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Date Posted: Tue 03/04/03 - 10:56:23 PM
Author: Barry
Subject: Re: Dialing Mc Radio
In reply to: henry 's message, "Re: Dialing Mc Radio" on Tue 03/04/03 - 3:34:25 PM

How do you go from Modern AC to Smooth Jazz???

>A but long, but just for the history, here's the
>stories:
>(I usually don't like the Trib, but I like these
>stories)
>
>>>>>
>
>
>'Voicetracking' Attracts Big Share of Criticism
>
>Producer Casey, left, Chunga and Mister, seen in the
>studio at modern-rock station 107.5 "The End," are
>real live people whose patter attracts a large
>audience in the Salt Lake City market. But on many
>stations, computer-rigged DJ voices may come from
>other cities, and be broadcast long after the speaker
>has left the studio.
>(Al Hartmann/The Salt Lake Tribune)
>BY BRANDON GRIGGS
>THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
>
> Every weekday, disc jockey Scott Tyler chats
>between songs on KZHT (94.9 FM), a youth-oriented Salt
>Lake City station that plays Britney Spears and Avril
>Lavigne. He recites the station's call letters and
>sometimes plugs upcoming Utah concerts. KZHT's Web
>site lists a Salt Lake City request line and says
>Tyler is "waiting for your call."
> But what Tyler's listeners probably don't realize
>is that he is not doing his show from KZHT's Salt Lake
>City studio. In fact, he's not even in Utah. Tyler's
>show is imported daily from Chicago, where he is a DJ
>on a station called KISS-FM.
> Thanks in part to digital editing that allows KZHT
>to wrap Tyler's prerecorded voice around songs and
>commercials, this practice, known as "voicetracking,"
>or sometimes "time-shifting," is becoming more and
>more common. Shannon Leder, a San Diego DJ, is heard
>weekday mornings on Utah rock station KCPX (105.7 FM),
>and the new KISS (97.1 FM) imports two out-of-town
>weekday radio hosts. Unlike syndicated radio
>"personalities" such as Rick Dees and Howard Stern,
>these voicetracked DJs often sound local by commenting
>on Utah weather, news or local promotions.
> Defenders of this practice say it brings the
>nation's top DJs to cities that otherwise would not
>hear them.
> "You can have really high-quality announcers from
>around the country speaking about local topics -- and
>it's cost-effective," says Stu Stanek, who runs Clear
>Channel's Salt Lake City stations. "I don't think [DJs
>not being local] is important as long as they cover
>local topics, like a big concert coming here. We
>school them on local issues, so I don't really see
>that as a negative."
> But other industry veterans see this type of
>voicetracking as deceptive. Some DJs say it is being
>used to put them out of work. Others say that radio
>stations that rely too much on out-of-town DJs risk
>alienating their audiences.
> "Over a period of time, the listener catches on
>and they don't like it," says John Webb, owner of Salt
>Lake City smooth jazz station The Breeze (97.9 FM).
>"If you have someone who's good locally versus someone
>who's good nationally, the local person will win every
>time."
> The biggest importer of voicetracked talent on
>Utah airwaves is Clear Channel, the corporate giant
>that has become a lightning rod for everything critics
>say is wrong with radio. The company owns stations in
>almost every major U.S. radio market and reaches more
>than 100 million listeners daily; it also owns SFX
>Entertainment, the nation's largest concert promoter.
>Critics have accused Clear Channel of everything from
>overprogrammed playlists to ruthless business
>practices.
> "Nobody roots for the leader," shrugs Clear
>Channel's Stanek, who maintains the company's broad
>reach is good for radio. Because of its size, Clear
>Channel has run nationwide contests with much bigger
>prizes -- up to $1 million -- than individual stations
>can afford to offer, he says. The company also owns a
>network of 48 KISS-FMs around the nation; this means
>that KISS's pop music fans, when traveling to another
>city, are assured of finding a familiar-sounding
>station -- much in the way that some travelers rely on
>McDonald's.
