Starter of this subject: Mary Senn
Last post in this subject: 7/11/2000
Messages in this subject: 5
| Mary Senn | 7/11/2000 5 replies |
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Now that it is definite we are losing MAQ, what will happen to thelate night OTR show? To whom can we write to keep it somewhere on the Chicago dial? HELP!
MS
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| Timothy | 7/12/2000 0 replies |
| Go the Old Time Radio website and use there radio station finder. Or just get the feeds sright from the web! |
| Joe Oliver | 7/13/2000 2 replies |
| It just lets you know how little regard many of the present owners have for the history and culture of radio. These wonderful call letters represent wonderful branding (historically speaking) and tradition for the business present radio folks say they are in. I'm not in the broadcast range of WMAQ--and haven't been for 30 years--but I shall never forget the wonderful interviewing of Jack Eigen on the station in the late-50s and 60s; for a young aspiring broadcaster in Alabama, picking up the signal as I did on skywave, these shows, more than any other single influence, taught me how to interview on-the-air. Eigen was a textbook example of how to make the ordinary person interesting through conversation; and, the great commercial announcers on the station at that time--Jim Hill is one name I remember--were also inspirational models for those of us in radio but not at "the big show." In sum, an historical travesty is about to occur with the demise of WMAQ. So sorry, especially those of you in the Chicago area. How air checks have been saved. |
| Robert Flood | 7/13/2000 1 replies |
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Take a surf on over to www.Radiodiget.com and read the opinion of the demise of WMAQ by King Daevid MacKenzie.
Personally I think that commercial radio has too many commercials and has lost the true art form of radio. (Commercial radio now fills an hour with 22 to 27 minutes of commercials... need we hear any more from their sponsors?) Slowly the vast radio audience will form new ways to get the entertainment they want. Ways like buying OTR tapes and CDs, subscribing to satellite radio stations (in the not too distant future) and personal show trading. If many of these commercial radio stations keep killing off the draw and marketing radio for only a select target age group they will find themselves with a whole lot of time to fill... and much fewer people to fill it for...
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| Joe Oliver | 7/13/2000 0 replies |
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I enjoyed the article at the link referenced. I don't like being the age I am now, particularly, but I do thank God that I was in radio and came along at a time when it was mostly operated by broadcasters--people who respected the audience and took the long view toward profits; people who saw broadcasting as a public trust. Some people thought that TV would kill radio. The culprits are more likely to be the FCC under its deregulation rules, beginning in the late 70s, and finally, the Congress and its Telecommunications Act of 1996.
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| Bob Roberts | 7/21/2000 0 replies |
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I'm one of those who will turn out the lights at WMAQ, and I have to tell you it will be a sad moment.
Thanks to Chuck Schaden, the Museum of Broadcast Communications and a few others, we will have exensive looks back in the last week of operations, leading up to the last night July 31, when Carl Amari will air six hours of shows produced at the old Merchandise Mart studios. In a way, I can only hope that King Daevid is right and that WSCR will continue to flounder. In another way, WMAQ's failure is axiomatic: if the owners refuse to advertise, and refuse to promote in other ways, people will stop patronizing your product. We last advertised for something other than sports several years ago. Former operations manager Lorna Gladstone was able to get some TV commercials made, but they only aired as freebies on WBBM-TV when they were light on sold time. We've done our best through myriad format adjustments to put a good product on the air, and I think we generally have succeeded. Lots of great talent will be scattered to the winds August 1. While I have a job at WBBM Newsradio, some who are perhaps far more worthy of a spot on Chicago radio won't make the move...Bill Cameron, Larry Langford, Dave Berner, Kathy Voltmer, Jan Coleman, Pam Riesmeyer and a host of others. This wouldn't be happening if it weren't for today's regulatory climate. Twleve years ago, when Westinghouse put the all-news format on the air, they gave each of us buttons that depicted the CBS eye with a drop of blood dripping from it. Graphic, but it was what we hoped to achieve...supremacy over a station that had a 20-year lead. Now, CBS is draining the last of the blood from us instead. < |