I’m sure many of the Teeming Millions will agree with me on this one…
In the last ten years or so, FCC regulations have allowed megacorporations to buy up groups of radio stations–not just nationwide, but within a small area–so that CBS or Infinity or one or two other corporations owns almost all of the commercial radio stations in one area. According to radio columnist Robert Wagoner, whose column appears every Friday in Rave!, the weekly entertainment section of the Daily Breeze, published in the South Bay area of Los Angeles County, the result has been a lack of incentive for innovation or effort to attract listeners (Rush Limbaugh, Larry King and Howard Stern seem to be anomalies), but plenty of incentive to cut costs and change format at whim. L. A. has, as a case in point, lost many valuable radio personalities and features. Is this an anomaly, or have Dopers in other metropolitan areas (you know, New York, Chicago, Dallas, etc.) noticed this trend as well?
In DC, the commercial stations have suffered somewhat, in my opinion. One, WHFS, was a pretty cool little alternative station that had popularity thrust upon them not by changing their format, but by the sudden popularity of many of the artists and genres they regularly played. It seems as if as soon as they hit upon success, they stopped playing the off-label bands and started aiming for safe bets. I no longer consider that station to be either “innovative” or “alternative.” Another station, a cornerstone of all that was sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll, has slowly mutated into a WHFS clone, with equally uninspiring results. Maybe I’m just getting older.
There seems to be an emerging trend where everyone wakes up one morning to the blare of gospel music and we discover that yet another station has succumbed to the religious right. Then, sometime thereafter, those stations become conglomerate zombies. I wish I could cite specific examples, but all I can think of is that classic rock station in the 105 range. Can someone help me out, here? I know it’s happened several times in the past decade or so.
I would agree that radio sux. In N. California, there haven’t been personalities, to speak of, for quite some time, but there does seem to be a willingness to change formats on a whim. Another alarming trend that I’ve recently read about is for programming to originate from some remote distant site for multiple stations. The last time a station changed formats (last week) and I was listening, I tried to hear any clues that the DJ was actually located in N. California–local weather, traffic, for instance. Didn’t hear any.
“Radio is in the hands of such a bunch of fools trying to anaesthitize the way that you feel” - Elvis Costello
[Edited by Eutychus55 on 01-02-2001 at 06:11 PM]
Sofa King wrote:
Pretty much the same scenario played out here in Atlanta. WNNX (99X) was a hip alternative station for a short while. Then “alternative music” became hugely popular, 99X became the top-rated station, and it promptly sold its soul. Now it seems to be playing pretty much whatever the big labels tell it to play. It has no edge any more, and no courage to play small labels or undiscovered acts. Meanwhile, a couple of other stations have sort of cloned the now-bland 99X.
Radio is horrible in Atlanta these days.
definately happening all over the country, especially in major markets. see the link below to one of the major radio msg boards in NYC just to see how often this is discussed out here. The biggest problem we have is the same company owning multiple stations that target the same audience and not letting them compete AT ALL!!! ya don’t think stern would let Uncle Mel have another successful station in the mornings in NY?
…and how many commercials for Ovaltine do we really need?
I just drove from DC to Philly and I musta heard “more Ovaltine, please” a zillion times.
I like AM radio (sports talk mainly) and from listening to the commercials I get the impression that all the male listeners must be impotent and bald.
Hmmm…
Kansas City recently changed the radio format on KXTR. This was 96.5 which has been playing classical music for three decades now. Now its demo is women 25-54 and they play to music that falls between “boy bands” and “cheesy love songs”
The day that the switch was made there were well over 300 nasty phone calls to the radio station that used to own it before the switch. Callers were given the number because the operators hadn’t switched it over in their directory yet. In one week, they had over a 1000 calls. The real radio station had to hire some temps to answer phone calls from angry listeners. In the end, classical music got shoved down to 1250 on the AM side, which is broadcast at half the power as most other AM stations in the city.
The business side is that they can only make 1 million on classical but their new station can pull in between 3 to 5 million. I haven’t seen the figures but I’d guess they’re aiming for about 2 million this year. Still an improvement.
Here’s the not so obvious fact: Radio is about money, not entertainment.
uh but how is bad radio or tape delay in market #1 good for the bottem line?
Because sometimes bad radio and popular radio go hand in hand. It’s not the programming director’s fault that so much of the public LIKES boy bands, uncreative rap music, flavor of the month alternative, and the newly released single of the one hit wonders.
Hey, I’ve seen Polka try its hand at a station. That one lasted 3 months.
Bad radio to you is dance music to someone else.
I don’t understand the tape delay comment though.
dougie_monty: You don’t dig Larry Elder? Or Dennis Praeger?
I guess we have it pretty good here in Connecticut. If I want to listen to hard rock/metal, we have the best rock station I have heard in the country, and if I want alternative or underground music, our local college stations keep me up on the newer stuff.
Dallas had pretty consistent stations forever, but they have shaken up a bit in recent years. We had four basic rock stations - 94.5 (Alternative), 97.1 (Rock, a bit heavy on Metal), 99.1 (all Metal), and 102.1 (Rock, with a lot of Classic Rock). It was like that from 1983 to 1992 or so, when 99.1 changed to a Latino station. A few years later 102.1 started suffering an identity crisis, one month they were playing mostly oldies, the next mostly Alternative. They then switched to Oldies/Funk for a while, then 94.5 moved up to 102.1.
