The AM Forum

For many years, I have been listening to an FM station over in RI which shall remain otherwise nameless in this posting.  They were, until recently, unique in that they played a good mix of swing, jazz, and blues, and some of the better classic rock, in contrast to the usual  "oldies" and "played to death classic rock"  They esepcially were good at featuring local blues talent like Roomful of Blues, Al Copley, Greg Piccolo and Eight to the Bar.  Although I listened to them frequently, their playlist was big enough that I never felt like I was hearing the same stuff over and over again.

In the last few weeks, thye have switched to a "variety" format, which is anything but.  They now seem to have a very short playlist, and are playing the same lame "classic rock" stuff over and over.  I have talked to them and emailed them my opinion and they say stay tuned, we are workng things out, and you will start hearing more and better stuff soon.  Its been very slow coming though. They said the format change was made because they weren't making any money on the old format.  How they will with their new one, which makes them sound like all the other local classic rock staions in the area, but worse with their short playlist, is beyond me...

The main question for this post, as I suspect some of you with broadcasting background might know, is what limits or other wise restricts what tracks of a particular artist a commercial station may play?  There is a lot of great stuff out there, but on commercial radio, all you ever hear is the same old played to death tracks by the same artists.  Is it a liscensing and copyright thing?  Do stations have to pay fees by the title?  For example, the station in question plays Layla and Bell Bottom Blues by Clapton to death, but never any of his other stuff.  What, other than a lack of imagination, would stop tthem from playing tracks from some of his recent albums like Riding with the King (B.B), or Me and Mr. (Robert )Johnson, as I have suggested to them?

The cardinal rule is "Don't offend".

The worst sin is to play something that will cause someone to tune out.

Bland is covering the land.

Trite is right.

Arcane is the golden vein.

I'm sorry.

73, Bill W1AC

Agreed, Chris.

I'm not in the business, but from a listener's standpoint, all the stations sound alike to me. The "Classic Rock" format seems to be the same 20 tunes in rotation and I've had it up to here with Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin.

I truly miss the progressive FM of the '70s, which was exemplified in my market at the time by WMMR in Philadelphia. Lots of album cuts and no morning zoo.

I also would love to see some stations dedicated to the likes of Tony Bennett, Sinatra and swing music. Now that I'm growing buzzardly I am appreciating that stuff more. I have a cigar box full of CDs that I run in the car - Dean Martin, Tommy Dorsey, Johnny Mercer and Lounge Music.  Back in '73, f you had told me after a Uriah Heep concert that I would be listening to this stuff someday I would have laughed.

Just my $0.02.

btw, Maggie and I saw Bennett at the Kimmel Center in Phila last year, and he rocked!

I've made the switch to todays country, although it's a bit more pop than country... BUT AT LEAST IT'S LISTENABLE... ;D

The Seattle Sound is beaten to death...

Uh Jack,

The Seattle Sound had been toast since the mid 90s.  Nowadays, most of today's music is either hip hop oriented (ugh!), "lost in the 70s" classic rock ala Eric Clapton (yawn!), or the 80s stuff like New Wave, or Rush's "Spirit of Radio."  Oh teah, and let's not forget awesome oldies songs like Leslie Gore's, "It's My Party."  In the workplace, I've been subjected to the above on a daily basis.  I swear somedays I want to scream, after putting up with WDRV's same old 70s rock blasting out of the work area our maintenance man has (which is next to where I work).

I agree with Bill. It's all about the least common denominator - songs people are comfortable, and familiar with.  They're a sure thing.  Most people only half-listen to music anyway.  It sort of colors a sound background (sort of like audio wallpaper).  The more familar a song is to them the more it sort of fades into the half noticed background.  Muzak is like dull pastel colors, but music you like is like colrs that are pleasing to the eye.  Most people in my experience are too cheap to go out and buy albums.  So, they never hear most of an album's songs.  That's a shame.  Because in my opinion, many of the songs you constantly hear on the radio, are the weakest songs on their respective albums.  But record company execs, decided they were the lowest common denominator (read easiest to spoon feed to the masses), so that's why they were chosen to receive airplay.  As it is, many if not most DJs don't get to choose their playlists anymore, since corporate radio station owners like Clear Channel, use focus groups to determine playlists.

Another thought - all too often, people like to stick with the familiar musically.  Here are some examples:

1.  A drummer in one of my bands was a total Led Head.  Everytime we'd talk about any musical goings on, he'd always try to fit in in the context of something similar he'd read about, happening to Led Zepplin, Deep Purple, etc.  The guy was only 4  years older than me, but was totally lost in the 70s musically.  His image of a rock band look, was like a 70s metal band.  When I asked him why he didn't try listening to some of the newer stuff, he told me that the newer stuff left him feeling cold, where as the older classic rock type stuff gave him a warm familiar feeling.

