Category: Commentary/Editorial || By

Do you listen to the radio? I mean, really listen?

Can you name three Pittsburgh-area radio personalities --- newscasters, talk show hosts or disc jockeys, for instance --- you've heard in the past week?

Twenty years ago, that would have been an easy question for me. In high school, I started my day with Jimmy Roach and Steve Hansen on Y-97, but I also checked out Jim Quinn and "Banana Don" Jefferson on B-94 and Scott Paulsen and Jimmy Krenn on WDVE. When I got home, I listened to Bruce Keidan on 1320.

Later, my radios were glued on WTAE (1250) and its lineup of Lynn Cullen, Doug Hoerth and Phil Musick, who died this morning at age 71.

. . .

These days ... well, let me see. I listen to Bob Studebaker on WDUQ-FM (90.5). I also hear a few minutes every day of Marty Griffin on KDKA (1020).

But I had to struggle to remember those two. And keep in mind, I work part-time in radio, and I've been writing about the business, on and off, for a decade.

I'll bet most people have a much harder time remembering anything. I'll bet many of you never turned on an AM or FM radio at all. You started your day with the morning TV news and listened to an MP3 player, webcast or satellite radio the rest of the time.

. . .

As most of you know, I'm part of a group that tried in 1999 to bring a low-power public FM station to McKeesport. Under pressure from the big broadcasting lobby (including National Public Radio), Republicans and some Democrats in the U.S. Congress (including then-U.S. Rep. Ron Klink of Murrysville) blocked our station and hundreds of others from going on the air.

A few weeks ago, the House of Representatives passed legislation --- introduced by U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle, who represents the McKeesport area --- to overturn that blockade. It still has to pass the U.S. Senate and be signed by President Obama.

But when a reporter for the Post-Gazette called me recently, wanting a reaction to Doyle's legislation, I told him it was nice, but probably too little, too late.

"Radio," I said (and he quoted), "is a very sick chicken." In fact, it's so sick, I'm not sure that adding a bunch of low-power FM radio stations --- even if it can still be done --- can pull radio out of its death spiral.

. . .

You've probably heard a lot about how newspapers are in trouble, but I'm here to tell you, friends and neighbors, that radio's right behind them.

Like newspapers, broadcast radio is losing an entire generation of young listeners who are unlikely ever to consider radio as vital as their parents or grandparents did. The average age of talk-radio listeners, for instance, has gone up every year since 2000. It's now 67.

Part of that's due to competition that didn't exist 20 years ago, but a lot of it's due to the fact that radio no longer offers much worth listening to.

. . .

Scan around the dial, and what do you find? On the AM dial, a lot of hour-long, program-length infomercials; syndicated talk shows; and religious programs aimed at tiny populations.

I would sadly include both stations licensed to McKeesport --- WEDO (810) and WMNY (1360) --- in that category, along with the 1550 station in Braddock.

On the FM dial, you get repetitive music, more syndicated talk shows, and "stop sets" of commercials that last five to seven minutes each.

What don't you get? Local news. New music. And other than WDVE's morning show, you get very few personalities --- radio performers who actually create content.

. . .

Radio can't just be a jukebox, because the iPod and other MP3 players will always win that competition. It has to provide something extra. It's failed miserably.

Although AM and FM stations might want to blame new media for taking away their listeners, they're the ones who created the void that iPods and the Internet have filled.

Or more specifically, the big Wall Street firms that gobbled up radio stations in the early 1990s created the void.

In their quest for ever-higher profits, they slashed creative content and replaced it with lousy crap that doesn't get ratings, but does make money (like the aforementioned infomercials).

. . .

Maybe, if low-power FM radio stations had been allowed to sign on in 1999 and 2000, they would have held onto the listeners that the big boys didn't care about. But that's a moot point, since it didn't happen.

And I'm not convinced that very many new stations will ever be created even if Doyle's bill goes into law.

In the 10 years since Congress blocked low-power FM, hundreds of open frequencies have been given away --- spots on the dial that could have been used by local community radio stations like ours.

. . .

Many of the spots were given away to national chains of religious broadcasters. (I don't mean to keep harping on religious programming --- I like some religious radio shows --- but they are the worst offenders. One chain, Educational Media Foundation, has at least five stations in the Mon-Yough area, all repeating the exact same canned crap, beamed in from Omaha, Neb.)

Don't get me wrong. I still think a public radio station would be an asset to the McKeesport area. Our group still wants to be a part of getting one on the air ... if there are any spots left.

After all, while a satellite radio or high-speed Internet connection costs a fair chunk of change, even the poorest households have at least one radio.

It's just that lately I wonder how often those poor households ever bother turning on those radios.

. . .

I've leave you with this thought: People who grew up in McKeesport in the 1960s and '70s are excited that Terry Lee is coming back to host a dance, more than 20 years after he left and more than 30 years after he ruled the airwaves here.

Will anyone growing up in the Mon-Yough area today remember anyone in radio that fondly 30 or 40 years from now? Say, Mark Madden or Michelle Michaels?

Perhaps. But without taking anything away from either of those two people in particular, I doubt it.

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