One Billion Served

(Author's Note: I wrote this after a very long week of listening to a few "don't-have-a-clue" programmers.)

You see the story this week about the iTunes Music Store having its one billionth download? It's not going away boys and girls, and it's going to get even bigger.

Meanwhile, consolidated radio gets more safe and researched, with less local content, fewer on air hosts, and jocks that can do little more than read a liner. It's beyond sad!

Are the programmers in the small markets that stupid, or is it just they aren't allowed to do anything? I think it's the not allowed to do anything answer. These financially overextended chains have done this on the cheap for so long that I'm not sure where all this is going in the end.

The HD Radio answer is an interesting one, but who is going to buy these radios? Car makers have taken forever to get sat radio! I know I have no plans to replace my sat radio with some CD jukebox thing. Radio is not nor has it ever been a jukebox. Tell me, please, WHERE in the history of radio was an automated station ever number one? And don't say some market ranking of 300. When WABC was playing more music, it still had great programming to go with it.

CRS was a weird event this year. With the whole "investigation" thing and the ever-growing consolidation issues, no one is left to come unless they take vacation time and pay over $1000 for the trip (not including airfare).

Where is this train heading? You want to remain positive and hopeful, but the radio bosses of the last 15 years have screwed things up so badly chasing a narrow demo that the other animals at the farm have escaped or have died.

The only hope is to make sure your morning show is serving the town and you somehow make new music an event and not some perceived negative. Playing more recurrents is NOT going to save radio. Hell, who has the power to do anything about it, though? Hands are tied, and there are very few left who know really how it's supposed to be done.

These WOLF/BEAR/JACKASS stations are appealing to those who can't pay the money for a decent sat radio. No one learned anything from Howard Stern and Don Imus in a good way. People listen to the radio not so much to hear the music (while that is an important component, sure), but rather to get information (weather, traffic, etc.), feel like a part of the community they live in, and generally feel connected to city and, in country's case, the music. They want to be entertained!

Music Row labels are going outside radio more and more to get their jobs done. Gotta get around the roadblocks of the moron gatekeepers somehow. The stick in the muds in radio are really gett6ing annoying. The great folks who really know how to run radio are getting fewer and fewer. Technology and, yes, TV morning shows, are making a smaller not larger audience for traditional. Just look at the growth of ALL those. Check percentage or growth for local TV mornings versus growth for radio.

Keep reading those research reports that say everything is fantastic. Some smart people better wake up and stop the bleeding. Radio's irrelevance is self-inflicted by some greedy radio group owners who are too stupid to get out of the way.

Again, the best of the best make radio an exciting place to spend part of your life. More and more folks need to listen to some good radio stations and copy them! Fast!

This train has left the station and it's not coming back. You better get in a very fast car and catch it. Or like the mouse who moved the cheese tale, you will starve!

I saw a lot of the dazed, sheep-like people at CRS. Made me crazy. I am looking for about a dozen great morning folks to take over radio and make it wonderful and necessary again.

The fewer songs they play the happier I am! When talk is good on a morning show that's a GOOD thing. Make MUSIC special. Why is that such a hard concept? Get excited about a new song, don't hide it! Who do we need to hang that screwed all this up in the first place?