WCBS Rally

Wandered over to the rally today at lunch as it was a few blocks from work (right in Times Square). There was a small crowd. Apparently no one from Viacom met wit them. But the rally attracted some odd supporters:

• A camerman from channel 9 (missed it)
• Reps from XM and Sirius Sattelite radio (Cousin Brucie was signed to Sirius this week)
• Someone handing out gum samples
• Jim Kerr from Q-104 classic rock - which is 2 floors above my office. Ironically their site is blocked on our work filter (streaming audio?). I've seen other radio sites though.
• A van from WMTR - an AM oldies station in Morristown, NJ (doesn't serve the entire displaced audience).
• Someone from CD 101.9 (the cool jazz station) with CD samples. Nice try, but not too many potiental converts around.

People were from mid 30's to 70's there - and one 16 year old oldies fan. There were people with audio recorders but I am not sure for who they were interviewing for.

Although I'm not likely to spend much time listening to the suburban oldies stations (mostly AM), I've decided to not listen to any Infinity radio station in NYC. Not a big deal except for the 2 all news stations, but we have WBBR the financial one as an alternative.

Ironically almost every time in the past 20+ years a major NYC station switched formats, there was a backup. Not this time.

Just once I don't want to see the corporates win.

I thought about avoiding advertisers on their stations...but I wouldn't know who advertises if I don't listen and many of them are large companies that also advertise elsewhere on the radio or in print or even tv.

Ironically we've started listening to BBC2 radio on the net at night. Talk about a different format!