Geoff Kleinman’s recent <a href=”http://www.onpdx.com/music/94-7fm-krnk-give-us-feedback-then-youfail/” target=Resource Window>post</a> on his twitter battle with 94.7 KNRK really got me to thinking…I haven’t listened intentionally to FM radio in a really, really long time.
See, I can listen to good local bands on Pandora that get no play at all on KNRK, drowned out by, effectively, big label bands (that aren’t putting out top 40 pop hits) and essentially classic rock which clutters up the station. Mind you, there’s a place for that…there are a lot of classic rock stations that only play the same stuff they’ve been playing for 20 years now…and the stuff that was new when that station started up wasn’t exactly classic rock then…but it is now. And KNRK plays it.
The thing Pandora lacks, however, is the personal touch. There’s no spontaneity, no real randomness, no interaction with the audience. It just merrily plays a bunch of music that its algorithm thinks is related to each other, and a lot of times, that’s very cool. But there are times where you want something more entertaining than relaxing, and that’s where radio could still have a niche…if it weren’t inundated by idiots with microphones and no creativity. Bad jokes. They don’t practice any of that stuff, they don’t have psych degrees most of the time, they’re just guys who know music. The problem there is that just knowing music doesn’t hit that niche, you’ve got to work an audience. You need to have a good voice for radio, you need to mix it up, you need to bring something that no one else does and practice it. It’s more than knowing obscure music, knowing how the equipment works. If that’s all you know, you bring nothing to the table that Pandora and internet radio doesn’t already do much better.
It’s the one thing that Sirius/XM and AM radio have figured out. They hire people who know how to interact with a crowd. That’s what the talk radio folks do and it works. It makes income and it gets listeners. It’s no surprise to me that KNRK is losing income and laying off talent…they don’t have any talent to begin with. Every time I’ve tuned in accidentally in the past, I’ve tuned out because the dj was ANNOYING. Self-indulgent, juvenile, emo, too-cool-for-you douchebags don’t make for good dj’s. FM is rife with them. At least with Pandora, I don’t have to listen to these idiots’ verbal masturbation. They might think it’s funny to themselves, and their hangers-on clique might force themselves to laugh, but unless you think you can stand up in front of a hostile audience and deliver that line without getting a bottle thrown at your head, don’t say it.