Liners & You

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

Video may have killed the radio star, if you believe The Buggles, but
verbatim liner cards sealed the deal, IMO.  I was pulling some weekend work
at the former WSSH 99.5 before and after the Noble Bcst. buy out in the 80s.
There were liner cards, but a sign in the studio said, "Interpret the
Liners - Don't Read Them" per Mike Colby's direction.  The day Noble took
over, along with the new PD, there appeared something quite interesting - a
sign read, "Read the Liners - Verbatim."  To add to that, the new liners
were now in shackles, hooked together by metal rings (short of wearing
orange pants and sticking trash in the median strip).

The second change was no more talking over the music and any chatter (if
truly necessary) came leading into spots only.  Memory fades, but I do
recall WSSH having actual #1 ARB numbers, only to go into the tank in mere
weeks after that change (I know this has been discussed here before as
confirmation.)  Under the former system there were certainly controls over
how the breaks were handled, length of the preverbial leash, etc., but voice
control and call delivery were a part of the package - how you represented
the music and related to the audience were credited to you, as well.  A
multitude of factors played into the demise of WSSH that may well have
nothing to do with the above, but it's gotta count for something.  It was a
nice ride while it lasted.  Interestingly, to my memory, the music mix was
hardly modified pre-and-post sale, so the one thing that was considered so
critical to success was actually a control group when assessing what went
wrong.

Bill O'Neill

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