I’m actually old enough to remember mom and pop owned television stations. When I was a kid in Alabama, we had a locally owned station and it was great. Saturday morning was wrestling, followed by (I kid you not) professional putt-putt golf, and then westerns all day long. Sunday was three or four hours of preaching, followed by classic movies. Now, everything’s owned by NBC/Universal.
Radio’s the same way. Here in South Florida, we don’t have a classic rock station. We have three stations that are owned by iHeart Radio that are identical. They have the same DJs and the same playlist of about two dozen songs. It’s just the same songs by the same four or five artists over and over again. It’s just Journey, Guns and Roses, ACDC, and Motley Crue over and over and over. They’ll play Fleetwood Mac every now and then, but only the mid70s lineup. No Peter Green or Bob Welch. And, as God is my witness, if I hear Hotel California one more time…If you like Tom Petty, The Grateful Dead, Little Feat, Yes, Tull, etc, you’re just SOL.
Up until about twenty years ago or so, there were still plenty of mom and pop owned stations. In Alabama, I remember a guy ran a station out of his house and you could literally hear chickens and dogs barking in the background. It was great. He’d play classic country and bluegrass.
WMMR wasn’t mom and pop owned, but they ran it like it was. After 2200, you would hear anything from the Grateful Dead to Billie Holiday to Bill Monroe to unreleased live recordings and even spoken word things like Firesign Theater. Now, I think they’re owned by iHeart Radio and they’re just as lousy as everybody else.
