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.
