For many years, the best way to get a handle on the overall professionalism and “bigness” of a radio station was often through its imaging. In the early ’80s, stations like WRQX (Q107) Washington, D.C., and WBZZ (B94) Pittsburgh stood out from other Top 40s around the country by using laserblast production every few records. Those stagers sound simple now, but they shook up radio in an era when Top 40 was chasing after Rock radio by sounding as clean (and savorless) as possible. That was followed by WHTZ (Z100) New York’s “Serving the Universe” ID, which set the stage for the late ’80s “lock it in and rip the knob off” era, when jock breaks were reduced and more aggressive imaging sometimes became the key determinant of stationality.

It wasn’t that long ago that the medium- and small-market stations around the country that had similarly slick-sounding imaging were the standouts. Eventually, however, barter deals and the rise of the large group owner helped increase the production level of stations around the country. In the same way that voice-tracking allowed major-market talent to be heard on all station sizes, decent-sounding imaging now became a tool that most stations had, not the thing that differentiated you from your peers.

What prompts this observation now is the Internet radio listening I’ve done over the last 3-6 months. Internet-only radio stations of all stripes often have reasonably slick imaging these days—not just those owned by terrestrial radio groups, but also some entrepreneur-operated outlets as well. Big sounding imaging is not the case, or even necessarily the aspiration, across-the-board, but it’s on more stations than one might think.

Internet radio hasn’t necessarily become a big category for imaging and voice-over professionals just yet. Chris Thomas describes seeing “a slight increase” in the number of potential Internet customers, who are often looking more for a handful of drops than an ongoing imaging contract. Tony Banks sees Web radio as “a great opportunity to create some cool, experimental sounds” but hasn’t seen much activity on that front yet. But Jeff Rechner is now heard on Club977.com’s Smooth Jazz channel. “They have a few channels using credible voices you and I have actually heard of,” he says.

“We rarely get a real casting job from the Web world,” says Goods Entertainment’s Adam Goodman. Those that have imaging “use their cousin.” And Dave Steele says that he has done some pro-bono voice-work for exiled terrestrial radio friends who were starting Internet stations “just so they can continue to do what they love.”

However Web radio has come by its increased level of production and imaging, it has done so over a period of several years when, as well documented, FM music radio has often stripped down almost everything except its imaging – and that imaging has become sparer sounding as well. On Super Bowl Sunday, I decided to throw on some New Orleans and Indianapolis radio. And sure enough, there on an afternoon rife with potential for exciting radio, was an Indy station doing only music and sweepers—one of which did, indeed, wish the Colts well.

As broadcasters come to the PPM-era realization that having any high-profile personality is not necessarily better than having none, their trend towards letting a station be driven by its imaging is only likely to continue. And that makes you wonder what FM radio’s point of differentiation from pure-Internet stations is going to be.

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Readers Respond:

It’s funny that you'd ask what’s going to make FM (and maybe even all of radio?) different from internet stations in the same issue as your blurb on oldies and Ricky the K.

It’s an interesting paradox actually. oldies stations could sound different and more relevant to their audiences if they tried to bring back some of the personality and excitement of radio from when the music they’re playing was new. but as you said, “…just because we play old records doesn’t mean we live in the past … ” is the general attitude. I'd like to see oldies PD’s tell that to the people in their audiences who’re buying the new "throwback” Ford Mustangs, Dodge Challengers and Chevy Camaros. how many “old-style” PT Cruisers and Chevy HHR’s are on the roads as well from before the “throwbacks” came out?

We can learn something from the car makers I think, and not just for oldies either. I'm not saying we should totally emulate the WABC’s, WFIL’s, KILT’s or KHJ’s of the past. but I do think that a station playing oldies that sounds, for all intents and purposes, like a current era gold-heavy AC sounds more out-of-place and dead-to-the-world than it should be. Entertainment, personality and fun are the keys. and a few good PAMS re-sings would help as well, anything that will make the listener feel something other than “ho-hum-yawn.”

I speak from experience. from ‘91 to '99, I programmed small, unrated AC WVLT-FM in Vineland, N.J. I encouraged personality from the jocks. I wanted them to have fun. we had a big playlist. more than being a gold-based AC, we actually leaned toward oldies. the thinking, other than trying to make us different than the AC’s in philly, wilmington and atlantic city, to know where you’re going you need to know where you've been, and Top 40 begat AC.

