wrote:
There ARE
people who live in rural areas where there is no FM service. Really,
I've been there. AM is all they got, so they DX all the time, not as a
hobby. IBOC is intentional QRM.

Yup. I was in such an area this weekend. Schoharie County (Howe Caves,
Cobleskill, that area) in northern New York. There are a couple of FM
stations - all music (plus a couple religoius) formats. No news on
those. You get some bits and pieces of Fly 92 and WGNA-FM from the
Capital District.

As far as AM, there's a couple local daytimers - the big one being
WSDE-1190 (a local full-service station) and then there's WGY AM 81 out
of Schenectady. All WGY does as far as information is a few seconds of
Fox News Radio at the top of the hour and some Capital District news
done locally. Most of that thing is network-delivered talk, though:
Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Phil Hendrie, Mike Savage, etc.

At night, the sundowners (WSDE among them) dump carrier and go off the
air; and the dial comes alive. If you want news on the radio you can
catch WCBS-88 and WINS-1010 and WBBR-1130 from New York City solid.

You pretty much have no choice but to listen to long distance radio in
the rural areas.

I had forgotten what it was like - I used to love listening in to
long-distance radio as a teenager. It's going to be a disaster when
the whole dial is covered by buzzing hash, though.

--
Stephanie Weil
New York City, NY

"Frank Dresser" wrote in message
...


You made a couple of points concerning interference which seemed
contridictary. If interference is driving signifivant numbers of people
away from radio, it's an important consideration for the public. If
interference is only effecting a very few viable stations, it's important
only to those very few stations.


Man made interference is the issue today, not between stations... the
inter-station issues have existed for decades.

wrote in message
oups.com...

David Eduardo wrote:

KFI is the #3 radio station in LA, the worlds largest radio market in
terms
of revenue. It is the 4th highest billing radio station in the US, and,
maybe, the world. YOur subjective judgement on the quality seems to be
unobserved by the 1.2 million Angelinos that listen each week.

KFI succeeds on content, not sound quality.

I think there is an echo here. I just said that.

And the potential interference with
out of town stations (i.e. where the hash of one IBOC channel sits on
the analog signal of another station) is a real show stopper,
especially if at night.

However, there is no evidence that there is any appreciable listening to
out
of town AMs at night.

In numbers that impresses you I suppose.

No, in numbers that do not have lots of zeros to the right of the decimal
point before getting to anything serious.

In most every part o fthe US, there are multiple FMs, even in western ND
or
on the Navajo Nation in AZ, to name a few. Nobody listens to fady AM when
they have FM at hand, or other alternatives like satellite.

I have driven parts of Utah and Nevada without a freakin' cell phone
carrier let alone FM radio station. Take a trip from Ely to Vegas and
tell me how much FM you receive. Yet there are houses spattered all
along the way. There are people who live off the power grid. No phone
either. Oh yeah, well armed too.

I have done that, and there are FMs my car radio pick up all the way.

"Stephanie Weil" wrote in message
ups.com...

wrote:
There ARE
people who live in rural areas where there is no FM service. Really,
I've been there. AM is all they got, so they DX all the time, not as a
hobby. IBOC is intentional QRM.

Yup. I was in such an area this weekend. Schoharie County (Howe Caves,
Cobleskill, that area) in northern New York. There are a couple of FM
stations - all music (plus a couple religoius) formats. No news on
those. You get some bits and pieces of Fly 92 and WGNA-FM from the
Capital District.

As far as AM, there's a couple local daytimers - the big one being
WSDE-1190 (a local full-service station) and then there's WGY AM 81 out
of Schenectady. All WGY does as far as information is a few seconds of
Fox News Radio at the top of the hour and some Capital District news
done locally. Most of that thing is network-delivered talk, though:
Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Phil Hendrie, Mike Savage, etc.

At night, the sundowners (WSDE among them) dump carrier and go off the
air; and the dial comes alive. If you want news on the radio you can
catch WCBS-88 and WINS-1010 and WBBR-1130 from New York City solid.

You pretty much have no choice but to listen to long distance radio in
the rural areas.

I had forgotten what it was like - I used to love listening in to
long-distance radio as a teenager. It's going to be a disaster when
the whole dial is covered by buzzing hash, though.

The issue, though, is double. Is the content from Manhattan of any interest?
And, more than that, you have to wait till night time. Hardly anyone listens
to any radio at night (less than a third of daytime levels) and even less to
AM. hose signals may be available, but not used as there is no demand.

