Since moving to Birmingham 5 years ago, I have seen/heard my fair share of radio station
changes and personalities (used to be called disc jockeys). As corporate radio takes over the Birmingham airwaves and infects them with syndicated radio shows, I think Birmingham suffers. Even one of my fave local morning show teams, Beaner & Ken from 100.5 the X were transferred to New York and were beamed back here in an attempt to keep it local. It failed, miserably and the X no longer exists.
I was born and grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a city not unlike Birmingham, except flat. Tons of people tuned in to classic rock station 97.5 KMOD to hear the Breakfast Club Zoo which spawned the fictional king of phone ass-whoop, Roy D. Mercer. After moving here I looked for a similar station that carried classic rock and discovered the John Boy & Billy Show on Rock 99.5. Not accustomed to southern culture, I listened for a bit and being new here, confused them with the Rick & Bubba show. What did I get? No music for the morning commute and a bunch of fat guys carrying on and laughing themselves silly and forcing a quick dial change. Fast forward to present day Birmingham radio.
Herein is where I discovered a trend: very few morning radio shows are produced here locally on the adult contemporary, alternative and classic rock stations. Since these stations are owned corporately from national owners, morning radio shows are farmed out or syndicated to local radio. Don’t believe me?
- 94.5 FM “Kidd Kraddick In The Morning” from Dallas Texas (Citadel Broadcasting)
- 99.5 FM “The John Boy & Billy Show” from Charlotte, NC (Citadel Broadcasting)
- 103.7 FM “The Ace & TJ Show” Myrtle Beach, SC (Clear Channel Communications)
- 105.5 FM “Lex & Terry” Dallas, Texas (Clear Channel Communications)
The lone station that is owned nationally that has a local DJ? 106.9FM featuring Lisa Mason who is there just to keep the pre-programmed music player on and break for commercials. Heck, even the weather and traffic are farmed out to a few local companies who phone in their reports every 15 minutes.
Have you been to these stations websites? They are ridiculous. Being corporate owned, each station has the same web template, advertisements and promotions as the rest of their sister stations throughout the country. Enticements included are signing up for program info and contests that is just a bad way of harvesting your contact information to sell to their sponsors. Gimmicks that try to increase social interaction and listener loyalty are absurd encouraging people to send in really bad webcam photos or party shots of themselves so others can “rate my rack” or “How’s my can?”
There is precious little local information or insights to the DJ’s except for promos to where their radio van is going to be that night.
Is radio relevant anymore? Sure you can get updates and an occasional song but is there any loyalty due to the massive station/genre/channel changes? Why do I care what happens in Dallas or the Carolinas? Why should I listen to fat-asses laughing over themselves?
I want music and a disc jockey with a personality who gives you what you want to know and then knows when to shut up so you can rock out on the way to work. I’ll take the commercials and promos, but now, back to the music.
Did radio kill the radio star? Not sure, but for now, my iPod gives me what I want.
Rock on.
Leave a Reply