Monday, May 21, 2012

Letter from Longtime Bay Area Radio Broadcaster, Lee Rodgers; The Death of Radio

I still occasionally view the San Francisco radio scene, albeit (happily) from afar in Arizona.


This is only a guess, but guesswork seasoned with a generous dollop of experience both on-air and as a programmer in major markets.


I strongly suspect that Cumulus is trying to revive one aspect of old network radio; i.e., one source for virtually all content, with stations used simply as relays. The groundwork is already in position with the abundant syndicated product available. The next step is simply more hours created in-house -- and on-the-cheap. Cumulus has already made the first step with Huckabee, who will be eaten alive by Rush, but still fills many air-hours cheaply. Expect more Cumulus-generated programming, leaving only a handful of locally-originated morning shows (where the local money is made) on big-signal stations in major markets. 


The iconic KSFO call letters will likely become extinct soon with that limited signal either filled with the cheapest syndicated product available or a total change of format. They'd likely sell the station if there were buyers for a limited-signal AM that's largely lost its once-large and loyal audience. Some marginal FM will probably eventually apply for the KSFO letters, given their heritage status.


The listener laments that begin with the assumption that "KGO did this" or "KSFO did that" ignore the irrelevance of local management; the shots are called at Cumulus HQ in Atlanta. Since Mickey Luckoff got fed up with Citadel, which preceded Cumulus, and called it quits after an illustrious reign, those stations have had no local management worthy of the name. Hack salespeople peddling ever-cheaper advertising spots held the titles, but with neither the power nor the smarts to do anything worthwhile.


If one regards the situation created by Cumulus in San Francisco as a tragedy, take a look at Washington, D.C., where sister-station WMAL was a market leader for decades. Now its audience is in that radio atings hell, "Too small to measure." The other big-market ABC-owned stations are also largely failures, as well. You probably have more people locked in your bathroom than now listen to KABC in Los Angeles!


I recently had occasion to drive from my home near Tucson to LA.  One aspect of road-trips I used to enjoy was hearing local radio, even in small markets, with its variations or eccentricities. If you heard a KGO, KSAN or KSFO, you'd soon realize it was a San Francisco station even if location or call letters weren't mentioned. Ditto for KABC or KMPC in Los Angeles, WGN, WLS or WIND in Chicago, WNEW or WABC in New York, etc. Now it's all the same homogenized ... (pick a tasteless noun).


Scan the dial now and you get the same syndicated shows and music playlists everywhere. I simply turned it off.


I lived and loved it long and well, but .. RIP, radio.


Lee Rodgers, twenty-five year KGO/KSFO talk host



Visit my web page at http://www.radiorodgers.com
My e-mail address is radiorodgers1@yahoo.com

30 comments:

  1. Scan the dial now and you get the same syndicated shows and music playlists everywhere. I simply turned it off.
    -----------------------------------

    Newton Minnow's words apply here.

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  2. Hats off to Lee Rodgers. That man is a true professional. Do you know he sometimes showed up at the station at 11pm to begin his prep for the morning show? He'd stay up all night, run a tight and entertaining show full of topical jokes and actualities; it had a beginning middle and end. Then he'd sign off and go home. Back in the day. I disagreed with most of his politics, but I respect his radio chops to the max. He got cranky and tired at the end, but we can give him that.

    His letter is spot-on. Cummmulus will suck radio for everything it can get out of it, and then some. Perhaps the field will get interesting again when they (and their ilk) finally give radio up for dead and move on.

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    1. I use to listen to Lee and Melanie in the morning, like you I hardly ever agreed with his politics, unless he critized republicans, which he often did, but he was entertaining and most of all intelligent. Brian Sussman is not entertaining, he can't tell a joke, cannot be objective at all, he is a big bore, and Brian and Melanie is not a good combo (Lee and Melanie was). Unfortunately I think he is right, he has the insight and intelligence to accurately analyse the situation, and put it into words, so us amateurs can understand it. Sad, and hopefully something more interesting will eventually emerge. We don't need more Sean Hannity or Rush.

