Did everyone who listens to local radio get lost at the exact same time?
I think that is exactly what happened.
That said, if you are still listening to local radio, time and the world has pretty much passed you by. So go ahead, cock back and pretend that former top radio personality Mike Murphy just disappeared. Or car phones still require them to be installed with an antenna on the back of your Pontiac Grand Prix. Or disco is king.
Get the picture?
Actually the recent death of former Rock 98.9 personality Johnny Dare went down 10 years ago. It just took a while to hold the funeral. I wrote a piece describing his downfall in October of 2016 )”The Rise & Fall of Johnny Dare”)
The guilty party: something called “streaming” – an internet based means of making news and personalities available on a 24/7 basis.
No need to climb out of bed at an ungodly hour, fumble with something we used to call a radio -or car radio – and wait for a bunch of over-the-top loser clown wannabes to reinvigorate your life.
Nope, unless you really liked Johnny Dare or anybody else, you’d go on YouTube or someplace online “click” on a show and listen to it whenever you felt like it. Probably not at 5:30 or 6 am.
What’s more, you can “stream” pretty much anywhere and everywhere. In your car, on your phone, laptop, computer at work (within reason).
And there are hundreds – thousands – of options to choose from that don’t entail sophomoric potty talk humor – as well as those that do.
And the fun begins the minute you decide to tune in, listen or watch – from start to finish – so you don’t have to get up early or stay up late. That’s something called “on demand.”
And you don’t have to listen to boring, self-serving local advertisers. Or maybe, you don’t get to is another way of looking at it
But if technology is something you just don’t get or dig, well…you’re gonna have to find another way to get your jollies. Because not only did Father Time mess with the clocks again, he’s been pretty busy turning one-time superstars into relics of the past.
There is one wild card, I suppose.
What’s to prevent Dare and his band of sycophants from carving out their own little piece of the streaming pie, and re launching the show?
Hey, anything’s possible, I guess.
But does anybody with a brain much larger than a pea that knows how to use a computer or iPhone wanna get down and dirty with ’90s radio humor?
Well, maybe? Good luck finding them though.
All this begs the question, who are the Mount Rushmore of K.C. radio personalities? 61 Country’s Dave Lawrence immediately comes to mind; and of course Ky’s Max Floyd. Believe it or not they worked about 25 feet from each other for the longest time.
Saw Max Floyd recently at Aristocrat Motors in KC…
You’re leaving off any number of other top names, but I guess focussing on the ones that entertained you in YOUR prime are obviously going to be the most important to you.
Your selections through are quite deserving!
The one guy famous for potty humor is chastising another for using potty humor to become locally famous.
Hearne the thing you and the rest of the anti radio pundits do not mention is that radio is still free and is the gorilla in the room. Achieving frequency for advertising is nearly impossible on the streaming platforms, too many streams with too few listeners. The best you can do with streaming is to bolster a real ad buy. Same goes for local TV, which streaming platform has enough viewers on the ad supported streams to rival what local TV generates? None.
It is easy and cheap to vilify local media without any real knowledge of what is effective and reasonably priced. A cheap commercial on Spotify may reach a target but without any real audience size it is wasted money and effort. Much like your blog, it would take a more than a few, to achieve the audience the Star has.
Well, that’s telling me, Kansas Karl…
That said, I’m far from an anti radio pundit. On the other hand, I’m not a cheerleader either.
But stay tuned, I’ll have a Johnny Dare column any day that I think you’ll find quite interesting
How about just a column that just honors someone who worked 32 years at the same job.
Not to mention a job in radio, where you are lucky to make it 3.
JD had a great following because if you do the same job for 32 years, it would be impossible to fake it. Eventually your listeners would see right through it and move on.
JD did not have that problem because he was always straight with his listeners and the biggest cheerleader for KC out there (no doubt he had many opportunities to jump ship to another market for more money – he always choose to stay here).
At the end, after 32 years, his ratings were still top shelf. Think about that for a sec.
He will be missed.
More than “fair enough” Kevin K…
That said, there’s a difference in being a long time fan and admirer and someone with an arguably less biased opinion. I also had the privilege of knowing many of the people in the industry, behind-the-scene who both oversaw and knew him.
Meaning not much more than I have a different opinion. I know a few things, from how much he was being paid to how frugal – as-in-cheap – he was. How controlling, etc.
Let me assure you of one thing, when you are being paid that kind of money and given that amount of control, it’s not the slightest bit difficult to “fake it” – so to speak. Not that “faking it” is anything approaching a sin. Essentiall, we all play roles in life to some extent.
And playing the role of a charitable dirt bag isn’t exactly the stuff Academy Awards are made of.