Pat O'Day Talks About the Deplorable State of Radio

Legendary Seattle broadcaster and promoter Pat O' Day talks about the lack of personality missing from today's radio programming.

From his Facebook page and Pugetsoundradio.com

 

"Thank You Bill Chamberlain for your inclusion of me in this stellar group.

Maybe, just maybe some day current radio owners, and their brain dead PD's will understand that radio is companionship, or it's no better than an IPod. While talk and sports keep AM much alive, FM is to a great extent, killing itself. I started in radio in 1956. I saw radio panic over the LP. Many said, (Gee, now that there's twelve songs on one record, we are in big trouble. We'd better shut up and play more music.) Then came the 4 track cart for the car leading to the cassette. Now radio went into total panic. "Just read the liners, shut up, and play more music!"

Now, with multiple new music delivery vehicles, further panic. So, neutral voices with inane voice tracks or in many cases, nothing at all after morning drive but music. No friendship, no information, no news, no immediacy, no laughs, nothing remarkable, just more music. Companionship and immediacy, radio's only advantage
vanishes. The illness seems near terminal. Radio actually needs all of you who re-built the industry back in the 50's and 60's to program and return radio to it's roots. I pray someday, one operator will pull it's head out of it's ass and create a REEL RADIO STATION. People haven't changed! Only radio which they once loved!

Thanks for letting me rant."
Pat O'Day, Seattle.

Comments

[TheVoice]

Oh Pat you silly old man. Radio is dead. Long live radio. The internet age is here and radio will never be the same again. Once today's teenagers enter the money demos, radio will begin to vanish much like newspapers already have. Pat is a legend - of the 1960's. By the 80's he ran out of ideas and couldn't program a station anymore (see KYYX). Why would he do any better today?

[James Detwiler]

Wow. And the thing is, Pat O'Day is about the only guy around here who can say all that and be taken seriously. Because he lived it, commanding Puget Sound afternoons for years with exactly the companionship and intimacy he so correctly says is lacking in today's music formats. Everybody... and I mean EVERYBODY listened to his afternoon show, not just for the music, but for the companionship and intimacy of spending time with our friend in the radio, Pat O'Day.

I remember once when he got all excited at the top of his show and said don't go anywhere, he was going to play something that will blow our socks off. And he did - a cut from the Rolling Stones "Got Live If You Want It". "Listen to this, isn't it great!" And indeed it was - one of the first live rock albums that captured the acoustics and energy (and Dexedrine tempo) of a live performance. No one else could pull that off. But we trusted Pat to tell us what was cool. He was our friend and a master showman And we loved hearing him talk as much as we loved the music he played.

But in all fairness to today's PDs, Pat and others were the right people in the right place at the right time. If there was money and a market for what Pat did so well back in the 60's, he wouldn't have stopped doing it in the 70's. And that's okay with me. Its unique place in radio history makes the privilege of having been there with Pat all the more meaningful.

[LucasFoxx]

It's too late. “Back in the day” broadcasters would counter the carousel automated jocks with bigger personalities and more listener interaction and self-promotion. Since the '96 Telecom Act, there is not enough competition for that to happen anymore. Corporations are able to use all their national resources to strong arm labels into freezing out local maverick broadcasters from concerts and swag, and pump money into that market to prop up their weak programming against their under-resourced competitors. It was fun while it lasted, but it’s all over now.

[tds]

Music Radio is dead. It is unlistenable. If I want to hear the same damned hit song every hour, I'd buy it for $0.99, and listen on my iPod... Jeez, a dinosaur telling us how it should be, move on, nothing to see here.

[Erictheeditor]

Pat is right.
Radio can't out jukebox the current apps but the apps can't offer personality.
Radio isn't dying a natural death, it is attempting suicide.

[TS]

Radio needs to go back to niche markets and owners need to pare back their profit expectations. A lot of people would live to host radio and probably be good at it if given the chance and the expectation that they don't have to make their bosses billionaires.

In many ways, that's what KUOW does.

[Ray]

Most of the major broadcast companies (Cumulus, Clear Channel, etc) are so over leveraged financially, they can't afford local talent. Those local stations that try to have a local vision can't get the support of advertisers, so its a vicious circle.

As much as I would like a strong personality station in the Seattle market, those times have passed. We no longer have a "farm system" where young people can learn the business in smaller markets where most of the stations are now heavilly automated.

O'Day is right, however, that radio and the wusses who run the stations have lost sight of the real potential of radio to connect with an audience. It takes commitment, which many station owners are not willing make.

Radio is dead only because no one care enough to breathe life into it.

[Puget Sound Blathers]

Local Sports Radio is alive and well. So that business model seems to work.

[Breaking Politics News]

I think radio died in the early 1990s when Rush Limbaugh went national. Than followed 100s of shock jocks that wanted to be his clone. Radio was dumb downed and became the voice of angry people that wanted to stir up anarchy for ratings. Rush should have had his ass fired in Sacramento after his caller abortion pranks and pretending to masturbate on the air when he found out Black Panther leader Huey Newton was shot to death in Oakland. He made Howard Stern and Opie and Anthony sound like the BBC news. Radios been downhill since than...

[TS]

BPN: interesting observation. Sort of a tea-party take over of radio led by the fat man.

[dave, not dave ross]

Ray you are right, i think it is clear channel who has debt that is approaching 21 billion. all they know how to do is cut back and fire the people who made their stations number one in their markets. People are getting a personal experience on internet radio, through tune in and the like, and will never go back to terrestrial. i have stopped listening to KIRO entirely, and listen to Tom Leykis live and rebroadcast, and Adam Carolla Podcasts