Yesterday I was wandering around the Superstore Warehouse Clubthing in Esquimalt seeking the ingredients for spaghetti and meatballs. I ran into Morgan, a guy I know from the band Dirtfella.
We got to catching up and he mentioned he now owns and operates The Pink Bicycle burger place downtown. How rad is that? I had never been, so Coral and I checked it out for lunch today. I ordered this spicy blue cheese burger monster and Corj grabbed the classic Pink Bike Burger. The meal was pretty special so my man Morgan has a good thing going on.
Donald has reviewed the Pink Bike twice… his first so-so review and his later review which was more positive.
I’d have to agree with Donald’s more recent review… my burger was savage. It said spicy, and it was a real deal flamethrower! I was sweating eating this beast. Corj’s burger was as she expected, good… but the delight were the truffle fries. I also liked the flavoured mayo to dip the fries which hearkens back to the days when I lived on Commercial Drive and I’d patronize the Belgian Fries shop.
Coral and I spent lunch day dreaming about our own coffee shop. We talk about it all the time, but lately the idea of going into business for ourselves has taken on greater urgency. First… unless something happens in governmentland, come December 1st, Coral is laid off from her gig helping students navigate the world of student loans. Second, the radio DJ might be going the way of the Dodo Bird (or at least vinyl record. Fun, but for collectors only).
I was trolling my radio gossips the other day and read that JACK FM in Vancouver canceled two of their last three live radio shows. I don’t work for Rogers (corporate overlords of JACK FM) or Jack FM, but it is still hurtful to read that a company has no value for what I do, make radio… and yet, they’re in that very business? WTF? It was just a bit of a downer thing to read and once again got me thinking about my future. You can do everything right… the Afternoon Guy at Jack was recently named the “Best Afternoon Show” or something like that, by The Georgia Straight. That’s pretty depressing to think about. This guy went to work everyday… did his job WELL, people responded positively, and the company said… you know what, nothing would be better than you. nice.
The double kick to the groin, while Rogers is laying people off at radio stations because, who knows? They’re battling community groups that want a live/local presence in their neighbourhood? That is not right.
The Airchecker posted this story on the internet by some American mucky muck that made me feel a bit better… but I don’t think this guy owns any radio stations… so his opinion is nice, but doesn’t create employment of excitement for radio.
I Don’t See Jack FM on the Cover of Time
That’s true, but the thumb in the eye… Rogers doesn’t care. The Airchecker then posted another unrelated article that actually does explain the situation pretty darn good. “Power Ratings.”
“Power ratings” measure how much advertising a format attracts, relative to its listenership.
A format with a modest audience that a lot of advertisers want to reach – like the men who listen to WFAN (A NYC Sports station) – makes more money than a format with a larger audience but fewer advertisers.
Since radio is a business, station owners will follow the money.”
My American Mucky Muck friend explains it this way:
“As the networks have learned with relatively cheap Reality TV shows, ratings aren’t the only measure of success. The question now revolves around how large an expenditure is required in order to reap respectable audience levels.”
Yikes, so the mantra at JACK FM is not to make the best radio that they can, its not to make people happy or to entertain… but rather… be as unoffensive as possible and not bleed too much audience considering that they make as little investment in content as possible. Then the sales team needs to “trick” advertisers into saying “hey look, our audience ‘cares’ spend tens of thousands of dollars with us!”
That would make waking up and going to work a challenge for me, but hey I don’t work there (and likely never will if/when a Rogers type stumbles on my blog… but fuck it, not like Rogers is doing a ton of hiring anyways).
I listened to Mark Ramsey’s podcast the other day… the one talking about what makes radio special… It takes about 4 minutes of your time.
The moral of the story is this… Jack FM will likely suffer no noticiable decrease in ratings and if they do, it won’t be enough to effect billings vs. the payroll savings. If the trend takes off, then all radio stations will be automated commercial/music robots and there will be no jobs and I’ll be slinging lattes at my coffee shop.
The Morning After 
pretty depressing
jackfm is basically fast food radio
radio is going the way of the dodo bird indeed… sad but true.
or at least in the direction of getting rid of live jocks.
it’s been a slow steady movement since voice tracking was invented… but the momentum has picked up in the last year.
the fox canned one of their two weekend jocks, meaning that from 11pm on friday night until 6am on monday morning, cfox only has a live dj for 12 hours (2x 6 hour shift – one on saturday and one on sunday)
that’s appalling to me… but apparently no one else really notices or cares.
yeah basically Donald. I mean, there is a place for that… so I shouldn’t come down to hard on them for providing that “service.”
I think Radio needs a Gordon Ramsey type cat to educate the world and just let them know, that your brain…. just like your belly, needs local, organic real nourishment.
I agree with you Nat… its sad that CFOX have just one the dude (but he is a good one dude!), but the truly depressing factor… no one seems to care that the autobox serves up the same Weezer cuts every four hours.
Just going to have to start the crusade, that live and local has value and find the people that are into it and stop playing the commercial ratings game. (the rules are stacked against the player).
to be honest, i think that beyond the budget cut issue… i think the audience isn’t that interested in live jocks… or any jocks anymore.
we have an upcoming generation that’s used to ipods, cds and digital & satellite radio where they never hear jocks.
and when they listen to old-school radio, they turn the station when jocks and commercials come on because they’re not interested.
i think it’s just part of the evolution of the medium to ditch out the live stuff.
what would really be a breakthrough is if stations started doing all advertising on their websites, ditched the jocks and only played music. they’d be an instant success. …and i think that’s going to happen in the next few years.
yeah that’ll work. For sure. But will be more powerful when more cars have displays.
DJs are an archaic form, no denying that. But just like I enjoy me some Vinyl on the LP player sometimes, and good service from a sit down cafe… and waiting for my latte to be made by someone knowledgeable, there will be a place for music nerds to come together to celebrate music and life and entertainment. Its not for every radio station, nor should it be. Most people just want Pitbull on repeat… I’d like to fire up the KEXP type station of Vancouver, that would be special and fun. they barely register ratings… yet bill in the neighbourhood of 4 million a year… err not bill, the listeners donate! its commercial free! The jocks get paid a great WAGE doing what they do, discovering bands and presenting it, music journalism, community involvement and rocking the fuck out!
I have xm and all I listen to is talk radio. I think you could argue people tune out when they hear jocks because what is the average air check… a minute and a half? Am I totally off base by saying they sort of signal “commercials coming” rather than “here’s some unique content”?
for sure. when I had Sirius I listened ot talk all the time or Sirius hits one… and the jocks were the best part! but they had super tight breaks and of course no commercials… so they weren’t signaling a stop.
but you are right about that… that is why I try and yap sometimes between songs and not always go into a stop set.