i will take my answer off the air

And off the air was the appropriate way to end your statement!

To answer your question; DEAD MAN WALKING.

Traditional medias are eroding...can radio adapt to the younger generation tuning out to the PC and PDA's...

"And off the air was the appropriate way to end your statement!

To answer your question; DEAD MAN WALKING."


Oh brother. Small thinkers, small results.
Radio will ALWAYS be relevant, if you make it relevant.

What we need is for Hanna Montana to have an tv episode in which she listens to her favorite station. A whole new generation would discover our wonderful services.

If we follow the "radio is dead" or "broadcast media are dead" path, doesn't that just leave us with a high tech version of people sitting around a campfire, telling stories and passing along rumors? If the economies of scale that having millions of listeners and viewers are gone, then the elaborateness of new productions is also going to go down the toilet because it won't be profitable to make feature-length films, to have big, fancy musical tours, or to produce hour-long drama television shows. This change has been happening to some degree, in the way that prime time broadcast TV has come to be dominated by reality shows in the last few years.

I am NOT looking forward to a future where entertainment is either really expensive, or it is delivered in 10-15 minute bites with production values just slightly above that found on YouTube. I expect PROFESSIONAL entertainment to be distinguishable from amateur grade stuff.

We would need her Dad's ok to do personal call sign/slogan liner endorsments...hey...he's there with the photo shoots...radio...just as risque?
Radio will try anything!

Radio will never die. What's dead is the conventional business model for running a radio station. Since radio licensing and ownership statistics have slanted towards broadcast properties as commodities, the only way to feed greedy shareholders is to own huge amounts of licenses and hope to make a little bit off of each one. By owning 5 - 8 licenses in a market, cumulative profit across all licenses can only be achieved by adopting the business model we now have proliferating across the country.

Consolidate operations. Fire people. Buy computers. Automate.

Voice tracking you ask? Just a fill in until the current business model fails.

When will that be you ask? As soon as mobile internet audio streaming is as ubiquitous as AM/FM/CD/iPod soundsystems in the cars have become.

Imitation is a form of flattery as they say.

I went to Seattle-Tacoma for the holiday weekend. Again, I listened to the market's most recognizable and dedicated Oldies station. 97.3 KBSG. Now " B-97.3"

What I heard was lots of late 60s - early 70s songs, great quality IMHO some of the best reproduction of that genre' of music on a broadcast radio station that I have ever heard and I have been listening to a lot of IPOD and Satellite music over the last few years. 1 Long spot set, another shorter spot set in an hour, but then long music sets and a Voice tracked personality superbly Equalized, great delivery, concise, and only inserted at a maximum of 4 times/hour. This was all on a 4th of July Friday around 1 to 4 pm.

When you take it all in, "B 97.3" is doing it a bit better than Sirius 7 who for some reason likes Barry Williams of the 'Brady Bunch Fame' reading show prep without a lot of proper emphasis and timing, substandard projection and resonance, he is no 'radio person ! He is there only because he was " Greg Brady"..an ICON of the 70s. And they have him doing about 8 or 10 breaks an hour reading lame prep bits. Please ! This guy woulda been stomped on by a few PDs that I worked for at one time.

It comes back to commercial spot sets. People dont want to hear that stuff, but IMO if enough broadcast stations can do as well as "B 97.3" and emmulate the rest of the latest 21st century "technological venue " , broadcast has a fair chance of being relevant and competitive especially in the car. At least for awhile.

The 'Car' as we know it and use it, may change over the next few years depending upon price at the pump relative to how often and when people drive their cars. Film @ 11 on that.

Famous quotes from the past:

"Radio has no future."
- Lord Kelvin (1824-1907), British mathematician and physicist, ca. 1897.

"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?"
- Associates of David Sarnoff, manager of an early US radio network, 1920s.
"While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially I consider it an impossibility, a development of which we need waste little time dreaming."
- Lee DeForest, 1926 (American radio pioneer and inventor of the vacuum tube.)

"[Television] won't be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night." - Darryl F. Zanuck, head of 20th Century-Fox, 1946.

As everyone knows, Kelvin was an absolute zero.

Lee DeForest's contributions are suspect, at best! He had a tendency to take credit for other's inventions and ignored still others! Then, there was the audion tube(I believe that's the one he "invented".). It seems, he had no idea how it worked! It took Major Armstrong to figure it out and the result was "radio", as we know it. My source is "Empire of the Air", if anyone wants to check it out.

NO. Radio is not dead, just being managed poorly.

This too will pass.

