And from the "And this is a bad thing...WHY?" department, and Yahoo! News

Sudiegirl sez: OK...I admit, I am no stranger to country music. When you're a kid growing up in the country before the days of satellite dishes, on a Saturday afternoon, you tend to watch whatever you can pick up on the antenna. That, unfortunately, includes "Hee Haw" and many episodes of instructional shows about oil painting. (Happy little trees!)

But I must admit, I figured that when one moves to a major metropolitan area, the siren twang of country music stays behind. Apparently, I was wrong. Oh LORD, was I wrong. I live about a 1/2 hour from Frederick, where country music is quite popular. Also, Patsy Cline was from Winchester, VA (1.5 hrs away) and got her start in the country music world in downtown DC. (Roy Clark, pictured above, was one of her sidemen back in the day.)

The point I'm trying to make is this: old country music (and the few traditional country performers still doing their thing) are cool. People like Garth "Ask Me Why I Wear My Hat Indoors" Brooks, and other people of his ilk get on my last nerve. And I didn't think that NYC would necessarily have a problem with not having a country station on the airwaves anymore, but apparently I was wrong.

So let's see what's up, shall we?


Country Fans Out of Luck in New York City
By LARRY McSHANE, Associated Press WriterFri Nov 11, 6:28 PM ET

Spin the radio dial in the nation's largest city, and the choices are dizzying. Talk shows in English and en Espanol. Smooth jazz and heavy metal. Nonstop hip-hop and 24-hour news. Classic rock and all-sports. But AM or FM, one thing remains absent: A country music station. (Tell me again why that's a bad thing?)

The exclusionary attitude of New York stations toward country music is perplexing to industry observers and frustrating to fans. Country listeners constitute a desirable audience, with solid numbers in key demographics. New York, in the recent past, hosted a country station with more than 1 million listeners. (OH GOD! IT'S EVERYWHERE!!! CAN IT BE STOPPED?)

Not having a station in New York is "the largest nagging problem for country music," said Tom Taylor, editor of the trade publication Inside Radio. (Personally, I think it's Garth Brooks. What do I know?)

The Country Music Association agrees. Their annual awards show is being held to New York for the first time Tuesday; organizers acknowledge their move from Nashville to New York is tied to finding a radio home (and creating a marketing arm) in the Big Apple. (That, and they're varnishing the floors at the Grand Ol' Opry and it won't be available until March '06.)

Will it work? That's another question in a city where the late baseball hero Tug McGraw remains more beloved than his Grammy-winning son Tim. (So what's the problem with that? Ya got somethin' against baseball?)

It's been 3 1/2 years since Kenny Chesney or Patti Loveless were regularly heard over the New York airwaves. The format, though a proven commodity, has since held little appeal for programmers more interested in finding the next big thing. (Well, if the rumors about Kenny Chesney are true, he might actually be more at home in the East Village...just ask Renee Z.)

"You've got to come up with something flashier, cooler, more glamorous around here," said longtime New York disc jockey Jim Kerr, who worked on the city's last two country stations. "Country lacks glamor in a lot of people's eyes in this area." (I dunno...some of the sequins on Dolly Parton's outfits - or Porter Waggoner's for that matter - were pretty flashy. New Yorkers are really picky.)

That attitude doesn't play much beyond the city. In upstate Syracuse and Albany, the top-ranked stations feature country formats. It's the same thing nationally, where country is the format of more than 2,000 stations. (And this is why I rarely listen to radio other than 94.7 The Arrow b/c of my favorite morning guys!)

It's only within the confines of the five boroughs that stations opt for "ABC" — anything but country. (Y'all keep acting like this is a problem!)

The legendary rock station WNEW-FM stumbled through a half-dozen formats over the past decade as its ratings bottomed out, but never made the move. And when WCBS-FM recently decided to end its run as the nation's oldest and most successful oldies station, it switched to the flavor-of-the-month "Jack" format. (Is that in "You Don't Know...?)

New York boasts an extensive country music history, from Flatt & Scruggs playing Carnegie Hall in 1962 to Garth Brooks headlining Central Park in 1997 for more than 250,000 people. And when New York had its last major country radio outlet, the station rose as high as No. 6 in the Arbitron ratings. (Oh God. Shoot me now.)

"I think country is a no-brainer for New York," said Joel Raab, a programming consultant who worked at a New York City country station in the 1980s. "A company that puts on an FM country station is not even taking a chance." (And this is why I don't work in radio. If I wanted to listen to people sing about getting cheated on, losing their pickup trucks and drinking cheap wine, I'd go to my class reunion.)

Kerr, now the morning drive time host on a classic rock station, thinks the time will come for country's return to New York. When he gave away prize packages to the CMA event, his rock listeners flooded the station each morning with correct answers to a country trivia question.
"There will be a station again someday," he said. (And this is why I will never go to NYC.)

Sudiegirl's final opinion?

Unlike Marie Osmond, I will not be a little bit country. Ever. I got lots of Motown in my soul, which is probably why I NEVER fit in back in my hometown.

Shoo-be-doo-be-doo-da-day, y'all...
Sudiegirl