RE: A Vermont radio story

["Pete Ferrand" <petef@sprynet.com>]

> "Another sad radio story.  It's happening everywhere."
> 
http://rutlandherald.nybor.com/Leisure/SunMag/Story/58596.html

It already happened almost everywhere.

We should congratulate the Herald for doing good job on telling the
story and making no obvious mistakes, even if the tone seems
disapproving of the changes.

Two or three months ago on the www.allaccess.com web site, which lists
many broadcasting job ads, there was an ad for a morning show host for
WNCS. I don't recall anything specific that it said, as it was pretty
generic, but it did request that presentations be sent to an address in
California, which I took to be the consultant that was mentioned in the
RH story.

As the article pointed out, it wasn't the consultant that made the final
decision, it was the owner...who in this case is not a multinational
conglomorate. In a situation like this, in general the Program Director
doesn't really direct anything - they may schedule the part timers and
make arrangements for remotes but they are basically 'implementors' who,
of course, implement the plans and policies of the consultant. 

It's not that consultants are evil, they're paid to show success and
show it quickly and to do that, and to get their next gig, they do not
see any benefit to experimenting with formats and catering to a less
than mainstream audience. It is nearly always true that when a
consultant is called in, management is unhappy with the way things are
going and the consultant is under the gun to change things and existing
loyalties are of little concern.

One of the WNCS changes over the years not emphasized by the RH article
was the additional frequencies the station now broadcasts on. Means the
station is now able to compete signal wise with others for the
mainstream audience, whereas with a single local signal it couldn't win
that game. So they quite likely will try to grab that larger audience by
playing familiar songs, mostly, since there's plenty of evidence that's
what works, and most people don't want to hear a bunch of obscure cuts.
And they'll try to keep as much of the AAA image that they can to make
it look like there's a difference since every business should have some
kind of distinguishing difference - even if in this case it will be more
perception than reality. It's also relatively easy to promote this sort
of thing.

A station where the jocks pick their own music is going to lose every
time to a station that plays music people want to hear....a station
would have to find jocks who know what people want to hear better than
the established methods and able to turn that into a better show. Not
very many stations have been successful with the latter approach, if you
define success as close to the top in the market in billings and ratings
in a marketable demo. 

I'm sure it's possible for a station to be a success using the old NCS
format, jocks doing their thing, being in touch with the lifestyle, and
so forth. But it would take a lot more risk, money (in promotion,
mostly) and a lot more time, and make the owner less money than trying
for the mainstream if it's possible given signal and market
considerations.

-Pete
Enfield, NH