I’m thinking of a DC-area show in particular, the one on Big 100. Local ClearChannel stations switched around some DJs at around the same time the oldies & classic rock stations moved their routine playlists ahead a decade. The previous morning DJ on WBIG went over to weekends onWASH and was replaced with Murphy & Cash. Those two came from WMZQ and brought their “I Just Called to Tell You” bit with them. For those who don’t know, that bit is a couple minutes of MPSIMS. If I wanted to hear inane chatter from callers-in I would listen to a talk show! Now they’ve started a Batchelorette sort of thing and have even brought in some local pet psychic a couple of times!
I switched to WBIG in the mornings after tiring of lowest-common-denominator shows like the Greaseman. If this dumbing down trend continues, I’ll have to find something new to use as my alarm.
Looking back at this, maybe I should send a copy of this post to the WBIG programming director.
Morning shows on the radio are the very reason I subscribe to xmradio. I listen to alternative/metal/hip hop and rap. These stations notoriously have bad morning shows.
I don’t care what the DJ thinks. I don’t care what the idiot who finally got through on the phone line thinks. Just push the button so I can hear Headstrong by Trapt and shut the hell up.
I’d say the very concept of a radio morning show on an FM station was dumb at its inception. If I wanted to hear talk, I’d tune into AM.
I listen to KROQ in L.A., but only because college station KXLU’s transmitter has such low power. KROQ plays “alternative” music (although not cutting edge like KXLU), and the morning guys Kevin & Bean (and Lisa May) are often a hoot.
But they have this nasty habit of calling foreign countries and making asses of themselves, and by extension, of all of us. This morning they had Ralph Garmin (?) doing a Jerry Lewis impression and trying to call Jaques Chirac. Yes, actually calling France. I had to change over to NPR, because I couldn’t listen to it.
IMO the KROQ morning show has too much talking and too little music. But aside from the weak-signal KXLU, it’s the only “alternative” station in town.
I like some AM talk radio, primarily KTRS. But not first thing in the morning! Dave Adler, the former morning DJ on WBIG, had the perfect mix of talk & music for me. As did Greaseman’s predecessors on WARW, one of whom is now the mid-day host on KTRS.
On preview: Kevin & Bean sound like what Don & Mike were before going all-talk. I liked them too when they were doing morning drives but now they’re just annoying bores.
I can’t stand the radio period. I especially can’t stand the morning shows here in NJ/NY. PLJ is the worst, followed closely by Radio Chick on 104.3 (a show which panders to horny adolescent boys, it seems). It’s not only the content that bothers me. It’s that god-awful Jersey accent!
There is not a single radio morning show that I like. I normally listen to rock music, but the two local rock stations (101.1 and 106.7 FM) have really stupid morning show personalities that tend to call up people and make asses of themselves (and by extension all of SE Michigan) on a regular basis. So on the drive into work, I listen to the local pop/alternative music station (88.7 FM). Their morning show people aren’t quite so annoying, but more importantly they intersperse the chatter with actual music
Unfortunately, the radio stations in Las Vegas pander to the most screaming right wing fanatics (“screw them Frenchies” “If you don’t wanna say God in Pledge of Allegiance, move to Iraq” and, well, you got the idea.)
And of course when you pander to pond scum, they come.
The phone callers all sound like they have a 3rd grade education from Bayou Elementary Grade school and I swear, even at 7:00 am, those are beer burps you hear when they call in.
Here in St. Louis, a respected news guy just took over the morning show at one of our talk stations. He mixes up interviews with local politicians and the like, along with experts and consultants who actually know about Iraq, nightclub fires or what have you. I’ve heard interviews go on for 20 minutes.
The early, prevailing opinion is that he’s “just too heavy” for mornings. If we don’t support efforts like this, we deserve what we get.
I used to the listen to the radio a lot here. Ever since '96 or so, all of the rock stations changed their format and all play exactly the same damn music, except for the classic rock station which still plays the somewhat stale stuff it always has. Damn you, Clearwater.
Morning shows have always been uniformly abysmal, for as long as I can remember (early 80’s?).
Yes, the morning shows are Innane, Stupid Drivel Outlets, in the morning (hence I am not a Morning Person) all I want to hear is Kick-Ass Music to get me going and Traffic - so I can get to work on time. But all I hear is endless banter from DJ’s trying to keep my listenership, and they won’t Shut Their Pie Holes.
If I want to hear Talk, I’ll listen to Howard Stern, but he is getting into the Innane Drivel Area, yesterday he had “Dial A Date” with Judith Regan - the publisher, please if she can’t get a man, then what hope is there for the average person.
I wish I has a Cassette or CD player in my car, but I end up having to Radio Channel Surf. Then when I get to work, Thank God I have a myriad of CD’s for my listening pleasure, because these guys keep talking until about 10:00-11:00 AM.
I don’t like morning radio because they talk TOO MUCH. Just play some damn music.
That’s why on the way to work I’ll usually listen to NPR. Yes, I know it’s talk, but it’s supposed to be talk. That’s better than hearing callers make asses of themselves when they don’t know how to say “hello” when the DJ talks to them.
I suspect a part of the problem may be the sad fact that you are aging.
The morning show, “shock jock” schtick seems to work for a while for most people, but at different stages of their lives. Humiliating people, making fart sounds, laughing at locker room jokes might be funny in your late teens or early twenties, but most people grow up and realize that they need other information in the morning.
