Re: [ARSCLIST] Deejays--was: Brunswick Records rights/Universal

[Bob Olhsson <olh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Mike Richter wrote:
>The local deejay is losing ground to the national as well as to recorded 
>announcements.

You hit a nerve! I think this has been one of music's most profound losses. Far beyond merely "choosing great music," a great deejay's personality is what could tie a broad diversity of music together.

Most truly great popular music has been somewhat controversial with some people loving it and others hating it. The deejay held on to listeners long enough for everybody to hear another record they loved. When you remove the deejay from the equation, any negative  response (the marketing bozos call it "polarizing") becomes a problem ratings-wise. The solution is removing every bit of music that offends anybody within the target audience. The result of this is contemporary music radio that is little better than background music being used to sort audiences into demographic groups for advertisers.

Somebody on the web is surely going to figure out that today's commercial music radio formats lead nowhere and begin aggregating huge listenerships from a return to entertaining deejays. Top 40 took everybody by surprise the first time around and I strongly suspect this will be repeated when somebody figures out that successful music radio isn't entirely about the music.


-- 
Bob Olhsson Audio Mastery, Nashville TN
Mastering, Audio for Picture, Mix Evaluation and Quality Control
Over 40 years making people sound better than they ever imagined!
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