A rádio que temos

O primeiro esboço da lista dos formatos analisados está on line, aqui.

Aclarar uma questão metodológica: formatos clássicos são aqueles que resultam do confronto televisivo e do novo posicionamento que a rádio teve de encontrar. Formatos que duram há quase cinquenta anos, com inúmeras variações e adaptações, mas cujo tronco comum é percepítivel.
Aliás, recorrer a modelos de programas antes do primeiro choque é uma aventura arqueológica, uma vez que, como diz Crisell, muitos desses programas morreram com a televisão: “This was the period of what were regarded as radiogenic ‘features’ programmes - programmes of a factual, often documentary, nature but partly created through imaginative scripting which blended narration, actuality, dramatic dialogue and sound effects” (pág. 25)
A televisão condenou, pois, muitos programas de rádio à morte, criando, indirectamente, outros, os que respeitam o novo paradigma: por um lado como meio secundário (“blind médium”, no dizer de Crisell) e por outro sem os recursos financeiros que desviados para a televisão. “In an age of television, Radio Luxembourg’s diet of continuous light music made much more sense, and the evidence suggests that between 1945 and 1955 radio audiences were moving (…) from the serious and demanding to the light and entertaining” (30).
A rádio chegara à segmentação e à especialização.

O que se segue nas próximas páginas é uma tentativa de conceptualização dos principais formatos de rádio nos EUA, reconhecendo que esta indústria é não só a maior mas em muitos casos (publicidade, marketing, tecnologia, legislação e também programação) a locomotiva que puxa pela restante rádio.
Mas algumas notas prévias são necessárias:
- como se verá no caso português – e não é situação única – não há uma correspondência directa entre o que é apresentado ao público, pelo menos ao nível da denominação, e os nomes clássicos destes formatos (ainda assim, como se tentará demonstrar, não são realidades antagónicas);
- nem nos Estados Unidos estas denominações são pacíficas, com sub-géneros ou variantes que introduzem confusão no próprio mercado radiofónico do país. Por um lado é importante reconhecer que os nomes em causa não são regulamentares (teoricamente cada rádio pode designar-se como quiser) e dependem de estratégias de marketing local e concorrencial, muitas vezes evoluindo em poucas semanas – ainda assim, a Arbitron reconhece-os, regista-os e isso ajuda a alguma institucionalização (sendo que se espera também algum reconhecimento por parte do público);
Se conjugarmos as duas notas anteriores, isso não conduz ao esvaziamento do projecto? Creio que não. Por um lado, não haverá uma valorização da questão, limitando-se o trabalho à enunciação das grandes famílias, esquecendo os seus derivados e sub-géneros, sem grande desenvolvimento; por outro lado, e como ficou claro em capítulo anterior, a lógica do formato não se reduz ao nome – no fundo é como se alguém avaliasse a personalidade de outro pelo seu nome.
Há uma lógica de actuação em cada formato, há uma filosofia subjacente e há sobretudo a necessidade de compreender como é que o mercado de rádio mais poderoso e concorrencial está a organizar-se em termos de programação.

Nesta página há uma lista interessante de formatos da rádio norte-americana, essencialmente musicais.
Mas inclui também uma tipificação do que tem de ter um formato:
“What a radio station’s music format sounds like is governed by four parameters: music style, music time period, music activity level, and music sophistication.
Music Style refers strictly to the type of music played, regardless of how the music is packaged for airplay.

Music Time Period refers to the time of the music’s release. “Current” music generally refers to music released within the last year, “Contemporary” music generally refers to music released within the past fifteen or twenty years, “Oldies” generally refers to music released between the mid-50’s and the mid-70’s, and “Nostalgia” refers to music released prior to the mid-50’s.

Music Activity Level is a measure of the music’s dynamic impact, ranging from soft & mellow to loud & hard-driving. Some names of music styles include built-in descriptions of the music’s activity level: “hard rock”, “smooth jazz”.

Music Sophistication is a reflection of whether the musical structure and lyrical content of the music played is simple or complex. Although difficult to quantify, this factor often determines the composition of a station’s audience. It is also reflected in the presentation of the station`s air staff.”

A variedade de formatos permite alargar a escolha dos ouvintes?
As opiniões dividem-se.
De acordo com o relatório 2005 da autoridade britânica Ofcom (“The Communications Market 2005”), há um aumento da capacidade de escolha por parte do ouvinte, embora apenas nas áreas urbanas: “The increase in the number of stations over recent years has allowed for the launch of stations offering more niche formats and for stations which can provide more localised programming to smaller areas than was previously available. As community radio becomes more widespread over the next couple of years, analogue choice in some areas will increase further” (pág. 69)

The Evolution of Format Radio
The term “Format Radio” was not introduced to radio jargon until the early 50s when revolutionary changes in broadcasting began to occur.

Television was coming to Canada (and did), network radio started to wane (and did); international advertisers began canceling their network radio shows and moving their budgets to network television; new radio stations were being licensed, the phonograph record industry began to discover that radio was not an enemy but its greatest ally, and venerable radio stations were faced with overhauling their programming to meet the new challenges.

From its very beginning in 1922, radio programming was considered “family entertainment”. Radio was “all things to all people”. The public was still adjusting to the fact that entertainment and information could be delivered to their homes through the magic of radio. They were not critical. They found satisfaction with virtually any form of human expression that could be transmitted to them.

Over the years, Canadians became more discriminating. American network programming had increased their appetite for comedy. drama, news and “play by-play” actualities of sports events. This hunger could not be satisfied by private Canadian stations hog-tied by regulations that forbade or severely restricted their importation of American programs and even forming their own networks for Canadian programs.