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  3. When something dies, there is always the opportunity for the birth of something new. Perhaps, radio, as we knew it, but even better, could be reborn? Perhaps all those who were a part of radio as we knew it, could join together and cause the birth of this something new? I sure hope so.

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    1. This comment is a bunch of empty words. Haven't you read the letter: the birth of something new is "one network radio .. with stations simply used as relays."

      This is a message from a Cumulus Homer or a product of an uninformed reader.

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  4. We can also expect a lot more "Top Ten Celebrities" and crap like that.

    American culture has become a rancid stew.

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  5. Bloomberg/Businessweek current issue has in depth story on Cumulus. Mostly about Huckabee, but lots of information on the evolution of Dickey and Cumulus from the beginning to now. Takeaways from the article are that Huckabee and SweetJack are the cornerstones of company strategy going forward. Yuk!

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  6. Lee Rodgers hit the nail on the head. Radio has no identity. KGO sounds like KABC which sounds like its counterparts in Chicago and New York. I used to like picking up Los Angeles stations in San Francisco at night to hear the variety. Besides no identity, radio has no variety. Sirius/XM is the savior. You can get news, sports, music of all kinds and entertainment there. Good thing you can pick it up everywhere. Thank you Lew Dickwad and CUMulus. What happened to the good ol' days???

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    1. Sirius does have variety, but it doesn't replace local radio. Especially local news and talk.

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  7. Blah blah, blah blah blah, blah blah bla; bla....

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    1. Sounds like cumulus has at least one satisfied listener...

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  8. Hey Blah, blah...why do you even bother to take the time to
    write your inane opinion if you don't like what's being written or don't care? You can always 'waste your time,' looking elsewhere!
    Geez!

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  9. Radio was killed to keep the people dumb. Radio was where I dialed in to get the real news, the depth of the stories, and the facts from people I respected. KGO has been deflated because it was so strong and that scared somebody. I am not interested in what the east coast narcissists have to say. As for Sirius, you get what you have to pay for.

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    1. Deregulation is the culprit. Radio people now scurry to satisfy bankers and bankers only care about revenue. Every time a station changes hands the debt increases and pressure grows to pay it. How? Layoffs, trackers & syndication. Radio was once about the art & theatre of the mind. Today the creativity is in raising capital & cutting costs.

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  10. When you have Sonos® or similar devices, internet music and thousands of OTA stations are available. I prefer Pandora® for music and I can tune in KCBS or KNX for CBS news on the hour or BBC or anywhere in the world. The audience is way too smart to listen to any of these OTA commercial stations for any length of time due to the heavy ad load. Pandora® is only $36/yr or free if you don't mind their ads.
    Barry/Oakland

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    1. Pandora gets repetitive. I personally know and love their CEO and the story of the company is compelling (nearly out of business a few times) however if you search for specific music it gets HYPER REPETITIVE. I tried their service several times and stopped for the same reason every time. Besides, we are talking local newstalk, music is everywhere like Rush, Hannity, Walmart and Target

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  11. Lee Rodgers of course summed up the issue in a highly insightful manner, not with opinion, but real time experience with all the parties involved. Lee knew how to perform a radio show, whether you agreed with his point-of-view or not. To pros who know their craft, Cumulus is a nightmare, the ultimate destruction of radio as a dynamic, local medium.

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  12. Let's see. You have a giant, evil radio behemoth run by two chowderheads named Dickey. How do you think that'll turn out?

    It's the Dick-ification of America. I saw it coming when they were first starting out and tried to tell me how I was doing my show all wrong. (Name and date excised to protect my sorry butt.) 2 Ivy League assholes who knew nothing about great radio, but were paid $30,000 to fly into town and tell me what a loser I was. (Of course, no mention was made of my number-one ratings.)

    I went home and told my wife I'd just been cornholed by two Dickeys. Now the entire country is feeling my pain...

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    1. I thought one of the Dickheads was a Stanford grad?

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  13. Red Eye Radio gives this night-time listener a headache...I just can't equate the truck driver slant to the Bay Area...gotta drive a hundred miles to find a truck stop! But I guess we don't count to the pair in Dallas metroplex, or to the bean-counters in Buckhead, Atlanta GA...

