Re: Lowry Mays speaks

[SteveOrdinetz <steveord@bit-net.com>]

Steve West wrote:

>I just couldn't disagree more.  You're not seriously comparing radio to a
>typesetting machine at a print shop!!??

I am.  What goes on behind the scenes has changed over the years, but to 
the end user the difference is barely, if at all noticeable.  Keep in mind 
that we are all radio geeks on this list and pick up on little things the 
average listener doesn't notice nor do they care to.  It's the old adage 
about a barber walking down the street and noticing haircuts.


>There is a whole huge difference in radio today as compared to 20 years
>ago... no, even pre-1992 or 93.  Radio back then DID have soul!  Most major
>market stations had real entertainers (well, perhaps not on sleepy AC),
>people who really went out of their way to relate to their audience.  It
>really isn't that way now.
>Perhaps I'm wrong, now that I think about it, though.  Not in the overall
>picture, but in HOW jocks entertain today.  Look at Alternative and Hip
>Hop/Rap jocks... they relate to their audience, albeit in my opinion it is a
>severely dumbed down audience where Ebonics and inner city chatter is norm.
>Instead of a whitty one-liner, jocks get wrapped up in talking about sex...
>boobs and whatever else they think of at any particular moment.  You think
>THAT's 'soul'?


Do you seriously think that our parents' generation "got" Arnie Ginsburg, 
Jack Armstrong or Dale Dorman?  Maybe you or I find today's jocks less than 
entertaining, but from your post I gather that you are hardly in the demo 
for either altrock or hip-hop (nor am I).  Times and mores have changed 
over the years...the entertainment industry (and society) as a whole has 
gotten much coarser.  Knock-knock jokes ain't gonna cut it with Gen Y.


>No.  Fact is, aside from those two formats and the few remaining CHR's,
>everything else is heavilly voice tracked.  Nobody does time/temp (well
>okay, some consultants will tell us that those are unimportant items outside
>of morning drive) any more, we don't hear a lot of phoners during the day,
>except for the few stations that really try to relate - most just go along
>on autopilot.


Listening to several old 80s airchecks of WHTT & Kiss 108 didn't reveal a 
lot of audience interaction either.  Drake radio was pretty sterile for the 
most part too, with the exception of a few high profile ones most jocks 
were pretty interchangeable.  Sure it sounds good to us now, but that's 
what most of us on this list grew up with...back then "personality" jocks 
were screaming about how Drake "ruined" radio...took away all the 
"soul".  Somewhere on the web there's an aircheck of a WOR-FM jock bleating 
about how "the consultants" have taken over & "ruined" his station...it was 
made in 1967.  Back in the 60s WMEX used "house names" that went with the 
shift...if you did AM drive, you were Fenway.  How many listeners caught on 
that this weeks "Fenway" is a different guy than the "Fenway" who was on 
last week?  Stations were voicetracking 25+ years ago (1060 in Natick was 
one).  There are plenty of live jocks who aren't entertainers either..they 
just read the cards and that's it.  Maybe you don't care for today's radio, 
that's your perogative, but don't diss something just because it isn't the 
way it was when you grew up.  My neighborhood isn't the way it was 20 years 
ago either.


>Radio listening is down, what? 17 percent?  Is it more now with the latest
>reports?  I'll grant you that listeners have more distractions with the
>internet, mp3's, play stations, etc.... but the RADIO is still where people
>turn to hear music and entertainment first.  At this rate of listener
>decline, how long will it be before the majority of American's get
>entertained by some other medium?

The entertainment industry (not just radio) has yet to figure out how to 
effectively reach Gen. Y.  If it was just radio that was down, I'd say you 
had a point, but tv viewership, newspaper & magazine circulation and music 
sales are down too.  Why?  Fame and riches await the person who can come up 
with the answer.  My guess is that todays teens & 20somethings are just a 
different generation and they see the world differently than the boomers, 
and we boomers have no clue why they don't think our way is the best.

>Its a different world today.  I'm not that old (born in the 60's if one must
>know), but perhaps I've lost the ability to grow and adapt to the new way of
>doing business.... somehow I saw nothing wrong with doing things the old
>fashioned way.


Who was it that said that for some reason they stop making good music when 
you turn 40?