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Death of Radio (07.29.05)
“I hate CFOX. Anybody with that much potential to do good who is so consistently bad has to be inherently evil” - Dale Wiese, Track Records.
Bang! You hear that? That was yet another nail in the coffin of corporate radio. The nail itself was the recent announcement by the CRTC that Canada is now open to Satellite radio. This means that there will be yet another superior option for your entertainment pleasure.
Sadly, private radio has been dead for quite some time now thanks to a handful of very rich men who’s only passion is the bottom line. As Dave Shepers of KRES radio so eloquently put it, “The business we’re in is the advertising business, and that’s the only business any radio station should be in.” It’s that mantra that has made radio the neutered beast we hear today. Pre-recorded voices, endless ads, and the same established music over and over. Personally I want actual personalities allowed to say something other than “that was”, “this is”, and “shoot me”.
It’s this underestimating of the public that has lead many flocking to other options provided mostly by the internet. MP3’s and internet radio have given people much needed access to non-crap sources of entertainment. Unfortunately, internet radio suffers the one downfall of accessibility. Thankfully we’re getting closer and closer to those most fantastic of days of portable internet radio.
The latest step is that direction is the inception of pod-casts, downloadable radio programs that you can play on your I-Pod (2000’s version of the Sony Walkman). Funny enough, CBC programming is consistently among the top downloaded pod-cast files. While this is all good and fine, it still suffers the problem of accessibility. The internet has a long way to go before it’s as affordable as a radio.
Which brings me to the ultimate, dare I say, holy grail of possibilities. A community radio station in Squamish. True, the dream for our own station is a common one among many Squamolians. Oh, sure Mountain FM is fine fast food radio with mostly just Vancouver voices selling things to people on the highway to and from Whistler. That’s great and it makes Rogers a ton of cash. What I’m talking about is a station with local voices who are allowed to say and play what they may.
Any veteran of the road trip has heard those community stations that truly give the community that extra bit of flavor. In Moab I was lucky to catch a local station which had the announcer informing the listeners that if the cd player got stuck you could reach him at home. But the cd player didn’t get stuck and we heard some great old R&B that was from his dad’s collection. We can do that. No doubt we have the talent in this town to pull off some great programming and I for one can’t wait. Oh well, in the mean time I’ve got some downloading to do.
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