together
for the target listeners. But, in music radio, it is the songs that make or
break the station.