> Well, well, well....maybe if they started playing folks like Dale Watson, The > Derailers, Duane Jarvis, Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Rosie Flores, Kelly > Willis, Jann Browne, Heather Myles, Mike Ireland, Lucinda, Lauderdale, Cisco, > The Hollisters, Buddy Miller and Steve Earle they'd get those listeners back. Worked well enough for me for a number of years and although I am now employed by a station billed as HNC, the GM is letting, actually encouraging me to explore a bit. After 6 weeks I am happy to report good feedback from listeners on the inclusion of Honky Tonk Confidential (Hey Geff, put up a big antenna and you can tune me in), the current single releases from Kelly and Allison as well as plenty of Dale, some Derailers, Jr Brown, Heather (lots of reaction) and so on....including healthy doses of the classics from Hag, Possum Buck and the rest.... This is the second station I've done this and the listeners generally tend to love it or hate it. Fortunately, in my listening area, the primary country audience is made up of lifelong fans and folks who grew up on country so very few complaints. These same fans like some of the Nashvegas stuff (and not just the usual trad suspects) including Tim McGraw and some of the more pop oriented too but the complaint is, as has been pointed out in countless listener surveys, the lack of variety, the sameness, the repitition / burn out and the tendency for the jocks to want to be comedians or talk about stuff totally unrelated to the country lifestyle. Radio consolidation will make things worse, not better. Do yourself a favor and spend some time studying the low power FM proposals at www.fcc.org then write a letter of support to the FCC and then to your congressmen. The big money groups have the Nat. Assoc of Broadcasters fighting tooth and nail against this but combine low power FM (10-1000 watts) and the net and radio as an industry sees billions going up in smoke. Will Nashvegas wake up and smell the coffee? Your guess is as good as mine, but after reading the article I would tend to think they'll go towards the slick teenybopper target market instead of the tried and true. There are however a few players in Nashville who are betting on a different playbook and my hope is they will stick it out long enough to make it to the next phase of country music, i.e. a return to roots oriented material/artists. The usual complaint is that the over 30's don't buy CD's. A recent report from a major university showed the 16-24 age group so into MP3 technology that they are going away from buying CD's. I'm 43 and my contemporaries buy lots of CD's, just not the new top 40 Nashvegas product. Anyone know how many units the OLD DOGS CD's have moved? Mike Hays http://www.TwangCast.com TM RealCountry 24 X 7 Please Visit Then let us know what you think! Mike Hays www.MikeHays.RealCountry.net For the best country artist web hosting, www.RealCountry.net
