Music & Radio (was: air america)

[Bill O'Neill]

Keating writes:
> I assume that in five years, the music portion of radio will be devastated 
> by these new technologies, just as the recording industry has been 
> destroyed by downloaded and I-pods. Maybe local talk and entertainment 
> shows, s well as ethnic shows will be the last men standing???

I may be having a stroke as I write this (excuse for the drool) but the 
Frank/Dick/Moe/Larry/MP103s of the dial may be alone, coughing out the ones 
and zeroes, sans live or even tracked voices but for the drop-ins on the 
QTRs.  If digital radio makes it such that the stations will have more than 
one "channel" to offer, then there is hope. A cluster of signals comprising 
what we now consider a station could provide a range of complementary 
options, ad bundles all-around, and the same electric bill at the tower.

Having "survived" listening to assorted jock shifts, mostly AM drive, here 
in the great white north, eh, makes me appreciate jockless radio that much 
more. I'm sure that sentiment will last - until the rotation screws the 
listeners into actually believing that "variety" meant more than an industry 
rag or a store on the corner.

The last of the live shifts, for the most part, seem to have devolved to, 
unfortunately, that block of time we lovingly call morning drive. That means 
that you either get dinasaurs laughing at each other as they puke out wasted 
time & temp, throw away greeting lines, and and lame bits or talent that 
would make for outstanding producers.  No longer do you have the mid-day 
jock aspiring for PM or AM drive, nor do you have the evening guy just 
thankful not to be playing to closing bars, drunk and lonely callers, all of 
that leading up to a sunrise and empty streets that smell of pee. (Scary how 
we remember these things?)

Music stations can do good stuff, even in the future when satellite radio 
becomes a switch on even base model Kias. Local origination will only be 
important to the listener if stations show them why. Do what the national 
signals just can't and do it in a value-added way, not as an alternative.

Bill O'Neill