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Thank you, Indigo, thank you R. Paul.
An unvarnished blog that dips into the past and comments on the present of WBAI-FM, a once significant, intelligent New York radio station that for years has suffered chronic abuse from within and now nears extinction. Your comments are welcomed and will not be censored.
R Paul Martin and so far as I can tell other members of the finance committees seem to have a clear perspective on the situation.
ReplyDeleteHence the comparison to RMS Titanic.
~ ‘indigo’
Indeed, RPM sees this very clearly. None of us is perfect.
Delete"Nearer, My God, to Thee"
ReplyDeleteKGT
How is it that everyone but those piloting the ship can see the icebergs ahead of them?
ReplyDeleteSimple factual demographics: WBAI's typical audience member is 60 years old or older, living on a fixed income and only capable of donating a limited amount of money. As time goes by, the audience is having to tighten their financial belts or is dying off. Revenue from these people will steadily shrink. They will NOT be replaced.
ReplyDeleteOther minorities of listeners are the New Age crowd, who only want a New Age shopping club. If you don't offer them a steady stream of pseudoscience based items, they don't pledge. I said this before and think I have been proven right.
There are specialty shows (classical music, old time radio, OTH, etc.) with small but loyal followings. Overall, donations from their listeners seem fairly steady.
Constant beg-a-thons are annoying and drive people away.
There will NOT be many new WBAI listeners. That's it! WBAI's political programs are primarily based in monotonous racial hatred and turn off the main potential revenue stream - White and Jewish liberals and assorted leftists, who were the people who made WBAI viable in the past decades. Like it or not, the leading voices of WBAI that made it a success in the past were largely Jewish leftist males, like Fass, Josephson, Post, etc. I hate whitey ghetto hate speech doesn't make money because the target market thinks they are entitled to everything given to them for free. Don't like the truth? Well, fuck you then, WBAI! Keep living in fantasy land. If you're political programs are so great, then why did WWRL, with the same ghetto trash talk format, change format to Spanish? Because it isn't a viable format. The ghetto trash talk appeals to a miniscule number of people. That's the truth.
Since revenue streams will slowly but steadily decrease, what is the answer? Live within your budget. Leave the ESB and put your transmitter on a rooftop or hill somewhere. Move your studio/office space into a small building on the edge of town. Tough luck if you don't like it. You're NOT a professional radio station. In fact, you're not even up to the standards of small college radio stations. In double fact, any night of the week I can hear Spanish pirate radio stations with better audio than WBAI.
Stop the beg-a-thons, accept your debt, drastically cut operating costs. You think you're radicals? Well, there is some radical advise for you.
SDL
It's no use, SDL. Tell them they're drinking kopi luwak and their generic instant will produce ooohs and ahhhs quicker than you can say "Hayteeeeeeeee".
DeleteHe's a dope and a hypocrite. A guy who plasters slogans all over his website about free speech, but who locks down the only WBAI forum as soon as he gains control over it. A guy who bemoans the state of the station, but who refuses to give up his airtime to someone who might actually draw an audience. He pulled in $115 on one day and $125 on another. This is the state of his "following" after being on the air for something like 3 decades.
ReplyDeleteAs for the post, 158 days is 43% of the year. And there is plenty of airtime on non-marathon days dedicated to "reminding" listeners to follow through on their pledges. So the actual % is higher. Why would he think that pitching for 43% of the year won't "drive away audience" but pitching 50% of the year would? I rarely listen any more because whenever I tune in, all I hear is fundraising. I guess according to WBAI morality, it is better to spend 43% of your airtime pitching miracle cures than to allot 10% of airtime to local businesses to advertise goods and services.
I can't argue with any of that.
ReplyDeletePeople who earn little money should all surrender their airtime, if they really care about WBAI. However, RPM's big mouth and position make him the first one who should do it. He is simply full of crap.
DeleteSDL
That would be like asking kids to give up candy.
DeleteJust listened to the Collective Unity guys. They are all quite knowledgable in a universal sort of way and I have often enjoyed listening to them, but when they take a stab at humor the result is embarrassing. And so it was this morning.
Still waiting for the Thursday tally. Apropos that, last night I had an exchange with Mitchel. He had a more favorable set of totals for this everthon, so I asked him where he got his figures. H told me that he got them from results distributed by Reimers at the last meeting. Cmmmmmm