We Interrupt This Broadcast
There’s nothing more annoying than driving along, listening to your favorite radio station, when a voice–often mine–bursts in to interrupt your program because of a live event…maybe a presidential debate, maybe a live sporting event. I don’t like it any more than you do.
Radio stations are licensed to act in the public interest, convenience and necessity, according to the license we get from the federal government. But we are also a for-profit business, which is why you hear commercials.
And it’s why we sometimes sell blocks of time to people who have a message…selling a product, religious programming. And that includes live sporting events.
It’s especially bad these days, because of the pandemic…for example, we have football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, and volleyball contests all being played this month…and all with reserved spots on the radio. Scheduling of all that means sometimes, there are events six consecutive days…and some days, multiple events.
It’s a balance. Hard to keep the transmitter running without revenue. But also hard to keep audiences satisfied with too many departures from regular programming. And for those of you who aren’t sports fans…keep in mind, there are still folks who are angry that we cut back on the amount of sports talk we did here every day.
We always want to hear from you…send me an email, jeff@kxel.com. And if you call and leave a message…please leave a number so I can call you back. And go to KXEL.com and weigh in on our spring programming survey. We really do want to know what you think.
