As you probably know, I participate in a number of Facebook groups that talk about radio, as it is now and as it was then. Every now and then a sliver of insight pops out that I just gotta share. That happened this week.
The discussion was one of many that decry the demise of radio as we know it. Running counter to that discussion one of our members reported that 93 percent of Americans listen to the radio at least once a week. That is nearly what the numbers were back in the heyday of music radio during the 60s. With numbers as high as that, why does it feel like so much has gone from the business?
That got me to thinking about how that can be. I think I have an explanation and can back it up anecdotally. The number of listeners has not changed that much but the level of involvement with our favorite stations and their on air personalities has changed significantly.
Back in the day, there was no Facebook, Instagram or Twitter; radio was THE social media. The station was how folks communicated with each other. Before you go, “Say WHAT!!!”, think about requests. Listeners would put their brand out there through requests of their favorite songs. If dedications were allowed, then the person making the request could deliver a message out to everyone. Frankie tells everyone that she loves Johnny by dedicating “their song” to him. It was the electronic way of wearing his class ring.
Stations that provided instant requests upped the game. They actually put the requester on the air live and let them broadcast to the world for fifteen seconds or so. Their 15 seconds of fame if you will. The next day, they went to school the next day and be affirmed by their friends with all the “I heard you on the radio last night” greetings as they triumphantly walked the halls from class to class.
Live phone in contests were another way of scoring those 15 seconds of fame. The DJ would ask a question and say the first caller with the correct answer wins the prize. On really good days, the DJ would put the correct caller on the air so they could claim their own bragging rights. We would take down their name and address so either the station could mail the prize out to them or more often than not, they could come by the station and claim their prize.
Having them come by was a double win for the station. That way the winner could actually see the station and meet one or more DJs face to face. If they were really having a good day, they could even take a tour of the studios and watch a DJ actually do a show on the air. The tendency of a listener to prefer to tune in to a station they actually visited was pretty strong. I think they call this Customer Relationship Management (CRM) these days. We didn’t need to purchase an expensive Internet Service to do that. Everyone from the receptionist, to the copy writer to the sales person to the on air talent understood the importance of the ultimate customer, the listener. And it showed.
The remote show from the local drive in restaurant was the ultimate example of CRM. The good DJs knew how to work the crowd pulled up to the tele-trays in the parking lot as well as keep the folks listening while doing their homework in their bedrooms involved, all the while not forgetting the “cruisers” out there. Many of this third group spent their evening driving back and forth between competing drive in restaurants, each with their competing radio station. We knew that the other station was just a push button away and one wrong thing said or wrong record played would result in a lost carful of listeners. The trick was to keep all of this balanced while entertaining everyone with “The top of the pops and the cream of the crop”.
So why did all this end? There were several reasons. Probably, the biggest was the danger involved with putting members of the audience on the air live. There was no delay back in those days so if someone said one of George Carlen’s seven words you can’t say on the radio, it was out there and nothing could be done about it. As time passed, this became a bigger and bigger problem as curse words began to populate the lexicon of the average teenager more and more. Today, if that happens, the fine from the FCC could be more than $60,000. So stations began to phase out live audience interaction as the risks became too great to bear. Tape delays were introduced that allowed the DJ or the engineer running the board to dump the offending words before they reached the air.
Strike two came as radio became digitized and signals were sent to the transmitter by a digital stream, a delay resulted from the transmitter needing to process the digital signal in order to create the FM and HD signals they broadcast. This delay made the live audience participation feature more and more difficult to manage. And that meant the opportunity to experience the “thrill” of being live on the radio began to fade away.
Strike three came when the DJ himself or herself began to vanish from the airwaves during the 80s and 90s. A $10,000 computer and a $20, 000 piece of software was a heck of a lot cheaper than maintaining 24/7/365 team of air personalities to keep the station going. You can’t have these live interactions without live DJs.
With all this happening in radio, something bigger was happening to the music industry. No longer were records and radio the primary connection between the musician and their fans. When MP3 files improved enough to compete with the quality of the records, there was a blossoming of distribution paths; Spotify, Pandora, YouTube and similar services replaced the physical record, tape or CD. Sure the quality of these alternate sources is not the same as for CDs but few of the younger listeners, the heart of the audience, care. After all, they are listening on “ear buds” for the most part.
I’m always amazed at the reaction I get to my old school oldies show on college radio. Once a month or so, a student will walk in to my studio at WUSC-FM just to see how something that sounds so different from what they normally listen to is done. Almost every one of these visitors makes a comment about the show and the music bringing back fun memories. Usually these revolve around the music their parents listened to when they were growing up. Well to be honest, these days it is mostly about grandparents, not parents. But I don’t hear the same thing about music that came along later in time. I wondered if that was because they were talking to a radio curmudgeon, but no, it seems that this music and style of radio evokes happier memories. I kinda like that.
As for me, I much prefer listening to a live DJ over a voice track any day. The energy and spontaneity is what loops me in. There are just a few automated stations that are programmed well enough to keep my attention. I can tell the programmers on those stations care enough to do a good job. I’ll even tune away from an oldies channel during periods when they do not have live DJs or at least a recording of a live show on the air. I don’t want perfect, I want real! Oh MY!
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