With news updates on cell phones and watches, and immediate Internet
news coverage, will listening to news on the radio become something of
the past?

(Shannon) writes:

With news updates on cell phones and watches, and immediate Internet
news coverage, will listening to news on the radio become something of
the past?

Maybe, but I don't think so.

My experience of news on the Internet is that it is rarely as immediate
as radio. I have little experience of watches and phones as news media,
but I can't imagine them as anything but subscription services. Radio
is free and, moreover, something one can leave on as one goes about
one's daily routine. It is always likely to be the first choice,
except for CNN and its ilk.

Unless, of course, the broadcasters blow it.

Here in Boston there is very little news of value on the radio any
more except on WBUR. That's sad, and presents a possible scenario
by which radio might lose out to new media as a news source.

Broadcasters have to wake up, I think, and see what's happening to
radio. At a time when XM and Sirius and establishing their beachheads
like the Allies on D-Day, too many broadcasters are withholding their
Panzers from the fight, perhaps because they think the expense wouldn't
look good on Wall Street.

Radio isn't nearly as exciting as it used to be. The creative experiments
and colorful rivalries of past decades have given way to a Borg-like
uniformity of sound. The glamour and excitement are gone, and
announcers seem more assembly line workers than entertainers. The
whole industry seems asleep at the wheel. Science has eclipsed art,
and that may be radio's downfall.

Unless, of course, I am wrong.


umar
--
"...limerick writers everywhere will rejoice at an application for the
first AM [radio station] on Nantucket, with 250 watts on 1550."
--_The M Street Journal_, 24 March 2004
rm -rf /luser/bush 216 days, 22 hours, 32 minutes

On 30 Mar 2004 15:06:18 GMT, umarc ("umarc") writes:
umarc Here in Boston there is very little news of value on
umarc the radio any more except on WBUR.

Could you elaborate on that? Why do you say there is very
little news, and could you talk about when there was more?

(Christopher C. Stacy) writes:

On 30 Mar 2004 15:06:18 GMT, umarc ("umarc") writes:
umarc Here in Boston there is very little news of value on
umarc the radio any more except on WBUR.

Could you elaborate on that? Why do you say there is very
little news, and could you talk about when there was more?

Well, we've got WBZ, which is mostly short and sensational
stories; and then there are a bunch of stations that use Metro
News, which means they all share the same source, and that
source does a pretty poor job, sometimes not even getting basic
facts right.

If you want anything deeper than headlines, WBUR is pretty much
your only choice.


umar
--
"...limerick writers everywhere will rejoice at an application for the
first AM [radio station] on Nantucket, with 250 watts on 1550."
--_The M Street Journal_, 24 March 2004
rm -rf /luser/bush 216 days, 11 hours, 24 minutes

"Shannon" wrote in message
...
With news updates on cell phones and watches, and immediate Internet
news coverage, will listening to news on the radio become something of
the past?

Where I live news on the radio is already a thing of the past. Radio "news"
consists of reading the newspaper. Thank you Cumulus.

Paul Jensen
Florida's Emerald Coast

On 30 Mar 2004 05:18:58 GMT, (Shannon) wrote:

With news updates on cell phones and watches, and immediate Internet
news coverage, will listening to news on the radio become something of
the past?

Listening to anything on radio is becoming increasingly difficult.
It's a tossup between the talking head saying "News-Talk 730 - WSC" 25
times every 10 minutes, trying to jack up the ratings by saturating
the listeners with RCA marine communication's shortwave callsign (730
is WSCC) and the saturation advertising playing the same spots 8 times
an hour in a string of like spots played 8 times an hour for 6 minutes
STRAIGHT with no programming whatsoever.

Is it any wonder noone is listening?



Larry W4CSC
POWER is our friend!

On 31 Mar 2004 01:18:54 GMT, umarc wrote:

Well, we've got WBZ, which is mostly short and sensational
stories; and then there are a bunch of stations that use Metro
News, which means they all share the same source, and that
source does a pretty poor job, sometimes not even getting basic
facts right.

If you want anything deeper than headlines, WBUR is pretty much
your only choice.


I'm always suspicious of the news on a radio station that is actually
a PC on a desk and a satellite dish on the roof. How can a radio
station have instant local news when there's really NOONE EMPLOYED?

There's 5 stations in one office, here, and only one of them actually
has a talking head live on the air. He's also an automaton because
the computer warns him he has 10 seconds before its his turn to talk
and starts warning him he has 5 seconds to stop before the next row of
12 spots we've all heard a hundred times in the last 8 hours plays
over again.

