The Horrors of MySpace: WJIM-FM Edition Redux

Why does this not surprise me? Because I figured, "new PD, new policy," perhaps? I mean, if the company is going to decide to take a turn for the worse, why not just go full-bore with it?

What was it that I've said from the day I first heard WJIM had a MySpace page (before the station had even launched their own web site)? Use your own domain name. Don't rely on a separate social network, don't follow the online fads to the extent that your station's following is going anywhere else for the content you provide; USE YOUR OWN DOMAIN NAME. It wasn't long after I brought this up that Dan Kelley contacted and informed me that the page wasn't official and they had no actual connection to it other than the name and a couple of mentions on-air. Not too long after that, the page was gone. Now Dan's gone and the page is back... and we're starting all over again.

In addition, "The" Anne is gone. That disappoints me... she was doing well. I heard her make quite a bit of progress on the air, and I was impressed. Unfortunately, speculation is that she was let go to make room for Josh Strickland, the new PD. I've never heard Strickland, and I'm not saying he's any worse or better than Anne, but she was a local writer-turned-radio personality who had, from what I could tell, gained a good following in the area, and they've apparently bumped her in favor of the new guy.

A new guy, who, by the way, comes from Grand Rapids, which is a cluster that has seen more criticism from radio fans than I've seen come out of a whole group of people for a given group of stations ever before. A new guy who is also the programmer of WHTS, "Hot 105.3" which, according to the vast majority of posters on the Buzzboard, is anything but hot. A new guy who, if my thinking is right, brought back the 97-5 MySpace page.

Incidentally, if you are going to be a radio station that has a MySpace page, is it really a good idea to not only commit "Internet terrorism" but also cause a dueling audio situation with your own audio stream by playing a song through the MySpace Flash player the moment your page loads? Because if someone's listening to something (say, WJIM's stream) and they happen to load the MySpace page, all of a sudden they've got a mix of whatever they're listening to (say, WJIM's stream) and Maroon 5. Nobody likes it when two things play at once like that, and if it's their own stream that an Internaut is listening to at the moment, doesn't having "Makes Me Wonder" all of a sudden blast over it a bit off-putting? Doesn't make me wonder, I simply know the answer: YES, IT'S FREAKIN' ANNOYING!

I made the comment on the Buzzboard when it'd first been announced that Dan Kelley was being let go that I would not be happy if whoever ended up running the station ruined it.