Gotta love the Ben Fong-Torres interview in the Chron a few weeks back with KGO Radio GM, Deidre Lieberman, (no relation.)
Lieberman is essentially Citadel's/Suleman pawn and a far cry from Mickey Luckoff, who finally couldn't handle the BS and took a hike.
Enter Lieberman. Her first move was to add a news hour at noon. As if that's going to rock and roll KGO. I'm sure KCBS is losing sleep.
In reality, it's operations manager, Jack Swanson that's running KGO until he retires or if KGO's free fall in the ratings continues.
A note about my prediction that the "Afternoon News" would be aborted by the end of the year. Obviously, I was wrong, time wise, but I'll stick by the prediction. KGO is getting killed by CBS in the PM and AM news blocks. You can brag a lot about "first traffic" this and helicopter that, its not working.
The cheapest thing to do would be to have another talk show, which requires less personnel, (read: KABC), which in turn means less money to have to pay out.
FaGreed likes that a lot.
Chronicle piece was so kiss-ass, he must want a show.
ReplyDeleteI still can’t recover from the removal of the Dr. Dean Edell show and the near removal of God Talk (who’s up to listen at 5am?). In my opinion those were the two most intelligent radio shows of the last 25 years. Please explain to me how they can get rid of those two shows but keep the sanctimonious and boring Mary Nemko on air? The best going on at KGO currently is Len Tillem, he is really on top of his game and Pat Thurston—she is awesome and I enjoy her interviewing style. Outstanding. Has anyone noticed the drastic reduction of Mike Amatori on the promos? Any news on that Rich?
ReplyDeleteGood observation by another "anonymous" above about Mike Amatori. His voice is definitely MIA. Another interesting thing, about the next "All Star Debate." On Dec. 30th, I received a KGO listener club e-mail from Pat Thurston, announcing another "All Star Debate," to take place Jan 28th at Marines Memorial Theater in Union Square. I immediately ordered a ticket online and received a ticket in the mail early this week. Funny thing is, I've not heard a peep from any of the talk show hosts hyping the event as they have always done with great fanfare in the past. Not even a mention of it, let alone any effort to promote it. Makes me wonder if the event is "iffy." And, if so, why? Anybody know anything?
ReplyDeleteI went up to the Bay Area from Southern California for the holidays and decided to listen to KGO for a bit. What happened to the powerful and distinct voice of Mike Amatori doing the promos. I always felt that his voice made the station sound big, larger than life. Now they have this ridiculous high-tech sounding crap which totally tunes me out. In other words, tuning out of KGO and tuning into another station. If I had a radio station to run or, for that matter, a TV station, I would hire Mike Amatori in a flash to do all the promos!!
ReplyDeleteWe moved to Portland over a year ago, I listen to KGO online and on my iPhone (the local radio here is NOT local).. well, all I can say is KGO sounds like its turning into an FM station with the techo bumpers and redone jingle. Very Sad. It's still 100X better then what we have here in Portland but not the KGO I have loved for years
ReplyDelete