>
>
>>>>>
>
>
>Utah Radio Waves Dominated by a Few
>
>
>
>
>(Photo Illustration by Francisco Kjolseth/The Salt
>Lake Tribune)
>BY BRANDON GRIGGS
>© 2003, THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
>
> For Andy Fletcher, they were among the fondest
>memories of his youth: He and his brother, growing up
>in Salt Lake City in the 1970s, would lie in their
>beds at night and listen to the radio.
> Back then, stations played a bit of everything --
>Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Neil Young, Led Zeppelin. To
>Fletcher, under his covers in the darkness, the
>variety of the songs suggested a larger world beyond.
> "I could listen for hours," he says. "Back then,
>it was album-oriented rock. You wouldn't just hear
>'Stairway to Heaven.' You'd hear deep cuts off an
>album, like 'Misty Mountain Hop.' "
> These days, Fletcher discovers dozens of new
>records weekly as owner of Orion's Music in Salt Lake
>City. But he doesn't hear them on commercial radio.
>Fletcher hardly listens to the radio anymore, because
>he can't stand hearing the same songs over and over.
> "The record labels and the radio stations are
>killing themselves by focusing on the Top 40 or the
>top 200 titles and pretty much ignoring everything
>else," says the 37-year-old. "There's great music out
>there. But the radio stations just aren't playing it."
> Fletcher's eclectic tastes may not reflect
>mainstream music listeners -- especially adolescent
>ones, who are less discriminating about radio
>programming. But he is not alone in his disenchantment
>with commercial music radio. Nationwide, radio
>listening has declined about 10 percent over the past
>six years, according to surveys by Arbitron, the
>nationwide radio ratings company. Arbitron found that
>in fall 2002, a Salt Lake City listener spent an
>average of 16 hours and 15 minutes a week tuned to the
>radio -- down 45 minutes from the year before.
> Why this slippage? Some observers cite competition
>from the Internet. A recent study found that about 25
>million Americans listen to Internet-only radio
>through their PCs, while millions more download free
>music from Napsterlike Web sites. Others blame digital
>cable radio, which is available through your TV, or
>satellite radio, available to subscribers who buy a
>special receiver and pay a monthly fee. But these
>technologies, still in their infancy, draw only tiny
>audiences.
> A larger factor, longtime listeners say, is the
>evolving nature of commercial radio itself. In an era
>of corporate consolidation, more and more stations
>today are owned by large media conglomerates whose
>profit-driven mentality demands high ratings -- and
>correspondingly high ad rates. That, for the most
>part, means safe, accessible programming: strict
>formats, tight playlists, hummable songs and familiar
>hits by familiar artists.
> Increasingly, it also means on-air personalities
>who are not live -- and often not even local. To cut
>costs, many stations require their disc jockeys to
>pre-record snippets of chat that, with the help of
>computers, are then inserted between songs. This
>relatively new technique, known as "voicetracking,"
>allows the DJ to sound live long after he or she is
>off the clock. Some big radio companies take this a
>step further and surreptitiously air their most
>popular DJs in multiple cities.
> Music stations also have lost ground to talk
>radio, which has exploded in popularity over the past
>two decades. Witness the most popular radio station in
>the Salt Lake City market, KSL (1160 AM), which has a
>news-talk format.
> Then there are the commercials. Compared with 10
>years ago, most stations have added a few extra ads
>each hour -- an increase that has driven away some
>listeners.
> "Radio has changed in the last five to 10 years,
>and it's probably been for the worse," says longtime
>Utah DJ Jon Carter, now at "The Arrow" (103.5 FM), a
>Salt Lake City classic rock station. "It all sounds
>the same."
>
> Still Popular: A century after its birth, radio
>remains an enormously popular mass medium. In an
>average week, radio reaches 223 million people, or 94
>percent of all Americans aged 12 or older.
> Thanks to Utah's population boom, Salt Lake City
>is now the 32nd-largest radio market in America, up
>from 36th only two years ago. It also is one of the
>most competitive. The Wasatch Front boasts almost 60
>stations -- the most, per capita, of any city in the
>nation. The crowded airwaves are partly the product of
>geography: Station owners can erect a radio tower atop
>a mountain, usually the Oquirrhs' Farnsworth Peak, and
>transmit a clear signal across a broad area.
