[BC] Mom & Pop Stations-A dying breed

[WFIFeng@aol.com]

In a message dated 02/14/2006 10:55:57 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
tom at bosscher.org writes:

>   Back when ham radio started in packet, I had a West Michigan network 
>  and BBS on line. After five years, I got tired of the maintenance. I 
>  emailed every user that the system was up for sale. Six months later, I 
>  emailed everyone and told the equipment, including the BBS, was 
>  available for free. No takers. For three weeks, I issued a weekly 
>  bulletin, and on one day, I pulled the plug on it all.
>  
>   In the next two weeks, I took over 25 phone calls, and three personal 
>  visits. You get tired after a while.

Over the years, I've seen this with some programming on this station... 
announcing that unless they get listener support, they will have to go off the air, 
yadda yadda. Weeks, even months pass. The program drops. The phones start 
ringing...

Then there was the program we carried for some time, where about nine-to-one, 
the listeners were complaining about it, asking us why we still carry it. The 
tone of the program had been becoming increasingly shrill and the complaints 
were coming in. There were so few compliments and so many complaints, we 
started leaning towards taking it off. After some serious scandals broke, we 
finally decided to pull the plug on that program. No sooner it was gone, we got a 
number of calls, "Why did you take it off!?" Sigh.

Who was it that said, "People are funny!"?

We had dropped him on a Friday, and I listened to the show in CUE (it was 
live) that following Monday. I never heard such a venomous, vitriolic tirade in 
my life... he went on and on for an hour, complaining about Christian stations 
that were only in it for the money, bla bla. I yelled back at the Cue 
speaker... "Well, Mr Talk Show Host, our Company took a significant financial *loss* 
by dropping your show!" ...a loss, BTW, that took, literally *years* to regain.

Anyway, as it turns out, those scandals ended up causing the whole 
organization behind that program to implode. (I can only imagine what his vitriolic 
tirade did for the other stations & listeners still tuning in!) Within only a few 
months, his "network" went from hundreds of stations to *two*. We were just 
the first dominoes to fall, and I'm glad we dropped it when we did... in our 
listeners' minds, anyway, the man still had some dignity left.

Willie...