They don't even have an engineer, any more.....and it shows.



Larry W4CSC
POWER is our friend!

On 31 Mar 2004 01:18:54 GMT, umarc wrote:

Well, we've got WBZ, which is mostly short and sensational
stories; and then there are a bunch of stations that use Metro
News, which means they all share the same source, and that
source does a pretty poor job, sometimes not even getting basic
facts right.

If you want anything deeper than headlines, WBUR is pretty much
your only choice.

It seems to me that what you're really lamenting is the state of radio
broadcast journalism. However, it's not just radio Journalism, it's
all Journalism.

Maybe it was always this way and we just didn't know any better. The
Internet has suddenly exposed a cacophony of opinions and sources of
information that the public simply had no exposure to before. And as
the influence of the Internet spreads, it becomes possible to check up
on what was difficult to research before. So it comes as no surprise
to me that when the public lifts up this rock one can find all sorts
of weird critters lurking under there.

Now, as to format: Attention spans are shortening among broadcasters.
Many are looking for the quick attention grabbing headline and then
forgetting to back it up with a real meaty story. Why bother? It's
expensive to do good research. Only NPR puts stuff like that on the
air, and most have no desire to compete against government funding.
It's cheaper to produce another headline with a thin story behind it.

What these radio broadcasters don't recognize is the value of a long
term investment. They flit from headline to headline until most of
their listenership can barely lift their knuckles off of the floor.
And by then, most of the advertising for smart people has long gone
along with anyone who uses their opposable digits. This explains the
inanity of most advertising you hear on the air.

Radio is hardly the only business which can't seem to focus on the
long term. In my personal opinion, I think the future will see the
audience slowly melt away toward other media. There is an article in
the NYT recently
(http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/29/technology/29guy.html) about how
18-35 year old men are watching less and less TV. As broadband access
improves, audio programs are getting easier to download. I expect
more people will tend to download the programs they want to listen to
rather than see what's on the radio.

Of course, this is just my speculation. It's worth only what you paid
for it.


Jake Brodsky

"Never mind the Turing Test, what about the Turing Graduates?"

On 31 Mar 2004 01:18:54 GMT, umarc ("umarc") writes:
umarc Here in Boston there is very little news of value on
umarc the radio any more except on WBUR.

umarc umar

By the way, how come you sign with this name?
Aren't you Rob Landry from WCRB radio?
(I assume you're not trying to hide, since that's what your
web site is registered as, and you seem to have lots of
other things on the net with your name all over them.)

umarc "...limerick writers everywhere will rejoice at an application for the
umarc first AM [radio station] on Nantucket, with 250 watts on 1550."
umarc --_The M Street Journal_, 24 March 2004

I am hoping that they put a limerick on their application.
Can you post it or give a link? (Or was it just a funny wish?)

On 31 Mar 2004 01:18:54 GMT, umarc ("umarc") writes:

umarc (Christopher C. Stacy) writes:
On 30 Mar 2004 15:06:18 GMT, umarc ("umarc") writes:
umarc Here in Boston there is very little news of value on
umarc the radio any more except on WBUR.

Could you elaborate on that? Why do you say there is very
little news, and could you talk about when there was more?

umarc Well, we've got WBZ, which is mostly short and sensational
umarc stories; and then there are a bunch of stations that use Metro
umarc News, which means they all share the same source, and that
umarc source does a pretty poor job, sometimes not even getting
umarc basic facts right.

umarc If you want anything deeper than headlines,
umarc WBUR is pretty much your only choice.

Are you saying that WRKO and WTTK get all their news from
the same single place, and that it's often not right?

Could you give some examples of WBZ not getting their
basic facts right? Perhaps something they reported
wrong in the last two weeks would be funny.

But that WBUR does better? Cuz it seems to me like WBUR just
has the single source NPR feed (same as WGBH), runs the BBC
headline show, has far less local coverage than the others,
and mostly just runs NPR entertainment.

The part I was most curious about your claim that things
had changed in the market -- I am curious as to when it
used to be any different. Which stations had more news,
and how was their coverage different?

I've only been listening in this market for about 24 years,
and in that time it sounds all about the same to me, except
for the addition of WBUR's change a while back to run NPR
syndicated entertainment shows instead of I don't remember what.
I like news, and would like to hear about how it used to be
better, and how it might be driven that way again.