Sean McKay remembers what he calls the good old days of local radio.

He’s also part of the present and possibly part of its future.

The “old days” of radio generally featured a morning team and disc jockeys spinning records and/or doing live shows, sometimes 24/7. That has given way to automation and what’s now called “streaming” and “voice tracking,” which has reduced local job opportunities, cut down on competition, and some believe has jeopardized local radio’s long-term existence.

Air of competition

“The good old days were the best,” said McKay, who worked at WFBG-AM from 1969-98. “The greatest times were in the late 1960s and early 1970s. We had two top 40 stations (WFBG-AM and WVAM-AM) going against one another. It was competitive. There was a lot of competition over who had the best jingles or disc jockeys.”

Since that time, FM radio began to gain a stronger foothold.

“In the 1960s and early ’70s, AM radio was still the dominant medium,” said Matt Jackson, associate professor and head of the Department of Telecommunications at Penn State. “In the late ’70s, FM surpassed AM in popularity due to its superior sound quality and stereo transmission.”

FM used higher frequencies, a different technique for encoding the information onto the radio wave, and each FM station was given much more bandwidth, allowing FM stations to include much more sound information in its transmission, Jackson said.

AM adapted by focusing on news/talk and other formats while FM focused on music formats, Jackson said.

For many years, WFBG set the standard for ratings on the local AM dial.

“Things were phenomenal in the 1960s. WFBG was No. 1 forever,” said Dick DiAndrea, who worked at WFBG-AM and spent 53 years in radio before retiring in 2013. “At that time, WVAM and WRTA were nothing. Then Will Ketner sold WVAM to Denny Bixler and Randy Birdsall, and they got into rock and roll. They had some fabulous DJs, and the fight was on. We were always fighting for ratings. Those were the days for listeners. We were all playing rock and roll. If you got a breaking record, you were the station to listen to.”

Roger Corey, a 45-year veteran of the local airwaves and now an air personality at WBRX-FM, remembers those days, as well.

“The great radio wars in Altoona between WFBG and WVAM lasted until the mid-1970s,” he said. “Back then, if you were a DJ, you were a celebrity. I was at the tail end of it. It was fun. Radio was sort of an engaging media, ridiculously engaging. In those days, radio was social media. You connected with people in the local community for free.”

Dave Bithell, who worked primarily as a newscaster and sportscaster in local radio for 38 years until 2009, said the competition at times was “cut throat.”

“You had to be at your best every day,” Bithell said. “There were so many good stations. It was fun. I loved going to work every day. In my 38 years, there were only a handful of days that I didn’t want to go to work.”

Uncertain future

For some, that has changed, and DiAndrea is not bullish on today’s industry.

“I think it will do nothing but go down hill,” he said. “It will be all mechanized in the next couple of years. All stations are just worried about making money. The advertisers see this and wonder if there is any audience left.”

Others are more optimistic.

“There are many people who are ready to start the funeral chant,” WTRN-AM owner Cary Simpson said. “Those who find something worthwhile to listen to won’t drop off. It is our job to find listeners’ needs and focus on them.”

Local radio will still survive for decades to come as more than 90 percent of the population still listens to traditional radio each week, Jackson said.

“However, as more new cars have Pandora and other Internet radio apps built in, local radio will face more competition, especially in smaller communities,” Jackson said. “In big cities with long commute times, people still like to get the traffic and weather reports. Local radio is still an excellent source for local community information.”

Newscasts on local radio, however, have also changed significantly over the years.

At one time, local radio stations had a dedicated news reporter, maybe even a mini-staff, and some even had 15-minute local newscasts. Now, there are no full-time radio news reporters in town, and the newscast instead is handled by on-air talent that picks headlines from the Mirror, area newspapers and other media outlets.

“It is just headline news now,” said Bithell, a former newsman at several stations. “There is no news authority on the radio any more. You used to have sound bites with local stories. You went to the meetings or went to the fire or accident and got sound bites. You had sound with 90 percent of your stories. The newscasts became so short, you didn’t have time for local sound.”

Charlie Weston serves as program and news director for WFBG-AM and WVAM-AM. His duties include reading news headlines.

“News in general has changed. There are not as many people,” he said. “Now we have an agreement with WTAJ-TV. They do newscasts and weather for us.”

‘Revolutionized radio’

Advanced technology has revolutionized radio, and the trend is expected to continue to change in the future. For example, McKay currently works in Montana at KSEN-AM but resurfaced at WKMC-AM in 2011 as part of an arrangement, which allows him to “stream” a show without being here.

David Barger, president of Sounds Good Media, which operates WRTA-AM, WKMC-AM, WBXQ-FM and WBRX-FM, believes embracing change is important.

“We don’t know what radio will look like in 20 years, or even if it will be called radio,” he said. “We embrace streaming. We were the first broadcasters outside of Pittsburgh to do streaming. We were doing it when people didn’t know what it is.

“Every one of our stations has an app.?You go to the web page and get the app to listen to each station anywhere you are. That type of technology is being broadly installed in autos so people can listen to what they want.”

The Walkman, Discman, MP3 player and the Internet added competition for local radio stations.

“The Internet offers an almost infinite choice of customizable stations plus the opportunity to listen to terrestrial stations located anywhere in the world. This huge increase in competition has reduced the size of the audience and the advertising revenue generated,” Jackson said. “Listeners have many more choices for listening to music, and advertisers have many more choices for where they spend their advertising dollars, including social media, local cable and search advertising.”