David Frackelton Gleason aka Eduardo the totally fraudulent Hispanic wrote:

"Frank Dresser" wrote in message
...


You made a couple of points concerning interference which seemed
contridictary. If interference is driving signifivant numbers of people
away from radio, it's an important consideration for the public. If
interference is only effecting a very few viable stations, it's important
only to those very few stations.


Man made interference is the issue today, not between stations... the
inter-station issues have existed for decades.

Now made only worse by the QRM known as IBOC.

dxAce
Michigan
USA

"D Peter Maus" wrote in message
...
David Eduardo wrote:

I had both ratings AND revenue. I was tolerated for 11 1/2 years. If I'd
had any sense, I would have walked out the second day, and found someplace
that was a better fit. I was offered a place across town my first day.

I have a strange resumé. It started years ago as a project to learn Page
Maker 1.0 (long ago) and I made a biographical, illustrated resume that is
about 60 pages long. A number of people said it was extreme, improper,
egotistical (me?) and such. But a close friend who is also successful in
radio said, "anyone you want to work for will like it. Anyone you would hate
will not. Consider it a filter."

What I learned there, and over the decades of my career was invaluable.
And a huge amount of fun, in isolated doses. Mostly I got to pick my own
assignments, and create projects for my amusement.

I was lucky in that.

I was lucky at the beginning. When I realized I was a lousy jock, I knew I
wanted t be a PD. But there were not many openings for 16-year-old PDs. The
only way was to won the station, something I did in Ecuador. I got to do
whatever I wanted. Fortunately, I somehow made money, too.

Interestingly, I did, intuititvely, very mainstream formats. The exception
was my "homage to FM" which was the first FM in northern South America, run
non-commercial for my own enjoyment (I started in FM in 1959). It ended up
being my biggest money maker, with just 6 20" spots an hour, one very 10
minutes.

Unfortunately, most lone owners I came across were real pieces of work, and
the stories of the owner's wife requesting songs be played out of format are
legion... and mostly true.

It is really tough for me to say that consolidation and bean counters is
worse than crazy owners, no insurance and whimsical firing policies.

Formula radio comes when you have good research, and a bad PD. A good PD,
armed with listener "advice" will make a fun station. Otherwisse, it is
just a jukebox.

And Jake Brodsky made a very interesting point...when all you have
accessible to you is formula, you get to the stage where you don't
expect anything else, and you come to accept it as not only the norm,
but the good as well. We're now at least two generations into
overresearched formulaic programming.

True maybe even much of the time. But when management lets a PD be
creative in everything from imaging to jocks, something way bigger
happens. It's magical at times.

Yes. I've gotten to experience that more than once. And during my first
9 years at CBS. It is magical.

It is also, almost always short lived. Magic only lasts so long.

I have seen the magic work for longer times. Gorman at WMMS. Tanner at Y
100. And many more. But they are few compared to the sheer number of statins
in the US. But, then again, it is hard to create these outside the larger
markets or the very dominant facilities in medium ones. It is hard to
envision such a creature in Ispeming or Show Low or Pampa. There are very
few WLNG's in small markets that are really great stations. Docket 80-90
killed about 75% of the ones that did exist, too.

Fred Moore, of KOMA fame, told me that the PD is nearly always the worst
jock on the station. With only two exceptions, in my experience, he's been
right.

I know some... Bill Tanner again comes to mind. And the PD of our Recuerdo
stations is also the highest rated talent on the LA station... but these are
very rare exception. Another axiom I have come to believe is that people who
know too much about the music are way to analyitical about it. I had one PD
who excluded songs because he had perfect pitch and thus would not play
songs with sour notes... even if they were #1. Give me a radio geek any
day... someone who lives in awe of radio and is thrilled to be allowed in
the front door! Such PDs hear the station in their heads like a listener,
not like a dork behind a desk.

What I see is that people want even more stratification. More niche
formats. If you want proof, talk to a group of alternative rock males.
Each one wants a different version of the format, and different songs. At
some point, this formast will become 30 different formats and not viable
on radio. I tis the listener, who has come to expect personal
gratification ("hey, I can do it on my iPod, dude.) with no concern for
anyone else. "That sucks" is the standard response for 99% of things in
an AR listener's life.