If I need a laugh in the morning, I can turn to Stern or one of the local guys here and they will do something that might be amusing. You won’t, obviously, get that on something like NPR.
The one morning show that drives me personally bonkers is Imus in the morning. It has an interesting mix of politics, economics and current events, but it also has too much self-indulging Imus drivel, whether it be a book or his ranch or stories of his 5 year old son. The worst part of the show however (IMHO) is his sidekick (name escapes me) whose singular talent seems to be Imus’ yes man, repeating, often word for word, what Imus says. He has no original thoughts of his own. It drives me nuts.
Local stations that deliver the traffic report, or ESPN in the morning with Mike & Mike are my radio choices… or I pop in a CD and listen to what I want.
Nothing much to add except to second Johnny’s thoughts. I’m not sure why so many morning DJ’s think the pinnacle of hilarity is to call up a perfect stranger and lead them on. It’s painful to listen to and usually makes me identify with the poor sap on the other end of the phone (plus change the station). Just play some music.
One local station around here (93.7) engages in “Stupid Tuesday” or something like that, and pulls outrageous stunts around town every Tuesday.
The last one I heard a few weeks ago involved one DJ being inside a car as it was pushed over by a few listeners who volunteered for the job. Afterwards, he was happy he wasn’t hurt aside from a few cuts and bruises.:rolleyes:
It varies quite a bit. I like to listen to 106.3 WHOB (Nashua, NH) in the morning, where they have jokes I like and trivia questions in the morning. [They call it their “Impossible question”, although usually it would make more sense to call it their “Somewhat difficult question”, but it’s usually pretty interesting.]
When the question gets answered, and I get close enough to work to receive it, I like to listen to 105.7, WROR (Framingham? MA), which has some good skits and some custom parody songs about the towns around. [This introduced me to what people thought of the neighborhood areas when I first moved here.]
I really hate what another station does - I’m blanking on which one at the moment. They make crank phone calls in the morning, and think that’s appropriate entertainment. :rolleyes: I can’t help but think that most people could get arrested for doing the same thing.
What I would prefer to all of these, though, is that they would just play music (and traffic) in the morning. I seem to be in the minority, though.
San Jose’s morning DJs used to make me want to start the day with an hour long retch. They do the whole “Let’s call Mary’s father and tell him she was killed by her lesbian lover yuk yuk yuk” plus they have these wonderful phone in contests. The last one I ever listened to was
DJs: “Women get over half their calories from this white creamy substance. What is it?”
Caller #1: “Is it (bleep)”
DJs: “Oh my lord no. Ha ha ha. You can’t say THAT on the air”.
Caller #2: “Is it (sperm)”
DJs: “Ha ha ha. No it isn’t”
Caller #3: “I think it’s (sperm)”
DJs: “Wow what a crazy bunch of listeners”
Caller #4: “I bet it’s (sperm)”
(15 minutes later)
Caller #136: “I’m gonna say it’s (sperm)”
DJs: “Wrong! Ha ha ha. Our audience is so funny today”
Caller #137: “(Sperm)?”
I’ll second Johnny LA that Kevin and Bean are okay but enough with the Sublime tunes!. When you play 10 songs a day, three of them should not be from the same damn band no matter how good they were. Argh.
Yeah, they do tend to play the same stuff over and over and over and over… But from what I’ve heard all stations do this, regardless of the format. The oldies stations play the same oldies and ignore most of them, the C&W (I used to have a g/f who liked it) played the same stuff repeatedly, even KMZT seems to play “classic lite”.
KXLU, on the other hand, plays lots of different stuff. I once heard Patsy Cline in the middle of a punk segment. Unfortunately they change formats from new music to classical just about the time I come into the range of their signal, and they play Spanish-language programs on weekends (when I’d be at home to tune in).
Kevin & Bean now claim that they actually did interview Chirac. Probably a hoax, but they’re re-playing the tape on tomorrow’s show.
I must say I agree with you. I viewed my role on my morning shows as more of an “anchor” than a comedian. Sure, I had some daily bits, like my “Today in History” bit, but the majority of the time was playing music, and keeping the flow going between the news department every 30 minutes and the CBS network news and features three times an hour. It was truly full-service radio.
<stands up on soapbox>
The major problem with radio today is that is has become de-centralized, rather than localized. The morning DJ you hear on your show may be in another city miles or even many states away, thanks to the advent of satellite programming. Or a show could have been “voice-tracked,” or the DJ parts recorded and dropped in to local programming by a “board-op,” someone who sits behind a console playing tapes, mixing it all together, keeping a flow going, but never so much as opening the microphone to speak. In fact, there is now an automated system called Prophet that even replaces the board-op at some stations and the station is run via a central computer in some distant city.
If I had the money, I’d buy a station in a small market and locally program it with local people and local programs. Most of the small market radio I’ve heard is canned, satellite, or automated. They simply do not seem to care about the listener.
One more thing to think about - Clear Channel Communications owns 11% of all radio stations in the United States - over 1200 stations. In 2002 they laid off over 2,000 people - all “non-sales” - i.e. programming/on-air positions. Cite. Now with fewer programming people responsible for more stations, where is your local slant on your programming> There is very little!
<steps down off soapbox>
Yep, you young whippersnappers, back when I was in radio…
yes, i believe they are. i enjoy npr and i’m so happy they dont have such nonsense as most fm stations do. i listen to the radio at work and found an oldies station that only has talk from around 7 to 9 am, thank goodness. I get tired of sex, sports and stupid quizzes…
