[DrBenway]

It's been a rough week for someone who was raised on radio. In the past few days, I learned of the deaths of both Charlie Gillett and Ron Lundy.

Ron Lundy was (it hurts to write about him in the past-tense) a giant of NYC top-40 radio. In the midst of a journeyman career in radio, he came to NYC in 1965, and became one of the most recognisable voices in Top-40 radio, as a jock on WABC-AM. It was a time when AM radio had not yet been reduced to a welter of partisan nonsense (stupid left or stupid right, take your pick.) I grew up listening to him, mostly in my Mom's station wagon as she drove me and my sister around town, on our daily prosaic rounds (grocery store, post office, doctor's office...) After WABC went talk (what a disaster) he re-surfaced as the morning jock on WCBS-FM, the greatest oldies station ever. RIP, Ron.

Also this week, we lost Charlie Gillett. Brits will remember him as a music fanatic who infected his listeners with his love of music. When punk and new wave were in their infancy, he championed some of the greatest bands (particularly Dire Straits) and played a role in their eventual success. More recently, he passionately supported the world-music artists he had come to love. Just recently, I was entranced by his interview with Sarah Tavares, which was accompanied by a wonderful solo-acoustic performance of her work. He was a pioneer at every stage of his career. RIP Charlie.

The Vancover Sun obit is here.

 

[rehabitat]

Nice Post Doctor. I've never heard these guys but this personal obituary is quite touching. Long live radio.

 

[DrBenway]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rehabitat /img/forum/go_quote.gif Nice Post Doctor. I've never heard these guys but this personal obituary is quite touching. Long live radio.

Thanks for the kind words! I still listen to FM every day. It's in a pretty sorry state, but it's still there...for now. I have a friend who works in radio syndication, and he says the climate for FM markets is pretty grim right now.

The obvious competition is the Net, of course. Virtually all of the stations I listen to are busily hawking their iPhone apps. That's the future. I wish i could be more excited about it.

On the other hand, I frequently listen to KEXP's Internet feed, which they stream uncompressed. Sounds fine, and obviously I wouldn't be able to listen to this great station without the Net, since they are in Seattle and I am in NYC. The Net giveth, and the Net taketh away...

 

[rehabitat]

We in Australia may be a little behind the rest of the world. In Sydney I can enjoy two classical stations and two or three independent community/university stations that always have interesting musical and journalistic content, as well as (some) quality programming from our ABC govt stations. A compulsory change to digital is on the cards and it will be interesting to see how the smaller stations cope.

The beauty of radio is imo its comparative randomness to the internet and therefore its ability to surprise and delight. The internet is the new television, and as you alluded it has the power to inform which is surpassed by its power to distract.

 

[DrBenway]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rehabitat /img/forum/go_quote.gif We in Australia may be a little behind the rest of the world. In Sydney I can enjoy two classical stations and two or three independent community/university stations that always have interesting musical and journalistic content, as well as (some) quality programming from our ABC govt stations. A compulsory change to digital is on the cards and it will be interesting to see how the smaller stations cope. The beauty of radio is imo its comparative randomness to the internet and therefore its ability to surprise and delight. The internet is the new television, and as you alluded it has the power to inform which is surpassed by its power to distract.

It sounds like you are better off in Sydney than we are in NYC. Our last remaining full-time classical station was recently acquired by a public broadcaster. The new ownership promptly moved it to a lower-powered transmitter, at a far less desirable frequency than the one it had occupied for decades. So we now have zero commercial classical music on the FM band, and the legendary WQXR has become the unwanted stepchild of a public station now devoted almost exclusively to talk.

There are several other public stations that still program excellent music, and several college stations that do so as well. But these are without exception lower-powered signals that are difficult, if not impossible to receive in many parts of the theoretical broadcast area.

As for commercial music radio...I'd rather not talk about that. It's the usual run of hip hop, hit radio, classic rock and easy listening. One of the classic rock stations constantly promotes itself as somehow progressive, which seems to amount to adding to their playlist a few tracks that might be called mild obscurities. Listening to any of the commercial rock stations in this market gives you absolutely no idea of what is happening in new rock music.