[mjb1124Member]

I think these new cuts sound great, with nice, richly-textured vocals. But you’d expect great vocals with charts drawn up by Steve Haas, who directed and sang with the 5 (not 3) part vocal group too. Remember that IQ Beats were COMMISSIONED to produce this package. They could’ve said no, but instead had the balls to rise to the challenge.

I don’t disagree with this – it’s a pretty decent effort by IQ Beats to recreate the Dallas sound with strong vocals, and I give them credit for trying. And I do agree that they seem to have a good amount of versatility – definitely more so than that other, more popular Seattle company. I guess my “beef” is that at the end of the day, it’s still an imitation, and I can’t quite see why Gold would opt for an imitation when there’s still “nothing like the real thing”. I doubt that these customs were cheaper than getting some WABC/WLS/Z100/KIIS/CBS-FM/etc. cuts resung, and those would have worked just as well with the music while adding that extra “sparkle”.

But hey – I, for one, welcome a hearty debate.

[IainJohnstonMember]

I would suspect that a certain “former resident of Kirkcaldy” would probably tell himself that the entire UK radio industry would consider him a laughing stock if he ever dared to say he would go to JAM (or perhaps even TM) in the 2010’s for any jingle package for his foreign-owners’ Group of stations that have near-destroyed the UK’s former ILR “heritage” stations system.

He has to retain “face” to keep up his reputation/ego, and be seen going to the current “hip” producers of the day (he did just that in the 80s and 90s too), even if he might ever be proved to misjudge things (fairs fair, no-one is perfect all the time). The fact that there is “Dallas influence” at all in this commission is itself perhaps a sign of “mellowing with age”?.

[LenGroat]

Funny you should say that Iain !

http://twitpic.com/9vgvp6

[IainJohnstonMember]

LOL! Don’t know if “Jackie” eventually coped with the pronounciation of “Auld Reekie FM” (thats the fair city of Edinburgh for the uninitiated…) but Cheryl at JAM did Scots Gaelic “sgian-dubhs” just fine for me on a Best Show cut!

[LenGroat]

And things get even MORE interesting….? As today in the feature ‘Real to Heart, Smooth to Gold?’ we learn quite a few more (non-heritage) station names may ‘bite the ILR dust…’

As well as a few managers and presenters, some jingle company people may also not be very happy at the moment ?

Time to switch careers people?

Feature: Real to Heart, Smooth to Gold?

[IainJohnstonMember]

One day we’ll wake up to find that “ILR” will have gone the way of “ITV” – one big merged merger of consolodated amalgamations plus a couple of other smaller bits to make it look like there’s still some “choice”.

“BBC + 2 commercial” for each area was touted by Ofcom a while back – soon be “BBC + X”.

And I don’t think Global can expect Clear Channel to buy them up when they’ve finished scooping up all the other “meaningful” UK radio groups – CC went in to Chapter 11 Bankrupty Protection (just as other USA broadcasting conglomerates have done).

Global are following the exact same path (“apeing it” even) as CC, Cumulus, etc and using the exact same business techniques and also technical means to “smart program” the life (and people) out of their stations into a computerised rump of bland meaningless cash-generation (or indeed, debt-management – paying the interest on whats owed is proving hard enough for all these over-acquisitive conglomerates). Still, CEOs and Board Members have to get their Bonus for “great performance” no matter what they actually do to the companies they supposedly are looking after.
The Law of Diminishing Returns is spiralling downwards for UK “commercial” radio now too.

Would be nice though if NRJ got whatever eventually remains – would at least get some bl&&dy good French jingles!

[bobgreenradioMember]

ahhhyes, ranting thats near and dear to my heart.. funny isnt it. you’d expect this crap was limited to the u.s. yet? seems its anywhere english is spoken.
you know; there ought to be a law. i guess, here at least, there was…until deep pockets bought off the political hacks that approve this crap, for the public good no less, and allowed mass consumption of broadcast properties by bankers.

i had a dear friend, now passed on, that owned a class D station here. it was a 1kw daytimer. something everybody in the biz called a piece of crap property. am, daylight only hours, piss for power, and yet, my friend was always #1 in every book. his 1kw crapper whipped the ass of the 50kwFM powerhouse 3 miles away. every time the ratings came out he was #1 with a solid lock. how? simple! he kept it local. he signed on with in depth LOCAL news, and took a 5 min hit from the net for national updates. he had LOCAL telephone talk shows (the first in the state, i might add, doing this), and he was always there on remote for every fund raiser or promotion. his worthless little shitbox am was always #1 because it (he) cared about full community service. they had a news mobil van, they played music from the remotes, took requests, and turned out a huge mass everywhere they went. very personality driven.

this is not being done by any group owner. when pressed to justify their abuse of process the same excuse is used. “that would cost to much”. huh??? wtf?? youve pushed the spot rate to 5 times its worth (a good reason why nobody buys time lately), you have no air staff, just that $500 IBM running the dish feed, so wheres the overhead? wheres your cost? and now that youve managed to give the public nothing; they all got ipods! and youre going broke…not soon enough!

[IainJohnstonMember]

Very eruditely put Bob!

Although the USA “Mom & Pop” station kind of setup is/has been almost impossible in the UK due to how the private sector radio licencing system was initially setup and has “evolved” (sic), your story is a good reminder of “what COULD have been” in the UK, and to what some of the independent stations in the 1970s/80s DID try to do to be part of their audiences’ lives (just ask Len G) rather than just the computer-fed only-the-advertiser-now-matters “jukeboxes” we increasingly have here now.

“seems its anywhere english is spoken”

Ironically, the debates about the state of today’s radio discussed in the UK on e.g. a certain big forum are identical to those on the New York one – each side of the pond doesn’t realise that the same thing is happening elsewhere – and in both places those who despair for their once-proud industry are similarly often “shouted down” by the “mantra-speak” of conglomerate-company “supporters” who, as you say, only see the money and the B-S they get fed by their corporate management and care nothing for the “art” of good radio. (There ARE exceptions though … some of the “good guys” do appear on JM!)

[bobgreenradioMember]

my friend, a heavy smoker his entire life, did quit. just to late. he suffered 3 strokes. it became necessary for the family to sell their “worthless” little pea-shooter.
they thought they had found the perfect single owner to buy it. the transaction was completed to shortly discover it was a straw buyer and the group owner with the #3 50kw fm powerhouse in the market managed to scoop up total market ownership within 2 years. (something that is not allowed by law here, monopoly, yet was seemingly overlooked).
the am daytimer has its very own computer now, and dish. all dreck-all the time. its now an ‘unlisted’ property in all ratings. no listenership either. these people boast that they have 7 stations in town. theres a fringe low power fm and a college fm left. i guess the thinking is might is right?
we cant wait for this cluster to bankrupt soon enough. and it will. they all do.

[pvrakking]

I think the jingles do Gold justice. I ti nice to hear sung jingles in stead of just punch lines with noises in between. Also if I listen to it as a whole, the music, jingles and DJ’s form a unity. In the current radio scene with personality radio and side kicks this is such a relieve.
My favorite station in the UK when I am there on holiday, I do not even mind the MW-sound, as long as the quality of the program is good.

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