2.  Some years back, I read in "Guitar World" magazine, about the remastering of the Derek and the Dominos album "Layla"  (soapbox time - why is that album so popular?, most of the songs are based upon heroin-head Clapton [he was hooked on the stuff at the time] whining about how he wasn't married to George Harrison's wife [eventually he did marry, and DIVORCE her - what a joke!]).  In the article, Tom Dowd (who produced "Layla"), mentioned that when the master tape was remastered into digital format, some of the tracks (mentioned in the notes he wrote while producing the album), that were buried in the original mix, became much more clearly audible.  "Layla" was remixed with these lost tracks added in. The new mix was played for some Derek and the Dominos fanatics. Almost all of them whined that "it didn't sound like it should."  As a result, the remix was basically changed to just a clean-up of noise that was in the original mix.  Tom Down was kind of disappointed.

2. I have the remastered version of "Raw Power" by The Stooges.  I think it sounds great (if I want to hear some raw, proto-punk, I'll play "Raw Power").  One audio expert (read audiophool), states on his website, that the remaster is a travesty of the album.  "It doesn't have the classic  garagey sound of the original mix,"  in spite of the fact that Iggy Popp himself has stated that the original mix was NOT a very good reproduction of what the sound was in the studio, when "Raw Power" was recorded.

Just my 2 cents worth.

73,
Ellen - AF9J

Hi:

I used to work in Radio as an engineer.

The format wars have been around since the late 70's. As listener's options grow (8 track, cassette, CD and now satellite and MP3) the money pie has been divided many times. As a station also gets sold, the new owners want to increase the profits taken out. So in order to try to get their return, they dumb down the format.

Yesterday I saw a friend's new car stereo...it has a USB connector on it. He plugs in his thumb drive in and gets all the music he wants (over 200 hours worth on a 2 gig drive)....the broadcast stations refuse to try to satisfy the listener and will never know what hit them!

Radio in Boston is indeed better than other markets, but about all I can listen to is NPR and college stations. I have always tried to wave the flag for the broadcaster, but I cannot anymore as the commercial spot breaks get longer (about 5-7 minutes each nowadays). And yes, no new music.

73,
Dan W1DAN

  "  after putting up with WDRV's same old 70s rock blasting out of the work area our maintenance man has (which is next to where I work).  "


The answer(s)

GDO

or

LO

Enjoy The Sounds of Silence    .......  klc

That seems par for the course with about everything these days, not just radio.  The "dumbing down" of America (or perhaps more appropriately, the world) has  long been a subject of ongoing debate, but it seems pretty obvious to me, if that's the only way radio, TV, newspapers, internet sites and consumer product manufacturers can make a profit.

That's also why about the only broadcast radio I listen to any more is NPR, plus local programming on our public radio and university stations.

The buzzword in both public and commercial radio these days is "HD".  But at best, the alleged improvement in audio quality over good analogue FM would be minuscule.  While the industry is fighting out the pro- vs anti- HD radio battle in a manner not unlike the current presidential nomination race, commercial stations are losing listeners to other media every day because the program content on 99% of the stations sucks.  Shit coming in over "crystal clear HD" is still shit.  Ever try to polish a turd?

Speaking of "HD Radio",  according to the HD Radio Alliance,  HD means
"Hybrid Digital", implying that it carries both analogue and digital
content, in-band on-channel (IBOC) .

Actually, "HD Radio" is a registered trademark,  nothing more than
iBiquity's brand name for its in-band on-channel  technology,  much in the
same manner that AAA is simply "Triple A", a self-contained trade name that
no longer stands for "American Automobile Association", and KFC is a
stand-alone trade name, no longer considered the initials for  "Kentucky
Fried Chicken".

Unfortunately, most of the tiny minority of the public who has even heard of "HD radio" has mistakenly formed a non-existent association between HD (high-definition) television and HD radio.  The term "high-definition" has no meaningful application to sound quality.  The Oxford Dictionary defines the word "definition" as "the quality of being clear and easy to see".  The proper term when referring to audio quality, as most of us know, is "fidelity".

Nevertheless, I frequently hear people speak of  HD radio as "high-def". I
suspect that iBiquity is subtly promoting this misconception and confusion
of terms, hoping that the non-technical public can be led to associate the
alleged improvements in sound clarity with HD radio with the obvious
improvements in picture quality they see with HD television.  In other words, they are trying to promote IBOC by letting it ride on the coattails of high definition TV.

I grew up listening to  WRNO (Rock of New Orleans) and WNOE FM in the early/mid 70's and NOE in particular did a lot of "deep album cuts".  Now I rarely have anything on in the car or truck but XM radio or a CD and it is often XM tuned to the  old time radio channel.  My new car on order is equipped with XM, a 40 gig hard drive, USB port, and dedicated Ipod integration so I seriously doubt that I will be making much use of free broadcast radio.  My listening tastes are definitely varied or eclectic, lots of variety big band through rock just leave out the rap please.  But I do like a lot of the 60's/70's R&B and just downloaded a lot of Curtis Mayfield material to my Ipod.

