[WXBH-Discuss] Paul's rant on Programming
topdog at woofer.com
topdog at woofer.com
Tue Jun 20 03:04:48 EDT 2006
Hi Patrick,
It seems as though you understood my point better than Loyd did. The entire
rant was just a suggestion and not a game plan. I would be all for the "Sea
Shanty Hour" too! ;-) You just can't find that kind of stuff around here and I
think diversity would be the key to our success. As long as we play ANYTHING
but Country or Christian I think we will be OK. I have nothing against those
formats but anyone who has ever tried "dx-ing" or listening to distant
stations
that aren't in the local market area can tell you that there is either a
Christian or Country station at just about every niche on your dial (including
92.7 in Seymour). In other words, our market is SWAMPED with these formats.
We have no full time Jazz station in a city that was once known for it. If we
happened to adopt an all Jazz format I think I could get us all the financial
backing that we would ever need and a score of listeners to boot.
It's truly a shame that our radio signal will never be heard by what we once
considered to be our target market (Old Louisville, Highlands, maybe Crescent
Hill). We have to face the facts that we are going to have little or no
audience in the Hurstbourne area. This is not just my feeling - I have
discussed it with a number of friends. That is the suburbs. I may be wrong,
but I don't get the vibe of community spirit coming from there. Have you ever
tried to merge into traffic on Hurstbourne Lane? Has anyone ever let
you in? They don't let me in and they won't help you if your car needs
a jump. I know
personally from some of my pizza delivery friends that this is one of
the worst
areas in town to work (not good tippers). I would assume that their
closed-mindedness also may be an indicator of their radio listening habits.
These are the people that keep Rush Limbaugh on the Louisville air waves. I
just see a format like radical left-wing talk radio as giving them one more
reason to never tune us in. With some off-the-wall local programming we might
have a chance in Hurstbourne!
Pacifica would be a nice format for Old Louisville and the Highlands where we
would actually have some die-hard listeners. Unfortunately, our signal won't
reach there. I guess my advice is "look before you leap".
Some of us on the Tech committee already know that a much bigger
audience would
be attained by streaming our signal simultaneously. I don't know if
that would
be against any user agreements with Pacifica. For instance, WHAS-AM
can stream
local shows but network shows are often blocked to force people to listen to
their local stations (and their local commercials). Something else to look
into.
I am sorry if I gave the impression that I was for block programming and the
incessant repeats of shows. That's not at all what I was suggesting.
Following my hypothetical model, if my Zappa-head friend happened to
play "I
don't wanna get drafted" at 8AM on Monday, it would be played again at 4PM on
Tuesday, and midnight on Thursday. That block of shows would then be done and
gone forever - hardly saturating the airwaves. Next Monday would be a new
block of shows. Seeing how Mr. Zappa was the most prolific composer of the
entire 20th Century (if not of all time) there is a good chance that "drafted"
would never be heard again on WXBH. Most of the stations in town have a
playlist that features songs multiple times per day. In the case of some, I
think it is multiple times per hour. Talk about BORING...
I think that the reason "Louisville Radio Sucks" is because that is what the
listeners seem to want. We have like 30 stations that are owned by 5
corporations. There is no diversity because people don't seem to want it. If
you haven't been to your favorite town lately, radio stations there might not
be quite as you remembered them. Check out Clear Channel's affiliate list
sometime.
WFPK is the only station that will consistantly play local artists - and that
hasn't happened since WLRS was at 102.3. Maybe this is why WFPK usually wins
LEO's readers poll as the "best station". The corporate world has even taken
its toll there - DJ's have less say in what they can play each hour. Former
WFPK DJ Scott Mullins once said: "We have gone from being the best station in
town to the one that sucks the least". Maybe we can take over where they left
off when the corporation raised its ugly head. I see diversity as being the
key.
Once again, this is only my 2 cents worth and if I've offended you I guess
you'll just have to get over it. ;-)
Paul
Quoting Patrick Martin <spreadlovelikepeanutbutter at hotmail.com>:
> I'm sorry, but I for one enjoy the idea of ALL types and formats of
> shows (music, news, discussion forum) as long as there is an audience
> listening and contibuting some type of support. I happen to like
> prog rock, garage rock, etc. among many other things and I think
> shows like that could do well in Louisville because there isn't an
> outlet for something like that here on our dial. I can honestly say
> that I would welcome music like that on my radio, and would lend my
> support to keep it on the air. I agree that repeating blocks of
> programming in excess (no matter what it is) might be a bad move,
> but I don't think that was exactly the point being made. Whenever
> this project is off the ground, there will not necessarily be enough
> content to keep the broadcast going 24/7 without some type of
> repeating, there simply are not enough people with enough time. And,
> again, I'm very sorry, but the idea of a "community" (i.e. everybody)
> station that is geared or oriented towards only one type of
> programming be it punk or sea chanties or local church services is a
> big turn off for me and I'm sure it would be for other people in the
> city as well.