Trust me.

"My source is "Empire of the Air", if anyone wants to check it out."

Yep... got a copy of the DVD after you mentioned it on another thread... quite a saga!

Radio is not going to go on the cart... it could pull through

Empire of the Air is a great documentary on the beginnings of radio. I've watched it several times. It's highly recomended for anyone wanting to learn about the start of radio.

Is it just me, or was the Michael Hays thread deleted?

It's just you.

My answer to all the "radio isn't dead yet" people.

Remember the telegraph?

Everything has it's time, then it is gone.

Yeh, You're right, I remember the days when oil and gasoline ran this country. Now after 100 years, we're finally free!

It depends on what you mean by radio. If it's a preselected and advertising-laden roster of commercially anointed tunes interspersed with positioning statements read by a voice from someplace else, radiated out of a terrestrial tower, and with the ultimate goal of profiting a corporation, then, sure, it's on life support.

But if radio means a virtually infinite choice of stations and programs delivered to your receiver in half a dozen wired and unwired ways, then radio is just beginning--not as we know it, certainly, and we're in need of a couple of consumer-level technical advances such as universal wifi receivers in every car. But that's in sight. Also in need of settling is the issue of music licensing for internet radio.

Corporate radio (including NPR) is fighting hard for a seat at the big new table, and many of today's players will always be around (along with some of yesterday's. Former CC badboy Randy Michaels and XM creator Lee Abrams are trying out ideas on the air and on the net from WGN, and with Sam Zell's deep pockets, you know they're planning big scary things).

But the future of radio will be all about content. Once internet radio is easily and cheaply available to everyone, you won't need an FCC license or a 100KW fm transmitter or a satellite to play. The balance of power will shift heavily in favor of the providers of content. If you're an air talent or a programmer, you should be thinking now about how to position yourself for this future.

When Internet streaming becomes widely available in mobile environments (mainly cars and mobile phone hansets), consumers will need some way to sort out the obscure crap from the stuff that is useful to them. I suspect that if brand names are positioned properly, people will continue to tune in to BBC, CNN, NPR/PRI, etc, based on the recognizability of these brands. Also, when this happens the direct broadcast satellites and terrestrial transmitters will still be around, and there will be people who will want to use them. The new users of the "old" media might not program stuff that you necessarily care for (these new users might be religious groups, miscellaneous special interest groups, universities, etc.), but they will be out there.

Radio as we know it (boss jocks, big-budget stations, live bodies in the station 24/7, huge multikilowatt analog stations) is dead... radio as a means of wirelessly transmitting audio/data is the way of the future.

In the future, programs and stations will be disassociated. Everything will be like a podcast. You might get it from satellite, terrestrial broadcast, wired or wireless internet, etc.

Mr. Andy Brown has wisdom. Radio is NOT dead. The technology/medium is not going to go away. Will it continue to change? Absolutely.

Hey Lander,
It is changing alright, but for the WORSE! Every year that goes by more and more jobs will be slashed. Pretty soon it will be Dj Automation 24/7 with music programed in from other cities.
The dj will be a thing of the past.
With Cheap channel, im guessing the next positions to go are program directors. Do we REALLY NEED PD's??? Not really, especially now with consolidated playlists, everyu station sounds the same. Its not like a PD has any say on the music his station plays. He is bound and gagged. He is a puppet, thats all he is.

Looking at the really big picture, some people even consider services like Pandora to be a customized "radio station." My own tastes say that the "Boss Jock" personalities are great. However, if the majority of the public prefers the customization that things like Pandora make possible over the human touch of a "Boss Jock," that is the way that the industry is going to go.

The question of why Boss Jocks aren't making much of a comeback on podcasts or Internet streaming audio is an interesting one, and I don't know the answer. Are they too expensive? Perhaps nobody (or very few people) wants to hear them anymore?

The trend these days seems to be "talent" that sound like "regular people" rather that professional broadcasters.

As Kenniwickman said "...without proper emphasis and timing, substandard projection and resonance"

Maybe that makes me old and out of touch but I still prefer a skilled broadcaster to the likes of Marconi, etc.

One more reduction in the overall quality, and one more way to dumb down the medium, and of course another way to spend less money.

Remember back in the heyday of Z100... on air talent were NOT necessarily in the target demo of the station... sure the night guy and part timers were but not the prime time talent.

Gary Bryan, Scott Drake, Sean Lynch, all over 30 at that time.

Then there were the other greats in the market at CHR stations... Andy Barber, Ron Leonard, Craig Walker, and I'm sure most of the KISN staff... not kids, not amatures, not green like so many on the air today.