No doubt. But one of the very foundations of the science of audience
measurement, and perceptual research is that the sample's behaviour
changes when the sample is aware of being watched. One of the top reasons
why you can't 'apply' to be an Arbitron diary keeper, and instead have to
be invited to be screened. Talking to a group of alternative rock males,
for instance, may actually produce different results than when observing
them unaware. As naive listening produces results differing from direct
questionnaire.

This is why I do not do focus groups. Focus groups, as a researcher in
Puerto Rico I respect said, are "a party without the booze." An alpha male
or a female gossip takes over... always. And you gett all kinds of group
dymnamics. Focus groups were designed for managers, not the people who build
the widgets. An hour, and you know everything.

I do one on one interviews, with each person alone for 45 minutes to an
hour, in a controlled, neutral environment with an interviewer who is not a
peer... and who specifies they are from out of town and don't know anything
about any station, artist or whatever. This significantly removes the
noxious components, and is further helped by recruiting people based on
having them reconstruct last week's listening, not based on "favorite
station or show." The ones that exhibit the right behaviour are recruited.

Also, we have to keep in mind that we are not researching listeners. We are
researching potential diarykeepers so we emulate Arbitron recruit
characteristics. It's reality. When Pulse went door to door, I did research
door to door!

A study I did as part of a social studies class in high school asked a
randomly selected cross sectioned sample of 200 students at two different
high schools about their favorite radio stations. In both schools,
respondents described KSHE by the largest margin. More than 50%. KXOK was
the number two station at the time, behind KMOX. But not one respondent
admitted listening to KXOK. KSHE was AOR. KXOK, Top 40.

The environment... at schoool... introduces significant bias. That was a
defintely faulty sample design as being at school conditions all responses.

But when we sent other persons out to do some naive listening in teh
cafeteria, and the subject turned to radio, many of the KSHE respondents
could describe in detail individual instances on KXOK, even quoting
remarks by some of the jocks. Two had been recent participants in Johnny
Rabbitt's phone bits.

And if you did it on the street, on the phone or at athe mall, you would get
even clearer indications of reality.

My favorite story...

When I got to Puerto Rico in 1970, the survey company did in home
conincidentals. Two questions: radio on? What station? I went out with the
field crew and we were in anewer, very upper middle class neighborhood. Down
the street, we heard a radio blaring the station that broadcasters called
"the washerwoman's station" meaning it was very downscale and vulgar. We got
to the house. Ask the questions, please. The woman said, "WIPR" which was
the San Juan equivalent of NPR... classical and talk. Right. She was
responding like she thought residents of the neighborhood should, not as she
actually did.

In most research that is well designed, you ask some questions that will
identify lemon participants. When you check data, you eliminate these as
they did not behave as they said they did. Out.

It not only depends on how the question is asked, but, in fact, on
what's really at stake with the individual at the moment. Or the
respondent's mood. Or the phases of the moon. And while most of these
things can be compensated for to some degree, there is always the wild
card event that strikes listeners so well, despite fitting into no
established category for 'proper' quantization.

The problem is that most listeners are very mainstream, and you can run an
electronic "EKG" on music and spot where new songs are in a sample by the
enormous dip in score. Every time. There is a very limited passion for
innovation, but a big one for renovation. Freshening, not rebuilding.

I'm familiar with the concept that results in 30 different formats
requested by 25 different respondents. If you're talking about music, then
to satisfy the lion's share of them, yes, you need some pretty stout
research if you're going to play music alone. Probably very expensive and
time consuming research, too.

Most formats are pretty monolithic. And you can do factor and cluster
analysis to see how far out you can go without losing listeners, and see
subsets of your own listeners and schedule music so sets of sngs that are
"bad" to one group do not play back to back. The problem is where you have
young males who listen in black and white: i love it or I hate it. No
degrees. You either embrace it or flip it the bird. Know any 23 year old
males that act that way?

That's why I've always made noise about the fact that any station can play
a record, and then asked what we can do to bring something fresh to the
grille cloth that no other station can master. What has always come down
is that those are intangibles, and not quantifiable.

It is the glue that sticks it together. The talent, the imaging, the spot
load, and, especially, the mix of the songs. I can take 10 top scoring
songs, and mix them so they score very high as a mix, or very low... just by
optimizing or destroying the song to song flow. Many PDs think Selector is
intelligent and will program the music for them. Wrong.

More than one consultant, John Lund comes to mind, has said in response
that the only thing that people tune in for is the music. More, better,
timelier music, and you don't need anything else. Which is nonsense. You
can build that on your iPod. What can Radio do that ISN"T replicable at
home? Bring THAT to the speaker, and you'll keep listeners through portions
of an ABBA/Gordon Lightfoot marathon. A little of the RIGHT music and you
have a monster station.

