Re: NorthEast Radio Watch 7/17:

[SteveOrdinetz <steveord@xtdl.com>]

At 12:48 PM 7/18/97 -0400, Scott Fybush wrote:

  When everybody's operating out of the same
>newsroom, that competitive drive can't help but disappear.  And
>there's no question that radio news is losing its ability to attract
>quality talent.  As newsrooms close and jobs disappear, there are
>fewer and fewer places for young journalists to hone their skills --
>and consequently more reasons for them to choose careers in TV, print,
>or on-line journalism instead.
>
>It's an ugly time out there in radio news, whether you're a listener
>or whether you work behind the scenes.  What's happening at WHYN is
>just one small symptom of the disease that's killing the industry.
>


Why limit this to news?  This is true with music formats as
well....competition keeps everyone on their toes.  Look back 10 years or so
ago.  Boston had 3 Top 40 stations (WXKS, WHTT and WZOU), all 3 had to be on
their toes, may the best station win.  Now there's just Kiss, and they sound
really stale.  It's good from their point of view....if someone wants to
hear the hits, where else can they go?  Ditto for most other formats.

There was something on this in Susan B's column in the Globe a few weeks
back (surprised no one commented on it) on how there's so much more
diversity on the air these days with the ownership limits abolished.  Yeah,
there are a lot more really narrow formats, but I kind of miss the days when
individual stations weren't quite so narrowly focused. 

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