No Rock And Roll Fun

STILL, AT LEAST THEY DIDN'T HAVE ROBIN BANKS LET HIMSELF IN: The Charlotte Observer offers a cautionary tale of what can happen when you let a computer pick your music for you - WRFX-FM's syndicated John Boy and Billy show came out of the breaking news that the sniper had killed again into Another One Bites The Dust - thats except for affiliates, of course, who have a different set of songs dropped into the flow by a computer.
The executive producer of the show - Randy Brazell - regrets that it happened, but points out that the decision to play the song at that point had been taken "weeks ago."
What this shows, of course, is how letting computers do all the work is creating radio that doesn't have any connection with its audience, its market, or even its own programming. Now, of course, there's room for humans to execute human errors - such as in the Billy Connolly tale of a young Scot who attempted to play a tribute to the just-died Bing Crosby, forgetting the first line of Cheek to Cheek is "heaven, I'm in heaven" - but there's less room than when the show has been pre-programmed by a Windows PC weeks and weeks in advance. "When it played, I didn't even catch it" explains Brazell - and who can blame him, as simultaneously, the show was also playing Toby Keith and JJ Jackson. Obviously under such circumstances, you can't blame the show for not knowing it had dropped an enormous clanger - they've clearly got no interest in what they're playing, and couldn't care less about the quality; why would they be bothered about apropriateness as well?
There's nothing wrong in principle with syndication, nor with hard-disk playout. But shows that aren't even aware what music they're playing? Doesn't that smack of total contempt for the listener?