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Topic: krellen list dr d as off the net
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Started by: keemo
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fjrigjwwe9r2threads:MessageText fiogf49gjkf0d I know the first broadcast station was KDKA in Pittsburgh. Oldradio.com has some great archives on this stations history and others - www.oldradio.com/archives/stations/ccs/kdka.htm
circ. 1920, way before Dr. D. was born.
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fjrigjwwe9r2threads:MessageText fiogf49gjkf0d Thanks. I looked though that and other pages, too. I have known about the site for some time, but did not recall coming across those history pages. With the station first licensed to Calument, I take it the station did not come to Houghton and the lobby of Doughlas Houghton Hotel until the late forties or early 50's. I wonder if that stuio had as much fun as the studio of WENN in Pittsburgh. Still would have been something to be part of those pre-TV broadcasts.
-Tim
--- fm123
WHDF 1400 was certainly an old station.
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fjrigjwwe9r2threads:MessageText fiogf49gjkf0d WHDF 1400 was certainly an old station. Speaking of old AM radio stations in Michican, maybe this link will interest you - www.michiguide.com/history/am.html
--- Tim P. Ryan
Now I would have more interest in it's older history than I did when I worked there.
-Tim
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fjrigjwwe9r2threads:MessageText fiogf49gjkf0d The first commercial radio station I worked for was a "mom and pop" station. They put what became WHDF, 1400am, in Houghton, Michigan on the air in 1929 or so. In 1970 I felt some of the impact, but not the true implication of working for The Original Owners, as the pop had died in 1961 and mom was station manager, with my interaction with a program manager. Actually, I was around when most others were not, as I did Saturday and Sunday evenings, turning off the station at midnight. The station was located in the Douglas Houghton Hotel, at lobby level, with the main studio being on the other side of a big window glass, the original big studio that had probably hosted many live musician & dramatic performances. It was the only radio station in the area well into the 1950's. Now I would have more interest in it's older history than I did when I worked there.
-Tim
--- jdzack
"mom and pop" radio.
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fjrigjwwe9r2threads:MessageText fiogf49gjkf0d Thanks for that, jdzack.
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fjrigjwwe9r2threads:MessageText fiogf49gjkf0d Computers and the internet are only partially responsible for what's been happening to The Good Doctor. In fact, several cultural changes all converging at once can be to blame.
The big culprit is the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Elements of that sweeping legislation caused the destruction of "mom and pop" radio. The radio industry is nothing like it used to be back in the '60s, the '70s and the '80s. Big corporate radio used portions of that legislation to gobble up stations all across the country. Now, if a medium-sized city with 25 radio stations has more than three or four companies running things, it's really unusual.
As these monolith corporations continued to buy up radio properties - in many cases forcing single and am-fm-combo owners to sell below market value (or risk that same corporation buying their competitors and burying them into bankruptsy) - they combined staffs. A town which may have employed 150 local residents at various radio stations now runs those same stations with a staff of 11. Sales people, who used to proudly sell their station, now have to sell time for up to half-a-dozen stations - or more. Disc jockeys who used to have their morning show now have to voice-track half of that show so they can use the studio time to voice-track different air shifts on the company's four other stations. So the morning guy on the rock station is also the mid-day guy on easy rock station and the evening guy on the country station, as well as the news reader on the news/talk station... that's what a disc jockey's life is like now-a-days. Anyone who follows Chicago radio will already know that one of those big mega-corporations just canned one of Chicago radio's icons from the '70s and '80s - John Records Landecker - so they could replace his live show with voice tracks from Scott Shannon in New York. Pathetic!
Here in Klamath Falls, Oregon, there are two primary station owners:
1. New Northwest Broadcasters - a Seattle Washington company with a bunch of West Coast stations - bought KLAD-AM (classic country), KLAD-FM (country), KAGO-AM (news/talk), KAGO-FM (rock) and KYSF-FM (danec/rap). They run all those stations with an airstaff of five or so. Before NNB came to town, those stations employed over 50 people.
2. Wynne Broadcasting - a LOCAL company (yes, there are still some around!!) - owns KKRB-FM (soft rock), KFLS-AM (news/sports) and KFLS-FM (country). They also run a fourth radio station - KFEG-FM (classic rock) - via an LMA.
There's also a fully automated oldies station - KRAT-FM that's co-owned KRAM-AM (off the air) - that's owned by very strange individuals who have no employees and run the thing out of their bedroom. Don't ask.
