[BC] Radio training

[Alex Hartman]

That part is already here. In my short tenure as a broadcast engineer, my "height" was 25 studios and 19 transmitters. 9 of which was owned by the company i worked for, the rest was contract work. 

Broadcasting is not dying in a literal sense. It's changing gears. As more and more people move to the internet though, you will see a panic (and probably already have, look at Clear Channel, CBS, etc that panicked and canned a LOT of people, sold stations, etc). This does though allow for the local guy to get back in, cheap. 

If a GM expects to see better numbers by replacing his morning show with a satellite receiver, well... you get what you pay for. :)

Also, people in general have lowered their standards as far as quality. MP3 would be the perfect example of this. A 128k MP3 stream is sufficient for the masses, to me it sounds like crap, but i'm not the "normal" listening audience. They've also settled on a quality of product as well. Look at American Idol. There's a little talent in there, but it goes to show what american's believe is "talent" these days. The winners of the competition generally are NOT talented. I can sing in the shower just as well as taylor swift, but i don't look nearly that good. :) This applies to all genres of music. Country, top40, lite rock, etc. There's simply no talent. Hell, a good portion of the hip hop community is recycling hits from the 70's! Then they also get "critical acclaim" from people in their mid-20's who were never exposed to The Police and the like calling them revolutionary for coming up with it. (read: TMZ) 

I wish a band would come along like The Beatles again and show the kids how it's done. Play an instrument AND sing at the same time. Or just play an instrument! At least that requires a bit more than standing around on a stage!

--
Alex Hartman

On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 8:32 PM, Mike McCarthy <towers at mre.com> wrote:
>On 11/28/2010 2:46 PM, dpuopolo at usa.net wrote:
>>From: Scott Bailey<wmroradio at bellsouth.net>
>>
>>>Good gracious alive, why do those teachers want to teach them youngins old
>>>school stuff when nobody has any use for it anymore.
>>I would have a tough time teaching radio broadcasting to anyone today. Whether
>>we like it or not-radio is a shrinking, possibly dying industry. To say
>>otherwise is to be in denial. People need to be trained to work in industries
>>that are new and (still) EXPANDING.

> I don't think broadcasting is necessarily dying.  It will contract to be certain with a great number of rim-shots and over radio'd 80/90 in-filled markets seeing a dwindling number of voices as the $$$ pool allocated to radio shrinks.

>But I think it will be 20 years before broadcasting will see the fate of newspapers/print media.  In the mean time, stations will need to do more with less, technology will extend the engineering work reach, and contractors will become more prevalent, but cover more transmitters and fewer operating studios.

>MM