One of my worst radio experiences was last year when I was driving into work (25 mile commute from a rural area) and the weather was starting to go downhill.  I switched to the local AM station to check the weather and found out they had basically become almost all national feed with very little local and it seems big mouth Limbaugh was the feature of the hour.  When I attempted to switch back to FM I found out the radio in my Aurora had a little computer lockup and I could not switch stations, switch to CD, reduce the volume, or turn off the radio.  Even when I pressed the onstar button to hopefully mute the radio the noise continued.   I tried a quick engine stop/restart hoping that would reset but no happiness and I had to drive another 10 miles feeling my IQ slowly dropping until I got to work and pulled out the radio fuse.  If you have seen the Mel Brooks film, "High Anxiety" I felt like I was in a low budget remake with the radio that wouldn't turn off.

In summary, if an AM/FM radio were an option I am not sure I would order it.

Rodger WQ9E

He gets off on Country music
'cause disco left him cold ...
He's got young friends into New Age
But he's just too friggin old ...

               The Old Hippie, The Bellamy Brothers

I too was a broadcast engineer, and in broadcast radio for 15-years. Unfortunately the lament of fat cat owners trying to maximize profits is a bit too oversimplified.

The problem began in the early 80's when broadcast stations began to be purchased by investor types financed by venture capital. These new owners replaced traditional broadcasters and saw broadcast stations as licenses to print money. And for a time they were. The mode of operation was usually to operate the station for a few years and then flip it at a substantial profit.

As venture capital sought more stations to buy, lobby groups formed to press the FCC for more channel allotments.  In response, the FCC eventually added hundreds of new stations to the FM band in the 80s and early 90s, mostly on the fringes of larger markets.

Pressure groups lobbied for and received changes in ownership restrictions. The longstanding 7/7/7 ownership rule was changed to 12/12/12. Then the Communications Act was amended in 1996 to basically remove limits on total station ownership with a new market based local station limit.

With the ownership limits basically gone, billions of dollars of venture capital poured into the industry. The mega groups began to form, and large clusters of stations were created in many markets under common management.

At the height of the frenzy, the price of existing licenses inflated to outrageous levels with licenses sometimes changing hands on as much as 25 times cash flow. A former station owner I knew said he sold out because he received an offer he just could not refuse. The buyer set him up for life.  By the same token he called the new investor type owners suckers and said he'd hate to be in the radio business now. The reason is that the new operators are totally owned by Wall Street investment bankers and are slaves to the huge debt on their books.

Radio has become bland and mediocre because the bankers are basically now running the stations. Bankers don't like to take risks. The major station groups are simply operators running their groups for the banks. The radio groups can't allow their stations to do anything that would jeopardize their cash flow. The trickle down impacts both the programming and the operation. Expenses have to be kept low so that cash flow can be maximized. News departments are expensive to maintain, so local news was consolidated or eliminated. Local talk show talent takes time to nurture and requires salaries to be paid. The solution to that problem was cheap syndicated programing such as Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham. Promotions departments were scaled back or eliminated. Engineering was reduced or eliminated. Now it's not uncommon for one engineer to take care of an entire cluster whereas each station might have once had its own engineer. Some stations have no engineer at all and rely on a contractor.

It's not unheard of for the bankers have to have veto rights over capital improvements and format changes. Many good people have left the business because there is no possibility to be creative or their jobs were cut to maintain cashflow. Formulas and focus groups rule the day. Morning shows follow the same tired format of two flatulent, flea infested bozos trying to out gross the competition. The music becomes the same 25 tunes over and over. You will never see anything new or innovative because of the present situation. The people running the major radio groups are simply slaves and there is little they can do to change things. Pity them.

73, Jim
WA2AJM/3

There may have been licensing issues for the music they were playing, OR when it came time to renew/pay their yearly fee, a bean counter said no, and now you're stuck with the SOS.
A station that plays such a wide variety of music that pleases your ears may not be popular with the majority of listeners. The radio station's goal is to make money not to let people hear something beyond what their little brain considers music. I'm sick of the played to death classic rock stations too. The satellite radio is doing a pretty good job of expanding the music horizon,(Bone Yard, Deep Tracks...on XM) even though there are terrestrial die-hards that dont' like XM or Sirius. They like to pick the audio quality to pieces. (My .01 cents worth)
We have a nice station in Pittsburgh Pa called "BOB radio" . I don't know the call letters, but they play this super wide variety of music you HAD on your FM. I call that entertainment. Coz you don't know where they are going to take your ears on the next tune.

OK enough from MOP radio...............Fred

Welp,  ;D

 There's ALWAYS Jim Quinn and the Politically Suave' Set.... ;D

 War Room Dot Com...LOL....

http://www.warroom.com/

He's so Emotional... 8)

I guess everyone is in violent agrement with me about the lame formats.  But still have'nt heard an answer to the question - do commercial BC stations have to pay royaltys or other fees to the artists when the play a title? Do they pay by the title or by the artist, or by the album?  Is there some material out there that is out of copyright and that is why you hear it played to death?  Is newer material more costly, hence less played?