>
> A humorous anecdote, I recently found myself in an orientaion
> exercise with about 15 other people when we were asked to fill out a
> personality questionaire, one question being "What is your favorite
> radio station?" Aside from myself and one other person, (I listed a
> NY station, the other guy said WASE 103.5, an E-town oldies station)
> everyone in the room said "The radio here sucks." Could this be the
> WXBH demographic?
>
>
>> From: loyd coy <xscenedestroyerx at yahoo.com>
>> Reply-To: WXBH Radio Discussion List <wxbh-discuss at wxbh.org>
>> To: WXBH Radio Discussion List <wxbh-discuss at wxbh.org>
>> Subject: Re: [WXBH-Discuss] Paul's rant on Programming
>> Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:48:56 -0700 (PDT)
>>
>> i cant beleive that anyone thinks that the repeat of
>> blocks of programming is a good idea... that trend in
>> cable tv is the worst thing to ever happen to
>> television aside from reality shows. i love the
>> history channel and other educational television but
>> when i have cable i end up watching tv just as little
>> as when i dont cause everytime i turn it on the same
>> programs are on. it makes me think twice before i ever
>> hit the power button.. and to be honest if what was
>> being repeated was shows dealing with garage rock,
>> prog rock, and zappa-esque stuff id want to shoot
>> myself in the face twice. i think that getting
>> democracy now and other syndicated shows is an amazing
>> idea. locally produced shows would of course be the
>> "key to our success" but the absence of a good
>> independent all encompassing news source would be a
>> disservice to the community NOT a disservice to the
>> programming of a station. i do not disagree with the
>> 360 degrees of music thing, but when you are at a
>> level where you see repeating msuic with such a small
>> audience for 24 hours as a viable option id say that
>> beggars cant be choosers. any type of a station like
>> this should always be what the people involved make
>> it. so if for a while you have a ton of punk rock
>> types doing shows then it might lean in the
>> direction.. then if they all go away and all of a
>> sudden the hip hop community embraces the station,
>> then youd have a hip hop heavy format. i think
>> diversity should be a goal, but should by no means be
>> the only thing considered... all of this is only meant
>> ot be food for thought.
>>
>> --- topdog at woofer.com wrote:
>>
>> > Hi,
>> >
>> > I'm also interested in programming. I have a few
>> > friends (most of whom are
>> > audio engineers) who I have casually approached
>> > about possibly doing their own
>> > shows and they have all expressed interest. One guy
>> > is into old folk music,
>> > another is a progressive rock enthusiast, another is
>> > just into "weird" stuff
>> > like Beefhart and Zappa. I had thought of doing my
>> > own show of (highly
>> > edited)
>> > garage band jams that I have collected over the
>> > years - many done with the
>> > Zappahead. Needless to say, all of the
>> > forementioned people (including
>> > myself)
>> > have their own studios or access to studios so
>> > production costs would be the
>> > cost of blank CD's. If they want to "beam" their
>> > shows to us via the
>> > internet,
>> > then the cost to us would be FREE.
>> >
>> > I think locally produced shows would be the key to
>> > our success - and
>> > what we all
>> > envision. I feel that subscribing to network
>> > programming (just to be
>> > on the air
>> > for the sake of being allowed to be on the air) is a
>> > bit of a copout.
>> >
>> > Lets say, for instance, that the four shows that I
>> > just mentioned are
>> > approved. Lets also say that each show is a two hour
>> > block. That is 8
>> > hours of local
>> > programming. There is a current technique being
>> > used by a number of from
>> > cable TV networks (i.e. the Food Network, History
>> > Channel, Discovery...) of
>> > repeating BLOCKS of shows. I think the same show
>> > you can watch at 8PM is on
>> > again at 12AM - and the 9:00AM show is on at
>> > 1:00AM... I can't currently
>> > envision anyone listening to us for more than 8
>> > hours at time so that 8 hour
>> > block could then be repeated and still seem fresh to
>> > most listeners. A
>> > "threepeat" would give us 24 hours of programming -
>> > at no cost whatsoever to
>> > WXBH!!!
