My local alternative weekly, The Isthmus, recently profiled the face and voice of a persistent trend in local radio — the random shuffle with the human persona. While the idea has been in play for several years (here’s a story from back on 2005), it’s rare to actually hear from the human behind the facade.
The radio format forgoes local DJs and programmed playlists for semi-random shuffles from a slightly wider palette. To compensate for the lack of a local voice, the radio station, itself, gets a personality — often with a friendly name, like ”Charlie” here in Madison, or ”Simon” in Greensboro, NC, or ”Jack” in Denver, CO.
Morgan, profiled in the article, is the voice for at least three such stations from his home studio. He records the scripts and sends them along in MP3 to be assembled and broadcast as the voice of the station.
Most arts organizations are creatures of place. Their markets are local. Their artists are local. Their donors are certainly local. So, when local isn’t local anymore, it’s worth a moment’s pause.
This nonlocality was a catastrophe during the Katrina hurricane, when local stations continued with remote broadcasting and were of no help updating people in New Orleans about latest developments, warnings, and current advice.
The popularity of these formats is a testament to the fact that the public craves both larger more inclusive playlists, and radio personalities that are less caustic than the average morning shock jock. Why that can’t be achieved with real people is a mystery to me. I have twice now had to break the bad news to friends that “Charlie,” and “Jack” are not local formats, unique to their city. When my friends found out, both felt manipulated and let down.
Support your local public radio station. There are a few really interesting mixed format local stations scattered around – WIRY in Plattsburgh, NY, is a good one.
Jack FM went belly up in New York – they went back to playing the oldies but couldn’t woo Cousin Brucie back from Satellite Radio. Seems the NY market didn’t have any interest in this format.
You wrote: “Most arts organizations are creatures of place. Their markets are local. Their artists are local. Their donors are certainly local.”
I think you got 75% of that paragraph right: to an ever widening degree, the artists are not local, much to the detriment of arts organizations. Actors, for instance, have found that if they want to be hired at their local regional theatre, much of the time they have to move to NYC to do so. Something magical about the 100-zip code, I guess.