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  14. I will be 60 in 10 months.

    I am somewhat behind the technology times. Actually, a LOT behind.

    But I drive all day for work. KQED is my savior. Thank God for 910. But not always.

    Sometimes I need Music.

    So I purchased an iPhone and made a pledge to KQED so I can get a "Rukus" to connect music my iPhone to the Rukus. Rukus is solar powered stereo speakers!

    But I am going to need to take at least one community college class to understand how to hook all this technology up.

    I can't even begin to tell you how much I miss simple old radio! I started with transistor radios back in the day! And for a good while, I was able to program two bands of FM and one good band of AM in the car.

    No more. Now if you really really really want car entertainment, ya gotta do it yourself.

    I guess Scoop Nisker was right after all.

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  15. Why is radio so GOOD in other countries? Try listening to BBC Radio 4 online or on your Iphone. I am hooked! Talk about intelligent interesting entertaining content! Also, on a recent trip to Australia and New Zealand I was astonished by how good the radio was. Radio New Zealand had very well produced talk/information shows.

    Radio is not dead, just radio in America. The "free market" religion that some spew as gospel causes things such as the death of kGO. I would much rather live in a more balanced society, and would have NO PROBLEM having some of my tax money going to a RADIO 4 or also BBC Radio 3, which might be the best cultural/classical station in the world along with WFMT Chicago. (Chicago btw still has local produced talk shows on their very popular WCPT which has programming for a Liberal audience and only runs 2 syndicated programs.)

    The problem is the laws were changed in this country to allow the collective ownership of broadcast stations that we see in America today. This type of monopoly of public airwaves would be unacceptable in almost any other country in the world. Until money is removed from American politics, we are screwed.

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  16. While Lee Rogers and I are 180 degrees out of phase, politically, he was a joy to have as a colleague. "You probably have more people locked in your bathroom...." LOL! Vintage Rogers wit.

    I think that his analysis is spot on.

    It would be nice to be able to hold out hope that the quality of primarily network generated radio would rise to the quality of the old "Monitor," offered by NBC. I have my doubts.

    Hats off to Lee, and the numerous others who brought us substance in local radio ... from news to rock.

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  17. When KNEW dropped Savage, I bought a FM transmitter. I stream his show and I can hear it on any FM radio on my property. I listen to other shows 910 dropped as well. I became my own program director.

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  18. As I'm reading everyone's comments to Lee Rodgers letter, I realized how lucky I was to grow-up in the Bay Area during the 1970s and 80s. The radio scene was so diverse, so interesting and entertaining. My taste in radio changed, evolved during as I listened to KFRC, then during high school to KOME and KSJO, later to KMEL then as I got older, to KGO (Jim Eason, Lee Rodgers and Gene Burns were my favorites). Now, I keep on hitting the search button on my steering wheel radio control buttons and hope for a miracle..and haven't found anything worth mentioning...yet.

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  19. Miss Lee Rodgers so very much. What a loss, and for no good reason. He does the BEST interview of anyone I have heard on local or national talk radio. His BLOG is fantastic, full of tidbits one does not read elsewhere; it has insights and analysis of news that you don't otherwise get.

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  20. Lee, what you describe was the Clear Channel model in the last decade. I think we all know what happened there.

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  21. I miss Mr. Rodgers and his insight, knowledge, sense of humor, interview skills, and his excellent rants. I simply can't listen to Sussman. He and Melanie Morgan are NOT a good combo, either. I so rarely listen to the radio any more, the homogenization has destroyed it.

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  22. I pray that the Righteous and all Powerful will return the Exiled King of Morning Hot Talk from Elba to his rightful position behind the microphone! Long Live King Rodgers!

    Your Obedient and Most Loyal Servant in Conservatism,
    SammyJo

    Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum.

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  23. I agree Lee was a GREAT broadcaster, a real pro. I also agree very much with his politics. No other broadcaster that I know of is a professional as Lee was. Sure do miss him on the air...

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