Dr. Demento (was Re: Early Xmas)

[SteveOrdinetz]

>   Garrett Wollman <wollman@bimajority.org> wrote:
>
> > This is apparently a result of him leaving The House
> > That Norm Built
> > and switching to a different syndicator who is hated
> > by nearly
> > everyone in the business near as I can tell.
>


Wasn't it the other way around...WW1 dropping the good Doctor?  ISTR 
that a few years back many of the syndicators "cleaned house", 
dropping shows that had fairly low affiliate counts.  He's bounced 
between syndicators for many years, presumably for this very 
reason.  For a while I think he even syndicated the show himself.



At 05:54 PM 11/9/2008, Matthew Osborne wrote:


>However in the last 2 years they, as well as just
>about every other station I knew of that carried the
>show, dropped it.  The story I got was that it had
>switched syndicators again to this company called
>Thelonian Productions.  They came up with this
>"brilliant" idea that people would rather pay each
>week to hear the show streamed over the internet
>instead of hearing it on the radio.  So they
>eliminated the barter option for the radio show, and
>issued a directive to all remaining affiliates that
>the show was not to be streamed over the internet
>whatsoever (unless it was through their pay-by-week
>website).  Needless to say, most remaining affiliates
>dropped it because of these new terms.
>     In addition to WPYX dropping the show during this
>time, I also believe WKIT (100.3) Bangor ME dropped it
>for the same reason after carrying it for many years.


I'm wondering if a good part of Dr. Demento's declining affiliate 
count has as much to do with the show's content as anything.  Even in 
the early 2000's, the show was really starting to get stale.  Add to 
that the fact that his original audience (that discovered the show in 
the 70s/80s) is of an age now that's not likely to be listening to 
the radio at 11pm on a Sunday, and those who are probably aren't 
really into Spike Jones or some increasingly lame Weird Al parody song.