>> >
>> > The repeats do not have to be linear. Say that this
>> > 8 hour block is
>> > programmed
>> > for the first airing on Monday from 8AM to 4PM. The
>> > repeat can be
>> > Tuesday from
>> > 4PM until midnight Wednesday and the Threepeat
>> > starting at midnight on
>> > Thursday.
>> > That way, all of the DJ's and all of their friends
>> > (our new listeners) have a
>> > chance to hear their show no matter what their work
>> > or school schedule may be!
>> >
>> > Say there are seven of us interested in programming.
>> > If each of us found 4
>> > people to do shows (possibly including themselves)
>> > then we would have a 24/7
>> > week full of local programming. If all of these
>> > people had their own
>> > facilities (yeah... I know) then ALL of our
>> > programming would be free. Aron
>> > and I had talked about possibly running the station
>> > out of a closet from the
>> > transmitter site. Shows could be uploaded to a
>> > computer at the
>> > transmitter via
>> > DSL (which seems to be our cheapest option). The
>> > scheduling could be done on
>> > the computer there. If we are not "live" then the
>> > speed of the lines (or the
>> > internet) is no longer an issue.
>> >
>> > There are literally HUNDREDS of recording studios in
>> > the city of Louisville
>> > alone. All one really needs is a microphone and a
>> > computer. If the cost of
>> > producing the show could be made the burden of the
>> > DJ then production costs
>> > would be ZERO!
>> >
>> > You don't need the best of computers to do this
>> > either. An old 486 with a CD
>> > burner and a sound card would suffice. I remember
>> > seeing quite a
>> > number of old
>> > donated computer parts in the storeroom. Let's do
>> > something with them! An
>> > internal IDE CD burner is like $20 or so. For
>> > anyone interested in production
>> > or having their own show that does not have a
>> > computer, lets fix up a comp and
>> > give it to them for free (with a signed agreement
>> > that they give us x
>> > number of
>> > shows or give us the computer back).
>> >
>> > It would of course be ideal to have a live, on-air
>> > station but I think we have
>> > to be realistic - at least at first. Our main goal
>> > is to get on the
>> > air and we
>> > have until Oct 29 to do so. Right now, the free
>> > time that I have is being
>> > solely devoted to the tech group and I don't get to
>> > read a lot of the
>> > Discussion Group topics. Once we are "on the air" I
>> > would love to help with
>> > the programming.
>> >
>> > I think everyone sees the tremendous cost (at least
>> > to us) of having a
>> > production facility. Equipment, electricity,
>> > security, uncouth DJ's, heating,
>> > cooling.... Unless these grants come through, we
>> > are on our own. I don't
>> > envision "a lot" of money coming through
>> > underwriting or CD sales but it could
>> > pay for the electricity and DSL each month. If the
>> > DSL and rent at the
>> > transmitter site can be bartered through
>> > underwriting then electricity
>> > might be
>> > our only cost (less than $50 per month). That is
>> > assuming that production is
>> > free.
>> >
>> > I didn't know what "direction" we were going to take
>> > as far as the programming
>> > goes, but I envision it to be a bit of everything.
>> > The Brick House is a
>> > community center and we have to serve our varied
>> > community. WFPK, as an
>> > example, has made "360 degrees of music" their
>> > motto. They stick to their
>> > motto. In the course of a 24/7 week they play just
>> > about everything but
>> > classical music and talk shows (their sister
>> > stations are classical and talk
>> > formats). I was thinking that we would kind of be
>> > the same but I
>> > haven't heard
>> > anything formal about what the format might be.
>> > That might be a good
>> > topic for
>> > discussion.
>> >
>> > I'll "sign off" for now. ;-)
>> >
>> > Paul Nevitt
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Quoting Jennifer Oladipo <jenniferola at wildmail.com>:
>> >
>> > > Hello all,
>> > >
>> > > I joined largely because I'm interested in
>> > programming. From what
>> > > I've gathered so far, much of the talk has been
>> > technical. I just
>> > > wondered who else intends to have anything to do
>> > with programming, or
>> > > if anyone has already taken the lead on that.
>> > >
>> > > Jennifer
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > More than 300,000 seals could be killed in Canada
>> > this year - most of
>> > > them babies. Tell Canada's Prime Minister to stop
>> > the hunt now!
>> > > http://go.care2.com/stophunt
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > http://www.Care2.com Free e-mail. 100MB storage.
>> > Helps nonprofits.
>> > > --
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