Same deal for KFRC. sometimes OLD men and women on the air spinning the hits!! unheard of now.

Seems now that the talent must be in the exact age demo of the station or they are dismissed as out of touch.

It never was that way when radio was great.

Maybe this is why we are in the mess we are in???

Radio isn't dead.... Look at Rush's signing bonus. They're still paying some BIG money for talent. 100 million? It blows my mind.

Maybe these big companies should spend more on better air talent, actual real talent, not liner card readers. Z100s jocks today sound amature, they are just liner card readers they are not personalities.
According to Z1OO its all about the music. They are running those stupid liners that say "More music less talk." Radio may not be dead, but the disk jockey sure is dead. Gone are the days of hearing really great talent on the radio.(thanks to clear channel) Z100 used to pride itself on that. Today, its all about the music, and THATS IT! No personalities, no fun jocks, just music. Gone are the days of big name personalities like Nelson. Clear Channel is too cheap to pay for real talent.

Just be thankful that you were alive and able to enjoy great radio when it was a live medium, when it was thriving, when it had big name personalities and fun jocks. It so sad to remember back when stations like Z100 were a powerhouse, and now it has turned into a complete shit-hole.

Someone once mentioned on this board that the average age at KISN(sometime in the 60s)was 24.

"According to Z1OO its all about the music."

Any station that has to claim what they are all about is the music is more than likely ... not.

Frankly, it's all about sales, specifically packaging ads across the various formats owned by the local group owned by the mega owner. Clients can reach a huge percentage of their target demographic that way.

Radio today is strictly a big money ad machine. And the music that they DO play is not an accurate representation of the music scene locally or regionally. The stations play the music that the big record companies want them to. Somewhere back in the archives of my brain I remember when it was different. Or maybe it's an acid flashback.

If you reach back in your memory
A little bell might ring
About a time that once existed
When money wasn't king
If you stretch your imagination
I'll tell you all a tale
About a time when everything
Wasn't up for sale

There was this cat named Johnny
Who loved to play and sing
When money wasn't king.

We'd all get so excited
When John would give a show
We'd raise the cash between us
And down the road we'd go
To hear him play that music
It spoke right to my soul
Every verse a diamond
And every chorus gold

The sound was my salvation
It was only everything
Before money became king.

Well I ain't sure how it happened
And I don't know exactly when
But everything got bigger
And the rules began to bend
And the TV taught the people
How to get their hair to shine
And how sweet life can be
If you keep a tight behind

And they raised the cost of living
And how could we have known
They'd double the price of tickets
To go see Johnny's show?

So we hocked all our possessions
And we sold a little dope
And went off to rock 'n' roll.

We arrived there early
In time to see rehearsal
And John came out and lip-synched
His new lite-beer commercial
And as the crowd arrived
As far as I could see
The faces were all different
There was no one there like me

They sat in golden circles
And waiters served them wine
And talked through all the music
And to John paid little mind
And way up in the nosebleeds
We watched upon the screen
They hung between the billboards
So cheaper seats could see

Johnny, rock that golden circle
And all those VIPs
And that music that had freed us
Became a tired routine
And I saw his face in close-up
Tryin' to give it all he had
And sometimes his eyes betrayed him
You could see that he was sad

And I tried to rock on with him
But I slowly became bored
Could that man on stage with everything
Somehow need some more?

There was no use in pretending
No magic left to hear
All the music gave me
Was a craving for lite-beer
As I walked out of the arena
My ears began to ring
And money became king.

It's not dead yet, not so long as there are listeners and advertisers, but corporate America is sure busy digging the grave!

And on the HeadStone:

"Gone away
Owin' more
Than it could pay."

Justin - To continue your eternal pointless trashing of Michael Hayes, see the SucessFULL thread.

And then consider for just a nano-second that maybe the guy was just a messenger of a decision made at a much higher corporate level. [I am constantly amazed by the so-called radio folk here who seem to lack the actual experience to know that PDs have only minimal input into the hiring and firing of station personnel. Most of the time they are just carrying out decisions made at the corporate or market group level.}

Here's a interesting article in Advertising Age.

http://adage.com/article?article_id=129741

Target Spot is one of the companies that is selling hyper-targeted advertisements on Internet streaming radio stations. What I have found most interesting was the testimonial from Deane on the other side of this board, wherein he said that the company he runs does not advertise on the radio because radio reaches too many "non-customers." Instead, his company does its advertising through direct mail.

