Radio Stations

[DrMoab]

Is anyone else getting sick of the overwhelming number of new stations comming out with no DJ's? In the last six months we have had three start that only have stupid recorded voices doing the DJing and the worst part is that they are horrable!

Is this happining around the rest of the country too?

 

[ROBZ95Xj]

Is this happining around the rest of the country too?

Negetive

 

[red91]

Is anyone else getting sick of the overwhelming number of new stations comming out with no DJ's? In the last six months we have had three start that only have stupid recorded voices doing the DJing and the worst part is that they are horrable!

Is this happining around the rest of the country too?

It's been around for a long time. I worked for one in seatlle in the late 80's early 90's. KJET 1600 am (actually 1590, but 1600 sounded cooler !)

Our comupter was nicknamed OTTO-PILOT. Because that is exactly how it worked. We put our voices on tape, changed them at the shift....had a lot of carts, and taped music...and just let it fly.

Sometime the trigger tones ( you couldn't hear them) wouldn't work.

It was a gas though...I'd go to the local bar after work...and they played our station there. People would FREAK when they heard me on the radio, and I was having a drink.

Alot of the time...no one was around so I would shut the machine off and do it live. I didn't like the automated deal either but we were a no-budget statoin that was run by KZOK until they sold us.

Then they said I wouldn't fit into the new format......I can't figure out why. When I knew it was going down, I told people to call in and write in protest, and then started calling the HIGHER ups "Weezils in business suits".

Im pretty sure I was not popular at that point.

 

[0313]

Is anyone else getting sick of the overwhelming number of new stations comming out with no DJ's? In the last six months we have had three start that only have stupid recorded voices doing the DJing and the worst part is that they are horrable!

Is this happining around the rest of the country too?

What drives me nuts, is that one of those stations spends 20 minutes out of every hour, saying "isn't it nice that we play so FEW commercial an hour"

They all suck!

 

[DrMoab]

These stations aren't quite like that.

One is just one guy...and they never announce what they are playing...He just says the same stupid one liners over and over 24 hours a day.

Their motto is "Playing what we want" They have a phone number but if people call in requests they make fun of them and then play that on the radio instead.

The other station just has two people 24 hours a day...Very much sounds like a recording and all they do is announce the name and band of the song at the end of the song. They litteraly sound like a NOAA weather radio recording.

It's been around for a long time. I worked for one in seatlle in the late 80's early 90's. KJET 1600 am (actually 1590, but 1600 sounded cooler !)

Our comupter was nicknamed OTTO-PILOT. Because that is exactly how it worked. We put our voices on tape, changed them at the shift....had a lot of carts, and taped music...and just let it fly.

Sometime the trigger tones ( you couldn't hear them) wouldn't work.

It was a gas though...I'd go to the local bar after work...and they played our station there. People would FREAK when they heard me on the radio, and I was having a drink.

Alot of the time...no one was around so I would shut the machine off and do it live. I didn't like the automated deal either but we were a no-budget statoin that was run by KZOK until they sold us.

Then they said I wouldn't fit into the new format......I can't figure out why. When I knew it was going down, I told people to call in and write in protest, and then started calling the HIGHER ups "Weezils in business suits".

Im pretty sure I was not popular at that point.

 

[red91]

They are a recording...at least most are. They will play the most popular ( supposedly) songs in a 3-4 hr rotation. With other stuff thrown in at 6-8 hr,12hr,24 hr interverals.

You know the lazy stations when you hear the same song at the same time for a couple of days. That tells me they are just rewinding one tape, or replaying one CD.

Not the popular stuff mind you...but the filler junk in between.

These stations aren't quite like that.

One is just one guy...and they never announce what they are playing...He just says the same stupid one liners over and over 24 hours a day.

Their motto is "Playing what we want" They have a phone number but if people call in requests they make fun of them and then play that on the radio instead.

The other station just has two people 24 hours a day...Very much sounds like a recording and all they do is announce the name and band of the song at the end of the song. They litteraly sound like a NOAA weather radio recording.

 

[casm]

Is anyone else getting sick of the overwhelming number of new stations comming out with no DJ's? In the last six months we have had three start that only have stupid recorded voices doing the DJing and the worst part is that they are horrable!

We had one station convert to that format here a few months ago - Arrow 93.1 became Jack 93.1, which went to a fairly eclectic (mostly) rock / '80s format.

Honestly, I love it. Damn DJs do nothing but jerk off vocally on all the other stations around here that still have them. Too bloody chipper and cheery for a 7.30am traffic jam. I hope they all rot.

 

[Atl XJ]

That sucks. I'm, glad the stations around here dont do that. At least the ones I listen to.

 

[casm]

That sucks. I'm, glad the stations around here dont do that. At least the ones I listen to.

OK, for an example of why I love the DJless format:

- Go to http://www.star987.com between the hours of 6am and 10am PST on a weekday.

- Click 'listen live'.

- I give you five minutes before you want to strangle both of those puds.

Seriously, radio in LA has been in the toilet for years and a large part of it has to do with annoying 'personalities' (though how utterly vapid people can be considered to have personality is completely beyond me) getting airtime rather than actual programming.

As for the whole format/content thing, I'll keep that as a separate issue. Pirate radio rules.

 

[nhrocker]

I can think of two local stations that went the pre-recorded style of broadcast and the 3-4 hour loops of music. It annoyed me when I listened to the radio, but now I listen to streaming radio online (like I am right now!) or the music I have on my laptop, so radio doesn't matter as much to me...