> Anybody looking to launch a major new FM station
>in the Salt Lake City market -- which stretches from
>Ogden to Provo -- must take over an existing signal
>because no new ones are available. Jostling for space
>on the FM band alone are four pop stations, three
>country stations, five classic rock stations and three
>modern or alternative rock stations.
> "From a listener perspective, it's a mixed bag,"
>says Bruce Reese, CEO of Bonneville International, an
>LDS Church subsidiary that owns 34 stations around the
>country, including Utah market leader KSL (1160 AM).
>On the one hand, Reese says, listeners have more
>choices than ever. On the other, "there are really
>more radio stations than there are viable formats for
>them."
> While the number of Salt Lake City radio stations
>has mushroomed over the past decade, the number of
>station owners has shrunk. Before the 1990s, federal
>regulations prohibited companies from owning more than
>one AM and one FM station in each market -- and no
>more than 28 nationwide. Then came the
>Telecommunications Act of 1996, which eliminated many
>media ownership restrictions. Large companies
>immediately began gobbling up stations from coast to
>coast.
> "It was the Oklahoma land rush," says Tom Taylor,
>editor of InsideRadio.com, a Web site devoted to
>industry news. "There's been faster consolidation in
>the radio industry than in any other sector of the
>media . . . much faster than anyone could have
>foreseen."
> Four corporations own 17 of Salt Lake City's 25
>highest-rated stations. Industry heavyweight Clear
>Channel, based in San Antonio, owns 1,200 stations in
>the country, including seven in Salt Lake City. Las
>Vegas-based Citadel Communications counts seven Salt
>Lake City stations among more than 200 it owns. The
>two biggest local players are Bonneville and Simmons
>Media, which between them control about a third of the
>market. In November, Bonneville bought three stations
>from Simmons; the sale still must be approved by the
>Federal Communications Commission.
> These companies might control an even bigger slice
>of the Utah radio pie, but the FCC still limits anyone
>from owning more than a handful of radio stations in
>each market. In Salt Lake City, that cap is eight.
>Clear Channel also sells ads on three Salt Lake City
>stations owned by its affiliate, Mercury Broadcasting.
>Although a Clear Channel executive calls this
>arrangement "completely legal," rivals gripe that it
>allows the company to skirt FCC rules.
> Smaller stations complain that consolidation
>within the radio industry gives an unfair advantage to
>big companies such as Clear Channel that use their
>clout to squeeze advertisers, bully concert promoters
>and even extract payments from record labels in
>exchange for playing songs by their artists. Radio
>executives deny any unscrupulous business practices.
>Record companies make legal payments to radio stations
>for help in promoting artists' local concerts -- not
>for airplay, executives say.
> "It's about what the audience wants to hear, not
>what the labels are pushing," says Stu Stanek, who
>runs seven Salt Lake City stations owned by Clear
>Channel. Stanek believes consolidation has benefited
>radio owners and listeners alike. "When deregulation
>first happened, a majority of stations in America were
>losing money. Now a majority of stations are making
>money. Bigger companies have more wherewithal, and
>more wherewithal means better pro- gramming."
> In recent months, this debate has reached
>Congress. U.S. Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., has
>introduced legislation that would prevent the FCC from
>loosening media ownership restrictions. Feingold says
>his bill would help consumers and independent radio
>owners by cracking down on "anti-competitive
>practices," and his efforts are being closely watched
>by locally owned Salt Lake City stations.
> The big corporations "control what you hear," says
>John Webb, owner of smooth jazz station "The Breeze"
>(97.9 FM). "Do I think that's good for our business?
>No, I don't. Radio is a local medium. It's important
>that the programming be driven by local tastes rather
>than national tastes."
>
>>>>>>
>
>
>I'll tell you this much, it sounds like the Breeze
>against the world. Go Breeze! (I set my former 97.1
>preset to 97.9)

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