Howie Carr list ping.
btw Howie is now 60...
This may explain why talk radio is getting less local or even doing things like what just happened to “Talk 1200” in Boston: They put Rush and Coast 2 Coast back on WRKO, and AM 1200 is now ALL COMEDY.
Sports is also a popular choice for talk radio because there’s a broader and younger demo. Ask most people the following question and see what answer you get:
“Which would you rather hear on talk radio?
a) Romney’s running mate
b) The NFL”
Hmm.
>>In Clear Channel’s case, its 2008 sale to Bain Capital and Thomas H. Lee Partners has left the radio group, which owns 850 stations and has the largest reach in the country, $20 billion in the red,
Blame Romney! No wait he left Bain...
Since the television networks (other than Fox) are all in the tank for socialism, I have no doubt new and younger voices will arise to replace the older pioneering conservative talk radio icons.
As long as people value the First Amendment and our wonderful country, we will support conservative voices on radio.
So now conservative talk radio is such a flash in the pan that it’s going to die of old age?
Wasn’t Tom Leykis originally billed as “the Left’s Answer to Limbaugh”?
It’s telling when they interview a radio personality that no one cares for...
Rest in Pieces Liberal Radio :p
When I was in school back in 2000 I had plenty of time to listen to AM radio between classes or when commuting to work. I was even able to hear the late even shows while I worked.
I’m not interested in lugging around an AM radio for that stuff in 2012, and I just dont have the time to devote to 3 hours of Rush everyday.
On top of that, I’m on a permanent ban on listening to any audio clips of that fool in the WH until it is his concession speech.
I get the same talk from podcasts, and I read some of the highlights of Rush and Levin on FR
I do miss some of the old AM stations we listened to as teens. KOMA, WLS, WWL, WOAI.
They had the music I remember!
Rubbish. What is dying is big city consultant-programmed radio that lacks the understanding of what listeners want to hear and a viable business model. Let it fail, entrepreneurs with vision will pick up the licenses for pennies on the dollar and show them how it’s done.
Age has nothing to do with it. Smarts and experience does.
Ha Ha, I only listen to AM radio inthe car, when I am at home I listen to internet streams of radio stations based off who is the host. Beck, Limbaugh, Levin
AM radio was moribund before Rush Limbaugh, who changed the whole picture and made AM huge. I remember driving when he was near his peak, a nice day with windows down, and every time I came to an intersection there would suddenly be “stereo Limbaugh” from my car and other cars.
Now, with digital AM broadcasting parallel to analog AM, it will be on about a par with FM, so typical ratings will be as they are now, unless stations hire some personality like Limbaugh to draw in the audience.
“...”WiFi, cell phone service, opening and closing garage doors, police, fire or aviation channels …” And he doesn’t bemoan that future. “It would be a better use for the frequency.”
Hmmmm, with just a tad less than 1 MHz available in the AM band, won’t be that much use for those frequencies. Of course, considering the source of this article, I didn’t expect much technical expertise.
My personal take...
AM radio (and to a large extent, broadcast TV) is partially dying because it’s gone from ad-supported to ad-saturated. Combine that with awful content in all but a few cases (like Rush), and it’s just not worth listening to or watching anymore.
I have about an hour for lunch. If I turn on Rush, I get maybe 15 minutes of him. The rest is ads and “news” broadcasts that are usually poor rehashings of what I read on FR two days before. I like Rush, but I can listen to an hour of music of my choice with no ads from a variety of sources (mp3, CD, etc.) vs 15 minutes of him in 2 or 3 minute snippets.
Broadcast TV is even worse. I try to watch the local news - primarily to get the weather forecast. But it’s no longer worth spending 1/2 an hour, most of it filled with ads and fluff in order to get the 30 second forecast. I can go online, get it, and get on with my evening.
It seems radio (and broadcast TV) exist to show ads. That makes some sense, as that’s where the revenue comes from, but consumers don’t tune in for the ad, they tune in for the content, largely in spite of the ads. If you don’t have content, or you have too little content, you don’t get the ad exposure nor it’s revenue. People have choices.
It seems simple to me, but very few in broadcasting seem to get it.
Once a consumer stops listening or watching and finds other things to do in a given slot, it’s unlikely they’re going to come back.
So will everything from 1200 kHz to 1700 kHz be depopulated and forced to move to empty slots in 530-1190 kHz? That will free up a half megahertz, or a little more than two FM radio station slots or one twelfth of an analog TV channel.
Advances in technology coupled with the record industry's loss of control in forcing music trends due to the internet will soon shut down radio as we know it.
This article is akin to someone sitting in a Model A, concerned over the loss of the last baleen buggy whip manufacturer while beliving that the synthetic buggy whip factories will continue to remain relevant forever.
It’s difficult to have sympathy for so-called experts and professionals who administered hemlock to their colleagues, employers and businesses for so many years:
1) Consultants (see also: candidates for political office)
2) Ultrarigid formatting
3) Computerization to achieve #2
4) Smaller and smaller and smaller playlists
5) Payola in all its forms
6) Commercial load
7) Commercials masquerading as weather & traffic reports
Like the landline telephone, abuse of the system in pursuit of the last nickel has seen the user base abandon the technology.
Through technology, the “broadcast airwaves” could be given a “second life”.
The only talk-radio I listen to is Rush, and he’s getting to be tedious what with continually telling me stuff I already know.
It seems that one hears a light sprinkling of local retail ads sandwiched in between wall-to-wall public service advertisements from the Department of Labor, Justice, Health and Human Services, the Ad Council, etc.
He isn't afraid to work without a net. When it comes to redefining the model while exploring new technology and delivery systems, the man will jump in with both feet. He's a true pioneer...and always seems to make money doing it.