Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!

Click on this link [1] to read some fascinating Beatles history. It was 40 years ago that a 15 year old girl in the Washington, D.C. area wrote to a local deejay about this British band she'd heard of, and a particular song of theirs.

The deejay contacted a BOAC rep (remember BOAC! And that logo of theirs!), who brought over and hand-delivered a copy of the 45 (remember "singles?") to him. The airplay and response in the D.C. market pushed Capital into moving up the release date.

The rest, of course, is Beatles and Beatlemania history.

Remember when listeners could write to local deejays? Remember local deejays?

Could a listener to a Clear Channel station manage to make such an event occur in these conglomeradio days?

In all the years I spent as a consultant in the radio industry, the key to success in any market was knowing what the locals liked and wanted. Understanding nuance. Making the station mean something to them, make it memorable, but most of all, make the programming reflect their community, their locality, their lifestyle (as much as possible in mass market), that worked for them.

Talking local, talking topical, having market reflective and aware content was crucial. Sure, there are what radio people call formatics; elements in the programming designed to maximize the listening experience in a manner that would generate a strong showing in the ratings. Nothing wrong with that provided the local touch is not sublimated by those effects. And I can even make the case for certain formats working better with syndication... the old Beautiful Music format was designed to be long-time-spent-listening background air product. That made sense in syndication. And the ones who excelled with that were the stations that knew how to add the local elements and present spoken and production pieces that made the market a part of the otherwise bland and easily-backgrounded radio station.

And in these times there is a strong case for the syndicated political talk show. Syndicated sports programming, blended in with local content, can be a strong draw for smaller stations seeking an All-Sports format. ESPN Radio has this model down to an art form in some markets.

Radio, as I knew it and practiced it, was local. We did local market research, we made sure the air talent knew the market and could speak in the language of the local listeners.

Radio talent (deejays) are a gypsy-like, nomadic lot. Jocks go from market to market, working their way up, down, and around the business. Nowadays there are fewer air talents and fewer opportunities for them to say or do much more than read liner cards and follow the "national" format.

One drives from NY to NC and back, and except for the small local AM stations (er, that is, the ones not subscribing to right wing talk syndicated shows) it is the same everywhere. Sure, there was more Southern Rock to be found, and a slightly different strain of Classic Rock as one went further South. More Allman Brothers and Marshall Tucker, even more godawful Lynrd Skynrd, but otherwise the same old Led Zepellin and Stones and such.

WROV in Roanoke seemed not to be programmed by some corporate type out of San Antonio. That was nice. And the mix of classic and semi-current Rock was pretty entertaining.

But once one is in Charlotte, it is back to the standard drawing board of conglomeradio.

This is why local low power radio, net radio (I know, there's legislation that gets in the way) and swapping of disks with interesting or non-run-of-the-mill music might be the only hope for hearing something new and interesting.

Matybe a D.C. regime change and some more FCC Commissioners not owned and operated (junketed and such) by the major commercial broadcast groups might loosen the grip of the conglomerates, and return radio to the entrepreneurs, the locals, the people who chose to have a media love affair with their comunities.

Yes, a media love affair. That, by the way, is exactly the way one of my clients described what he ws doing with his station ... and he brought me in, a consultant, so we could further his mission. Not a consultant to cookie-cutter his station, a consultant to help him better localize and maximize his goal.

Dare I say it? Yep , here I go: re-regulation is what's called for. Return of the ownership restrictions, so that it isn't one big, same radio station (or one of a small group of stations, from a small group of owners no matter where you go) sounding the same, in each and every town and city in the USA.