[BC] Turned-off listeners (Was: ...Sirius-ly...")

[WFIFeng@aol.com]

In a message dated 05/14/2005 7:08:18 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
armtx at mhcable.com writes:

> I don't think its consumer ignorance as much as it is a choice not  to 
>  support something that supports garbage programming.

Exactly. They're voting with their wallets, and that's the loudest way to 
vote.

What puzzles me, tho, is why all the live & local radio people are gone... 
how did those small, local stations ever survive with staffs of a dozen or more? 
I had been to the site of a certain small station back in the very early 90's 
and it was alive... there were no less than a dozen people in there, all 
busily working. Production people cutting & splicing, recording bits, etc... 
dashing back & forth to the air studio with carts & Copy, where the DJ was keeping 
the hits spinning, playing spots, etc. That station had been running that way 
for quite a few years, too... as a *daytimer*! When I was there it was 24 
hours on a new freq, and it was very much alive and humming. 

Then, a few years later, I had the sad task of helping with gutting the now 
*former* studio/office facilities of that small station. It had just "flipped 
the bird" and was now nothing more than a satellite dish & PC at the TX site. 
That once-"alive" building was now empty. Dark. Dusty. Most of the furniture 
had already been removed. All that remained was some equipment that needed to be 
moved to the TX site for storage, and the rest to the dumpster. I have to 
admit, it actually choked me up just a little... what was once a living, 
breathing organism, was now just an empty shell. Empty office after empty office, on a 
hallway that was once bustling with activity. It was now cold, lonely, bleak. 
Oh, sure, that station's *signal* was still on the air, and it still had the 
same call letters... but the busy staff was now a memory. Only the FCC 
mandated two remained (the owner & his wife) and a part time staffer, who did all of 
his work in the little "closet" studio up at the TX site.

Again... what happened? How were all those little stations keeping such 
staffs paid and happy, and now, they're all dark & empty with nothing but a PC & 
sat dish most of the time?

If some stations would bring back the live, *local* announcers and 
programming, I wonder if the listenership would eventually return, also? They'd notice 
that the announcers were talking about their local area, giving the actual 
*time* & temp (not "12 past the hour")... 

sigh. Rant over.

Willie...