U2 or not U2 for radio? That is the question....

A program director was quoted on one of the radio boards earlier this week complaining about how his station supposedly spent thousands of dollars to promote the new CD by U2 only to have (group leader) Bono make public statements about he (Bono) feels that radio stations should pay royalties to the performers of the music they play.

My first reaction was to wonder who "forced" this P.D. to air the special about the CD and upcoming tour and play their new tracks.

My next reaction was to write this note to the administrator of that internet board:

"Dear Anonymous Program Director:

No one required you to air anything relative to U2's new CD. You could have done nothing but recycle the same U2 songs from the 80's, like many of your colleagues do, and treat them like an oldies act. Since you ran all of this U2 related programming you wrote about, I'm going to guess that sponsors paid for commercial time to be a part of those shows. Had it been just another hour of a few of the same 500 songs in between clusters of commercials, your station might not have had as big of an audience.

This, while there is a chance that your market has a "Jack-FM" or "Fresh" or at least one station with no live hosts some, most, or all of the day. The "free" music you seem to expect is saving you thousands of dollars of programming costs since these stations can play all music and not pay personalities.

It so happens that one of the major artists suggests that the source of your programming and your income receive some form of compensation. And YOU are offended?

Fine. Drop all of your music. Hire more air personalities to take phone calls all day and night. Hire a news staff to keep your audience informed and to give your hosts a few minutes to rest each hour.

Then check those profit sheets at the end of the month.

There - you would sure show Bono!!"

That comment actually provoked more emotion from me than the stories about how some radio stations might be cutting back on or stopping some or all of their HD channels. Probably started from the same program director who made the comments above.

Let me get this straight. Some radio stations and owners fought against the XM and Sirius merger fearing additional listener and advertising dollar competition for their stations by having an even larger subscriber base for satellite radio with millions of subscribers combined into one total.

Most stations put content on their HD channels that, obviously, is or was not strong enough to attract the audiences to purchase and use an HD radio.

So now they might pull the plug on it? I'm now even more glad I didn't spend money on an HD Radio. It could become obsolete before I had gotten used to it.

Well, maybe they couldn't think of enough quality programming to put on HD. They are too busy complaining about what they are putting on their AM and FM airwaves and what it costs to pay attention to HD.

And they still wonder why sales of MP3 players continue to skyrocket.

Legends on the move

This Monday and Tuesday (April 13 + 14) mark a coming and a going for Los Angeles area radio listeners involving nationally known names. Rick Dees does his final show on 93.9 FM on Tuesday due to that station going over to Spanish language programming. Dees currently does not have another L.A. radio gig lined up after the better part of the last 20+ years on KIIS-FM and others in the Southland. Of course, Rick has enough to keep him busy on the national level.

Meanwhile, Hollywood Hamilton begins a dual presence on Monday, hosting daily shows in both New York and Los Angeles each weekday. He will continue to handle afternoon drive on WKTU-FM in New York, but starting this Monday will also be heard from 3 - 7 PM on MyFM 104.3 in Los Angeles each afternoon.

However, the L.A. show will be mostly recorded earlier in the day. Hamilton will be voice tracking the show from the NYC studios prior to going on the air in New York. Word is that the L.A. station will forward the request lines to Hamilton in NY for some of the show. Due to the 3 hour time difference, Hamilton would have the ability to record phone calls and add anything timely for the current afternoon's show.

While I understand that Hamilton is popular in both markets and is an important cog with both stations, I'm not liking this move. Los Angeles deserves a live afternoon drive personality over and above one who is literally thousands of miles away and not live.

Meanwhile, for those who wish to remember the dance music days of WKTU in the early 80's, our RadioRecordings.com airchecks series can help you remember them. See the list at RadioRecordings.com.

The passing of Howard Clark

Sorry to learn of the passing of Howard Clark earlier this week at the age of 70. Clark was most remembered for his Bay Area stints with KFRC and KYA, along with WWDJ New York (New Jersey if you must).

Clark was also one of the pioneers of southern radio during his nearly 50 years on the air. His resume also included WKY Oklahoma City and WTIX New Orleans along with several others in and near Shreveport LA over the last 25+ years of his career.

So far, we have not found any airchecks of him, but we do have some more KYA and KFRC to go through, so hopefully something will turn up soon. Clark will be missed.

Remembering Beaker Street show

Isn't amazing how you can go for years without remembering something, and then once you hear a name, it all comes back to you?

This seems to be happening with our Radio Recordings Series when people find out that we have added a few airchecks of " Beaker Street " from KAAY Little Rock from nearly 40 years ago. During the 60's and early 70's, KAAY was a powerhouse station covering a wide area of the country at night.

Their late night program, called " Beaker Street " (and I still don't know where that name came from) and its host Clyde Clifford helped to pioneer the 'underground radio' sound of the day. Actually, some FM stations were doing this at night, taking advantage of the stereo sound that FM had to offer. But KAAY was perhaps the first station of any significance to air this on the AM dial.

Complete with background sounds and a playlist which was extremely varied, Clyde would feature album tracks not generally played on any radio station, let alone a Top 40 style one. He would play some tracks which were more than 7 minutes in length all the way through. Heck, there are stations today that still won't do that. One of the airchecks we feature has Clyde playing a 14 minute track all the way through.

Yet, all these years later, fans of the radio stations and the music of the late 60's and early 70's, including many who listened to KAAY, had completely forgotten about this landmark radio show. Until they hear the name " Beaker Street " and then Clyde Clifford.

This has quickly become among the more popular airchecks available through MajorLeaguePrograms.com.

But the point is how it is forgotten one minute, and an "oh yeah! I remember that!" within a matter of seconds - every time.