I say that on music stations, it is the ability to create a better blend,
and package it nicely. In other words, a better flow of music than an iPod
on shuffle. Since most iPod onwers have only around 300 songs, radio can
compete if done nicely.

But what are those intangibles?

Well, that's a good question. Depends. You certainly can't ask your
sample about them. It's the very definition of creativity that creative
products are things not seen/heard before. Whether they're good...you'll
know it when you encounter it. That's too much of a risk for some
Manglement. But much of what's really of value in radio can't be simply
asked about. But once experienced, it can be as addictive as Wally
Phillips.

I agree. I do not research creativity except to get an idea of what worked
and what did not. The talent has to take that data and process it... the
research or the listener can not. This is where the good PD working to
orchestrate a staff comes in. Of course, if you are voice tracking or
automated, this will never work. It is ajuke box with an antenna.

Well, the book came and went and the listeners did NOT return.
Instead, they went to...say it with me, now....TALK RADIO. It was not
what they were looking for, but the entertainment intangibles were enough
to hold an audience looking for something else.

Dumb GM. There are hundreds and hundreds of documented cases of "more
stations in format create higher total shares" and "station leaving format
reduces total format shares" and there are no exceptions.

But that's the very reason you have live personalities. They bring
something fresh, new, and hopefully exciting to every break. Remove
unpredictable intangibles, and you have what....Jack FM?

Yet some are so burned with jocks they want Jack. For a while. I have seen
this in one market for years. Two similar stations, one personality, other
jsut music. For a decade, nearly tied. Listeners to the music station did
not want personality. Today, the music is not as good, so the personality
station wins. But there is a component who says, "shut up and play the
music." Often, a big one.

And 40 years of mostly vacuous CHR jocks (with occasional rare exceptins)
has made many wnat NO jocks at all.


So they will tell you. Until they hear a good one. Admittedly rare. Very
rare, indeed. But, then no one needs a Cadillac Eldorado, until you drive
one.

As mentioned, I have seen a marvelous personality station tied by a totally
neutral music station... playing the same songs, nearly. Talent is
polarizing, and some listeners do not want talk... they are there for songs.

All I remeber is, as a kid, being glad my market had 3 Top 40 stations as
there was one that was NOT giving news at any one time. I swore I would
have a station that played music, and did not interrupt for what I did
not come for.

I remember thinking the very same thing during the 'LS/'CFL wars. And
then I saw Topeka, Kansas AFTER the tornado. Radio was the only thing that
saved most of those people's lives.

Still, considering that at peak hours 3 out of 4 people are not listening to
the radio, I just do not think the current system is very good. And at off
hours, it can be less than one in 20.

That is part of the price for giving listeners what they want. News on
one staiton, music or entertainment on others. And that is why it is so
important to have a working emergency system... not Conelrad, not EBS,
not EAS. One that really works. the other issue is that for at least half
the day, less than 10% of the populaiton is not listening, and at the
best, only about 25% are. Radio is not as effective as we would like to
think.


No, it's not. But it certainly can be. When I was at KWKH, if there
was a crack of thunder, listeners all over the Ark-La-Tex tuned in to
KWKH, even over and above KEEL. Why? Because in the history of KWKH, it
was THE instant news station. If something was happening...it didn't
matter what--weather, plane crash, traffic, the police chief's bribe money
was late--anything, KWKH was on it. And over the years, that became
ingrained in the marketplace. To the degree that KWKH was THE station
listeners turned to, even if they never listened to the station at any
other time. Even if they weren't listening to radio at all when the first
flash of lightening split the sky.

There still are a bunch of good AMs in this regard. The problem is that most
folks under 35 don't use AM, and may not even know what it is. FM can not
get the fringe coverage of a big AM... and many parts of the US, including
the nation's capitol, have no big AMs. We have a defective system of
allocations for AM to be effective, and FMs are usually pretty limited in
coverage.

A technical solution is not the only answer. Getting people to turn
on their radios in expectation of super service is a better way.

Just as newspaper readership is down, and TV news is about Paris Hilton
rather than the Summit in Paris, France, there is a dumbing down of America
that makes American Idol be considered a cultural event. I thik this is far
more than a radio problem. I took my youngest daughter out of an LA public
school because she was not learning anthing solid in the things I though
important, like reading and the ability to write an original thought and how
to do math without a calculator. Same problem, different manifestation (she
went to a private school in Puerto Rico, where half the classes were in
English, half in Spanish and Freench was taught as a foreign language. She
can actually talk intelligently now).

