"D Peter Maus" wrote in message
news
David Eduardo wrote:
"D Peter Maus" wrote in message
...
David Eduardo wrote:
That is and has been correct since about 1921.


Damned straight.

Are you and I supposed to agree this much? It must be the long weekend.

Meant as a compliment: I'd bet you were a great devil's advocate in
business decisions, helping to make sure the ideas were well thought out.
It's really challenging to discuss things with you, and it forces double
checking ideas and facts. And that is fun.

Actually, I was just a pain in the ass.

"Pain in the Ass" = "Agent of Change" which is what our CFO named me.

I really had no interest in being devils'advocate. But when I didn't
agree, I wasn't very quiet about it.

Gee, that sounds familiar. I wonder why.

The GM didn't speak to me the last 4 months before I laid down my key
and walked out.

In my case, it helped being either a Gm or having some kind of title... and
ratings. Noisy people who create revenues are more tolerated than those who
don't. I can't tell how many times I have had to explain why engineers spend
money (Short version: **** breaks) and that when they don't. there are lots
of make-goods to run.

Less than a month later, everything I had predicted had come to pass.

Bad managers fire the competent, as they are threatening. Good managers hire
department heads who are better than they are, because it makes the job
easier.

As for agreeing....you and I have agreed more than either of us wanted
to admit. Usually on matters of how things work. Where we have differed is
in how things COULD work.

It's that I have the Nautel chrystal ball, and yours must be BE. The often
get different answers. Plus, the Arcadian Nova Scotia accent makes me
misunderstand a bit, too.

I don't believe that Radio need be as formulaic as it has become. I
understand why and how it's gotten that way. And the whole Genie/Bottle
thing now applies. But I don't believe it's been necessary.

Formula radio comes when you have good research, and a bad PD. A good PD,
armed with listener "advice" will make a fun station. Otherwisse, it is just
a jukebox.

And Jake Brodsky made a very interesting point...when all you have
accessible to you is formula, you get to the stage where you don't expect
anything else, and you come to accept it as not only the norm, but the
good as well. We're now at least two generations into overresearched
formulaic programming.

True maybe even much of the time. But when management lets a PD be creative
in everything from imaging to jocks, something way bigger happens. It's
magical at times. I am watching it now woring with a very talented and
intuitive PD who is doing the 13 Spanish Adult Hits stations we have
launched in the last 8 months... lots of research, but the day to day
operation is based on airchecking, listening to every show and jock,
dreaming up fun contests, working with community groups on activities for
the listeners... the stuff PDs should do if they get off their duffs. Most
PDs are glorified jocks, and being a jock is not a qualification per se for
being a PD... jocks are not like wine,a nd they do not become PDs
automatically after a set amount of time.

And the public, which long bitched about the way things have gone in
business that directly address and interface the public has stopped
bitching. Not because they like things the way they are...but because most
have not known any better, and the rest...it does them no good to complain
and they know it.

What I see is that people want even more stratification. More niche formats.
If you want proof, talk to a group of alternative rock males. Each one wants
a different version of the format, and different songs. At some point, this
formast will become 30 different formats and not viable on radio. I tis the
listener, who has come to expect personal gratification ("hey, I can do it
on my iPod, dude.) with no concern for anyone else. "That sucks" is the
standard response for 99% of things in an AR listener's life.

Pertaining to Radio, the Jack format which cracks wise about "playing
what WE want" wouldn't have flown 15 years ago because it was perceived as
openly contemptuous to the listenership. 'We don't play requests, don't
ask,' is not the sort of comment you'd have heard on Sebastian's KHJ. Even
though requests had long since vanished from most radio, it was something
that wasn't spoken. Certainly not in the snide way that Jack does it. But
times have changed, and public acceptance of such things is common.
"Attitude" is the norm. Even required for many stationality concepts.

And 40 years of mostly vacuous CHR jocks (with occasional rare exceptins)
has made many wnat NO jocks at all.