Fred hit it here. "Narrowcasting" has recently been the  mantra of many programmers. They're doing whatever they can to prevent listeners from hitting the channel button on the radio by offending them. You and I might be sick of hearing Free Bird for the umteenth time, but are less likely to change the station because of it than if they put an unfamiliar piece of music on. This is what their scientific studies show. A station having 300 to 500 songs in frequent rotation  is a rare bird today, 100 songs is more commonplace. Go into a restaurant or bar that has a jukebox; people play the same 10 songs over and over.

BMI and ASCAP base their fees mostly on the market size of a radio station, they don't collect lists of played music and charge by any particular song. Non-Comm stations pay less in fees than commercial stations. AM or FM talk station that play music only incidentally (theme and bumper songs like Limbaugh playing My City was Gone) and TV pay less as well.

The amount that a major market FM music station might pay in music licensing fees is staggering, tens of thousand$ per year. Most of that is distributed, in turn, to the songwriters, not necessarily the performers according to some formula.

For example, whoever wrote Free Bird gets the music royalties, the rest of the Lynyrd Skynyrd band gets nothing, unless the band itself has a contract to share the royalties.

...Aaaah Limbaugh.....I have but one thing to say to this Fellow..

http://lunkhead.net/wavs/nation.wav

Like Bill said, they do.  18 or 19 years ago, an old boyfriend of mine (who also played in a couple of bands with me), used to be a manager at a Hardees.  I asked him why the Hardees he managed, played such lame muzak oriented pop covers on their sound system, instead of just playing the local radio station.  He told me that it was due to the costs they'd have to pay ASCAP and BMI in song royalties if they played original music, even if it was from the radio.  It was cheaper for Hardees to use a Muzak type service in this regard, that having to pay fees associated with replaying the original artists' material.  This was also the case for the drummer of a band I used to be in, in the eary 90s.  He owned a bar, that had a jukebox, and once a month (or every other month), the regional ASCAPand or BMI guy would come in, to make sure that all of the songs he had in his jukebox, were registered for royalties payments.  It wasn't much, but out drummer still had to pay them.

Shift to the present - a fair amount of you like satellite radio.  For me, if I don't have CDs playing, I have on internet radio.  Like satellite, I can put on Iceberg Radio (internet radio, which is based out of Canada), and listen to music streams that range from Sinatra, to Dvorak, to Hank Williams, to 70s rock, to Death Metal.   Over the past few years, Internet radio stations have been under  fire from the RIAA (Recording Industry Action Association - sort of the record companies' trained attack dog), due to the fact that internet radio stations pay little or no royalties for playing songs via the internet (these stations claim that the rules don't clearly state that paying song royalties, also includes songs  played over the internet).  The RIAA wants punative damages from the internet radio stations for playing music on the internet, and also wants a system of royalty payments enacted for internet radio stations.  

This has happened in part.  But as a result, stations that never used to have commercials, have now started including commercials in their streams, in order to defray costs to the RIAA.  Some internet radio stations have started to charge a subscription fee to listen to their music.  More than a few of the smaller 1 and 2 man internet radio stations have gone belly up, because they cannot afford to pay the RIAA's prices.  This is too bad, because a lot of these smaller stations played cool stuff by independent artists.  Nevertheless, unless a station can show that all of its music it plays, is not from record labels that belong to the RIAA, it can count upon having to deal with them.  This is the case for both radio and internet radio stations.  This adds up to a significant chunk of change after a while.  So, who gives you your best return on your song playing/royalty fee costs? - the  popular artists of course.

with anther 2 cents worth,
Ellen - AF9J

This was a big issue with Steppenwolf some years ago, John Kay was wise to the fallout and protected his interests very early on, subsequently some members fell short on funds because of it...

Nothing new, it's business...

Well Bill to be quite honest it doesn't matter to me much anymore...commercial Terrestrial radio one way or the other..it could falter and I wouldn't miss it a bit..

Now AM on the Amateur bands is a Different situation...

The short sighted quick buck has effectively put the nail in the coffin of terrestrial broadcast radio.

As someone outlined earlier, the change of rules that put millions of $$ into the pockets of the banks and a few mega conglomerated companies (like Clear Channel) effectively eliminated local control and local broadcasters.

As is always the case where profit is confused with wealth, the profiteers have prospered in the short term at the expense of the many.

The only bright spot is that in about 10 years or so the value of broadcast stations will diminish to the point where they might drop in value sufficiently for some small local entrepreneurs to re-acquire stations and build real programming. The advent of actually good and interesting programming always has grabbed an audience.

The other aspect is that there is likely forethought and intention behind these developments as it surely looks like there is a desire for a limiting of independent media voices, and control thereof in this country. The thorn in the side is/was the apparently not fully appreciated or anticipated effect of the internet. There are those who seem to be pushing for rules and regulations that will similarly shut this "flaw" down too.

