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Posted By	Discussion Topic: NY Post article make reference to the Boys
windowlck	posted on 03-20-2001 @ 1:28 PM
Psychopath Registered: Oct. 00	Nothing Major, just want to let everyone know it was spotted. Plus It's an Interesting article. WHO KILLED THE DJS? Tuesday,March 20,2001 By JOHN MAINELLI -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WILL today's DJs - Big Steph Lova, Broadway Bill Lee, Funkmaster Flex, Cane, Shaila, Bugsy and all the rest - go down in radio history along with legends like Harry Harrison, B. Mitchel Reed and Murray the K? Probably not - but a lot of what makes a legend is out of the hands of today's radio personalities. (By the way, we're talking "DJs" - not talk show hosts like Howard Stern, Bob Grant and Opie & Anthony.) "It's pretty hard to ignore the fact that, across the country, personality radio has taken a hit," says Scott Shannon, the original "Zookeeper" on Z100 who's now WPLJ's program director and morning man. "All the syndicated shows . . . have taken a lot of people out of the business and, therefore, it eliminates the training ground, especially in smaller markets," Shannon said. "You've got these giant conglomerates running hundreds of stations like an assembly line and it's, 'Don't give 'em the best radio you can give them - give 'em the cheapest.'" "Cousin" Bruce Morrow says he was stumped when asked to suggest a DJ phone panel for his upcoming Variety Radiothon. "I couldn't think of anybody other than about five people, and none of them from recent years," said Morrow, one of the legendary WABC "All-Americans" who is now with oldies powerhouse WCBS-FM. Dan Ingram, another WABC vet who's now with WCBS-FM, says today's young listeners probably don't even know there's something missing. "If people have never been fed a good, two-inch-thick steak, they might not know what it's all about," says Ingram. "Personality radio is infinitely more complex and challenging to the listener . . . and much more than just 'Do the call letters, play the records and shut up.'" WCBS-FM programmer Joe McCoy points out that radio - and America - was different in the baby-boom era, when every station seemed to be packed with high-profile personalities. "Before FM, DJs were a special breed [who] were there during the early days of rock 'n' roll," says McCoy. "In the mid-'60s, when Bill Drake came up with the more-music concept for radio, that really changed things - like the Beatles changed the music. "Then FM came in and the DJs were not the high-energy personality jocks that they were in the '50s and early '60s." The Post put Shannon on the spot - without warning - and asked if he could name some potential legends today. "You've still got powerhouse personalities like Rick Dees out in L.A. and, uh - well, you've got a good point - well, you have Elvis [Duran] and the Morning Zoo still maintaining very respectable ratings, and Isaac Hayes [Kiss FM] has done a pretty good job managing to corner a niche for himself," Shannon said. Five years from now, it may be even harder to answer that question. A phenomenon known as "voice-tracking" and "cyber-jocking" - using local or remote DJs to pre-record banter for one or more stations to air between records - is spreading to the biggest cities, championed mainly by radio's biggest conglomerate. Clear Channel, the 1,170-station monster group, sees cyber-jocking as a cost-cutter and has introduced it, pre-dawn, on Z-100 - using DJ tracks recorded by acting program director Kid Kelly, who didn't return calls from The Post. The second-largest radio company, CBS/Infinity, is using the threat of "virtual DJs" to scare its programmers into bringing personality back to radio. "I hear a sameness from station to station - I hear wonderful production [but] I don't hear any personality," Infinity co-COO John Gehron told a recent radio seminar. "I tell our PDs to use their DJs or we will cyber-jock and voice-track their stations," Gehron warned. "There has never been a radio station that has been successful only playing music. Never!"

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