Initially, a few e-mailers determined radio couldn't react to the snowstorm because of a lack of staff. In turn, the small staff was blamed on an ever-shrinking listener base. No argument there. But why are listeners turning to Internet radio, iPods and other sources for their music pleasure? Consider these observations:
• Radio isn't fun, anymore. Talk show hosts are vitriolic, most disc jockeys are forced to read from cue cards and the morning "zoo crews" have been recycling the same off-color remarks and idiotic gimmicks (let's call a celebrity at 5 a.m.) for more than a decade.
Ask people to name their favorite disc jockey, and it's likely to be someone who hasn't been on the air for years - Chuck Brinkman, Clark Race, Porky Chedwick, Jack Armstrong - or a long-dissolved morning team such as O'Brien and Garry, Quinn and Banana, or Jimmy and Steve. All genuinely entertaining. And one of the reasons those folks connected with fans is that they were at events ranging from mall openings to county fairs. These days, remote broadcasts are handled by interns. No doubt, most radio fans would be hard-pressed to associate a face with a radio voice.
• Where's the variety? Today's play lists are mostly assembled by corporate suits following weeks of obsessive, overwrought and over-the-top research. Spontaneity isn't an option. Nor is acknowledgment of other music venues. For instance, CD sales seldom influence airplay, even on album-oriented stations, and iTunes sales are ignored as well. This week's top download, the re-recorded "We Are the World," is all but absent on radio. So is Justin Timberlake's heavily downloaded "Hallelujah" from TV's concert for Haiti.
Radio also used to take some cues from TV. So why hasn't oldies radio picked up on "Double Lovin'" by the Osmonds, which is featured in a popular commercial? Sure, it's not exactly a classic, but does ensure a few "oh, wow" moments for female listeners - radio's most cherished prize.
Radio also fed off popular movies in the '70s and '80s. But no one is playing the theme from "Avatar," or, for that matter, recent movie tunes by U2, Paul McCartney, Beyonce or one of a dozen songs from "Valentine's Day." Not all may qualify as hits, but the songs would at minimum provide fodder for relatable disc jockey conversation.
• "This commercial break" is way too long. Programming geniuses long ago decided to package commercials into five- to eight-minute segments. How is that beneficial to either the advertiser or the listener? Certainly, advertising pays the way for radio, but a couple commercials inserted after two or three songs is far less likely to drive people away than annoying advertising chunks.
We are, of course, referring primarily to large-market stations. Local radio, for the most part, still has it right: a large and interesting song selection, DJs who talk with the listener instead of at them, local news that's actually local and commercials that are sprinkled instead of clumped into the mix.
That comparatively free-form radio - wildly popular in the '60s and '70s - is considered antiquated by today's radio corporations. Those same corporations wonder why today's listeners pale in numbers compared to those bygone days. Even if the light bulb went on, the suits would never see it. It's buried under research.
A few more comments from snowbound radio fans:
From Patrick Cloonan of the Daily News:
I was at KQV on March 13, 1993. I remember four of us keeping that station on the air that weekend and sharing a room at the Westin William Penn when exhaustion called. I had one of the few copies of the Sunday Post-Gazette to come out before that paper stopped publication because of the weather.
From John Swanson of KVSV, Beloit, Kan.:
Read your article about radio not responding to the snowstorm ... that doesn't happen in Kansas or Nebraska!
From Kevin Fodor of Dayton, Ohio:
I'm a broadcaster who's worked over 35 years in the radio business. I remember every radio owner in every major city had a working news department of anywhere from five to 25 people who worked at least from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., if not till midnight or around the clock, depending upon staffing size.
Today, your "music stations" may have one to three "newspeople" (depending upon the number of stations in the cluster). They all work in morning drive only. And their jobs consist not of actually looking for news or developing stories, but ripping and reading AP copy and rewriting the news out of the morning paper or from TMZ.com. I'll bet few of these people even bother to call the local police agencies when they get to work.
Your article suggests that the Pittsburgh news station also didn't cover the news, and that's simply reprehensible, but not uncommon. All that's cared about is 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. because that's where the station makes its most money. I work for a company in Dayton where we still have a functioning 24-hour radio news department. On occasion, we even pre-empt the syndicated talk shows and go on the air to talk about the situation at hand. (We did that for three solid days about a year- and-a-half ago, when the winds of Hurricane Ike blew into town and put hundreds of thousands of people out of electric service.)
The FCC a long time ago took away any requirement for stations to make a commitment to airing local news. And as belts got tightened, news was the first thing dropped. Local news does live, though. Thought you might appreciate hearing it.
Terry Hazlett can be reached at snowballrizzo@aol.com.