Sam is dead

SAM is dead – not my next door neighbor from Mississippi, but SAM The “we play anything we want” random music format that is mimicking Jack FM. Sam was distributed by – you guessed it – Westwood One a.k.a. Cumulus media.

Part of the reason that Charlie Tuna quit his CBS job in Los Angeles last week is he is trying to quickly cobble together replacement voice tracking programming as Westwood One affiliates are dismayed at the stupidity of Cumulus firing their expert curators and replacing them with minimum-wage college students for national syndication.

As I have been spinning through the 16,000 radio stations, I’m noticing a pattern that more and more “full service” radio stations don’t even bother to mention music.

Another factor is a series of court battles over whether music recorded prior to 1972 can be played without paying royalties. The radio stations have lost up until this point – If they lose the appeals, spinning those platters of oldies wax may lose its attractiveness to Radio. If you take a peek at the station counts by format, you’ll see that, classic rock classic hits, and oldies are a huge part of the Radio business – but not where are the audience is listening.