AUTHOR: Sheri Lynch TITLE: Why We're No Longer On Your Station DATE: 9/27/2006 01:34:00 PM ----- BODY:

It's never a good day around here when Tony has to break the news that we've lost an affiliate. Bob & Sheri is a small operation. The core group consists of us, Max and Todd, Tony, who sells and runs our network, Angela, who handles some or all of pretty much everything, and Jonathan, our webmaster/internet/podcasting/all-things-technical guy. And while we have great co-workers without whom we couldn't turn on the mics, the immediate dysfunctional family is the seven named above. We even share an office. Good news makes all of us happy, and bad news brings all of us down. Losing an affiliate is the worst news of all. Why does it happen? Why aren't we on the air in your town anymore? There are lots of reasons, actually. Some make sense, and some are completely, bewilderingly insane. For example, we've lost stations when they've been sold or brought under new management. You know how that goes. New bosses have a way of wanting to bring in their own people. And, to be candid, some of these guys have just really disliked our show. We've had situations where the first thing the new management did was fire us -- regardless of ratings. We just got bounced from a station in Pennsylvania where we were number one. New guy hates our show, so out we go. Other than bang your head repeatedly against the wall, what can you do? Formats change. We lost a station in Salt Lake when it went religious. No hard feelings there. We've lost stations to big band music, to country, to alt rock, to just about every imaginable format out there except for maybe techno-polka. These are tough and scary times for radio, and there's a lot of floundering around going on out there as broadcasters try to find the magic solution to the problem of dwindling audience. There's a cool little gadget called the I-Pod that people seem to like a lot, and if you're plugged into your I-pod, chances are, you're not listening to the radio. And now you don't even have to buy an I-pod, because you can get all the music you want pumped straight into your head via your mobile phone. I just saw data from Edison Media Research demonstrating that radio listening has declined radically among 12-24 year-olds, and is continuing to decline. This is bad news for our business. Unless we plan to start shipping people in from another planet, radio is going to have to find a way to attract listeners here on earth. In the meantime, let's dump Bob & Sheri and try the _____ format. To be fair, sometimes that works -- and sometimes it doesn't. Then there's the problem of our show itself. It's just a couple of people sitting around and talking, right? Any idiot can do that. We've been fired and replaced by Any Idiot at least half a dozen times. The only consolation we have is watching from afar as Any Idiot discovers that by golly, there's all sorts of work involved in putting on a four-hour daily show. In time, Any Idiot goes down in flames and winds up doing the all-night shift in Possum Whiskers, Arkansas. But we're still fired, so there's no point in celebrating. I still get e-mail from listeners in Cincinnati asking, when are you guys coming back? It's been eight years since we lost that station. Eight years. What can I say, other than thank you? Thank you for listening while you could, and thank you for caring enough to ask when, where, or if we're ever coming back. Bob and I have been very lucky -- no, very blessed -- to have this job. We really love what we do. Because we talk to so many of our listeners every day, we feel bonded to you. Losing a station feels like losing a part of our little family. I can't see Martinsburg, WVA out my studio window, but that doesn't mean I don't feel your absence now. Same goes for State College, PA, and Williamsport, PA, and Myrtle Beach. I miss you, Greensboro, and Salt Lake, and Long Island, and Bloomington, and Des Moines, and Durango, CO. We miss every station we've ever lost -- and we value every one we've kept. We're not the biggest show out there, nor the most successful. Every win is huge for us, and every loss is, too. It comes down, as it always has for us, to you. Thank you for listening. We've never taken that for granted. Oh, and by the way, I'm not supposed to actually say any of this. I'm supposed to play nice and say nothing. Maybe Any Idiot can pull that off. Turns out, I'm not so good at it.

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