The example in point here is the early days of C band satellite.
It became apparent to many small independent stations that suddenly they could originate shows! Which many did. The networks acted fairly quickly to stop this in its tracks. How? They said, if you want to carry our network programming you may not originate programming for distribution via satellite. Over, done, fini.

So, it seems you can have a "free press" but "market forces" will be manipulated via rules that effectively prempt and preclude non-conforming sources from being available to more than a tiny percentage of the population.


                _-_-Wombat Batter Two Graphic Creamery Riddles

I'd like to see that Bear.. "Build Real Programming Again"... I really would...there's alot of things that need to go belly up and get the control out of the hands that are ruining it...it'd be great Honest business again...Now that's a great concept...

You can hear some good streaming audio sources from outside the USA, beyond the jurisdiction of US copyright and royalty laws.

I don't even listen to what's on the FM stations around here, cause it's crap that just don't sound good. most of the stations here play rock, pop, or someother new music, and I would rather listen to the older music(eventhough I am only 14 and it makes more sense, at least in my mine that I should seem to listen to the newer music more). Most of the seemingly better music is on AM, but that band is crowded with a bunch of talk stations. But if you want to hear 40s and 50s music, there's a lot of stations playing that. I was surprised at how many there were. Listen to Toronto's AM740 at night, they have some good old music on there.

Funny you should mention it, but I had 740 out of Toronto 5-9 on my stupid '94 Nissan Sentra's transeestor radio last night! Good music, excellent selection of cuts when I was listening. (near smAlbany NY).

Unfortunately for now I can't listen to streaming anything on this stupid dial-up. :-(
Kinda missing - no missed - the best days of internet radidio.

As far as new music, there is excellent music out there, IF you can find it.
Problem is that the record companies are obsessed with "urban contemp", "pop" and "pseudo- country" to the exclusion of almost everything else.

Every once in a while I hear something, often on a college station, or while driving somewhere that is terrific. Try to figure out what it is, what label, who the artist is or how to get it... apparently stations no longer feel the need to announce these things... ah well...

         _-_-Wombat Bear Two Gorilla Cheetah Rodents

I gave up.
I took my entire CD collection down here and ripped everything onto the hard drive. Now I just burn CD's and use them when I want to listen to music. Talk Radio on AM & CD's for classic rock, but my choices, not theirs.
That works.
Keith
WA1HZK

Yep Don,

I listen to Iceberg Radiio, which is based in Canada.  Still, U.S. based services like Live 365 have suffered from the RIAA's strongarm tactics.

73,
Ellen - AF9J

CJBC 860 kHz has some good stuff.  The music is a mixture of English and French, of about every imaginable genre.  I used to be able to pick them up regularly here at night, but some new post-sunset garbage has made reception difficult for the past few years, but I can get them good quality via streaming audio.

There is an alternative (to commerical FM) if you can accept a little less 'professional' presentation. Tune into your local noncom, typically below 92 MHz. Of course, there's your local NPR outlet, that plays everything the network sends, but I'm talking about those university and mom-and-pop local (low power) broadcasters who program whatever music they want. They do have to please their sponsors, which are either grantees or listeners who donate through what we call "beg-a-thons".

Case in point, KSFR, our local station which just moved up to 101.1 from 90.7, doing some kind of strange deal with a commercial station for the better site. They have streaming audio online, of course, so you can check it out. Excellent Jazz during the morning, new stuff late nights, show tunes in evening, on weekends country on Saturday and new stuff Sundays. Amy Goodman comes on with her liberal counter to Rush, but I can tune that out easily as I can with Rush. Another case in point that i remember back east, WXPN in Philly at U of Penn. It has become very professional but still plays good tunes. I'm sure there are many similar stations nationwide where you can actually here the B sides as well as music that you would never find sold at Walmart and Target.

I'm suspecting your local station was bought by a chain at some point in the recent past.

The communications act was modified during the mid '90s to allow control over the midia by a few small number of people.  This, I believe, was not necessarily a business decision - but one which would eventually centralize control over the media.  Well, guess what - that's exactly what happened.

With very few independent media outlets, there are no "crusaders" or "risk takers" out there to make trouble or create innovative programs.

If you think about it, virtually all of the great TV and radio programs which we saw/heard in the 60s were created or written by one person, or a VERY small number of people.  You didn't have the political forces in operation to "take out" anything that might offend someone.  The writer/producer had pretty much full control.  Only occasionally did the networks get into the act (remember the Smothers Brothers?) and call foul.

A good recent example of a well written series (written by Steven Moffat) is the British comedy called "Coupling".  Coupling is one of the funniest programs I have *ever* seen.  It is simple, non-glitzy (very non-glitzy), FUNNY, and does not attempt to make any political statements.  The writing is clever, but not irreverant.  The people on the program dress simply, are attractive but not gorgeous or overdone, are *polite* to each other, speak proper English, and do not engage in outlandish or shocking behaviours.  No one has a lot of money.  And, the program is HAPPY.

