In the local market, Little Rock, AR, KAAY had a lot of competition for listeners and advertising dollars. Rating wise, the most competition came from Brother Hal, folksy caracter, that outlived top 40 KAAY. He was on the air when we signed on and on the air when KAAY changed format. The Top 40 competition came from KAJI. Nationally,I was always inpressed that in major markets, Chicago, New Orleans, St. Louis, there were great top 40 stations but somehow, we had great listeners in those metro markets and in the rural areas.
Radio has changed. Many will say, not for the best, either. If radio is to survive and prosper it must keep up with today's market. The advent of television forced radio into a major change from basicly network old time radio programming, to music-personality radio. Now radio and TV faces the Ipod revolution. The audience now wants to be in charge of their own programming. The Ipod in a way is like the early transistor radio. The big change, (quality aside) is where the programming is going to come from. Radio stations are being left out of the loop. In the early days of top 40, record companies were dependent of radio stations to introduce new music and get it out for people to want to buy records. Now record companies are so big and powerful, they are too worried about the public downloading their music for free.
Where or will radio stations fit into the Ipod revolution. A few will offer their programs streaming online. Thanks to congress that is becoming too expensive for radio stations to want to do it. It's time for stations to step up and create new divisions with seperate talent with exclusive product only for Ipods and online.
Look at the newspapers. Circulation is down and the best they can do is offer their print material online. Many television stations have seen the opportunity and at least are trying to offer unique online services. I see television moving rapidly to an on demand situation. Already we have seen a market for old TV episodes at $2 a pop for what once was free. What will happen to local TV as cable,internet, and satellite move into an "on demand" era? Local news you say. TV has always had a lock on local news. What if local "Drudge Reports" start showing up and achieve the success of Drudge? How does KAAY fit into all this. What I learned from the KAAY experience; it wasn't the music, or the news. or the contests, or the promotions. or the DJs, or the jingles, or the personal appearances, or the production, or the 50,000 watts, it was all those things. The "package" gave listeners a cause. a personal friend, someone who would come to Havana, Arkansas and play basketball on a plank-type gym floor. In my opinion XM Radio comes close. They are missing some key elements though. No contests, no personal appearances, no reason to tell your friends this is MY station. XM seems to me to be a whole lot stations with no unifying loveable corperate image. Somehow Apple gets loyal fans who pay a premium for a status symbol product. Microsoft, on the other hand is hated and suceeds by brute force. Now XM & Sirius want to merge after promising the F.C.C. that they would not. I have had XM for a long time. Ever since I read about it on a DJ online forum. I don't mind paying for it, even though I am known to be frugal. XM to me is a bargain. I fear the bargain and the programming my suffer with the merger. Satellite radio needs to see the handrighting on the wall. The Iphone may be successful in bringing together Ipods, cell phones and TV. Apple may wind up with the last laugh and the last buck (at $500 a pop).
So what does all this have to do with KAAY? Microsoft learn the lessons. Build a company that people like and want and can call their own. What is the future of old top 40 KAAY? Well there are still recordings of old time radio programs from the 1930s. My mission is to to pass along some of the recordings from that era. Keep in mind when I started this I had zero.
I started this blog with the purpose of forcing me to asymble material for a possible book. That may be better left to you. My I suggest that you go back to the earliest archives and save the airchecks. Since these are hosted on several free websites and lately Pod-O-Matic, you should save the files while they are available and let me know if a link doesn't work. Those old time radio shows live on not because of the radio industry, but collectors across the world that keep moving them forward into the current technology.
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1 comment:
Hi, Doc/A.J.--
I've been reading this blog for a number of months (I'm surprised Savannah, Georgia wasn't listed like a rash on your hits list!), and enjoying the aircheck clips you've included.
I haven't posted any comments mainly because I wasn't really "part of" KAAY back in the day, except just as a nighttime listener when I was little (1970s).
Also, I felt like I didn't really have much to say. So, I've been your basic "lurker."
My connection to Arkansas began when I was 17 and my family was transferred to the state, first to Hot Springs. I received my first radio job at 17, doing 6PM-sign off at KBHS 590 ... a station said to have had a bigger daytime footprint than KAAY. I made my foolish mistakes on a 5 kW blowtorch during critical-hours ... egad!
Went to college at ASU in Jonesboro, worked for KASU (and KEZQ during the Summer), and then graduated in 1987 ... landing my first fulltime gig in Pine Bluff. Young, stupid and green as a 7-UP bottle.
And that's where our paths barely crossed -- I started at KCLA/KZYP, becoming news director, and - if I recall - you were at KOTN. We both left our stations and were co-workers for about 20 minutes at the ill-fated KPBA (someone should write a book about that place). And from there we reversed paths; I was hired to do middays at KOTN and you became ND at KCLA.
I left Pine Bluff and Arkansas in 1990 for Alabama, and eventually coastal Georgia, where I am now.
But while I was in Arkansas, I heard much about KAAY ... it seemed like every radio person I worked with had a sober reverence for the station. And being the radio history geek I am, I was very curious how 1090 sounded back in the day. In the early '90s, I struck a correspondence with the late Pat Walsh, and he loaned me dozens upon dozens of airchecks.
And years later I learned that what he offered me was just a part (!) of his archive. I got hold of some more over the years, and much of what you've offered on your blog is new to me.
KAAY just might be the most archived station outside WABC, WLS and KHJ. Count your blessings!!
As for competition -- I truly believe that radio should never have been allowed to get to the state it's in today (clusters, unattended operation). I doubt there's any way to return to the way it used to be, and slowly I've come to accept this.
You nailed a lot of what I've been thinking in your competition post. Where's the EXCITEMENT? We hear endlessly how radio is a profit-driven business .... ummm, yeah, was it not back in KAAY's glory days??? I doubt LIN was operating that property as a charity! They wanted to make MONEY for their shareholders. Then, as now.
A business can make a profit and still make life fun for its employees AND its customers. I was professionally brought up to believe that music and entertainment was not merely "content" (I hate that word), or - quoting one GM - "the junk between commercials." Spots = $$ to feed the big machine with feeds the real customer (listener). No customer = no ears for commercials.
You know that, but it seems to have been forgotten by many in commercial radio today.
I have a 15-year-old, and few of his peers even consider radio. To them it's as quaint as a typewriter. If I think about that long enough, it can keep me up at night.
Thank God for the old time radio recordings. And for those like Mr. Walsh who rolled lots of tape on what amounted to world-class radio.
This is long enough - I write more and I'll get depressed! Thanks for this blog ... KAAY finally has the good, loving and living tribute she deserves.
Sincerely,
Russell Wells
(Operations Manager,
WSVH 91.1/Savannah, Ga.)
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