Anyway, back in the '80s, current Oregon Representative Bill Garrard owned KAGO-AM & FM. We had a fantastic time working there. We had enough freedom to allow for some very entertaining radio shows. In fact, we carried "The Dr. Demento Show" on KAGO-FM. But after NNB came to town and bought up KLAD-AM & FM, then KAGO-AM & FM... and then applied for their fifth signal and signed on KYSF-FM, all those great radio personalities either retired or were fired. My morning show - "Zack & Kevin in the Morning" - was cancelled. I went into TV and radio production; my morning partner was offered minimum wage fill-in work (as an insult to his intelligence) and ended up going back into his previous profession as a physical therapist. He wasn't in radio to make money; he was there because he LOVED it. He had a passion for good live local radio.
Well, thanks to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, those local ownership scenarios that allowed for fun live local radio are all but gone. The few who remain in local radio can't do much more than "phone it in" (and in some cases actually ARE phoning it in!). NOBODY I hear on the radio has any passion for it anymore. There's too much work to do and too few people to do it. Keeping those corporate costs down, y'know.
Besides trimming staffs to a fraction of what they once were, corporations have taken local playists and replaced them with intensely-focused cookie-cutter formats from their corporate headquarters. When I helped create the "99.5 The Rock" format on KAGO-FM, between the three of us and our CD collections, we started the format with almost 2500 songs. After NNB took over, they trimmed that to less than 600 "hit" songs that were chosen by someone we had never met in Seattle. All of the local flavor of the format? Erased. Destroyed.
Plus, mega-corporate cookie-cutter formats result in tight control of the music, which means there's no more room for all the great syndicated stuff that we all grew up with. There's only a few nationally syndicated weekly radio shows that remain. And none of those remaining shows dares play anything except one single format of music. The Good Doctor has played rock next to country next to rap next to stanup comedy. Stations of today don't have a clue what to do with something like that, so they take the eas way out. Get rid of it. Little do they know that the Good Doctor represents all that was once great about radio: appointment listening and involved listeners. The more that today's mega-radio-corporations search for that magical programming idea to attract more listeners, the further away from it they get.
Live shows. Local personalities. Homegrown playlists. Invest in THAT, and you'll have a succcessful radio station. The only thing radio has now is advertising income. he talent and creativity have all been expended in lieu of the almighty dollar. Funny, but sad; they'd probably make more money in the long run if they'd just bring radio back to it's "gotta-hear-it, can't-miss-it" entertaining heyday.
Another thing affecting the Good Doctor is the unavoidable influence of the internet. The "wait for it" value; the anticipation; the need to be home by 10:00pm on Sunday so you could heard "The Dr. Demento Show" on your local radio station has literally been replaced with instantaneous downloads of almost anything you could want. We don't have to wait until Sunday night to hear the God Doctor's show. Now, a quick check of last week's playlist, courtest of the internet, and you can seek out and find almost every song that was on the show. The value of patience has been destroyed. The true reward of Dr. Demento's show was the satisfaction after waiting a full week to hear the next show; the anticipation.
I really do enjoy Wayne's weekly shows. But I WISH I could enjoy BOTH "The Mad Music Show" and "The Dr. Demento Show" each week. Unfortunately none of the stations around here will carry the Good Doctor. Believe me, I've done everything I can think of short of buying a station to keep the Good Doctor on the air in Klamath Falls. I was successful for almost a decade, but it all ended in June 1999 when I got fired from KAGO-FM. (By the way, I got fired for HAVING a personality and refusing to read "liner cards.")
When it comes to what people have been calling "the demise of Dr. Demento" - I don't lay any blame on Wayne for doing "the Mad Music Show" (he started this whole thing in tribute to his passion for Dr. Demento and the music he plays!)... and I don't blame Jeff for posting playlists (again, a labor of love and passion for the man and the music!). The blame is on society in general, for short attention spans, for instantaneous gratification, for the internet's legal (and illegal) downloads. It's all too much to try and survive in a radio industry that's not even a shadow of what it used to be.
Will Dr. Demento retire are the end of the year? I don't know. My heart says "hang in there, Doc! We all love ya!" But the reality is he can't live from the proceeds of "The Dr. Demento Show" when there's no advertisers to buy time and no stations to run the show. The Doctor didn't abandon us. We, as a society, have abandoned him. Not because we wanted to, but because our collective apathy allowed mega corporations to destroy the radio industry.