The U.S. version of Coupling died after about 3 episodes (well, maybe a few more).  I never actually saw it, but I could *not* imagine any US based TV network ever producing anything like the British Coupling series.  There'd have to be some sort of political statements, and of course the program would have to feature fringe characters, behaviours or groups.

Coupling can be found on some Non-profit TV stations, although I finally bought the whole series on DVD.

AM 740 CHWO Teronno.....excellent station, listened to by many of us for a while, now. Even down Johnny's way in MD. Timonium weekend he relayed the interesting story about the station's recent sale. Just goes to show ya. :)

Ten years ago it was WQEW, which sold a couple years later to Disney and became a child's station with movie music and other related programming. Found Swing 830 WCRN Worcestor/Framingham after that and enjoyed Big Band/Sinatra/crooner music galore. Then a coupla years back, they switched over to the moldy oldies format of 60s-70s rock. Not that I don't like the music, I do. It's just that most any station on AM playing music is playing the same stuff. No doubt related to the perceived demographic of listeners.

Let's face it: those of us who appreciate radio for what it is and enjoy good programming are in the minority. There are too many other ways to fill the need in today's instant gratification world. The music, not the experience, is what the masses seek. Considering the amount of commercial interruptions heard on most stations, can you blame them?

AM 740 still is good listening, but with a few more commercials than it had before.   You can get it on the internet at www.am740.ca.    It still has AM broadcast quality, not better internet audio quality.    I like to use shoutcast.com to select the internet stations.   Most have no, or minimum commercials, unlike Live 365.   Many are from out of the country so are not affected by RIAA bullying.   My favorite is Dinner Jazz Excursion, usually on the first page if you select only Jazz pages.   I broadcast my internet audio over 107.5 MHz FM, you can hear it if you are within 150 ft of my house.

The majority of programming on radio has been controlled by a few for decades (since at least the 60's). This is nothing new and it has little or nothing to do with the deregulation of the 1990s.

And a related AP story which was linked in our area paper: 

http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2008/04/14/news/doc48036a18e4ebe485068824.txt

Rodger WQ9E

Controlled, but not *centrally* controlled.  I was in radio for many years, before the 1996 consolidation of
the media, and it was *very* different.  Individual stations used to regularly "try" things.  Even individual DJs could experiment (and as a DJ, I did).  There was "real" competition, not just for advertisers, but for innovations.  How many of today's radio stations would allow a DJ to create and use (on the air) the "Brass Monkey Index" (what falls off of a brass monkey?), when talking about how cold it was outside?  This become quite a topic around the city (and other wacky aspects of the show), at at one time, the show was number one in the time slot.  And, who could forget Duane GlassCock (Boston radio)?

Most of the stations were not part of chains.  The groups (if the station was part of one) were small.  Programming decisions were made down the hall, not in some ivory tower someplace.  Radio was a business, but the artistic aspect was very alive and well.  A lot of people were in radio for the art, and not the money, and this made a HUGE difference in the product.

Yes, centrally controlled - BY THE RECORD COMPANIES. A few execs at these companies controlled who would get a record company and them payola determined who got air time.

Further, radio networks have been around the 30's. They were and are centrally controlled.

Yes, radio was different before 1996, but it was still centrally controlled. The good old days weren't.

Maybe it was different where you lived :-)  I was actually *in* radio back then (during the '70s).  There was no payola (at least not at the stations I worked for).  The record companies brought records to us to hear.  There were so many records.  Thousands of them.  We could pick and choose.  Our record library was in a very, very large room.  The networks did not control anything on the station (except for their programming, which we used sparingly - mostly for news).  We (locally) controlled the content.  *I* was the music director at one particular station, so *I* got to pick the music.  We were at liberty to play anything.  Of course, we tended to stick with the format (the format that WE created).

The whole thing was run locally.  The owner came in about once a month to say hello.  He owned one station, and another business which had nothing to do with radio.  He never said boo about the programming.  As long as we made money, he was happy !

Things were very, very different.  I worked, over my entire career, for about 10 stations in a number of markets.  I didn't notice a large difference in management from one to the other.  The decisions were pretty much made in house, except for the Knight group stations.  There was definitely some central control there, but the Knight group only consisted of about 5 stations, and they were quite far apart from each other.  Even at Knight, we still controlled the programming, but Knight had input into the overall format.

Oh well !!  When we get Internet to the cars, I think we're going to see some innovative stuff happening on a big time basis, assuming BMI, etc. don't make it impossible for Internet broadcasters to be in business !

Regards,

Steve

Wonder if anyone here is listening to the music available over the Internet from Pandora.com.  A vast number of music types, selected by the listener for specific "channels"... Usually you select an artist, or from a large list of types and subtypes.  When you select an artist, you don't get just that artists music, but also stuff from artists similar in style.  For example, as I am typing this, I'm listening to my Pandora "Jimmy Buffett" channel, but the mix has included other good stuff, such as John Fogarty's recent release of "Who'll Stop the Rain", no the played to death original.  

