Hey, I'm glad to be blogging on Sovietpanda -- thanks to Peter for having me.
For the next few days, I want to write a little bit about rock radio, and I guess trying to answer the question of whether radio is "dead." Peter linked to an article in the New York Times a few months ago reporting that lately, radio execs have switched the formats of four modern-rock/alternative stations in big markets. WHFS in the Washington D.C. metro area, WPLY in Philadelphia and KRQI in Seattle. K-Rock in New York and WCBS, the oldies station, both recently dropped alt rock I think in favor of the "Jack" format. We have a new Jack station here in the Twin Cities that I haven't listened to.
Now I'm not saying that modern rock radio has been a smashing sucess, but this Jack format is an awful idea -- this revolutionary format consists of a deep playlist of songs, which is nice, but the catch is that all the songs are current or former Top-40 hits. and there is no DJ, just a gravelly computer-recorded voice feeding you some tired cliche. Anyway, hypothetically you can listen to a Jack station 24 hours a day for a week straight and never hear a single song you haven't heard a thousand times before. And this is the future of radio?
There are a few stations around the country that are actually brave enough to play cutting-edge music, but among those, a bunch are public member-supported (89.3 the Current here in Minneapolis-St. Paul, KEXP in Seattle, KCRW in Santa Monica etc). Commercial radio deejays and execs just have no desire to search out good music like they used to.
Thoughts?
2 comments:
I can't decide whether this "Jack" would be a better idea than what we actually have in DC now--in the place of HFS--which is a top 40 Spanish music channel...
yep, the station formerly known as WHFS is now catering to the city's large south-of-the-border community, but don't worry, there's another station that's "Jack," i just can't recall the setting. i think it's a station that used to be classic rock.
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