Wednesday, January 09, 2008

WJMA -- Frozen in Time

After an extensive examination of our local radio station's website (and some concrete suggestions on how to fix it), I promised to keep checking WJMAfm.com from time to time to see if anything changed. Since their headline news seemed frozen on November 9, I've made the ninth day of the month the time to officially revisit the site and report on any changes.

So far, nothing. The DJ profile page is still under construction, they're still looking for someone to "oversee" production, and there's still no news at all.

Mark Ramsey's current posting at Hear 2.0 expresses his frustration at commercial radio's inability to adapt to the new realities of media.

The crisis in our industry, radio, is that we are so ridiculously narrow about our potentialities.
But were we looking the other way when every other form of media exploded into every conceivable distribution channel and dimension (including satellite radio)? Were we looking the other way when we dragged our feet on streaming? Were we looking the other way when we nixed any Internet investments unless they could be liquidated on day one? Were we looking the other way as we celebrated radio's new status as a "reach medium" at exactly the time advertisers are moving away from reach and towards accountability? Were we looking the other way as we chose to consolidate our way out of trouble and fire our way out of red ink?
Why do we keep looking the other way?

Unfortunately, Piedmont Communications proves his point.

We'll see if the WJMA website continues to "blink 12:00" on February 9. Or if they finally looked this way.

- Ralph

1 comment:

  1. Yes, I am from the UK over here in Culpeper and was very surprised to log on to the WJMA web site and discover that there was no live link to listen to the on-air show via PC. Also the Headlines page hadn't been updated since Nov. 9th!

    Trying to send an email to the station to let them know of the problem produced no results whatsoever (and I tried various email addresses/routes) - very disappointing for such a good station to listen to.

    If they need help with the website, come and talk to me - we've updated the Best of America by Horseback (TV show) site and it looks pretty good if I say so myself!

    David Hasbury-Snogles

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