While on the subject of mourning the demise of radio music, I'll mention the folding of 'No Depression' magazine, which was one of the few remaining music magazines aimed for those with three-digit IQs.  While it primarily covered the 'alt-country' groups, there was enough coverage of other music to make it a really great read.   


It's tough to sell a magazine that writes about bands that get ZERO airplay.

No Depression went bye-bye?  That sucks!  I used to read it once in a blue moon.  It sure beat Rolling Stone, or Spin!  I remember reading about the Drive-by-Truckers (I have a few CDs of their music), and Beth Orton (who does some cool stuff) in "No Depression".

Ellen - AF9J

Steve; You may have made the playlist locally, but you got the records from the record company. Who got a record deal was contolled by a few people at the record company. You were fooling yourself if you think you actually had any real control. These conditions pertained EVERYWHERE records were distributed which was at least all of the USA. We all like to view the past with rose colored glasses but we do ourselves a disservice. The good old days weren't.

BTW, the payola scandals are matter of historical fact. They happened whether you saw any of it or not.

We have far more access to a far greater range of music now than at any time in the past thanks to the Internet and distibution systems not contolled by the record companies. As more musicians use these alternate distribution methods, things will only get better.

I get my disco music fix every day.

(http://static-a.arttoday.com/thw/thw14/AF/animations/holiday_events/halloween/disco_mummy_getting_down/4945810.gif?disco_mummy_getting_down_sm_wm)

The RIAA IS The Recording Industry Association of America not 'action' stated earlier in this thread.

Fred

Back in the 60's when I worked as chief engineer of a local 1000w daytimer, I would sometimes work at the studio at night, after hours.  Once I had a group of friends come up with me while I was servicing some of the equipment.  They were amateur musicians who had composed some of their own stuff.  I invited them to bring their instruments and record a couple of songs on cartridge tape while I worked.

The next day I gave the tape to the PD and asked him if he would be willing to add the songs to the station's playlist,  since this was local talent that might be of interest to the community.  He took the tape, and  the next day told me he had listened to it, that it sounded great, but he was sorry, the  station  could not play any of the  songs, since they were not licensed through RIAA and ASCAP. If the station played those songs and the "Associations" got wind of it, they would blacklist the station and it would not be able get records to play, and would lose its authorisation to play any commercial records.

Apparently, it was OK to allow local talent to come into the studio and perform live, or the entire program could be recorded and played later one time only, but the music could not be put on tape to be played over and over again by the DJ as singles.  This had nothing to do with copyright, since those songs were original compositions by the artists who played them.  It was all about RIAA and ASCAP's monopoly on recorded music.

Thanks Chris AJ1G on pandora.com.   I just signed up and listening to it.    The music genome is something.   You put in an artist or song and it sets up a music channel to play the artist and others that are in the same style.  Pretty amazing free source of music.

Sorry about that Fred.  My bad. :)

73,
Ellen - AF9J

Interesting take on programming and lack of decent stuff thereof in this thread.  Lot's of good observations as well as P&M'ing. So what can we do about it?

There's probably enough money among several of the hams on this board to start a radio station from scratch.
However running it 24/7 or even 3/5 for that matter is a tremendous amount of work.

Hiring DJ's or trading labor for DJ's, getting hosts varied enough to keep from boring an audience is tough.
Getting a playlist or talk show format to vary sufficiently to keep from boring an audience is also extremely challenging.  Keeping an audience is almost impossible on low budget unless a specialty audience, college station, etc.
 
What in private enterprise or FCC rules prevents a new station from starting up?
Where are the entrepreneurs here? 

We've all probably 'dreamed' of firing up our own stations.  7215 a good example, once with an 'edge,' now not so well followed.

So FM's a wasteland when it orginally was a few classical stations heard by a very few. -When it was supported by such as the NY Times. Most have sold out.  Clear channel AM's become a joke.  All the talented nightly programming has long ago gone to TV not to mention the dearth of any sort of varied programming.

Concerning public radio, "Commercial free" is, of course, almost unobtainable given the frequent fund drives, long winded sponsor descriptions complete with touting of products (Soto voco, in cultured voice, of course.)
NPR's "news" is loaded with Darfur, 'end of the civilized' world, bad white man editorials masked as news. Gloom and doom, woe is me.  Eyore redux... and right on up the food chain.  Bad man, wrecks the world and environment, bad white man, bad rich white man, bad rich white corporate white man, bad rich white corporate religious white man.... and so forth mostly to one specific religion, as you might be guessing.

Radio as a medium, internet as a medium, TV as a medium all sink to a lowest common denominator all right, but it is the denominator of easy bitching.  Songs of 'being wronged' by all the above. Country music reflects this from a more personal aspect, an unappreciated vocation, a lost love, you name it.  - "The man's fault."
Rock tends to roll to an antiwar stance....  after menandering atonally through all the jilted loves, long lost 60's vibes and really dumbed down hip-hop.

