Soon after Mickey Luckoff departed KGO after nearly four decades at one of SF's most celebrated radio stations, it became quite apparent the ABC news-talk giant was about to meet its maker.
Jack Swanson's see-ya on Friday confirms it. KGO, save for its coveted dial position and a few left-over relics like Ronn Owens, is but a ghost of its former self. And a sinking one at that.
The morale has never been lower. The mood is dour. Most people who work there are on edge, according to some of the air-talent who work there, two of whom spoke to me and requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.
In addition, not surprisingly, loads of resumes have littered the offices outside KGO. Even the most tenured producers, engineers, and on-air talent are looking around, (most, sadly, to no avail.)
Friday's mini-mass of staffers laid off included many long-timers in the production and digital dept. Craig Bowers, a staff announcer and production head was shown the door after fourteen years. He wasn't alone.
And things are only going to get worse, thanks to Cumulus and Lew Dickey, its repugnant CEO, who regards human flesh as nothing more than expenses that are under the guillotine. Welcome the lovely world of a guy who took a multi-million dollar bonus at the height of the recession in 2009. Way to rally the rank and file, Tricky Dickey.
A few souls said Friday they were "crossing their fingers" that the staff layoffs were in place and that no one else, at least for now, was due to be let go. Yeah, sure, dream on. Lew Dickey is not through. And KGO and KNBR, (and other Cumulus stations in the market) are still likely to see significant lay-offs.
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ReplyDeleteSad times
All the 'Occupy' protester nationwide need to target Tricky Dickey. He's just as bad if not worse than the worst financial institutions and other corporations.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your reporting and commentary on this situation, Rich. No one in print seems to care about our local electronic media. The radio and TV stations are powerful voices. We need to hear about the people and forces that shape those voices.
ReplyDeleteamen to what 12:11 is saying about Lou 'the Dickhead' who has done everything he can to destroy KNBR.
ReplyDeleteLet's hope Barbieri is next in line to be shown the door.
ReplyDeleteIt will be interesting to see if the annual KGO Thanksgiving charity will be held this year. I wonder if the one-day fundraiser they had a week or 2 ago was a quick replacement because things are "up in the air". It's a crime.
ReplyDeleteI haven't always loved the on air talent, but it has been wonderful to hear the thoughts of our interesting, enlightened, and sometimes crazy Bay Area neighbors.
Lew Dickey is screwed. He'll never be able to fire enough people to turn his shit investment into gold. All he is doing is devaluing every property even further by degrading the level of talent. Dickey never made a cold call, sold a spot, programmed a station, coached talent, wrote or produced on air material, or anything else required to be successful in radio. Daddy must regret handing him the company as Lew steers it straight into bankruptcy.
ReplyDeleteFucking bullshit. As someone how grew up on KGO, this is simply plain and simple bullshit
ReplyDeleteIt's odd - I was heading down to the Bay Area (I guess a decade ago?) listening to Bernie Ward talk about the legacy of KGO, the great names, the great things that the station has done, it was a great listen - of course a few weeks or months later I understood that Bernie knew his time at the station was short.
ReplyDeleteSince then the station hasn't been the same, it's like a place of employment you leave after a long tenure and you go back after a while. You see some familiar faces, but it just isn't the same. I'm still glad I can pick the station up at night - it makes "home" not seem so far away.
Maybe that's the greatest legacy of KGO - it was the voice and ears of the Bay Area through some of the most exciting times in its history.
I remember working with people at KVI, Seattle and KMPS, Los Angeles when they were owned by Gene Autry. In many ways he saw radio as what it was - an entertainment medium.
ReplyDeleteHe hired the best entertainers possible, paid them well, supported their promotional ideas and, as a result, enjoyed good ratings and some of the best billing rates in their markets.
It seems we are saddled with cheap hacks who see radio stations only as automated money machines to be run as cheaply as possible.
Very sad.
This is not reporting.
ReplyDeleteIt's speculation from some wannabe that's pulling stuff out of his ass.
- of course a few weeks or months later I understood that Bernie knew his time at the station was short.
ReplyDeleteWell to be fair Bernies time was short for "other" reasons.
Other than the overall level of whininess that accompanies these things when they occur why does anybody care what Lew Dickey is doing to these stations? The talent is aging..the formats tired. The radio industry as a whole will be (or is ...depending on your perspective) going through its trial by fire to see if it can continue to exist in the form that we have known in competition with the internet...pod casting...subscription/satellite radio etc. ! I'd think that you would appreciate a guy like Dickey driving both stations into the ground so that they could be resurrected later as viable entities. All you junior radio execs should be out lining up funding for when Lew has to put them both on the block at firesale prices.
In a way - what we're seeing at KGO is just a microcosm of what we see throughout media. A generation of baby boomers (and older) who have dominated the airwaves are moving on and there isn't people behind them ready to carry it forward.
ReplyDeleteWho is the youngest regular at KGO? Hard to believe they couldn't find someone in the last 20 years to bring in and develop like they did Owens.
Their best shot may be to grab someone in their 30s or 40s from the Chron who knows the area and issues.
I agree with the last post. Radio is being destroyed by companies such as Cumulus who don't care about fulfilling their duties to serve the public. It used to be that when you bought a staton, you were obligated by law to provide news, public service, and public affairs programming to the public. That's what our public airwaves were, and still should be all about.
ReplyDeleteThey are not privately owned, but stations are allowed to use them to serve the public, How did they ever get away from doing that? How did
these weasels such as Lou Dickey and Rupert Murdoch (what a detestable cown!) ever become allowed to use them as cheap forms of entertainment, putting clowns, shills, bimbos, hacks and carnival barkers like Limbaugh, Hannity and O'Reilly on the air only in an effort to stir up ratings and make money? No wonder America has become so ill informed, fat and lazy! 90 percent of the crap on the air is just junkfood for the mind!
When our public airwaves are used by private corporations solely for the purpose of making money for fat-cats and shareholders, we have lost a valuable part of our deomocracy.
Therefore it's not surprising that the literacy level of this country has dropped alarmingly over the last couple of decades, and that idiots like George W Bush are elected President of the
United States. When people are ill-informed and not given the complete picture of what's happening in the world, our system suffers.
KGO still holds up to a high standard, but with jackals such as Lew Dickey running the show, who knows how much longer that will last? The worst thing about people such as Dickey and Murdoch is that they are not interested in providing public service or sold journalism. THEY'RE NOT BROADCASTERS....THEY'RE ROBBER BARONS. To them, the media is simply an ATM that provides them with obscene amounts of cash to spend on their estates, yachts, properties and mistresses. One small bit of comfort: it's good to see Murdoch finally getting some of his just deserts lately with the fall of his big paper in London.
But unfortunately, Americans and for that matter, a lot of other folks in free societies now expect low standards in broadcasting, so they're not even bothered by the verbal puke spewed out by some of these nit-wits that pass for broadcasters. Hate mongers, bimbos, screamers, and shills seem to be more valued today than real jounralists who are interested and curious in what is going on in the world. Is there anyone out there who agrees with my assessment or all of you too doped up by the
nonsense that you've become accustomed to hearing and watching over the past 15 some odd years to see any difference? I wonder!
broadc
talk show hosts can be journalists too ..or have been journalists at one point..but talk radio is about expressing your point of view..something journalists...are not supposed to do...different games.
ReplyDelete