Comments on: FM Idaho snags another

By: I Know Busted

I Know Busted — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 18:47:47 +0000

Also….when it comes to grooming future radio talent, I think the FCC did a huge disservice to the Biz by allowing 5 and 6-cluster radio stations to not even have ONE live body in the building on overnights or weekends.
It should be an FCC law to have one live body in the building at all times. Think of all the $18,000 salaries the clusters still save by only paying ONE jock to make sure the building doesn’t burn down, keeping stations on the air without waiting for the paged engineer to re-boot the tower, etc.
I too, am sick of air talent/programming always being the first thing cut from the budgets.
Does somebody driving down the freeway tune in and say “this station sucks, but they’ve have overpaid management and a cool $40,000 station vehicle, so I’ll listen all day.” (hint….spend that money on TALENT!)

By: El Chupacabras

El Chupacabras — Wed, 30 May 2007 22:37:41 +0000

I understand both sides of the coin, but it is really sad to see these small markets without a voice. I would be in favor of opening up small 100-250 watt COMMERCIAL LPFM’s to fill the bill. Sure, the NAB would fight it, but we are killing radio’s future with relaxed regs on city of license. We complain that there is no outlet to train up and coming broadcasters and at the same time want to whack away all the small town stations. Is anybody besides me sick of voice-tracked non-local stuff? I suppose why that’s why I love programming my station, where I get plenty of freedom and support from the boss to do full-service radio. The only live and local full-service is found in Spanish formats anymore. Let me tell you, the audience is a hell of a lot more appreciative of you than in English. I’ll never head back to English again.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:49:36 +0000

Now if XM would just allocate more than 128k so their music wouldn’t sound like crap I’d stop my whining about that too.

By: Peabody

Peabody — Fri, 25 May 2007 18:52:19 +0000

Oh really? I guess we should all be satisfied with the current condition of the radio industry. Move ‘em all to the big towns, sell ‘em all to the big corporations, throw ‘em all up on satellite feeds, and like it. Ha. So there. Neener, neener, small towns. Thats what you get for not spending the big advertising bucks. Oh yeah, and stop your whining.

However Wrabbit, I do get your point. It is a tough industry, and the FCC and ASCAP do not make easy. But you have to admit that it is sad when smaller communities lose their local radio stations.

If you don’t like the way radio is going, XM would love to have you as a customer.

By: Wrabbitt

Wrabbitt — Fri, 25 May 2007 07:46:40 +0000

It’s hard to make a living doing radio in any small town. The FCC makes you pay millions for the license and thousands each year for the band use, then you pay employees, insurance, rent, pay off equipment, BMI/ASCAP…so on. You need the bigger city coverage to make enough just to pay the bills. If you don’t like the way radio is going, start your own station and stop your whining.

By: boiseengineer

boiseengineer — Fri, 25 May 2007 04:27:15 +0000

The McCall/Cascade area is still small town with a huge transient population. Most of the Boise FM’s plus all of the rim shots are somewhat listenable up there. And there’s a bunch of translators. It’s not easy to pick out the “local” signals even on a cheap boom box. Historically, it’s really hard to make a living doing broadcasting in a resort town.

By: Peabody

Peabody — Thu, 24 May 2007 16:47:23 +0000

Fortunately for the rest of Idaho, the Treasure and Magic Valley are starting running out of open frequencies, or that probably would happen.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Thu, 24 May 2007 15:40:50 +0000

Hey, I have this great idea. McCall is exploding with development and money, let’s buy their stations and yank them out of there.

As someone who drives around the state on a regular basis it’s getting to the point where satellite is getting really handy. Pretty soon every FCC license will be in the treasure valley and the rest of the state will be a radio black hole.

By: Peabody

Peabody — Tue, 22 May 2007 16:24:32 +0000

$900K? Kind of sad, Brundage guys. Now I just hope we don’t see another unsuccessful Boise rimshot station that, after two or three years, will end up flipping to an overmodulated Spanish format, or end up getting bought up by the Educational Media Foundation to become another lame Air1. Ugh.

By: adam

adam — Tue, 22 May 2007 04:09:09 +0000

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… Without an exceptional promotions department (street teams, etc.), Tester doesn’t stand a chance in the Boise market.