At the recent NAB meeting a few days ago, a group of national broadcasters got together. That in itself is not unusual. What was unusual was the fact the two largest companies owning and controlling thousands of radio stations were not invited to the meeting.
That’s the rub, you see. Broadcast owners can own thousands of radio stations. They can sit atop their money pile, throw it into the air and shout for joy. So what is wrong? It is the fact that listeners are leaving radio by droves. And the meeting of all these owners was to discuss that problem.
Well, I know what is wrong. I’ve known it for years and no owner or ownership wants to listen. So here it is in cold, black and white. All of these companies are control freaks. There’s no room for individuality, there is no room for creativity, and God forbid any spontaneity.
Radio used to be known for its outstanding personalities. Some were downright crazy. Some were funny, some were obscene, and not a single one of them would be hired today by the organizations that want to control everything. So, all of those aforementioned things — spontaneity, creativity, etc. — have fallen to the pages of a comptroller’s control. Radio stations today are struggling. It isn’t that they’re not making money, it’s simply a struggle to maintain an audience they once enjoyed. Or, maybe they took for granted.
The Terre Haute stations and the two in Brazil are now controlled by two ownerships. To say this is better for Terre Haute radio is a gamble. With just two ownerships, you will get what is happening in every major market in America. No individuality, no creativity, and almost a total lack of variety across the dial. Things like news, which has always been expensive compared to the money it makes, will be cut back. I have not yet heard a sports broadcast this year other than weakness in the effort. It’s just not very good. Here again, sports is expensive compared to the total listenership and the money it takes in.
Radio prices, i.e. the advertising rate, rarely ever goes down. It almost always goes up. Now, with radio audiences diminishing, the question will remain: Will all of these multiple ownerships be good for our country, our cities, and the hinterland? The obvious answer is … no.
Ronn Mott, a longtime radio personality in Terre Haute, writes commentaries for the Tribune-Star. His pieces are published online Tuesday and Thursday on Tribstar.com, and in the print and online editions on Saturday.
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RONN MOTT: Changing Radio
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RONN MOTT: Mushrooms = Hoosier happiness
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RONN MOTT: Israel’s Air Force
Recently the Israeli Air Force bombed and rocketed a convoy leaving Syria going to Lebanon with rockets that were going to be used to attack Israel. It did not get there. It was destroyed.
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RONN MOTT: Media merry-go-round
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At the recent NRA Convention in Houston, Texas, where the right-wing political hot air almost lifted the convention's building off its foundation, the NRA trotted out the forever yours political dame of the right wing, Sarah Palin. Sarah did not disappoint.
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The last high school I attended was being torn down just a few days ago. I didn't learn about it until I saw classmate Dick Mills on television and a display he had put together about State football championships in the middle 1930's. I began elementary school with Dick Mills. That was Matthew South Elementary School on South Sixth Street in Clinton, Indiana. After seeing Dick on TV, it dawned on me that all schools I had attended in Clinton have been torn down.
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LIZ CIANCONE: We always want more than we need
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MARK BENNETT: Should I stay or should I go?
Some have their Bill Clinton-era Cavalier packed (with the trunk bungee-ed shut), apartment cleaned (except for the fridge), and iPhone GPS locked onto the fastest route out of Terre Haute. Others are staying — until they find a better job, or because they’re starting a career here, or because this town feels like home. In each case, a new stage of life begins today.
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College Class of '13 gets a little extra advice
Local college grads will hear commencement speakers offer life and career advice this month. We’re offering them an extra dose here from folks who’ve found success in various vocations and regions of the nation. Many have Terre Haute roots.
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RONN MOTT: Things that go bump in the night
I live in a very old house. There are all kinds of noises that occur, especially at night, or so it seems. Aside from the various creaks and pops from old wooden floors and walls when the furnace heats up and sends warm air into the rooms, we, my wife and I, have heard other noises.
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RONN MOTT: Around the dial
At lunch the other day with Terry Tevlin (First Financial Bank), I bumped into Dale Mahurin. I hadn’t talked to Dale in a long time and inquired about his wife, Julie Henricks.
Julie has returned to the radio microphone doing a weekend gig on Mix FM. For fans of Julie’s show on WTWO-TV, don’t worry, she’s not leaving … just multi-tasking. Welcome back to the radio airwaves, Julie! -
ANDREA NEAL: Newspaper journalists still make a difference
A recent survey ranked newspaper reporter as the worst career of 2013, just below meter reader and lumberjack, but you wouldn’t guess it from the stories told by journalists who gathered in Bloomington to see six of their own inducted into the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame.
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RONN MOTT: George Jones
I got to Nashville in the early ’70s, hired by John Patton, who had been a DJ for WBOW earlier in his career. Then, he was managing WMAK in Nashville and I was promised a top sales list and received the yellow pages (many a promise like this has happened to people in this business). I also did sports commentary for the morning man and would ultimately do a season of play-by-play and a short TV schedule for Tennessee State.
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LIZ CIANCONE: Old age is in email of the beholder
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The power within the Wabash revealed itself last week.
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FLASHPOINT: Time has arrived for overhaul of TV news
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RONN MOTT: Remembering Pat Summerall
I don’t remember how I first became aware of Pat Summerall, but the first time I heard him was on a New York radio station (WCBS, I think). He was doing the sports for the morning man and exchanging some opinions about sports and such with him.
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RONN MOTT: What I don’t know
I was watching a segment on the History Channel the other night while I waited for the end of “The Big Bang Theory” and a show I had seen before. It was “Sex in History.” And the two segments I watched were about Ben Franklin and Howard Hughes.
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RONN MOTT: You, me, and the Muslim world
I don’t know how to do this. I’m a fairly intelligent human being, but the events of the past week in Boston have turned me emotionally inside out. It’s more than the people who died, it’s more than the people who were injured … some permanently,
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LIZ CIANCONE: A memory test from the oldtime radio days
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MARK BENNETT: Littered with irony: Why do people callously discard their trash, and who are they?
Though they aren’t acknowledged by the U.S. Census Bureau, there are basically two demographic groups of people … Those who would dump their old toilet on the banks of the Wabash River or a rural roadside. And those who wouldn’t.
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RONN MOTT: China
The recent blustering by North Korea and their weaponry, which now includes ICBMs, has pulled into full attention America’s involvement with China.
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