Shutdown of boston-radio-interest list

[Sean Smyth]

Garrett,

Thank you for providing us the forum to exchange ideas, meet interesting
people, and honor those who’ve since left us (specifically thinking of Bob
Bittner, although there are a number of others).

I never took up the vocation of broadcasting as I’d hoped, but I learned a
lot from this place. There were times where I asked many stupid questions
or said many stupid things, and the response was always polite and
professional. I probably didn’t deserve that much, honestly.

With this news and Fybush maybe giving up NERW, or at least that’s how I’ve
read notices in some recent columns, it’s the end of an era for us earlyish
Internet adopters.

Lastly: indeed, bottom posting would make life so much better — but Google
and Microsoft have deemed otherwise, and I’ve adopted the path of least
resistance.

Thanks,
Sean

P.S. Apologies for the repeated use of I.

Sent from my iPhone


On Thu, Nov 30, 2023 at 2:30 PM Garrett Wollman <wollman@bostonradio.org>
wrote:

> Hi, all,
>
> This mailing-list was originally created in 1997, at a time when both
> radio and the Internet were in a very different situation than they
> are now.  Broadcasting was experiencing paroxysms of consolidation,
> which has largely now ended, but was still quite vibrant and the
> medium through which many if not most people were exposed to news, new
> music, and political views.  In the Internet, it was still reasonably
> possible for anyone to operate public services like web and mail
> servers on pretty much any machine that had a full-time network
> connection.
>
> We no longer live in that world, and people no longer view
> mailing-lists like this one as an easy and low-effort way to exchange
> news and views.  So too has local radio largely gone by the wayside,
> as consolidation has led to more national programming and a continuous
> push to cut expenses like staffing (both on-air and behind the
> scenes).  Many of the industry pros who joined this list have retired;
> several are deceased, including Bob Bittner, whose "Let's Talk About
> Radio" show was one of the inspirations for this list.  Traffic here
> has dwindled to a trickle, with six months this year seeing no
> legitimate submissions at all.  It's time to hang up the cans.
>
> The archives will remain publicly accessible on bostonradio.org for as
> long as I'm able to keep it going, but this mailing-list, which
> depends on the unmaintained GNU Mailman 2.x, will be shut down on
> December 31, 2023.  I am sending this advance notice to allow those
> who wish to post any final words or reminiscences.  It's been nice
> knowing you all; do keep in touch.
>
> -GAWollman
>
>