I was able to get some PAMS re-sings from WFIL’s old packages to mix in with the current jingles—the point being that you'd use the re-sings in front of the 60’s and 70’s tunes. I even put reverb on the air signal, and threw a dbx 166 in front of the Optimod 8100. made us sound tons bigger than we really were. so big that the owner started getting offers for this little 3kw'er. people would walk into this little shack in the sticks to pick up prizes, mystified that this giant sounding station came from this rundown, decrepit quonset hut. I can’t say that I thought of this all by myself though. I had the chance to work several different tours of duty at Trenton’s 101.5, so ‘VLT wound up being a mix of what I had picked up from Hy Lit and Sam Lit at the first “KiX”, and later from Jay Sorenson at the “KiX” that came just before “New Jersey 101.5”.

Before I got to ‘VLT, you wouldn’t hear the station anywhere in town (everyone listened to WBEB, WJBR or WFPG). When I left you'd be hard pressed NOT to hear it. We even got some small numbers in the atlantic city book. Hearing a gold-based AC in a Pep Boys? yup, but I digress…

Look at the talkers. love them or hate them, Rush, Beck, even Stern make you feel something. They don’t just yak, they entertain, even if a lot of what they’re doing is despicable to some. but they started in music radio when personality was king. that’s where their chops came from. So should we all become issue-oriented entertainers between the songs? Of course not, but we can certainly entertain on the same level with different subjects that make us more relatable to the audience.

This dovetails with your comments about PPM-era thinking that no jock is better than even a good, relevant high-profile personality. in september of 2007, Chris Conley had just left B101 for McVay. of course he had a ton of PPM experience under his belt with the testing and eventual adoption of the system. In a memo from his new chair at McVay, he wrote, “It’s not so important for the Air Talents to slam the call letters and positioning statements at the audience as before in the diary world. There is no such thing as phantom cume, so we don’t have to worry about recall at diary fill-out time. This is liberating in the sense that we can begin to train our DJ’s to be less like DJ’s and more like real people. Stripping away the “jockularity” and typical radio DJ banter can go a long way to making your station much more listen-able at the end of the day. In Philly we began to experiment with new ways to communicate. It sounded weird at first to us radio guys and gals but then it just sounded refreshing. An example would be that when the song ends the DJ just starts talking to the audience about something relevant. Sounds simple doesn’t it? Imagine the DJ’s role without [all the formatics]. Again, no need for constant positioning and call letters. PPM measures listening in real time with no need for reminders from the radio , etc. The jocks role can be important in enhancing the experience.”

Hmmmm, interesting. He clearly saw us going in a much different and relevant direction. but, of course, this means jocks would need to be trained. this is real work that today’s programmers have no time for, let alone having any knowledge of how to do it. after all, they grew up with radio card readers. and besides, upper management has deemed air people as being liabilities instead of assets. unless you work for Jerry Lee, it’s all too risky. so let’s just take the easy way out and reduce the jock interaction with the format, maybe even pulling jocks off-air totally in most dayparts. Yeah, that’s the ticket. — Joe Patti, WRTI Philadelphia

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As you know, programming to PPM has given management a way to justify cutting (talent) costs when cost cutting is seen as the only way out of the hole. I think having ANY personality is better than none. If imaging is your answer to personality on ‘radio’, terrestrial or otherwise, good luck. It’s just a form of Identifying the station with the music I like when my iPod isn’t handy. Whether it’s the whiney-kid-next-door ‘sound’ or the Barfing Ogre, handing the stations ‘personality’ over to a single voice and an imaging producer… God bless ‘em, is folly.

There are still a few good radio men holding the fort that know the only way to the future is to create compelling content and, with a nod to the pizza man, deliver to where the audience lives. — Keith “KJ” James

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Enjoyed your article on Internet station imaging. FYI, we have, since Day 1 of Chinamerica programmed our station like a regular AC Radio station. We use Jeff Laurence as our exclusive imaging voice — one of the best and most familiar in radio & TV. Our goal was to be a kick-ass radio station, regardless of distribution technology. — Steve Warren, Chinamerica Hit Radio

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