RE: Lowry Mays speaks

["Bill O'Neill" <billo@shoreham.net>]

Steve writes:

> Radio listening is down, what? 17 percent?  <snip> At this rate of
listener
> decline, how long will it be before the majority of American's get
> entertained by some other medium?

Tomorrow isn't soon enough.  Okay, I'm a native of market #6 living in,
what, 90 something?  But still, I can't recall the last time a station
back-sold.  So knowing the music takes more work and time, I ain't got.
I want to know the deal on how Vermont and New England is doing, and I
am restricted to hard-to-port VPR/NPR and a handful of locals who pot up
either CNN or ABC radio news.  WVMT (620 Burlington) has local news but
there's NO ONE in the streets, no investigative reporting, and casts are
primarily ript n' read from the BFree dePress and the Rutland Herald.

The more I think/rant about the dearth of hard-hitting local coverage
and local perspective that go beyond the focal points of Burlington and
Montpelier, I can almost forgive the market since it is so limited in
what it can bill.  It's even more glaring a problem as I drop back into
Dracut to visit the homestead and scan the Boston dial.

I know, I know, news does NOT pay, it is a cost center.  If overall
listenership is being lost, why knee-jerk to some excuse that ANOTHER
medium is the blame?  Deflecting the cause away from this industry to
another doesn't work for me.  In case we havn't noticed, Internet sales
are ghastly, the cure-all electronic media solution ... wasn't.  And
yet, radio keeps on.  The opportunity still exists for relevance,
regardless of whether owned by a CC or a local investor.

Bill O'Neill