It was not until 1936 that the Government of Canada admitted to its folly in legislating the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Act in 1932 and bowed to the mood of the people. Its replacement by the Canadian Radio Act came in force on November 2nd, 1936, and while it didn’t unshackle the hands of private broadcasters, it created the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and its coast-to-coast network of CBC-owned and affiliated private stations which would carry a blend of American and Canadian sponsored programs and non-commercial CBC programs.

Thereafter, and with the addition in 1944 of the CBC Dominion Network, local radio station programming had settled into a comfortable mix of local and network programs that was a acceptable to listeners both young and old.

The programming by private stations was rigidly monitored by the CBC, which (for example) was concerned that a variety of preferences for different types of music be available on each station. Private stations had to file weekly a schedule of the week’s up-coming programs. They also had to file each week copies of their logs listing all commercial announcements, programs and a coded description of the types of music used, and whether the programs came from a network, from an electrical transcription (a pre-recorded syndicated program) or was performed ‘live” by the station itself. Use of local talent was appraised annually.

In the 50s, new owners of stations who were forbidden to join a network or to take any programs from a network found themselves unable to compete successfully for audience and advertising by abiding by the CBC’s regulations and policies.

Previously, back in 1944, when Jack Kent Cooke bought CKCL Toronto and re-named it CKEY, he successfully defied the CBC’s demands for balanced mixed programming and turned his station into what some people called a 24-hour Jukebox. CKEY broadcast from records the most popular songs of the day that for a quarter could be played in a restaurant jukebox or heard “live” on the USA network program “Your I-fit Parade”. He also adapted New York’s WNEW Martin Block “Make Believe Ballroom” program of records and also used Glenn Miller’s 1940 recording of “lt’s Make Believe Ballroom Time”.

What some stations across Canada had gradually been doing to cater to young Canadians in the hours alter school-and-before-seven, Cooke did around the clock. The “hosts” of these and other block-programmed shows became known as “disc jockeys”.

Following Cooke’s suit in kind, in 1954, Hal Yerxa (to whom, the CBC had issued a licence to own and operate CFCW Camrose, Alberta) dedicated the station’s programming entirely to country and western music. It became Canada’s first 24-hour country station.

Also in 1954, the most distinctive shift in programming emerged with the rock and roll revolution traceable to Allan Waters’ acquisition of CHUM in Toronto. Like Jack Cooke. Allan Waters, too, looked south to the United States to examine what American stations in similar multi-station markets were doing to meet the new challenges for audience and revenue. The Todd Storz-owned stations in the USA (among others) were catering successfully to the youth market with a format of playing and repeating a limited number of contemporary new records day and night CHUM honed a similar format for Toronto.

The rapid and growing success of CHUM convinced other stations in like circumstances that they should make a similar shift.

And so was born Format Radio in Canada.

About the same time, the recording industry had discovered that teenagers had disposable income and that radio was their best vehicle for promoting their products into million-sellers.

In the late 60s another significant factor in the adoption of formats was the development of FM. As applications for new FM stations flooded in, the CRTC deemed it necessary to create a list of definitions and conditions designed to perpetuate the reasoning and policies of previous regulators, that in any given community served by more than one station that the public would be assured of receiving a variety of music from perhaps two or more stations.

It could be said that in its FM definitions, the CRTC, unwittingly, invented “narrowcasting”.

As the new millennium approached, the development of precise audience measurement methods had combined with changing audience tastes to drive the fragmentation of radio formats designed to reach very specific target groups on many stations.

Before, where the programming of most stations could best be described as “varied” or “general”, and later “teen” or “adult”, the variations of these themes had become almost impossible to categorize.

In fact, many stations and their programming consultants resisted being categorized specifically with a labeled format, and preferred to distinguish their unique identity by inventing their own “slogan”.

For their purposes, the Radio Marketing Bureau Inc. of Canada and the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement (BBM) recognized a list of “standard” formats designed to characterize narrowly-defined target audiences:
Adult Contemporary
Music includes soft rock, light rock, soft pop. Certain on air personalities are “promoted” but generally the music is the message.

Hot Adult Contemporary
Includes Modern Adult Pop/Contemporary Hit Radio - more current than above.

Classic/Mainstream Rock
Includes Adult Oriented Rock, Mainstream Rock - will appeal to an older age group than above.

Modern/Alternative Rock
Includes more Alternative Rock - more current yet again - usually a younger profile.

Mainstream Top 40/Contemporary Hit Radio
Includes Dance, Contemporary Hit Radio, Current Hits.

Urban
More easily defined - Includes Reggae, Rhythm & Blues as well as Hip Hop - younger.

News/Talk
Little emphasis on music in many markets - includes talk and some open line - features longer Newscasts and Business information.

Sports
Includes Play-by-Play, Sporting Events and Sports Talk - Open Line.

Country
Includes all Country Music Both Old and New.

Gold/Oldies
Includes Classic Hits, music from earlier years.

Classical/Fine Arts
Includes Concert Music, discussion of the arts and related topics.

Adult Standards
Music includes Big Bands and a lot of Nostalgia.

Jazz
Includes a wide variety of Jazz music, smooth, up-tempo, old/new and the Blues.

Religion
Includes Gospel, also Inspirational Music and Talk.

Ethnic/Multi-cultural
Includes specific culture/language focus as well as multi-cultural - much block programming.

Multi/Variety/Specialty
Includes a variety of block programs of music and information appealing to a wide variety of listeners.

texto apagado em 3/12/05