radio and kids these days (was WCAP Needs Help)

[Donna Halper <dlh@donnahalper.com>]

it was written--
>I agree it seems next to impossible to find people willing to
work...[snip] The kids today are too concerned about things that
>don't matter...not about making their show better.

It's more complicated than that.  True, kids today don't have the desire to
work long hours for low pay in radio the way we did, but Eric and I are
from the generation that still believed there was a future in radio.  I
have seen my very successful consulting business almost vanish in the past
several years.  16 of my best clients, people I worked with for years, sold
their stations or got out of radio entirely or got bought up by a bigger
firm.  I did a good job (in some cases a great job) but now there are fewer
and fewer places for me to do it.  I have seen 20 years of my life almost
completely invalidated through no fault of my own-- not because I wasn't a
good consultant but because small and medium market stations are now
simulcasting or using less and less original programming.  I trained some
of the biggest and the best back when they were starting out, but now, the
small markets are mainly automated.   

College students can still read the newspapers, and they read about all the
mega-corporations that have become so dominant; they are aware that radio
is not a field of dreams anymore.  Those of us who laboured for low pay
doing overnights did so because we knew we could work our way up and
possibly get a chance at a bigger market.  Back then, small and medium
markets were unique and developed their own talent.  Sure, some of the
radio in those markets sucked, but some of it was incredibly competitive
and even in a Bangor-sized market, stations were slugging it out.  Radio
was fun; it was still an adventure.  Today, it's about Wall Street.  Today,
you buy up your competiton.  So I still have a few clients,  and I can
still make money selling my music software, but it's much more of a
struggle with much less acknowledgement and almost no job security.  The
kids I encounter in college radio see the same thing I see, and as a
result, many no longer believe there is a place for them in professional
radio.  They no longer see radio as somewhere they can have fun and be
creative.  I realise that statement looks very selfish when written in an
e-mail-- I don't mean to imply that these are dilettantes who refuse to
follow a format and demand total freedom.  I simply mean they don't see
that following the rules will result in any career advancement-- it just
may end up that their owner sells the station right out from under them and
they are left with nothing to show for their efforts.  

I am not saying they are right to be so cynical, but as a person who has a
deep love for radio, I find I don't recognise my industry anymore.  I find
that a sameness, a blandness, a fear of taking any chances and jeopardising
the stock has set in.  Tallking dirty passes for taking risks.  Radio news
at many stations is just making use of whatever your TV station dug up that
day, and when was the last time a good investigative reporter made a name
in radio?  My blind friends lament that even the ballgames on radio are not
related as artistically as in years past-- sometimes it seems almost
everyone is going through the motions.  Yes, of course there are
exceptions.  Of course there are still creative announcers and great news
and sportscasters.  But with so many people worried about whether or not
they will have a job tomorrow, the fun seems to have gone out of my
industry, replaced by...   replaced by caution.  If I were a kid out of
college, I  too might have my doubts about working in today's radio.  No,
the good old days weren't better, but back then, we could at least dream of
owning a station someday or being the PD and getting the chance to make a
difference.  I don't know, I am sure there is a bright side to the Telecom
Act, but for the life of me, I can't see it.  But something has to change
or radio may end up being totally un-necessary in the lives of the mass
audience, and having given so much of who I am to radio, I would hate to
see that happen...      

------------------------------