Rock ‘n’ Ratings

I couldn’t agree more with Andrea ‘Enthal (“She’s Not Your Typical Night Owl,” Feb. 25) on the state of rock ‘n’ roll radio in Los Angeles. For nearly 10 years on the air, I fought a variation of those same wars, spinning roots of rock ‘n’ roll discs that ranged from hits to the most unknown of the obscure.

I am thus dismayed to note the attitude of commercial radio to anyone who tries anything different. They don’t get it, they don’t want to, they never will.

Although programming staff tries to position their station differently from others, the only thing they won’t do to achieve this is to alter the very thing that they are there to do: Present the music. Instead, they spin the same old major records, those that are promoted to them by their friends in the record biz and those that they, in turn, report to the trades, continuing the cycle of sameness.

Now a handful of major stations are reducing their playlists to about 60 records at any one time, a formula that produces great ratings (money) and a dead end to one who craves anything different. Most programmers are so afraid of making a mistake that they can’t imagine doing anything that even nips on the edges of a possibly wrong music decision.

STEVE PROPES

Long Beach