For any West Coasties out there, KGO "Newstalk 810" in San Francisco (a true 50kW AM blowtorch up and down the West Coast of the USA) just dumped what I always thought was a fairly engaging News/Talk format in favor of mostly news. They fired numerous radio legends with no pre-announcement and have clearly bummed out lots of listeners.Perhaps the bigger story here is that apparently the news/talk format just doesn't sell, as the new KGO owner decided that with slipping Arbitrons, the talk stuff must go. So what would a successful DRM broadcast in North America carry as far as content?
I like the mixed format of RNZI. I quickly grew weary of RCI's new immigrant directed content. Disco is nice, but Disco Palace couldn't really run 24/7 and keep an audience.
In the end, what I'm saying is that as much as I enjoy DRM, the format is not the message. What could survive on DRM when even standard broadcasting (especially AM) is dying a thousand deaths from Internet streaming, iPods, Podcasts and apathy?
[Cool but sad KGO graphic from artist Dan Harris. Check out his gorgeous art and blog here.]
