Radio: "Listeners Feel Real and Unique Connections With Radio Personalities," Yet We Continue To Eliminate Them
How ironic and outrageous is it that the Southern California Broadcasters Association published a press release about a study that states that "Listeners Feel Real and Unique Connections With Radio Personalities" and that "Nearly Half of Respondents Considered or Purchased Products Recommended By Their Favorite Radio Personalities"? How dare they?
As major personalities continue to vanish from local radio dials such as Rick Dees, Steve Dahl, John Lander, Gene Burns, Jim Ladd and countless others, radio continues to justify its existence by touting the "connection" between personalities and listeners. How many people feel such a connection to Jack FM, a station with no DJs? Or to the disembodied voice tracks that appear on hundreds of stations? Or to the hours of weekly infomercials that pollute local stations?
If the radio business believes that such "real and unique connections" exist and that "nearly half of listeners" buy products "recommended by their favorite personalities," why are the biggest broadcasting companies in America continuing to eliminate so many favorite local personalities? And how can a broadcast trade organization dare to tout the benefits of personality radio at the same time that their members are firing so many of those who garner such great results? Do they think that advertisers are stupid? And what about SAG-AFTRA? Where have they been hiding as radio eliminates so many bodies?
Please read this press release and give me your response. I am especially interested in thoughtful responses from the one group that is always left out of this discussion: LISTENERS, or at least, those who are left.
Radio Study
I have a deep voice and at least once a week someone tells me I should be on the radio. I politely tell them that the jobs are disappearing. Often, I get a deer in the headlights look from these folks as a response..Sure,listeners may say they feel connected to their local radio personality, the problem is they don't realize that the personality may not be local at all, but piped in from another city. I miss the days when we had local personalities like Gary Owens, who lives and works in southern California and who tailored his show to the south land with information on the area and classic ad libs.
Radio horseshit
That study looks like it took place in the 70s, when radio actually meant something. Who gives 2 shits about some DJ on the radio? And who even knows who the DJ's are, and who cares? Do they really think that anyone is still sitting around listening to the radio to hear their favorite song to come on? Are they that fucking clueless, or in complete denial that commercial radio has become obsolete like the typewriter, the VCR, and the post office. Every talk show is the same old conservative bullshit over and over, no matter which talking head is delivering it. Only thing I can barely stand to listen to on the radio is the news, and even that has become a chore, with the 1000s of commercials and "news" stories about Justin Bieber. That "study" was clearly made up, I'm sure you can ask any kid in the street who their favorite radio personality is, and their response will be "huhhhh?" Radio is dying, and these empty suits that run it know it but will never admit it. And how dumb and out of touch is Rick Dees that he keeps getting hired and fired by Clear Channel in the same year. Take your Disco Duck tapes and retire, you old moron! And that goes for radio, itself.
Phil. L.A.
Ridiculous...
This press-release is ridiculous and you are spot-on. If there is such a strong correlation, then why would they be firing these personalities? I almost feel that this is a non-issue though. Sure, they can fool themselves and try and justify their position, but we all know that the average audience member of traditional radio keeps having to turn their hearing-aid up a bit more every few months. Any strong correlation that may exist may be the result of a biased smaller sample size. That is to say, those who are really loyal listeners are the only ones left listening and thus because they are so loyal, they follow the recommendation/advertisements closely. However, the group is now so small that it cannot bring in the advertisement dollars that it once could, hence the firings of these personalities.
Revenue in the radio business (traditional or otherwise) relies heavily on advertisement. I believe these listeners who are so loyal and are influenced by personalities on the traditional radio were about the same size 10-15 years ago or so (these are the most hard-core fans). As a result of the shift away from radio in the last 10-5 years, we now have witnessed the erosion of those listeners that are are not hard-core. Thus, the percentage of these listeners have artificially increased because the overall number of listeners have dropped significantly.
They are trying to spin the stats a different way but it just won't work, Tom (as you know).
-KevinFromPorkland
Getting what they deserve
As someone who has lived and died by radio in the past, I'm finding myself without a reason to defend them now. Whenever I listen to the radio, especially in a mid-west location like I'm at now, I feel like radio has given up. When I can go through the FM dial and hear the same song on three different stations, that's a bad sign.
I long for the days of radio in Seattle back in the 80's-90's, where stuff was exciting and you treated radio personalities like they were TV shows; not wanting to turn off the radio until the show was over. That has passed and internet has given a home to the things that were good about radio of old.
Why do I bemoan broadcast radio now? I like the ease of having these things on tap with anything that grabs FM, even those flashlight/radio/compass combos. But those are dated, and so is radio anymore. I had a dream of getting into radio, like my Grandfather who was a ground breaker in West-Coast radio, but it's an empty dream now.
Like mainstream music, TV, and movies, the Goliaths are falling prey to the internet Davids. It takes former Goliaths of radio like yourself to drive the point home about their foolishness, and more importantly, bring creditability to a medium formerly dominated by stoners with an iPod.