[BC] making hard choices

[Xmitters at aol.com]

Hi Rich:

Very good points. I have interspersed my response with yours.

In a message dated 2/1/09 5:02:38 AM Central Standard Time, 
broadcast-request at radiolists.net writes:

> >Regarding the programming decisions, etc. whomever is making them, whatever
>  >their title, is making some pretty bad calls, given the audience decline. 
> How
>  >to fix this or even if it's fixable at all, you know better than I.
>  
>  I don't know what, specifically, is causing the audience decline. Is 
>  it really bad programming? Is it the great number of alternatives? I 
>  don't believe anyone really knows.

**** Rich:
I understand this apparent dilemma. However using myself as an example, I 
would not care what the alternatives are, if I can get what I want from radio. 
Radio has all other electronic media beat because of its convenience.  For me, 
it has to be convenient first, content second. So it is a false dilemma to say 
the problem is either poor programming or too many alternatives. If it's a too 
many alternatives problem, then maybe we should not fire up on HD1, HD2, and 
HD3. I think most people are interested in one alternative; that's the one 
that fills the entertainment void the best. ********

>  
>  >Not sure what you mean that I ( i'm assuming you mean my age group) have 
no
>  >credibility because I'm in public radio. I don't see how being in public 
> radio
>  >is relevant.
>  
>  What I meant by that is the snooty attitude of Public Radio towards 
>  Commercial people and the condescending attitude of Commercial people 
>  towards Public Radio. I've worked in both and have seen it first 
>  hand. When I left WJIB to go to WGBH I was, initially, looked at as 
>  the enemy trying to infiltrate. The Commercial folks thought I was 
>  crazy.- a deserter.

Rich:
*** I've spent over 30 years in radio, bouncing back and fourth from 
commercial and public radio. There was one privately owned radio station I work
ed for 
where the owner would occasionally bitch because my moncomm had better 
equipment than he had; that was his choice  He did however, do a wonderful job 
mentoring me. Over many of those 30 years, I worked for noncomm and commercial 
stations concurrently. Other commercial statons did not consider noncomm as a 
threat because noncomm never showed up in the book. I did not witness a great d
eal 
of strong feelings in one camp, concerning those making up the other camp. I 
never was needled about being a diserter, or working for "pretend radio" or any
 
of that. I did find that commercial radio was much more exciting than noncomm 
during the 90's decade. After that, the corporate people moved to town, and 
all of that changed. ***

>  
>  >I would much rather listen to a freshly designed 1980's rock format; I 
> really
>  >like that stuff. If there were such a format within my listening range, I
>  >would be listening and possibly responding to their commercials. If there 
> were
>  >such a station, it would likely be processed to death, and I would not 
> listen
>  >anyway. So I don't understand the lacking credibility thing that you 
>  >mentioned.
>  
>  By credibility I mean that many commercial people don't consider 
>  Public Radio as real radio and many resent their tax dollars being 
>  used for a format they don't like. If they liked it that would be a 
>  different story. If you've been on this list for long you probably 
>  recall several threads where Public Radio and TV were ripped to 
>  shreds. The assumption is that it's totally funded by their taxes, 
>  which, as you know, is untrue. I suspect Wall Street bankers have 
>  overtaken Public Radio as the Devil incarnate. It's a diversionary 
>  tactic devised by them libruls to take the heat off.
>  
>  You're correct in suspecting the 80's format you'd like to hear would 
>  be processed to death.

Rich:
***** It sure seems to me that the attitude about processing is one of the 
major changes that has to take place to make radio an entertainment contender 
again. Analog FM can be made to sound damned good. Ergo, it seems like 
processing only to prevent transmitter overmodulation would be a hell of a lot 
cheaper 
than going HD and expecting the public to buy a radio. I further believe that 
the HD will be processed to death as well.  Processing is a human nature, ego 
thing, and is not about technology. Worse yet, the processing decision is 
often made by one person on the staff. 

One thing that ASCAP/BMI could do to help us all is to forbid audio quality 
modification of copyrighted material. That would improve audio quality, bring 
everyone down to a level playing field, and eliminate the idiocy of one person 
with burned out hearing, making the processing decision. ******

>  
>  >My listening habits vary like a drunken truck driver on the freeway; AM, 
FM,
> 
>  >Short Wave, etc. I just don't listen to much radio at all. I guess you 
> could
>  >say that I shy away from all radio, not having any prejudice for or 
>  >against any
>  >particular kind of station. Radio sucks universally; I know that when I 
> flip
>  >the switch and turn that big knob.
>  
>  I'm not sure which I prefer, the person who doesn't listen at all or 
>  one that doesn't listen to my station. From a ratings perspective you 
>  do less harm by not listening at all. That way you can let the 
>  stations kill themselves.
>  
>  Rich

Rich,
*** well, being a broadcast professional, it does not matter what I do as a 
listener. As I understand the rules, neither I nor anyone in my immediate 
family, can fill out an Arbitron diary. I would certainly think you would be 
concerned about why people don't listen to radio at all. Percentage of audience
 your 
station has does not mean much without also knowing the listener population, 
as I'm sure you know. And that's why I'm rather surprised that you said you 
don't know which would be better, etc. 

I know how to reduce the spread of AIDS to zero. The spread will be ZERO once 
everyone has it. So it does not matter much if you have 10% of the audience 
if there is only 100 listeners. But if you had a 1% of an audience of 100,000, 
THAT would be much better. I'm sure you are keenly aware of this, and I 
mention it only because there are a lot of people that take percenatages to hea
rt 
without knowing the population of what's being measured. 

So if we are going to help radio survive, I think that a lot of emotional, 
baseless major decisions that have been made have to be scrapped in favor of 
real, scientifically gathered data. There is too much "that's how we've always 
done it" mentality in this business, and that has to change if we expect things
 
to get better (working environment, employment stability, pay compensation, 
attraction of young blood to our business, etc.)  What "we've always done 
before" apparently is not working. 

Jeff Glass, BSEE CSRE
Chief Engineer
WNIU WNIJ
Northern Illinois University