In the next few years, I think that we will see a very clear demarcation in what types of advertisers end on which media outlets. For instance, Deane's company, which targets new homeowners in its advertising, will likely stay with direct mail because lists tying new home buyers to their postal mailing addresses are readily available. Advertising for chain operations, such as restaurants and department stores, on the other hand, may play very well on mobile phones if the advertising can be customized to give the retail locations closest to the viewers current geographic location. Still, there may be some advertisers who stay on broadcast radio, especially if they perceive that broadcast is more cost-effective than other means, because they don't have a good way of customizing their message.

Radio is on life support!

Nag....great article, man! Thank you...

Below is the first paragraph and an excerpt from an interesting article in the R&R news section... see their website for the full article...


Advertising buying guru Barry Lowenthal, president of the Media Kitchen, told attendees of a Wachovia Media Team teleconference hosted by media analysts Friday morning (July 18) that "radio has not been able to increase its CPMs in a meaningful way because its audience is not increasing. In fact, its audience is probably decreasing. The product is poor, for the most part. You have your big celebrity DJs, but for the most part the quality of radio content is just not very good."


Pressed later during the 30-minute call about increased advertising units, Lowenthal said, "If cable continues to pollute its pods with more and more commercial clutter, then potentially what happened to radio, where engagement plummetted, could happen to cable.

Remember back in the heyday of Z100... on air talent were NOT necessarily in the target demo of the station... sure the night guy and part timers were but not the prime time talent.

Thats an interesting point and very TRUE! Its only been within the last 6-7 years that the air talent on Z100 has gotten A LOT younger. This never used to be the case! I remember going to Nike Town back in 1992 when it firsted opend to see Jerome Kersey, but I was more interested in Meeting Z100's Tony Martinez and Nelson from the Morning Zoo, who were a little bit older than the demo of the station. But thats what was great about Z100 back in the day. They had real professionals on the radio, fun, exciting air talent that were cool to liosten to. Now you just have young PUNKS who are really young and still green.
I also remember there being two huge lines, one to get Jerome Kerseys autograph the other to get members of the Morning Zoo's autographs. It seems like back in the day the Jocks were stars they were more important than the music. Today Clear Channel has done everything to throw the Jocks on the back burner and make the station all about the music and not about the jocks. This is a shame and part of the reason radio is on its death bed. Infact talent SHOULD BE more important than the music, especially since kids these days can get all the music they want for free on the internet!
Why bother listening to the radio, when you can get all the music you want for free, AND YOU DON"T HAVE TO SIT THROUGH COMMERCIALS TO HEAR IT!

> Pressed later during the 30-minute call about increased advertising units, Lowenthal said, "If
> cable continues to pollute its pods with more and more commercial clutter, then potentially what
> happened to radio, where engagement plummetted, could happen to cable.

To me, it sounds like this Barry Lowenthal guy is at least 15 years behind the times. Many cable TV viewers watch with the remote control in one hand. As soon as the commercials come on, the channel gets changed. Many viewers turn on the TV at any time and then keep changing channels until something grabs their attention. I would like to see somebody present statistics on how much of the viewing audience watches any given show from beginning to end. Many television shows today are designed for people who change channels incessantly; for instance, look at all of the cut-away jokes and miniature sub-plots that FOX uses in their newer sitcoms. Or, look at how many shows on cable TV are shot on hand-held, and the camera man deliberately moves the camera around a lot so that more motion appears on the screen.

In my opinion, the long stopsets on the radio need to go away, and the advertising should be integrated more into the programming. In other words, give the listener the impression that the commercial interruptions are going to be so brief that it is not worth the effort of changing the station.

Prior to about 50 years ago, the sponsors owned the shows and the commercials were integrated into the plot to the point that no one would even think of changing the station, for fear of losing the plot line! Then, someone decided that was a bad idea and new regulation wiped it out. Paul Harvey has a similar style in that the commercial is half over before you realize it isn't part of the news!

Radio is 'withering on the vine' really...

>Many cable TV viewers watch with the remote >control in one hand. As soon as the commercials >come on, the channel gets changed.

Except for a few that grabbed my attention (movie/TV promos or an unusual product/presentation) I haven't watched a TV commercial in years. Tivo baby!

Flipping channels is sooo 90s!

My radio habits are similar now... instead of listening to Rick Emerson live, I wait an hour (or a few days) and listen to the podcast.

I don't know if the reason is that Rick Emerson's overworked or that he's got writer's block but his show has been flat for the past few months. He's probability too loyal for his own good but maybe changing things would be for the best.