 

[casm]

I can think of two local stations that went the pre-recorded style of broadcast and the 3-4 hour loops of music. It annoyed me when I listened to the radio, but now I listen to streaming radio online (like I am right now!) or the music I have on my laptop, so radio doesn't matter as much to me...

Thinking about it... We may be talking about two slightly different types of DJless station.

There's the one nhrocker described, with the prerecorded DJ segments - someone sits in a booth and records the show while the station's broadcasting other stuff, and the engineers splice it in with the content on the fly or ahead of time. Yeah, those bite.

The Jack format I was talking about has no DJs, just a figurehead (Jack) doing 30-second bumps in-between every few songs. The one live person they have (who's called 'Insert Name Here') just does the morning traffic reports, which you kinda need a live human for. Oh, they also don't take requests and flaunt the fact - which sounds really arrogant at first, but is kinda nice because you don't end up hearing 'Tainted Love' nineteen times a day.

Honestly, the only live show I can stand in this area anymore (apart from Coast to Coast AM, which is great for late-night science-fiction listening) is Jonesy's Jukebox, hosted by Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols. The format's really simple: he has a guest, they talk about stuff, and play whatever music they both happen to like. It's unscripted and very straightforward - much better than the Infinity / ClearChannel crap infesting every other station in this market.

 

[nhrocker]

Yeah, the type you're talking about are a little different.

While I was living up in Maine they had an underground radio station that was the style you mentioned, but it was really good. It was a lot of random music that you would never hear on a major station, and they only said a small 30 sec plug for the station about every hour and didn't have any adds.

But no matter what way you look at them, the ClearChannel and similar stations are horrible. It's all the same mass produced kind of music and cookie cutter style DJ's. uke:

 

[casm]

While I was living up in Maine they had an underground radio station that was the style you mentioned, but it was really good. It was a lot of random music that you would never hear on a major station, and they only said a small 30 sec plug for the station about every hour and didn't have any adds.

Yep. This is why I miss pirate radio - you might only pick them up in a 3-10 mile radius, but at least you'd hear stuff that wasn't on the megastations.

But no matter what way you look at them, the ClearChannel and similar stations are horrible. It's all the same mass produced kind of music and cookie cutter style DJ's. uke:

I blame Infinity Broadcasting.

We have a station here - 106.7 KROQ - that started out in the '70s doing pretty much what Jack is now, but they were playing stuff that was completely ignored elsewhere (metal, punk, etc.). In the '80s they came into their own for pretty much getting New Wave onto the air - the likes of Devo, U2, Oingo Boingo, Depeche Mode, The Cars, The Tubes, and virtually every post-punk band ever owes them for playing their stuff when no-one else would.

Then KROQ got progressively bigger and turned into the flagship turd in the Infinity caca nest it is today. Ever listen to Loveline? Now nationally-syndicated, it started locally out on KROQ by one of their DJs (the Poorman, who was really kick-ass) and later co-opted by Infinity. They used to do stuff like hold contests for concert tickets that involved people doing stupid things over the air - going through a car wash in the back of a pickup sticks in my head (which I've still got on tape somewhere, I think). In short, they ruled and then got castrated by management. Bit of trivia: the movie 'Airheads' was based in part on changes at KROQ, but also on a couple of other area stations (notably KNAC and KLOS) that were undergoing similar changes at the time.

What sucks is how much the changes to that one station have been reflected nationwide. Everything's syndicated, there's very little independence or difference in what gets played.

There're some interesting potted histories of the station out there - the first couple of links on this Google search are a good starting point.

 

[Tim_MN]

Infinity Broadcasting and Clear Channel have ruined FM radio. Music by popularity polls ( I know they have called me ) and mostly the artists that are under contract to their corporations. I stopped listening to the radio altogether a few years ago until a this station started up recently. Check out the new public radio station here in Minneapolis, great music, knowledgeable DJ's, and no advertisers, no phone ins, no stupid humorous interviews, and no teaser promos. Lots of variety.

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/radio/services/thecurrent/streams.php

 

[nhrocker]

Lots of variety.

Umm...you can say that again. I just started listening and the two songs that have played are pretty much the opposite. Jackson5 into ZapMama....that's quite the jump!

 

[Rev Den]

Doc...I would suggest you check out XM....I got one for my work truck, love it...NEVER go back.

Rev

 

[JEONLYEP]

I hear very little DJ's on my stations, and NO commercials.

Can't beat XM.

Daryl

 

[bjoehandley]

We just recently had a local "oldie's" station (they went from playing real oldies to playing the 70's crap that the classic rock stations won't play) get turned into "The Jack", gota admit, I like it sofar, never heard the same song twice in a 6 hour day when we were playing it at one of the stores my employer's own. Had a customer on the second day ask me if it was a new station here, turns out they had gotten "The Jack" when he lived in the Vancouver area and was suprised to hear it here in the Chicagoland area too. He told me that they were one of the fastest growing radio franchises in the country too! We have a couple of hard rock stations that I also like (the DJ's are pretty good), and I still listen to "the Loop" from time to time. The local "alternative" station has started to try and follow "The Jack" format, and seem to have blown it.

 

[OT]

XM may be good, but you can't beat a good morning show to wake you up.
When you find one that funny and bold, you can't do without it.

 

[JEONLYEP]

XM may be good, but you can't beat a good morning show to wake you up.
When you find one that funny and bold, you can't do without it.

That's the only problem I have with XM. They have Opie and Anthony in the morning then it's replayed all day. With my job I'm in and out of the truck. So I find myself listening to them all the time I'm in the truck. After 9 hours or so, I usually get to hear most of their 4 hour show. They are more gooder!

By all means if you have XM check out channel 202

Daryl