Clear Channel whacks a bunch of popular Cleveland radio personalities

[Smasher_Sloan]

Time for an AT&T-type forced breakup of the corporate media behemoths.

It serves local audiences nothing to have local stations all handed over to syndicated zombie programming.

I don't think it will make that much of a difference. There are locally-owned stations that take all their programming outside of morning and afternoon drive off the satellite. Technology makes it too easy to cut corners.

Require local programming.

How? What difference does it make if the person playing the Beyonce track is in town or 3,000 miles away?

It makes a LOT of difference. In the glory days of top-40 and early days of AOR radio, there were dramatic differences in regional music tastes -- and it's how different regional styles developed.

Plus, if the refinery a quarter mile down the street catches on fire, the local jock playing Beyonce can tell you about it sooner than the 48 hours it takes Zombie Sydnijock in LA to see it on CNN.

Different times. This isn't 1965 any more. There haven't been regional hits, a la the Top 40/early AOR days, in 30 years. There hasn't been a premium placed on being first on a record in a long time. Classic quote from a PD that I saw in one of the trades: "You never get hurt by the record you're <b>not</b> playing." It's a different mindset. If the refinery down the street catches fire, no one is depending on Z-88 to provide information, because Z-88 hasn't had local news in 20 years. Different times.

Yeah. Another triumph of the Reaganauts.

Thanks to their mania for deregulation, you can now turn on your radio at pretty much any location in the contiguous 48 states, and hear the same three or four stations. Woo hoo.

I won't dispute for a second that deregulation was a huge mistake and has diminished broadcasting.

But....what happened was inevitable as technology allowed for less hands-on operation. You don't see elevator operators any more and you don't find a lot of switchboard operators still working. Same thing with overnight DJs. Most listeners never notice the difference and there aren't enough people listening in those hours for it to really matter much.

 

[Twoback]

I have a lot of respect for Paul Daugherty and his newspaper work, but is he saying he didn't know those truths about sports talk radio before he signed on to do a show?

Read it, Smash. He said right there that he didn't trust anybody at LW from the moment he signed on.

 

[Smasher_Sloan]

OK, then I don't get his outrage at how this went down. It's like complaining that a hooker never really liked you and only cared about your money.

 

[Killick]

Ohio media watcher has entry on Clear Channel's evil plan...
http://ohiomedia.blogspot.com/2009/04/local-news-and-premium-choice.html

 

[DanOregon]

Out here on the Left Coast (and I imagine elsewhere) CC has launched a plan to gut all of the local stations newsrooms and provide a "news hub" in Sacramento for its NorCal and Oregon stations. Station managers are being asked to provide pronunciation guides and news tips to the hub if something goes down in their area.
Brilliance.

 

[Ben_Hecht]

Out here on the Left Coast (and I imagine elsewhere) CC has launched a plan to gut all of the local stations newsrooms and provide a "news hub" in Sacramento for its NorCal and Oregon stations. Station managers are being asked to provide pronunciation guides and news tips to the hub if something goes down in their area.
Brilliance.

I've got a fat, throbbing news tip for the "hub" . . . more like a cankerous, running sore than a hub, but you get my point . . .

 

[jackfinarelli]

Why anyone has listened to music on the radio for the past ten years is a mystery to me. With easy technology available to anyone which allows anyone to make their own "playlist", why would anyone listen to a "playlist" created by someone else?

Here in the DC area, the top rated radio station is the all-news station WTOP. The sports radio station - owned by Danny Boy Snyder - usually ranks about 25th when the ratings books are published.

ESPN radio has an ad where they try to convince folks to listen to ESPN instead of mindless homers raving about local jockdom. They have a point; some of the local radio folks are pretty lame - - and I mean that to include local guys in markets outside the DC area too. [There is one particular radio voice in Pittsburgh who is outrageous on his best days.]

But the trend toward ESPN and other national radio feeds makes for a homogenization of coverage that gets uninteresting quickly.