Rant @ Globe: WODS' 15 years of oldies

[mwaters@facstaff.wesleyan.edu (Martin J. Waters)]

>Bob Nelson wrote:
>Am waiting for her to write: "Boston's talkradio
>airwaves are abuzz with discussion on whether or not
>we should attack Saddaam Khadafy in Iran, with
>callers offering their opinions to WKRO's Jay Carr
>and WKKT's Howie Severin", etc. :)

    It's fun to pick apart this article, and so many others about radio,
for factual errors in the micro sense. But, there's a bigger issue. It's
like, there's so little coverage of radio that everybody around here gets
excited when there's any at all.

   But, this article basically is a puff piece that looks like it was
written by the WODS public relations personage. It doesn't even come out
and directly talk about how they jettisoned nearly everything from the 50s,
etc., etc. There's a passing reference to the seventh-rate jingle package
that doesn't sound like an oldies station jingle package -- but it's
essentially a complimentary reference. I think it's a direct or indirect
quote from someone from the radio station. We learn exclusively, because it
was revealed to the Globe, that a disc jockey really likes the music they
play (like, what the f*** else is she gonna say?).

   There's a whole level of actual reporting that doesn't go on here. With
WODS and its sound-alikes in other major markets making this same shift
(national context not mentioned, IIRC), there's a question about what
happens to the audience for the 50s music. Will there maybe start to be on
FM, in the larger markets, stations that are sort of hybrids of 50s oldies
and the music-of-your-life formats (where there's some overlap now).
Interview some other programmers, consultants, etc. It's just not critical
reporting -- I don't mean necessarily in the sense of criticizing, but of
examining whatever it is that's being written about with a little wider
view and from at least some of the possible angles. It's a press release.
It's the equaivalent of the sort of stuff you expect to see in some bad
podunk weekly.