It’s 1:00am. I am reminded of what Paul Harvey used to say after communicating a sad or upsetting news story: “Wash out your ears with this.” Right now I am washing out my ears by listening to my favorite old time radio theater stream after dis-joining a Facebook group called “I WAS A DISC JOCKEY WHEN DISC JOCKEYS JOCKEYED DISCS”. Yes, it’s in all caps. Which seems appropriate since people who wear headphones for 40 years suffer the kind of hearing damage that makes you yell everything whether you realize you’re doing it or not.
I have joined a few of these “radio nostalgia” boards and it’s a mixed bag. There’s a lot of really neat material posted-links to airchecks (an aircheck is a tape of a disc jockey doing his thing on air), visual items of interest like memos and playlists, etc. But there’s also enough sour grapes to keep Ernest and Julio Gallo happy even in their current conditions. (I assume they’re dead. *sigh* Hang on, I’ll Google it…yep, both dead.)
Tonight somebody posted about being on the road and not being able to get anything on AM radio but Christian stations, Spanish-language programming or talk. Just to lead off: Is this a novel complaint? No, it isn’t. A “Simpsons” episode from 1994 shows Homer and family finding nothing but “signs of evil” discussions during a long spell on a country road…even Casey Kasem is fundamentalist Christian in these parts:
So this guy on the Facebook board bemoans the lack of variety programming on radio (he lumped in FM too just for good measure) and–pretend Vin Scully is saying this– Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere come the comments! To narrow it down to one concise expression:
It’s Exactly As Bad As You Say It Is, And It’s Been Like This For Years, And It’s Never Getting Any Better, And Nobody Listens Anymore Anyway, and–Where Are Those Pictures I Was Supposed To See Last Week?!? Is Don On The Phone!?!
Guys (I know an equal amount of women worked, and continue to work in broadcasting but these nostalgia boards seem universally male) who used to work in radio but don’t anymore seem to take an almost foaming-at-the-mouth pleasure in pointing out the failures and declines of the business. But in doing so they have all the accuracy and perception of someone trying to attempt a Bob Ross project with a paint roller.
As someone who works in radio now, today, this is incredibly depressing stuff to read. Depressing because I know there is occasionally some truth in what they discuss. Radio is a medium best served by local talent, with the freedom of budget and programming to do as much local content as possible. News, sports, community interviews, candidate forums, remote broadcasts from special events, etc. And in lots and lots and lots of places, that isn’t happening. And radio in those places is not what it could be.
But you know what? In Alliance, Nebraska, and the many other markets our company serves, it does work that way. I don’t know how I lucked out to work at KCOW but I just feel like this radio station and I were meant for each other. And our parent company gives us the ability to make programming decisions that keep KCOW the community cheerleader it has been since 1949, while making sure we’re relevant and available to those who haven’t had an AM dial on their radio since two vehicles ago.
As I said earlier, the stated purpose of these “radio memories” boards on Facebook and elsewhere is to share nostalgic memories of the good old days. And nobody loves “good old days of radio” like me! Remember, I’m the one who schedules 1937’s “War Of The Worlds” every Halloween night, and “The Cinnamon Bear” at Christmastime, and sneaks in oldies on my morning show like a kid sneaking candy to bed. But nostalgia can turn a corner into some whole other kind of sickness.
Not too long ago a fellow who used to work at our station came on my show to promote a book he’d written about his post-radio adventures. He later wrote a post on one of the radio nostalgia boards thanking us for the interview and noting how much things had changed at our station. No more cart machines. No more reel-to-reels. No more turntables.
(And now, for those not in the business: Carts were tapes that ran on a loop with commercials, jingles and other audio. They played on cart machines. Reel-to-reel is another form of audio recording and playback….and a turntable is a record player. Records are these wax cylinders th—skip it.)
Anyway, when this fellow posted his nice thank you for the interview and talked about the changes at the station, several members of the board responded with the “sad” emoji. Seriously? What is sad about a radio station in 2021 using up-to-date technology? If somebody posted a selfie and said “Here I am doing my morning show on September 5th 2021” in a booth with shag carpeted walls, a cart machine, reel, turntable et al. I would give that a sad emoji! Maybe in my case it’s because I did a morning show for several years in a room just like that. And not in 1979. In 1999. Small markets use what they have as long as they can. And we used carts and reels and cassette tapes and DOS-based computer software for years.
And I am here to tell you, I have no nostalgia whatsoever for any of that shit. Pardon my French.
Cartridge tapes can go south in more ways than you could imagine. Reels get snagged and chewed up. DOS computers get so old that you have to rip the lid off them and put a table fan next to them, which results in all of your commercials sounding like they were taped in a wind tunnel. In 2013 all of that stuff went away. And it was well worth the wait. To be clear, I have wonderful memories of the years, and the people, and the product we put out during those old-school technology times. But none of those wonderful memories involve bulk erasing tape. And I’m just as proud of the product we put out now.
So, even though I am one of those disc jockeys who jockeyed discs–both vinyl and compact–I had to pull the plug. And even though the last thing you want is me driving anything, I find this quote a fitting way to close.
“If memories were all I sang, I’d rather drive a truck.” -Rick Nelson