Sad thing is, even if corproations were forced out and "mom and pop" were able to buy their stations back, the audience that once lived-breathed-and-died for good love local radio is gone. And with the plethera of options that's now available to compete for our interests, that once great radio audience will never return.
R.I.P. Radio.
Keep up the good work, Wayne, because without you (and others like you), all hope for fun sounds, mad music and crazy comedy will disappear forever.
-- Zack
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fjrigjwwe9r2threads:MessageText fiogf49gjkf0d It may give an additional meaning to dementia. :-)
--- Dino Flintstone
That means he will be 103 or 104 years old when he can finally retire. WOW! :)
--- Ojimy
He's implored us to "Stay demented!" for 37 years now...I'd like to see him do at least 37 more.
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fjrigjwwe9r2threads:MessageText fiogf49gjkf0d That means he will be 103 or 104 years old when he can finally retire. WOW! :)
--- Ojimy
He's implored us to "Stay demented!" for 37 years now...I'd like to see him do at least 37 more.
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fjrigjwwe9r2threads:MessageText fiogf49gjkf0d I often remark to my older, not-quite-computer-savvy friends that computers and the internet are changing the world in ways that we may never fully comprehend within our lifetimes. Not the least of those changes are the ways in which we receive information and entertainment, and what we feel is a reasonable price to pay for it. (I have a friend who sells newspaper advertising, and she sees it every day) While Dr. Demento may not have invented novelty music, he was instrumental in popularizing it in much the same way that Alan Freed did Rock 'n' Roll. After 37 years as the undisputed King of the genre, it's a pity that he is now caught between the convergence of technology and a listener base that has grown accustomed to on-demand everything and $.13, 192kbps downloads of hit tunes.
I sometimes wonder if there's a "technological barrier" that's keeping Dr. Demento from fully exploiting the possibilities in podcasting? He's in his 60's...about the age of some of my more "senior" friends. I know quite a few folks around that age who've lived their entire lives without a computer or internet access, and see no reason to change that now. How many people in rural areas rode their horse-and-buggies well into the 20th Century, simply because it was a technology they understood? I hope Dr demento isn't planning to ride "FM broadcast radio" very far into the 21st Century.
Whatever the reasons that he's not moving more aggressively into podcasting at this time, I hope "The Good Doctor" sees his way out of his present difficulties. He's implored us to "Stay demented!" for 37 years now...I'd like to see him do at least 37 more.
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fjrigjwwe9r2threads:MessageText fiogf49gjkf0d A tragic development, indeed.
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fjrigjwwe9r2threads:MessageText fiogf49gjkf0d Another truely sad day in the land of dementia to go along with the other ones we've been experiencing in the last couple of weeks. Barry has no one to point the finger at for this happening except hisself! I will miss him though. I have been a devoted listener for years. I just hope that when he does do his last show that he does it up big and invite some old guests on like he used to do back in the day. People who looked up to him getting airpley like Barnes & Barnes, Sulu, Damaskas, Weird Al, etc. Enjoy your retirement Barry. You gave us alot of years of laughs when we needed them troughout the last thirty-five years. :-(
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fjrigjwwe9r2threads:MessageText fiogf49gjkf0d FYI........
the last live stream that i know exists.....is played on kegr...
www.kegr.org
the dr. stopped sending them new show but they continue to stream old shows on sunday night at about 7:10 central standard.
tonights show is big things from 16oct05.
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fjrigjwwe9r2threads:MessageText fiogf49gjkf0d Too right. Now that Barry has cut off the majority of his fanbase, (I hope he enjoys his retirement) it's up to us to step up & bring the dementia to all his disenfranchised fans.
--- fm123
That sucks about Dr. D. no longer streaming. We knew this might happen sooner or later. He will lose lots of listeners!
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fjrigjwwe9r2threads:MessageText fiogf49gjkf0d That sucks about Dr. D. no longer streaming. We knew this might happen sooner or later. He will lose lots of listeners!
Of course with this site, the fump, dfxs radio and others listed, they will get the former Dr. D. listeners.
I think they will welcome the change when they hear these new shows. I certainly did, and really don't miss Dr. D. anymore.
Long live Demented Music!
"I've given up on the DOCTOR and now I've gone MADDDDD!!!!!!!!!!"
keemo, I couldn't agree more...
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fjrigjwwe9r2threads:MessageText fiogf49gjkf0d www.krellan.com/demento
now has no more shows streaming the good doctor....this has always been the best place to find dr d streaming for over 10 years.
sad to see it ending.
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