Let a self activating radio go off at 2 in the morning, and the man who
brought it into the house had better not plan on getting laid anytime
soon. If he doesn't get to sleep in the dumpster for a while. Self
activating radios are often premptively de activated. Defeating their
purpose.

What is the difference between this and a system of alert sirens, as was
common for tornados in rural America in the past? Today, we sleep with
windos closed and the AC or heat on, so we can not hear sirens...


And that's where music stations need to take a leadership role. Provide
necessary service when the need arises, and screw the music format if
necessary. The truth be told, you and I both know that even a music
intensive station can pick up the mantle during heavy weather without a
great disturbance in the format.

In a major hurricane in PR some years ago, I took my music FM to simulcast
the AM non-stop coverage of the storm. Ratings showed that we lost virtually
all the audience. Everyone who wanted storm news went to the several
established news specialists, and the music stations that kept format kept
ratings. I had miscalculated, and it took half a year to recover. I should
have remembered that a Hurricane Kit in PR is a bunch of candles and 4 cases
of beer... and realized that listeners saw the storms as a way to not have
to work and have a party. I did not provide the party music, and did no good
anyway.

I have similar anecdotes about earthquakes, floods, and even plagues of
locusts (OK, no locust stories... that was Moses).

Screw it. Take the leadership. Do the job. Serve. As a public trustee.
Just as the Instrument of Authority requires.

See my comments on education and awarenss. There is just not an interest,
and among those who have an interest, there is a well established well.
Digging new and shallow wells does not help.

You know more than 90 of today's GMs, most of whom think that creating a
new sales package is more important than programming.


As flattering as that is...It's really disturbing that today's
broadcast industry is in the hands of GM's who know less than I do.


Oh, you're SO doomed.

Eventually, the companies that are sales driven will realize it is a lot
easier to sell the #1 station than the #15 one. I learned that at about age
17, so I put product first. Most managers see it as an expense.

dxAce wrote:
David Frackelton Gleason aka Eduardo the totally fraudulent Hispanic wrote:

"Frank Dresser" wrote in message
...


You made a couple of points concerning interference which seemed
contridictary. If interference is driving signifivant numbers of people
away from radio, it's an important consideration for the public. If
interference is only effecting a very few viable stations, it's important
only to those very few stations.


Man made interference is the issue today, not between stations... the
inter-station issues have existed for decades.

Now made only worse by the QRM known as IBOC.

no it isn't QRM it is just an added chalenge

dxAce
Michigan
USA

David Eduardo wrote:

The FCC chose the Magnavox, and Lenard Kahn sued, and then the FCC came out with a marketplace ruling 5 years later. To get to C quam, we went through a
singe system ruling, a lawsuit by a disgrunteld designer who did not care if
he killed AM,, and then a marketplace rulling. So they DID do a single
system ruling, even if changed later. The result was C Quam, and one
company getting all the (very limited) money for generators and royalties
for recievers.

Yup. And by then, it was too late for AM Stereo. When did the FCC do
that final ruling on C-QUAM?

Was it in early 2000s? By then I had given up on AM Stereo as the
local MW stations dropped the system one-by-one. Last one to go was
WFAN-AM 660, I believe, when the AM Stereo exciter burned out.

My little Sony AM Stereo walkman was languishing in its box until I
gave it away a couple years ago. I don't miss it.

--
Steph

"Stephanie Weil" wrote in message
oups.com...

David Eduardo wrote:

The FCC chose the Magnavox, and Lenard Kahn sued, and then the FCC came
out with a marketplace ruling 5 years later. To get to C quam, we went
through a
singe system ruling, a lawsuit by a disgrunteld designer who did not care
if
he killed AM,, and then a marketplace rulling. So they DID do a single
system ruling, even if changed later. The result was C Quam, and one
company getting all the (very limited) money for generators and royalties
for recievers.

Yup. And by then, it was too late for AM Stereo. When did the FCC do
that final ruling on C-QUAM?

The "marketplace decision" was August, 1982.

David Eduardo wrote:

The "marketplace decision" was August, 1982.

No no. After that. When the FCC finally implemented C-Quam as THE
STANDARD for AM stereo.

That was only a few years back, if I recall.

--
Steph