People Watching People Watching Techo

Time for a "You kids get off my lawn post" also known as a grumpy old dude post.

One of the things I enjoy these days during my many trips to the "outside world" is People Watching. People are fun to observe these days especially those GLUED to the cell phone screen.

While I expected to see the usual number of young people immersed in "The Gadget", These days, I see huge numbers of people ranging in age from Great Grandmothers/fathers down through pre-teens vast numbers of people who wander Zombie-like gazing into the screen of an iPhone/Pad or whatever. The crowds include everyone, those who bathe once a week whether they need it or not, to those who live and breath the pages of Vogue.

What are they looking at? What is displayed that is so enchanting that they bump into walls, cross streets into traffic, or fall down stairs oblivious to surroundings all because of the laser like focus devoted to several inches of plastic...

What are they looking at?

Those of you who know me know I am a "Gadget" guy, I had a cellphone since the days of bag phones, and was thrilled when the Motorola "Brick" was marketed as it weighed less than 10lbs. When I was medically retired my decades free cell service was discontinued and frankly after being chained to a phone for 20 years 24 hours a day 7 days a week, the loss of that perk was a relief. My last phone was the iPhone 4G with all the toys yet I never spent my time gazing "Lovingly" into the screen, other than when I was looking for specific information. Now it seems 90% of the population is totally wrapped up into tweets or maybe "Angry Birds" is that still hot?... As you can tell from my FB activity I am not a heavy user of so called social media so I don't "Get it".. Now if there was "Anti-Social Media" that would be a different story...

Maybe I'm just too old, or too jaded to understand the attraction.

 In a lot of respects, I see the fixation with cellphones as an extension of the old CB Radio craze of the 70's. Then as now the primary reason to own one was communication and it devolved into a social expression of empowerment. In the beginning the only users of cellphones were those in business such as doctors and others in an "appointment" based profession such as Realtors. Now possession of these devices has devolved to the "People of Wal-Mart" strata who really have no immediate need for contact and who view them as items of social empowerment. What the heck, watching people stumble through life glued to one is a fun activity, but my "amusement" threshold is pretty low these days

That's the story for now, until next time....

CHA-CHA-CHANGES ON THE FM DIAL IN DFW

My my... Things have been popping since my last post. First in the swinging swirling twirling world of commercial radio there are a number of changes of note. First after many years we see the return of KVIL. No it's not that KVIL ever left, the, what consultants and marketers now call "Branding" has changed from the totally light "Lite Rock 103.7" back to the legacy "branding" of 103.7 KVIL.

Allegedly the so-called "branding" was initially changed to distance KVIL from it previous heritage (of winning) market leadership during the Ron Chapman era. To get away from this perceived negative(?) the branding was changed to "103.7 Lite Rock" which to my radio ears has all the appeal of a cold mash potato sandwich. After several years of slow but steady audience erosion, the decision was recently made to return to the legacy branding of "103.7 KVIL". Whether this can curtail the audience erosion or not remains to be seen. Recent ratings in the 25-54 range do not look that promising however it is early in the game as they say. I wish them the best of luck.

In other broadcast related news coming later this month we will see sports leader "The Ticket" get it's first REAL shot of FM with the addition of the former Platinum 96.7/WBAP-FM FM transmitting facility. While 96.7 is considered a "rim-shot" in the Dallas Ft.Worth market it is one of the finest of the bunch and will provide "The Ticket" with the ability to capture more of the available audience that may have issues receiving the AM night time signal. With the addition to the cluster of the LMA of the number two sports outlet in DFW, that being ESPN, It would appear that the screws are indeed tightening on CBS Radio's 105.3 The Fan. While The Fan at 105.3 has one of the best FM signals in the metroplex, since it's inception they have struggled to find traction in the sports market.

So things are looking interesting in the metroplex sports radio arena as well...
Until next time, so long...