Happy Hare's Cure For PMS - "Program Managers' Syndrome"

I am happy that Lee Baby Simms isn’t  around in the same era as  the new jockless Jack  radio. We would not have  his timeless “bits” to  look back on today.

Here is one of my all-time Lee Baby “bits.” 

It was in  the late 60’s when Lee Baby, then on the KCBQ San Diego night shift  played “If I were a Carpenter.” And after the song, speculated sadly  on the plight of  the poor  carpenter with his upscale girl friend. Then moved on in the show..

The phone  lines on his control board lit up. One of the callers was a young  heart- broken woman in La Jolla, sobbing uncontrollably. “Tell me what’s wrong, darlin’.” He asked solicitously, on the air of course. “That song,” she said, between deep sobs. “My boy friend is a carpenter and my parents have forbidden me to see him, because they say I’m too good for him.”

“Where are you calling from now,”  asked Lee Baby, now totally into the call.

 “I am  calling from my beachfront  home in La Jolla…and…I’m locked in my bedroom, and I can’t get out. Ooooh!  I love him so much.” She then broke down uncontrollably, with Lee Baby trying in vain soothe her.  He finally had to hang up in frustration, leaving nothing resolved .

            Listeners  flooded his lines, expressing outrage at the cruelty of her parents and demanding that Lee Baby do something about it.  But what? The show was in a shambles, with Lee  Baby himself reduced to tears over her pitiful call.

            What happened next ?  I will tell you next week. This ploy is known in radio as stretching out my  TSR: Time  Spent Reading. Besides, as the late Albert Einstein once said, “I don’t have the  time or space.” this week.

 Meantime, the big tragedy lies not in the plight of this poor young girl and her carpenter lover. The terrible thing is .that in today’s Jack format, this gripping  bit would not have been allowed  to even get started as far as I took it. Don’t get me wrong. I revere the day when the Jack programmers liberated radio from the shackles of the narrow  music lists. Those thinly slivered  vertical Pop Standards and Oldies formats were doomed to collapse of their own  instability. The next logical evolution  would have been  merely  to enlarge the music lists the way the Jack programmers did, but keep good communicators on the air: jocks who relate to the community.  I sincerely believe that the Jack people fell into the clutches of evil researchers.  

A widely  respected researcher stood in front of a group of distinguished radio executives justifying the power of research.  It didn’t matter to them  that this was the same researcher who, years before, had persuaded the industry that it was okay to sweep music for twenty minutes, then insert a five minute stop set. His rationale at the time was that having been bribed to hear all that music, the listeners would sit still  while the station ran a five minute  cluster of commercials He did not mention that there was a  good chance that most of the listeners might have tuned in farther down  in the sweep, just in time to hear only one or two songs and just in time to suffer a sensory overload  from the five minute  commercial stop set.

Time Spent Listening  as a result of these music sweeps and  spot clusters,  not to mention  total cumes , began sliding into a black hole  so  this  researcher had to come up with something new with which to mesmerize the owners,  finally coming up with what has been dubbed  “Clusters’ Last Stand.”

            He stood behind a table upon which there was a cricket  held captive between his thumb and forefinger. “Behold” he said, “I have a cricket in my hand..” He leaned down and issued a sharp command,. “Jump!” The cricket jumped and was grabbed again  by the researcher and pinned down again. 

“Now,” He said,.” Watch what happens when I remove  one  of this cricket’s hind  legs. He did so and again commanded the cricket to jump The cricket jumped, but this time, crash- landed on the table. “Now” he said,.” I will remove this cricket’s other hind leg. He did so,  then barked.” Jump.” The cricket helplessly squirmed on the table. “Proof positive,”  exclaimed the researcher,  “that removing a cricket’s hind  legs renders it deaf.”

Is what you just read true?  No. It is a parable. I like to write in parables. Note that I didn’t say, “speak in parables”  The last man who tried that was  nailed…literally. No cricket was injured during the writing of this  parable.

The cricket symbolized the disc jockey who has been crippled in the past  couple of decades  by programmers bent on cutting his legs out from under him, then casting him  aside because he can’t jump at their commands.

Here is how important I believe Jocks to be. Place two “Jack”  stations in the same market playing  the same music list.  One is the jockless Jack and the other has jocks with good air  presence who relate to the community. The jockless Jack station would  fall by the wayside.

Programmers will tell you that  the jockless Jack was designed to answer the challenge of the Ipods now flooding  the market. Fact is, no matter how insightful they are about the music, no music director is a as good a programmer as the Ipod user who is programming his or her own favorite songs.

There is a struggle going on  between the various radio factions, that I regard as healthy. I sincerely believe that  the radio God is watching over the combatants , yet  giving them the free will to resolve this mess without His Divine Intervention. . Maybe, I should say that He is  standing beside them, like a referee at a hockey match, waiting for them to punch themselves  out.

I  feel bad about  hanging you up with the unfinished  story of the captive girl in La Jolla. I will finish it up next week There is, however a shorter Lee Baby  Simms story that I hope will tide you over.

            Lee Baby went on the air  one  night, only this time he was not his usual  upbeat  self. After the first song, he said,” I’m sorry. I have a feeling that something isn’t right.. I can’t go on right now.. Here’s  some more music  till I get to feeling better.”.” He played a couple of  songs and came back on,. “I have a terrible feeling that something is wrong.. and it’s about my mother. I need to call her.” He dialed his home in northern California , on the air,  and the phone was picked up by his sister.. “Lee, “ she sobbed, “ Mother is dead.” Lee broke down and finally gained control of himself. “Where is she?” he asked. “She is in her coffin here at home,” said his sister.

“I want to say goodbye to her, Put the radio down into her coffin.”  There was a pause. Then, Lee, in tears, said, “ Mom., I love you. Goodbye, mom.”” He was startled to hear the voice of his mother emanating from the coffin.” “Lee?” she said.

Lee was exultant. “Mom! He cried, Are you really alive.,?” “Yes,” said his mother, “As if you cared.”