Quoted from Aaron

Sorry, I agree with the general point here, but this part is untrue. In fact, the most listened to stations on satellite are the talk and sports stations, and even that is a tiny fraction of all media use.

You're right, I didn't think before I typed that one hehe.  I wrote that because of the people I know with satellite, they are just sick of the options terrestrial radio give music-wise.  Why listen to the same 200 songs over and over and over again.  They flip back to the ol' AM or FM dial when they want to know why they're held up in traffic or to hear why their taxes went up.  But maybe they're in the minority.

After the recent negative posts about local radio, I felt that I should put in my two cents.

This is what radio is and should be about. Local doesn't mean talking about the bake sale downtown but rather communicating with your listener about what it is that they care about. Relating to your demo. The stations that are struggling could benefit from finding creative ways to inform their audience about the things they may be interested in. In this day in age when celebrity gossip and music news is easily accessible, we need to give listeners something more. I have always believed that each and every break needs to leave your listener with something to hold onto. Something to that will cause them to remember you / your station.

The other posts on here regarding the lack of real creative talent in the industry is also a real concern. We are in the business to entertain and inform. Music certainly plays a role in attracting listeners, but creative talent that understands and relates to the demo will certainly attract and retain an audience. Radio needs to take a grass roots approach and go back to focusing on our listeners and their needs / desires. I believe a strong LOCAL station with live creative talent, dedicated news gatherers, and more public appearances will make gains in a market where they may be struggling. Establish a relationship with your listener...make the emotional connection and you will win.

here is a nifty look at the ratings and an interesting case study outta New York City.

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http://www.edisonresearch.com/home/archives/2008/05/for_some_radio.php

For Some, Radio Is Still The Best Way To Hear Music
Entry by Sean Ross
When WCBS-FM New York dropped Oldies in 2005, it had a 3.0 share 12-plus.

When WCBS-FM came back last summer, it returned with a 3.7 share and has held there through the recently released winter 2008 book.

In that time, WCBS-FM's many disenfranchised listeners had no shortage of choices that could have taken them away from terrestrial radio. They were directly targeted by Sirius Satellite Radio and its hiring of Cousin Brucie. They had their iPods. They could have found no shortage of customizable Internet-only Oldies channels.

They had plenty of options - many of which would have been seen by some industry people as far superior to the old WCBS-FM during its problematic last year. But when WCBS-FM came back, the listeners came back, too.

That's significant, because as the debate about radio's future continues, one of the continuing themes heard from some quarters is that there will be no interest in a music service that features personalities, and chooses the music for listeners (and compounds those apparent offenses by playing commercials as well).

That being the case, the theory holds, even streaming your signal is missing the point. What you're offering now will not be what listeners want on other platforms.

And inherent in that belief is that the contention that the classic radio model was never a very good way to hear music to begin with. Listeners put up with jocks yakking over the music that somebody else chose because there weren't as many other options. Or perhaps out of Stockholm Syndrome, but not because they enjoyed the entire package.

The notion that "radio is a terrible delivery system for music" has been, not surprisingly, bandied about pretty freely among new media people since the inception of alternate delivery systems, but it's popping up more often among radio people now, who perhaps have some Stockholm Syndrome of their own.

So it's worth reminding ourselves how many disenfranchised listeners - only some of whom had terrestrial radio access to Oldies on a suburban signal -- were forced to find alternatives to WCBS-FM for two years and still chose to come back. Those listeners, at least, did not come to the realization that they never really liked radio to start with.

WCBS-FM has evolved, even over the last nine months. It has added the brief stagers that have become ubiquitous in a PPM world, and you can hear cold segues as well. But there is still enough front-and-center personality that if what you wanted from the station was merely music, unencumbered by companionship (or commercials) WCBS-FM would not be your choice. And if you were not willing to trust somebody else to choose the music occasionally, you would probably have little use for the station that spiked in the early '70s nugget, "Rings" by Cymarron, this morning.

So is it only because WCBS-FM appeals to an older audience that its listeners didn't seek out other new media choices for hearing Oldies and stay there? Theoretically, the 13% of the 45-54 audience that listened to Internet radio last week, or the 53% that have ever listened (according to the Arbitron/Edison Internet & Multimedia 2008 Study) would have found another choice between 2005 and 2007, thus at least keeping CBS-FM's listening from growing. Besides, if the WCBS-FM model was never a good choice, why would even an older listener go back?

If the equation of "music + brief personality + we pick for you + having to sit through commercials" still works best for listeners above age 30, it may be because they were the ones who were most likely to hear that type of radio done right. And because the programmers who are still inclined to offer it to them are the ones who grew up hearing radio well executed. It has been in the last 10 years that our relationship with listeners has been repeatedly breached by stations too many commercials, too much repetition, and either obtrusive companionship or none at all. And while you can't be sure that the generation that would rather text than talk will respond to that formula, you can say that it has rarely been offered to them, and that the WCBS-FM experience shows it is not inherently inferior.

This doesn't mean in any way that broadcasters should not seek to offer listeners the content they want in the package and on the platform of their choice. The recent CBS announcement about the customizable Play.It that will be offered on the same player that now brings you their terrestrial streams and HD-2/Internet stations is the right idea. It doesn't mean that broadcasters shouldn't offer pure content/personality to those listeners who choose it. As in the U.K., broadcasters here should expand their reach by expanding their offerings.

But if the combination of pre-programmed music presented by personalities is not among radio's viable offerings in the future, it will be because broadcasters destroyed it, not because the audience rejected it outright. And perhaps because broadcasters allowed a few of radio's critics to become proxy for a segment of the audience whose needs and attitudes they should have studied more directly. There is a difference between self-improvement and self-loathing that broadcasters would do well to keep in mind now.