[BC] Digital vs new (was: stamping opinions)

[SteveOrdinetz]

Sid Schweiger wrote:
> >>How about market unique creative personality radio... Oh I that 
> requires Air
>Talent not just The Jock in the Box we have today.<<
>
>In a way, the demise of WCBS-FM and WJMK almost 14 months ago was 
>symbolic.  Those stations were staffed with top air talent that came, for 
>the most part, out of another era...when air personalities were real 
>people, not either automatons reading cards, voice-tracking experts or 
>absent altogether.  Their firings were the last gasp of that kind of 
>radio.  They actually made it worthwhile to listen, and studies done back 
>in the 1960s proved that people actually tuned in to hear them and not 
>just to hear the music.  Aside from the legendary jocks like Harry 
>Harrison, Dan Ingram, Dick Biondi, and others out of that era, the fact 
>that some of the younger air talent like Bob Shannon (a.k.a. Don Bombard), 
>who learned their trade from those older men, can't find steady work more 
>than a year after being let go, speaks volumes about this business.

But is there any real LISTENER demand for so-called "personality" radio?  I 
don't mean a bunch of middle-aged radio guys reminiscing about the good old 
days, I mean the general public.  There is copious research showing that 
listeners would rather hear music than a bunch of yappy djs.  It was true 
40 years ago when Bill Drake was programming the RKO-General stations, it's 
true today.  The number of jocks who could pull off personality radio was 
very small even back then.  There were lots more Jack Armstrong/Joey 
Reynolds/Cousin Brucie wannabees that should have just done the time & temp 
and gone into the next song instead of lame bits or character voices that 
didn't work.

I also miss that kind of radio...the music was better too, but that was 
then, this is now.