Brian Lambert interviews the newly-named Current PD, Jim McGuinn, over at mspmag.com. He’ll begin overseeing things in January. While commercial music radio goes down the tubes, Jim’s hiring restores my faith in terrestrial radio’s ability to find the path back to BROADcasting; not NARROWcasting.
Some highlights:
“There’s no doubt commercial radio is in trouble,” said McGuinn, who is approximately twenty years younger than I am. “They’re all dealing with the customization of choice everyone is struggling with. ["Customization of choice." I like that.] That struggle is what The Current is built on.”
“The commercial stations I worked at had been hit with cost cutting so many times that really the only thing left on their minds was asking, ‘What’s the least amount of money we can spend on programming and still make it viable enough to sell to advertisers?’”
Touche’, Jim. In the Age of the iPod, it’s insanity for terrestrail radio to continue it’s “niche” approach to programming. Hopefully, the Current can keep the bean-counters at bay with Jim’s appointment.
15 Reader Comments
2:00 pm
Any word on who is going to be on in the morning since “The Morning Show” is going away?
5:13 pm
Live, warm-blooded people, I hope. Not zzzzzzombies.
The only thing I’ve heard is that the new morning show’s music will more mirror the rest of The Current playlist that’s on throughout the other dayparts.
9:00 pm
My daughter and I have discovered many new songs and groups on The Current, so I won’t complain. But I would love to hear an even greater mix: more roots music, music in other languages, jazz, opera. There is so much more great music out there.
10:47 pm
The Morning Show is going away? Really?
F YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!
11:07 pm
Does anyone really want a morning show? Just play music. If I want talk I can tune into Carrie or Gary.
8:26 am
I too hope the morning zoo concept is dead. Maybe a little news, but mostly music. Something to get my day started off right. The morning jamboree ends next week. (Dec 12th)
8:40 am
I didn’t mind the music on The Morning Show, but their attempts at humor were awful. They just seemed old-timey. I’d like a morning show that combined news with The Current’s regular playlist. Maybe they can bring in Bob Collins like Mary Lucia does during afternoon drive time.
Where did Lucia and Brian Oake do a morning show together? That was good stuff.
9:01 am
Rev 105
9:13 am
I like the Morning Show, corny as it is, and wish they’d keep it.
Let’s hope the new program director at the Current can make sure Chris Koza and Jeremy Messersmith finally get the airplay they so richly deserve. I really feel like i don’t hear enough of those guys on the Current these days. Why only play them every hour? How about every 30 minutes? Maybe every other song?
9:14 am
They did afternoons at Rev 105. I thought they did mornings together at a different station (after 105 went metal).
9:21 am
You can still hear the “Morning Show” streaming on the web or on HD radio. Here is the news release.
9:37 am
Re: Radio Heartland. Damn! Now I have to buy a digital radio.
10:45 am
Lucia and Oake were in Morning Drive on Zone 105.
I’m thinking that mornings on The Current will be a single personality chosen from someone already on staff.
11:38 am
@sornie: Which wouldn’t surprise me. It used to be that way on all but the giant AM stations back in the day. Charles Laquidera (WBCN), Scott Muni (WNEW), B. Mitchell Reed (KMET), and other legendary “underground” FM jocks did mornings by themselves for upteen years until the “morning zoo” concept spread like a virus in the 1980s. Heck, in all the years I did morning shows I never had an in-studio partner. Had to choose the music AND compile the news all by my lonesome. The only thing ever piped in were traffic reports.
3:05 pm
Mornings on the Rev was Steve “tevo” Nelson, the outgoing PD, and Brian Oake. It always seemed to me like they were having actual, genuine fun.
Morning shows aside, if The Current were to somehow channel Rev 105 with a healthy dose of Radio K, they might have a station that would be listenable. Somebody needs to give a show back to Peter Jesperson. That weekly show he did on The Rev was fantastic.
Until The Current stops with the vanilla, I’ll be sticking with The K.