Social media has become a way to interact with listeners, who used to call stations by phone for music requests.

“You have to keep up with technology and social media to be relevant in local radio,” K.C. O’Day, program director at WALY-FM, said.

“It is always a way to watch what listeners are doing and see what they want. We can program to our listeners better if we listen to them.”

“Technology has changed how radio is delivered,” Corey said. “It is like social media with an antenna.”

The technology, though, has resulted in fewer full-time jobs.

Years ago, most all stations used live air personalities (DJs), but today it is a combination of live DJs and what is known as voice-tracking, a practice of a DJ pre-recording his show combined with songs, commercials and other elements to produce a product that sounds like a live on-air shift.

“There is nothing wrong with voice tracking,” Barger said. “It is done across the country. It is a live DJ who records the program. It is still a good product. It doesn’t make the product less. It makes it possible for us to be more efficient with the hours our people work. The average listener can’t tell the difference.”

Hence, McKay does a local radio show – from Montana.

Jackson wondered if the future will include even more locally-driven shows and personalities – like Sean McKay – and less music.

“I would not be surprised if some radio stations abandon automation and try to cultivate local personalities with a loyal following,” he said. “If local radio tries to compete with Internet radio by just playing music, it will face an uphill battle since Internet radio is much more customizable.”

Employee casualties

The use of voice tracking and other recorded programs enables radio stations to get by with fewer people. Long-time employees such as Donna Himes, Kellie Green and Joyce Wood and several part-time employees recently left Forever.

“There are changes in every business,” Forever Market General Manager Dave Davies said. “Our business is no different than any other. People leave for their own personal reasons. They all left on their own.”

Not necessarily, according to Jim Price, who did his Home Grown Rocker Show on Sunday nights on WRKY-FM and was one of the part-time casualties.

“I was informed that they were sweeping away the part-time staff, and it was being done to cut costs,” Price said. “I was disappointed with the moves they made, but it is the nature of the business any more, not just here but nationally. Corporate wants to cut back on costs and overhead, and people get swept out the door. The changes have put machines rather than paid people in the studio.”

Scholastic sports void

Another change has been the virtual disappearance of high school sports on local radio stations.

In November, Forever, which includes Altoona stations WALY-FM, WRKY-FM, WWOT-FM, WFGY-FM, WFBG-AM and WVAM-AM, decided to discontinue the coverage of high school basketball. Weston said the coverage of Altoona Area High School football may be discontinued this fall.

However, Davies said a final decision has not been made.

“We are still addressing the viability of high school sports,” he said. “It is still under discussion.”

Forever will continue to carry broadcasts of the Pittsburgh Pirates, Altoona Curve, Pittsburgh Steelers, Pittsburgh Penguins and Penn State football and basketball, Davies said.

WRTA-AM carried high school sports for many years but stopped several years ago in favor of a talk format, local and national.

“The appetite for local sponsors has waned,” Barger said. “Everywhere people are cutting costs. They don’t have the money. They didn’t want to be part of a football game.”

WTRN-AM continues to broadcast Tyrone Area High School football and selected Tyrone and Bellwood-Antis High School basketball games and will carry the Pirates for the 60th consecutive year, Simpson said.

Adaptability stressed

To continue to prosper, local radio must provide what its listeners want, Davies said. Each Forever station designs its programming for a different audience.

WRTA provides its three-hour talk block (9 a.m. to noon) on weekdays.

Despite the changes, some believe the future of local radio is bright.

“There is no reason not to be positive,” said JoJo, morning personality on WFGY-FM. “We need to cater to the people. Radio is free-hands, free-social media. As long as we entertain, keep their attention and provide information, there is no reason not to be positive.”

RobZ, program director for WWOT-FM, added: “I’ve heard people say that radio is dead. It has changed from FM airways to live streaming. People listen to the radio on their iPhones and their computers. People respond to us via Facebook and other social media. It has changed.”

“We’ve heard that (dead) over the years, but we are alive and kicking,” O’Day said. “It comes down to adaptability.”

Community goodwill

While there have been changes to the on-air approach, local stations pride themselves in their continued community presence and the exposure they provide to nonprofit events.

“Local radio is as strong as it has ever been with community involvement,” said Tommy Edwards, program director at WRKY-FM.

“We need to find ways to serve the public. We try to be, above all, absolutely sincere,” Simpson said.

Public service will always be a goal for the Forever and Sounds Good Media stations.

“More organizations are coming to me to suggest what they can do to raise more money. We will be more embedded in the community in 10 years than we are now,” Davies said.

For example, WALY Warmth just completed its 27th year.

“We have raised tens of thousands of dollars over the years. We take 200 children a year to get warm winter clothing. We have been able to grow a bonafide charity, and we are proud of it,” O’Day said.

“We promote drug and alcohol-free prom night, we’ve been doing it over a decade. We go to 10 to 12 high schools a year to talk to kids, we meet them face to face before and promote having a safe prom,” RobZ said.

Barger said his stations work with hundreds of nonprofit organizations.

“We do Drive By Giving each Christmas. We work with the Red Cross at blood drives. Two years ago, there were 400 different organizations that we helped. We provide free promotion to them for things like hoagie sales and fundraisers,” Barger said.

“We want to be good stewards of the broadcast time and want to make sure

they are serving the community.”