Connection

Contributed by Bob Green
You have articulated beautifully the results of deregulation. Those of us who had the opportunity to be involved with radio in the 50s-70s can only reflect on our good fortune and reminisce about what the value of connection meant: connection to a community, connection to a listener and the synergistic connection of all the elements of programming over the public airwaves that made radio one’s very own personal companion. One of the many negatives of the great conditioning experiment called deregulation is that listeners have come to expect less, and real talent who can do more than read positioning statements on index cards are a dying breed. (Would Pavlov be proud?). As for those who shed a tear over radio’s becoming only a bottom line business... It was always a bottom line business, but real programmers knew the way to connect...to entertain, inform and serve the community to which the stations were licensed to garner ratings and, of course, business. Today’s bean counters haven’t a clue. Radio isn’t about saving money (one PD for 8 stations)... It’s about making money (oh yes, and having fun and creating magic as you do it).