Personalities, success and local

["Bill O'Neill" <billo@erols.com>]

Opinions on an early Sunday morning, for what they're worth: 
At HDH in the 80s the push, programming-wise, was to BE LOCAL.  The wx
intro was "hometown meteorolgist ___" (along with the Best Show... Where
Your Friends Are... and a few others.)  Oh, and they had a news STAFF. 
Obviously local to Boston and contiguous towns, the whole ADI was coveted
and targeted (weekend remotes on the North Shore, Merrimack Valley, etc. to
actually keep the numbers away from the local 1kW and 5 kW signals in their
COLs because every point mattered, as it still does.  It was a nice
marketing statement to be able to say that "Big Station X beat out these
three locals on this map here in their respective sub-markets in their own
demos!"  It was like stealing lawn furniture while people were still in
them then giggling about it later.  Was not always a win for the big guys. 
Is now.

The one thing a smaller station CAN do that a big station can NOT do is to
BE LOCAL, particularly in the areas of local news coverage - extremely
local down to varsity basketball scores with high scoring students NAMES on
your station.  Still a thrill to all and always will.  Even every shot is a
boost.  (On that subject, does anyone really think Clinton dislikes hearing
his name on Imus's show regardless of the context?)  Multiply that feeling
by ten as to how it feels for local parents to hear their kids' names on
the local station for making a touchdown in the big game on Saturday.  And
just like babies love to watch babies on TV, locals love to hear other
people's people mentioned on a radio for ANY reason.  It makes the choice
easier and lets them risk not hearing the funny Boston guy who you KNOW is
bound to do or say something interesting.

Small signals that have the courage to (dare I say it) put on a swap shop
program can make some LOCAL noise that is particularly difficult for a
regional signal to impact upon.  (Not that this guy could listen to it...) 
The main risk: local usually sounds hokey, boring, unprofessional,
INCONSISTENT and self-serving (talent).  The latter, in particular today,
is that many local stations are getting cheap or free part-time *talent* to
man/person their prime shifts and their only claim to fame is either a
political win or history or other media base, and wallow in their
overimportance.  And did I mention lousy pipes?  I think local stations
need to be humbled by their relative size and drive harder toward the niche
no one else cares about - your COL and contiguous districts.  And avoid the
bird with a passion unless it's feeding a newscast or bulletin.

The End!  I feel much better now.

Bill O'Neill

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End of boston-radio-interest-digest V1 #13
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