Re: AM radio is NOT dead!!

[fybush@world.std.com (Scott D Fybush)]

I think another thing that did in WADN in the end was, ironically
enough, too LITTLE community involvement.  I approached Dick
Pleasants back in 1991 about developing local news on Walden, suggesting
a two-person news department that would be very heavy on local events
in the towns Walden focused on (Concord, Carlisle, Lexington, Weston, 
etc.) -- an area where people are rabidly interested in local
politics, and at the time (and for that matter currently) had no 
source of town news on the radio.

It would have cost Walden very little; radio newspeople then and now
tend to be available for shockingly low salaries (now it can be told:
I slaved away for Ike and Maurice Cohen for all of $5 an hour at WCAP :-),
and a local newscast that draws the kind of affluent listeners who would
want local news in those towns should easily be able to sell at least
a $5 spot an hour.  I doubt it would have driven away any of the folkies
(and yes, I was one of them -- I had a button set on 1120 in my car the
whole time I lived in Waltham), and it might have attracted a lot of
listeners who otherwise would have had nothing to do with Walden.

Dick was probably overwhelmed at the time just trying to keep the
music end of programming afloat, and he let the idea drop...and now
look where we've all ended up :-)

- -Scott, the WADN news director who never was...

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