I was setting my clock radio alarm the other night and realized that the cleaning lady must have moved the button that changes the station. At least she dusted the radio this time. As I cruised the dial trying to find something appropriate to wake to, I realized that everything sounded the same and for the life of me I couldn’t tell what station I had on. It would have helped if I had turned the light back on, but that’s not the point.
The point is that Milwaukee radio stations have little or no identity. Consider FM:
The Lake. The Hog. The Wolf. Kiss. Big Buck. Sounds like a bunch of Halloween costumes.
V100 Jams. 98.3 is Jammin’. They may be talking about something musicians do when they don’t have sheet music, but probably not.
Radio Now. I guess that’s better than “Radio A While Ago” or “Radio Tomorrow”, but I’m not sure why I would listen.
B93. Which has, you guessed it, a bumblebee as their logo. Maybe they want me to see what all the buzz is about.
We do have some stations where you know what you’re getting. Oldies 95.7 – unfortunately spanning about 4 generations. How do you appeal to all 4? And The Mix – a variety of music. Read annoying. Songs rarely fit together. They try to slam all these different kinds of music at you, from John Mayer to Hoobestank. Got my finger on the button for sure.
On AM, unfortunately I’m limited to our scintillating and ‘objective’ news talk radio hosts. A sharp stick in the eye would be more appealing. We do have two sports stations, but one’s up in the 540 area and I don’t think my dial goes up that far.
It’s not all bleak of course. The morning drive crew has its stalwarts, Dave & Carole and Bob & Brian to be precise, who make listening quite entertaining. But they can’t go on forever. What will happen when they’re gone? Stations are reluctant to hire “personalities” any more, which is inherently why old favorite WKTI became that goofy “Lake”, since profits are becoming harder and harder to come by.
There are number of viable alternatives to radio. XM/Sirius is very attractive but you have to pay for it. It’s worth it if you have the money – no commercials and clearly identifiable formats. Then there are iPods, iPads, all kinds of music options.
The recent change in the ratings system makes things really dicey. In the past, people kept handwritten diaries, completely unreliable because people rarely remembered all the stations they listened to during the day and they were probably filled out over cocktails.
So last summer the ratings company moved to Personal People Meters. PPM devices stay with the panelists all day and measure exactly what they’re listening to every minute. No more guess work. An exact science.
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| The Rippingtons. Nowhere to be found on Milwaukee radio. |
As a result, industry observers say stations need a faster pace, to prevent listeners from hitting the button in their car since the meter picks all this up. This has caused all sorts of changes in format in Milwaukee radio stations. “The Brew” changed to the aforementioned “Radio Now”, WMTJ has become “newsier”, and worst of all, 106.9 switched from Contemporary (Smooth) Jazz to Big Buck Country. This means there are now three country stations in Milwaukee. Half the time I think I’m in Little Rock. And this means that my favorite band, the Rippingtons, who just released their 20th album called Cote D’Azur, are nowhere to be found on the Milwaukee radio dial. No wonder I listen to XM.
With all this focus on faster pace and reliance on the new rating system, the Milwaukee radio landscape is becoming unfamiliar and is undoubtedly going to change more in the months ahead. I’m afraid the changes won’t be good. I think I’ll use the buzzer on my alarm from now on.