I think almost all Alternative stations went through that sell-out phase when Alternative became popular. Our local one at least has a regular program where they play new music and indie acts, but the rest of the time it’s pretty much all generic alternative pop and '80s New Wave.
I’m pretty sure that Jacksonville isn’t considered to be a major market, but radio here is sad… Our only choice for talk radio is Dr. Laura/Rush Limburger or a few AM sports stations. The NPR station plays no classical music during the day, and the rock stations seem to play the same 10 songs over and over and over and over… I listen to the local elevator-music station at the office just to have something in the background that doesn’t annoy me too much.
I miss Don & Mike… <sigh>
I’m pretty sure that Jacksonville isn’t considered to be a major market, but radio here is sad… Our only choice for talk radio is Dr. Laura/Rush Limburger or a few AM sports stations. The NPR station plays no classical music during the day, and the rock stations seem to play the same 10 songs over and over and over and over… I listen to the local elevator-music station at the office just to have something in the background that doesn’t annoy me too much.
I miss Don & Mike… <sigh>
Oh, Sofa King, you certainly brought back the days of wonderful WHFS tunes. Back in the late 70’s they would play Hendrix followed by something off of the Checker label (Brit Reggae) and then something bluesy. All of that has changed. sigh
HFS went to the “play list” format. Seems that you can’t listen for one hour without hearing Limp Biskit at least once, and if you listen for the entire day (6 hours or so) you are guaranteed to hear the same song thrice.
I converted from WHFS to WRNR (103.1 for those in the Annapolis area). They play freeform, with no beholden attitudes to whomever pays the bills. They are the ONLY station in the area that plays local bands, non-mainstream pop along with bluegrass, blues, jazz, you name it. When was the last time you heard the Grateful Dead on the radio (OK, other than Truckin’ or Sugar Magnolia)? Howzabout Wide Spread Panic? Phish? Ani DeFranco? Dar Williams? These are not really obscure performers!
They (WRNR) have a spot on the air where they question why you don’t hear these bands on other stations when they always sell out their concerts. They MUST be popular.
Heck, as long as I’m on my soapbox, It really gets me when I hear HFS touting “new music here first” and then they play a tune that WRNR has been playing for 3 months.
The San Francisco Bay Area is dominated by Westwood-1 and Infinity, so we’re inundated with lots of woman-oriented top 40 (“Alice” springs immodestly to mind) and, oddly, three exclusively eighties retro stations.
The most noticable difference is that established formats will get switched every six weeks, so just as I get used to a station and programme it into my car stereo they change it.
In retaliation I’ve migrated to college radio (Foothill College mostly).
There was a new radio station started here a few months ago that planned on having the name “The Beaver, 106”. Of course some group or another complained so they changed it after a couple of weeks to “The Rooster, 106” and their commercials all feature cock references now.
The music they play sucks (AOR) but at least their attitude is cool and I am pretty sure they are not owned by one of the mega-corps.
Of course it is–I’m usually the biggest apologist for the media around, and I’m on another thread defending ABC’s use of CCGI billboards during bowl games.
But . . . you’ll notice that every FCC license in this country contains a little clause about “serving in the public interest.” What this means, in theory, is that along with providing programming that meets the needs of their advertisers vis a vis their target audiences, stations should provide community-oriented programming of some sort. Unfortunately, the definitions of “community-oriented programming” and “in the public interest” have become so broadly defined as to be meaningless.
There are no specific rules for commercial stations regarding local/community programming, either as a percentage of broadcast time nor in regards to content. So stations do some news, weather and traffic during morning and afternoon drive, maybe do some charity fundraising, and–bingo!–they’ve served in the public interests.
With the relaxation of station ownership rules, and the FCC bending to the will of the big radio groups and NPR regarding interference on secondary and, heaven help us, tertiary signal contours, local voices are effectively excluded from radio. In pretty much every major market, where there might very well be audiences for specialized information or music, the spectrum is so full that you can’t start a new station even at low power because you’ll raise the ire of stations on your adjacent or second adjacent frequency. Plus, the FCC stopped licensing stations under 10W many years ago, and has effectively killed the recent low-power/community radio proposals.
The airwaves belong to the public, and are licensed to broadcasters as a service. When that service no longer provides the functions for which it is intended, it’s time to revisit the allocation of the spectrum.
Well, yeah, but I’ll tell you something from first-hand experience. I worked in radio for nine years, usually at one of those “local voices” stations everyone wishes for.
We got our butts kicked continually by more music, tight playlist, sounds the same anywhere stations every time. I sure wish all the people who kept wishing we were still playing the good stuff had actually listened to us when we were playing the good stuff.
One of the stations I worked at converted from glorified elevator music to rock overnight. The next day my boss was kept busy by calls from business owners who complained that they turned on their radios and were subjected to the standard issue teen-oriented crap. He calmly asked each one when they had bought so much as a single commercial on the old station.
Bottom line folks. It’s a business. If you don’t like the product that’s being offered, stock up on CD’s. But don’t despair. After a few months of not hitting their owners’ profit targets, another format change is right around the corner.