Even considered entertainment by a generation that has never heard the
kind of personality driven radio that brought Wally Phillips, Jack Carney,
Gary Owens, Lujack and Morgan to such staggering shares. It was a
different time, and it was a different stage in Radio's life cycle. But it
brought to bear a kind of thinking in media that at least paid some lip
service to the 'serve the public interest as a public trustee' clause on
the Instrument of Authority.

All I remeber is, as a kid, being glad my market had 3 Top 40 stations as
there was one that was NOT giving news at any one time. I swore I would have
a station that played music, and did not interrupt for what I did not come
for.

Fort Worth gets blown off the map by tornadoes, without so much as
whistle, because the bulk of stations were unmanned, automated and voice
tracked, and what was the response? Clusterwide announcements to tune to
the one frequency where there was actual local coverage. Now, we're all
professionals, here. Does anyone really believe that today's radio user
is going to sit through hours of programming in which she/he has zero
interest just on the outside chance he/she is going to hear a weather
bulletin? Maybe after the storms hit. And only for a short period of
time. But until that moment...sitting ducks with a sky full of shotguns.

That is part of the price for giving listeners what they want. News on one
staiton, music or entertainment on others. And that is why it is so
important to have a working emergency system... not Conelrad, not EBS, not
EAS. One that really works. the other issue is that for at least half the
day, less than 10% of the populaiton is not listening, and at the best, only
about 25% are. Radio is not as effective as we would like to think.

And no one seems to be interested in a real option to such nonsense that
would genuinely serve the public in time of emergency.

See above problem.

In the Minot debacle, which turned out not to be Clear's fault but the
morons at city hall, the incident occured at about 2 AM. Now, how many local
residents of Minot were litening to the raido at that our in the Dakotas? 11
would be my guess. we need self activating radios, and a good system to
activate them.

Not that it's that different here. CCU, for instance, took Kiss from
pretty much all voicetracked to all live, and CBS radio stations are
mostly live overnight here...but that's not how it is in many markets. Two
companies, for which I do some contract work, still refer listeners to the
news/talk station when there is severe weather in the area at night....but
don't offer any way of informing listeners that it's time to make that
move.

I see more cooperation with local TV news departments. We do it all the
time, getting backup reporters and breaking news. But we are live 24/7 on
nearly every station. That is how we train talent.

That's an obscene breach of public trust. But no one seems to care. And
that's the way it is.

I am not sure the audience looks at music radio stations to do anything
else. It is surprising how many actually know which statins have good news
coverage and actually use them when need arises.

HD radio may be the future salvation of AM and the wall of sandbags
against terrestrial radio erosion, in general, but that is far from a
certainty, as you yourself have stated in this thread. And in the process,
trashing the band's 'unused' spectra preventing use by anyone not
interested in the local contour. Which stops being a problem when the new
technology is widespread, and HD receivers are commonplace, but in the
meantime, nothing says 'contempt for the listener' like wiping out
alternatives to the locals.

There is real, overwhelming evidence that there is pretty much no listening
in such cases, so I don't see this as an issue or a loss.

I live in between Milwaukee and Chicago. Even WLS doesn't come in here
cleanly most days. And in a populated area like this, I'm not alone in the
inability to access desired radio. But alternatives that I regularly
listened to from either city are now off the dial. Wiped out in IBOC
hash. My neighbors have also complained about their own choices being
eliminated. Boy, if you were going to create a system that guarantees
options to favor a handful of stations, IBOC sure would be the way. And
it's got the blessings of the FCC.

If you look at local market coverage, you know most stations in the top 100
markets do not fully cover said markets. In other words, many should
disappear. The Am band may not be savable, but that is due to the
allocations based on 1946 city sizes.

But then, as I said, I'm a pain in the ass. And a fossil that is no
longer served by Radio.

That is one you can not pin on radio. In markets where ratings determine
sales, advertisers do not want anyone over 55. So we don't program to them.
No money.

What do I know. And, in the scheme of things, what does it really
matter.

You know more than 90 of today's GMs, most of whom think that creating a new
sales package is more important than programming.