The End of the Dr. Demento Show On Radio

damnbunni writes "Dr. Demento has announced that his long-running comedy radio show will be ending (except weekly in and around Amarillo, TX). Modern 'format' radio has been less and less friendly to oddball and offbeat programming, and after years of declining station membership the Doctor announced on June 6 that his radio show will be no more. He will still stream weekly shows on Saturday from his website, drdemento.com. While I'm sad to see the show go, nearly 40 years is a good run."

Comments

Ahh, the memories.

[Aeternitas827]

When I was younger, it was always a privilege to catch a bit of the Dr. Demento show on the radio...usually on a car trip home from somewhere...usually wasn't up late enough, and/or listening to a local station that carried it. I don't think now that there's a local station here that does, though I've long given up on FM Radio. I'll remember what I can fondly, yet, I'll remain more pissed that Adam Corolla left Loveline shortly after I left high school--he made that show funnier than anything.

Wow

[jayhawk88]

Reading through his website announcements there is like a timeline of and old school radio guy dying. I'm not going to pretend I'm a big Demento fan, but still kind of sad. We're closing up, we're losing money. We got only 100 orders for a last ditch money making idea. We're clearly being hurt by the decline of CD sales. We can't fill orders because we're working with Yahoo Small Business for some reason.

Just out of curiosity, why the hell is going online/podcast a last-last ditch effort for this guy? He's got a name recognition that would draw people in, and the format would seem to work well for podcasting. At the very least a podcast could drive people to his website and help him sell a few CD's/tshirts. I get he's an old school guy and up until recently still had a terrestrial broadcast to do, but you'd think someone would have come to them at some point and suggested this.

Re:I'm ignorant

[ultrasound]

Radio in the UK is growing stronger each year, from http://www.rajar.co.uk/:

Radio listening reaches all time high as 46.5 million adults tune in to radio each week Radio digital listening hours up 18% and digital share up 19% year on year DAB ownership up 9% year on year to over 1/3 of the population

Althought the commercial stations complain about the dominance of the BBC, the fact that there are so many quality channels on the BBC (no adverts, mandate to produce quality programming) forces the commercial stations to push similar content quality in order to remain competetive.

Re:I'm ignorant

[mh1997]

Local radio and opportunities for niche programming are disappearing.

Dr. Demento was syndicated, not local. He is definately niche.

It is a shame that it is harder to find a place for something different in this world.

Too bad there is not some system that can allow people to connect and search for content using computers.

I live in a small town. Clear Channel is one more way to erode something unique. The corporate whores at the FCC have decide to server their corporate masters, and this is just one more sympton.

I also live in a small town and if it weren't for the clear channel stations, I'd receive no radio stations (we have weak local stations with lots of static).

I wrote a column on Dr. Demento

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.irememberjfk.com/mt/2009/11/dr_demento.php

He's a legend, radio will miss him.

"Star Trekking, across the universe..."

Re:A bang or a whimper

[mcgrew]

At least we can hear him on Saturdays. He hasn't been on the radio anywhere I've been for years; hooray, internet!

If it wasn't for Dr. Demento, nobody would have ever heard of Wierd Al. IMO some of Al's older stuff, like the polka versions of Rolling Stones songs, were his best; the stuff he taped at home and mailed to Dr. Demento.