Broadcast Station Lame Music Formatting

[WBear2GCR]

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

[WA1HZK]

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

[AF9J]

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.

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

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

[k4kyv]

Listen to Toronto's AM740 at night, they have some good old music on there.

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.

[John K5PRO]

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.

[steve_qix]

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.

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

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?

[K3ZS]

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.

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

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.

[WQ9E]

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

[steve_qix]

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.

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.

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

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.

[steve_qix]

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

[AJ1G]

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.  

[NE4AM]

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.

[AF9J]

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 - WB3HUZ]

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.

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

[Pete, WA2CWA]

I get my disco music fix every day.

[flintstone mop]

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

Fred

[k4kyv]

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.

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.

[K3ZS]

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.

[AF9J]

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

Fred

Sorry about that Fred.  My bad.

73,
Ellen - AF9J

[W3RSW]

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 

[steve_qix]

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.

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

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.

[steve_qix]

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.

What in private enterprise or FCC rules prevents a new station from starting up?
Where are the entrepreneurs here? 

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.