changing your morning radio station?

As a former rock radio DJ of 10 years, I can tell you that there probably isn't anything you can do. If that current morning show is getting the ratings, they're not going anywhere. Radio stations get the most of their income from advertisers that run ads on the morning show and afternoon drive. If the show is doing good, they are going to keep their cash cow.

Also, do you know why Merric and Rosso were replaced? Was it their choice or the radio station's? It's possible the pair got a better offer from another radio station that they couldn't refuse. It's also possible that the radio station changed management and the new management wanted to bring in their own people for possibly less money. There are all kinds of factors here that you have to consider and, as someone that has worked in that business, I don't agree with the politics, but I understand them.

Let me give you an example. I worked overnights at 102.7 Z-Rock in Detroit back in the 90's. The morning show guy was Screamin' Scott...a good friend of mine at the time. We had a crappy signal because our transmitter was in a bad location and we were getting our butts handed to us in the ratings by WRIF who had a 100 wat transmitter, which meant that you could get their signal loud and strong anywhere in the Detroit area, whereas ours didn't broadcast to certain areas of the city giving us a major disadvantage.

For those of you who don't know about Z-Rock, it was a nationwide metal station that was broadcast via satellite out of Texas to radio stations across the country who then aired that feed via their local airways. We were required to run their feed for a specific amount of time each week to claim the name, but were allowed to switch to local programming as long as we kept with our contract of airing the Texas feed for the number of hours specified. When Z-Rock in Texas went under, we were required to either pay a huge fee to keep the name or else change the name and format of the radio station.

Our radio station couldn't afford to buy out the contract, so we agreed to change. Somehow, they formed a contract with Ted Nugent to become the morning show host. Even though Scotty never did anything wrong, the radio station fired him to replace him with Ted Nugent in order to have the possibility of better ratings. In fact, Scotty found out that he was getting fired by checking the fax machine one morning; there was Ted Nugent's new contract being confirmed.

Scotty ended up back on the air working for the competition, WRIF, and I do believe he's still there today. But he went from the lucrative morning show to the least paying full-time shift at a radio station, overnights, and from there had to fight his way back to a better time slot.

The politics in radio suck and most listeners don't know what goes on behind the scenes. But that's how it happens and they're probably never going to change.

A further in-depth look at how a radio station runs and how it became the way it is today, I highly recommend one of my favorite books, "Radio Waves: Life and Revolution on the FM Dial" by Jim Ladd. It's a terrific read written by one of the first rock DJ's in California and how radio morphed from what it used to be where the listeners actually had a say-so as to the content of the radio station to the current state of radio where the listener has no input at all.

Yeh, I was sad when Merric and Rosso left Triple J, but hey, it wasn't the end of the world.

As for Hamish and Andy... well, I have a friend who is always telling me their skits.. and to be honest, I don't think I could take them every day.

So in conclusion, if you want something a little more high-brow than those other two shows then...

...Beat the Drum! Triple J!

Eric and Kathy 101.9 The Mix

go back to the station that you want, it is good to start your day off laughing with the announcers on the radio.

take care and have a good day ........