[IRCA] Live and Local takes a hit in Tampa - I guessed wrong

["Bob Foxworth" <rfoxwor1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

A week ago tonight I reported on a development in Tampa radio

> The announcement was not hard to pre-guess. As I
> suspected, Mark announced his "retirement" from his
> three-hour Sunday evening show, one of the very few
> liberal voices (Lionel, Saturdays, another) on FLA. The
> "choice" of retirement was "offered" to him over lunch


Then I speculated on what would replace his local
take on what was largely local content


> last show after being cut.  Maybe at the staff
> meeting tomorrow, when they plan whether to
> give us the 2nd repeat of Limbaugh or the next
> repeat of Hannity, someone will mention that


Well, I was wrong about at least this. He was not replaced
with either of my guesses, but not a lot better, with a repeat of
their local afternoon drive show which was originally
recorded the day after the Bush SOTU speech,
adding nothing to what has been said before. Unless,
of course, you missed the PM drive show on Wednesday
and feel the need to catch it now. (!)

This is an interesting thought about HD. Now that CC
seems to feel the need to eliminate programming that
may not pay its way, (ironic, in that the listener to the
alternative viewpoint is probably the more likely one to
go out now and buy an HD receiver, becoming an early
[only?] adopter) then the whole concept of what to offer the
listener in the context of nighttime HD becomes open
for analysis. IOW, if they view the night time hours
as so un-important that they can merely fill it with
days-old repeats, then what is the justification for
all the expense of HD conversions for AM night ops.

---

Another thought comes to mind when thinking of
stations that rebroadcast days-old talk shows.
This is the concept of being a "station of record"
which is a promo that FLA runs every so often
when they get in a self-back-patting mood.

A *newspaper* can be a Newspaper of Record.
I can go to the circulation department and order
a back issue, or find it at the library, and can look
up a story at my leisure. "Record" implies that
the information they broadcast is accessible to
anyone at some undefined future point to check
facts, or for whatever purpose. That's because
a newspaper pushes information out in "parallel"
mode with a lot of "data busses" (sections)
available at once. Radio stations present their
product in "serial mode" with a single channel
data buss, limited not by how fast one reads, but
by how fast (slowly) they push it to you.

A radio station CANNOT be a "Station of Record"
because there is no practical way for any listener
to access a previously broadcast story, on terms
that are reasonably available to the listener. He
or she would have to go to the station and convince
them to make available logging tapes (if they are
even available) (unless there are a few stations
that are archived by 3rd parties for a fee). I'd bet
a court order would be needed for this to happen.

Has anyone ever done this?

I hear that there are stations that do NOT archive
content to avoid such situations, similar to the
idea of businesses archiving (or not) e-mails.

Well, time for Drudge. Saying Iran offering to
rebuild Iraq. Maybe put a couple of 2 megawatters
for us to shoot for.


- Bob                   2234 est






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