an excellent read, regarding the state of radio:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/17/showbiz/hfr-music-radio/index.html?iref=allsearch
Although quite lengthy it is an interesting article. I haven't finished yet,
but I did skim ahead to find my suspicions confirmed. In short, the sorry state
of music radio these days is in large part due to corporate greed, followed by
corporate greed squared. In other words, the consolidation facilitated by the
Telecommunications Reform Act of 1996, followed by the LBO of Clear
Channel by Bain Capital (!) in 2008.
Margot Chobanian, former music director of Atlanta's now-defunct DaveFM, says the trend has been to cut back on DJs and their patter because ratings show that people don't like chatter.
She doesn't agree with that interpretation of the data though. What corporations don't understand, she says, is that the amount of DJ chatter has nothing do with tuning out -- it's the quality of what the DJs say.
"(People) were engaged by the DJs," Chobanian says.
I know that Things Are Different Today (tm), what with the myriad entertainment
options available, but Back In The Day (tm), we actually cared about and enjoyed
what the jocks had to say. Some of it was information and trivia about the music
and the groups they played. Knowing about that stuff was actually a requirement
for DJs -- imagine that! But their patter also included personal observations and
anecdotes that were an integral part of their shows. WNEW-FM's Jonathon Schwartz
was particularly noted for this; in one clip archived on the Internet he regales the
audience for nearly ten minutes about trying to retrieve a letter to a girlfriend from the
post office in a snowstorm after realizing it contained a minor mistake. Such an indulgence
wouldn't be tolerated today, but it used to be a regular occurance. If you were driving
and had reached your destination, you would stay in the car listening to the radio until
the story was finished. It was an important part of how on-air personalities connected
with listeners, and how radio stations distinguished themselves and established unique
identities.