So if I want to listen to Alan Hovannis, it will be by my own programming, DVD's, etc. as we've mentioned or on NPR once in awhile; just have to tune out the socialistic stuff.  There are a very few classical music stations without message still alive in the metropolitan areas, WQXR in Pittsburgh comes to mind.  Half the fun in listing to broadcast is that once in a while you'll hear something of which you weren't aware.  We can't give up on the medium; its promised very randomness, albiet less so these days, makes it worthwhile.

The upshot is will anyone startup a station knowing the pitfalls awaiting these days?
Doubtful.  So how many have written a station or corp. HQ complaining of the programming coupled with a product?  I haven't; just assumed something good will eventually come along or gravitated to another format.
Yeah, if WiFi truly becomes wifi other than a few zones in cities it will be an interesting world but somehow I think those that front the money will manage to make a profit. ....selling your IP if nothing else.

So that's the real world.  If you want decent general programming, why, start it up. Keeping an entertained, responsive and nonbored audience will be your real challange, the money might follow. This rant is a prime example  ;D

Hi Steve,

Nothing rosey about it :-)  Radio was better without the chains and central control that we have now.   I don't know about the control the record companies really had.  There were lots of record companies.  I have a few thousand old 45s from the radio days.  I could look at them and see how many record companies were involved.  I seem to recall a lot of them at that time.   There are probably many fewer now.

And, as far as the payola - there is no way this was a wide-spread problem.  Of course the few cases of payola were well published (as they should be), and they might have even involved a lot of money - at a FEW stations.   I was too personally and heavily involved with the music and programming for any payola to have occurred at any of the stations in which I was involved.  I would have known immediately if a DJ were playing the wrong records or some records too many times.  Also, I never heard of it happening at any of the stations in the markets in which I worked.   I never worked in New York or Boston, but I did work in Worcester, Providence, etc.  Major market radio (NY, Boston, etc) involved living in the city, and I wouldn't do that (was offered) !

But, there is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that radio was far superior at that time than it is now.

Money is what will prevent it.  Back in the [ Rosey  ;) ] good old days, one could find a frequency, and apply for a license, and if you demonstrated that you were going to serve the public, you usually got it.  It *could* be challenged, but the license grant was based on public service.  Ahhhhh..... fast forward:  Now, the frequency would be put up for AUCTION.  And GUESS WHO HAS THE MONEY ???  The big chains.  So, "your" frequency would be auctioned off to the highest bidder.  Serving the public?  What's that?  That went out with the rule modifications.

WQXR in Pittsburg?

WQXR was "the radio station of the New York Times"... played classical music in NYC...

             _-_-bear

And that spectrum is not even the government's to auction.  The only money the government could legitimately claim, is what it would take to recover the costs of licensing, administration and rules enforcement, as provided under the Communications Act.  The jillions of dollars that go to the US treasury from spectrum auctions is in reality a hidden federal tax.  Telecommunications expenses pervade the entire economy much in the same manner as energy costs.  A few examples include the costs of radio and TV advertising, satellite communications, landline communications (remember, landline systems are tied together via microwave and satellite links), mobile telephone service, as well as wired and wireless internet.  The exorbitant sums of money those big chains and other communications providers pay for the spectrum they are awarded doesn't just come out of thin air.  The auction winners pass the cost on to their customers in the form of price rises for their goods and services. Those surcharges keep getting passed along, until they ultimately trickle down to the individual "consumer" - you and me, in the form of higher prices for everything we purchase, regardless of whether or not we personally use wireless telecommunications services.

Yeah, Bear, Meant to say WQED.  About WQXR, 1560(?) The classical programming seemed to die about 1985. Then they went to "All American Classics", Sinatra and stuff... then I lost their nightly sky wave after a move.

A couple years ago, the one of the local stations here went dark(WSMN-1590). Luckily it(the license?) was bought by a small time broadcasting company and still has a very local flavor, gone to talk radio format. although they do carry the big syndicated stuff too.  The other station(WGAM 900) is an all sports format, mostly national, although they will broadcast the local semipro ball teams games. 

I'm rather surprized that a city as small as Nashua can support two local stations...

on the other hand I caught my son researching "Pirate Radio" broadcasting, seems he wanted to broadcast his own talk/music format.    Not with my license in the house thank you. Though I want to encourage him along those lines, maybe I'll get him one of those Part 15 kits to start, with an MP3 player and computer who knows.

Maybe I someday can get him in to test for his ticket...

Normally I don't see eye to eye with Tim Robbins, but I guess his keynote speech to the NAB was quite the hit.  He ripped the broadcast industry a new one, bemoaning the 'national playlist' and the 'abyss' that the media have become.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/CA6551356.html

To quote:  “Shouldn’t broadcasters see themselves as part of a larger picture, isn’t there an obligation to honestly report on what’s going on, to pursue stories past their headlines,’’ Robbins said. “Haven’t criminal acts occurred in government? Shouldn’t there be accountability for inept policy decisions? Shouldn’t someone be fired? And you know something? I didn’t hear any of that, because I am still thinking about that...(Paris Hilton photo)..."

Testify brother, testify.

73 - Dave