After all these years, I finally got selected by Arbitron to share my listening habits. My immediate guess on why we were picked was a lack of middle-aged DINKs to survey; I still chose EuroAmerican on the “race” category since other ethnic groups get to claim Africa and “Latin” parts of the world. Too bad I got asked 20-plus years later for such information. Radio is in horrendous shape nowadays. In Austin, the only time I’m listening is in the car because the tape deck is kaput (amongst many other parts lately). Keeping track in the diary Arbitron gives you is pointless thanks to all the channel surfing I do. Commercial? Click, change the station! What? 101X is still trapped in the Nineties by playing the same five songs by Nirvana or Smashing Pumpkins? That’s sooooo Alternative. Click! Dudley needs to feed his ego by boring me over his peeves on KLBJ (he’s such a Howard Stern wannabe, pretty sad). Click! So on and so forth. Even NPR affiliates are such liars about their “lack” of advertising. They just call it underwriting and shill for Dell on KUT.
What’s even funnier are the plugs for high-definition radios. I’ve seen them at Fry’s gathering dust. If you’ve ever been to this retailer (think Wal-Mart meets Radio Shack, yet just both of their negative traits too), then you know it’s impossible to find an employee who knows how to make it tune in those additional stations. One would think the proponents of the next Betamax could’ve chosen a better store to demonstrate these.
My friend Mark said it best a while back. The radio business is pursuing the wrong aspect, technology won’t save them when their problem is content.
Hopefully my diary will make this point to Arbitron or you can blame me for rise of smoothjazz.com’s advertising rates.