One thing that kind of knocks me out is that there are still college radio DJs. I know because I sometimes listen to college radio on the web. Some are better than others, but a bunch of school-level stations have them.
The reason this seems crazy to me is that disc jockeys barely exist in American radio as a whole now. The 1996 Communications Act led to a round of consolidation, at the end of which you saw formats and playlists become nationalized, where once they'd at least nominally been decided on a local level. It's only gotten worse since then. The idea of a flesh-and-blood human being sharing music that's just made an impression on them and expecting to be paid for doing so must strike executives as madness.
But hey, if that situation ever changes at least there's a reserve army of record spinners.
2 comments:
That's an interesting observation, one I hadn't considered but obviously true. I'd forgotten about how much the passage of the new regulation changed so much we'd been used to for so long - local radio AM and FM were wiped of the broadcast map in a hurry. The Act allowed for the monopolization of the media industry. It's probably one of the most easily ignored topics that people should be made aware of. Considering the Web was initiated that same year I guess many of us were distracted by the new and shiny.
It's good the colleges still have radio DJs. Wasn't WFMU originally a college station?
I found an article on 3500 whose author agrees with your take on the subject and adds some detail.
https://www.35000watts.com/the-telecommunications-act-of-1996-killed-local-radio/
Even when I was in college, which was before the act passed, I could never tune in the RIC station. It was completely drowned out by bigger stations. So I think under the old framework there was some cheating that the authorities overlooked. But what came afterwards was worse by orders of magnitude. And while most of us weren't really aware of what was going to happen in the industry, it's hard to believe the politicians were surprised by it. They and the lobbyists relied on everyone being distracted, as you pointed out.
Yeah, WFMU was affiliated with Upsala College, which closed its doors in 1995. It's a treasure trove, but their on-air staff are all unpaid volunteers. Being a DJ who actually cares about what you're playing doesn't seem to be a viable career at all.
That's a good little essay from 35000 Watts. He points out the huge discrepancy between the law's stated goal and its effect, which is the really galling part.
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