...when radio had style, individuality, personality, real information, not the latest Paris Lohan updates and variety.
No one with any experience is going to argue a preference for today's maudlin offerings over those you mention, Mike.
However, and I am quite sincere about this... I wouldn't be campaigning for a return to those models as a viable option - not any longer.
Lemme attempt to es'plain, Lucy.
If Radio is to get out of the morass, I am satisfied it will take
a great deal more than just a return to, shall we say, "Personality Radio"...?
It will take a far better set of communication tools and models - greater, more precise, more appealing and more influential than the intuitions and creativity with which so many of the Talents would arrive at the microphone... as special as some of them were. All facets of on-air work would have to be impacted and addressed - Talent, News, Commercial Creative, Marketing.
To be sure, Mike, there is a lot of Talent, right now on The Beach and that group may make up a fine, perhaps outstanding resource-pool.
But, I suggest, it won't be enough, particularly given the expense that extra, real, live individuals would bring to the mighty corporations.
Yet, indeed, the Key is: Talent!