STOP and consider this:What if you were listening to a big-market radio station, say KGO, and the announcer ended his news/traffic report with, "I'm ...KJO News." That's what took place on Saturday afternoon on the albatross station. I was in the car zigzagging my way through the melodrama known as the Nimitz, 880. It was raining, pouring really, and yet, when I heard some goofball in Dallas blurt that out, I was belly-aching. Surprised I didn't cause a sig alert. There was some great unintentional comedy on the Cumulus airwaves. So funny, so sad, so unbelievably sad for a legacy station that has reached the ultimate low. And I haven't even mentioned the chaos on KSFO and other outlets, a real cavalcade of laughter.
City names mangled. Highway connections that don't connect. Unless you can explain to me how "Freeway 13 connects to the Bay Bridge." And that was just one report. It got worse at night, or better, depending upon your sense of humor. Some guy named "Dupree", probably a part-time Dallas DJ, mispronounced at least three towns; garbled out bizarre nicknames and put forth more dead air than a Colma cemetery plot.
Worse yet, and perhaps to be more serious for the moment, the chaos, and it WAS chaos did more than just damage the normal weekend carnival act on Cumulus' 560 and 810 airwaves, it sullied legitimate shows like Mike Finney's fine consumer program. I could only imagine how Finney felt listening to this garbage off-mike. The same carnage continued on to the Pat Thurston show and the red-carpet one, himself. The guy who inquired whether radio is dead on one of his rants. OMG, the irony.
Mind you I know I'm harping on trivial matters here. Cumulus/KGO long ago settled into the abyss and gave up on establishing itself with normal broadcast content. I know their motives are strictly dollars and cents and to hell with professional air talent but this latest disaster is so bizarre, so minor-league, so bush, so relentlessly horrid, I gotta wonder can it get any worse? Yes, of course it can and will--we're talking about a company that has interns doing news updates. For all we know, they might as well have hired rejects from all the Dallas 7/11's to supplement their student jobs...that's how bad it is.
We'll, this is how bad it is...even the normally it is what it is hosts are livid. They don't, (or really, can't) rock the boat because they have no alternative. They just go on and try to do their jobs all the while "Lee Rose" in Dallas performs the Malaprop shuffle. Wait, dead air was suddenly a commodity at the messy outpost called the SF Cumulus Cluster. I can only imagine what's on today's audio menu.
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Hit it right on, Rich. If I heard the Dallas drone on Thurston's show say one more time "Uh, thank YOU!" going into his report and getting highways and all screwed up, I was going to vomit.
ReplyDeleteListening, if one can call it that, to the red carpet a-hole, was far from better. The irony of his "is radio dead?" was incredible and without mindful response. They half hour physic bit near the end which he answered all for the guest physic wasn't any help, either . So bad, so sad. So very, very bad. That meeting a week back must have been a doozie.
The traffic guy last night at 1245 didn't know his own name. I heard it on the way home.
ReplyDeleteHe knew his REAL name, as did the host (was it David Weintraub?)...it almost sounded like they knew each other...what he forgot was the name he was supposed to be using for this market! What a mess!
DeleteWhich is the lead station for EAS (Emergency Alert System?) I hope it is NOT KGO.
ReplyDeleteI believe it's KCBS...somewhat less frightening...I guess...maybe...
DeleteMuch less frightening. At least there are people in the building there.
DeleteThe best I heard was when Tommy Dupree talked about "the Chips" doing something on the freeway.
ReplyDeleteI was hoping to hear more about Ponch & Jon...
Tommy D was saying that during Weintraub's show the night before.
DeleteLast night's guy didn't know the names of the towns. He butchered benecia.
I did not get the sense they knew each other. It sounded like Weintraub was making fun of him, if anything. Would be par for the course since he has taken shots at Ronn, Karel, Maureen, and just about everyone else.
Crazy idea here... is it possible to take away broadcast frequencies by way of eminent domain? If they can take away private properties to use for the general good the community, why can't they do the same with broadcast frequencies.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I know I'm way out in lefty land here.
I was kinda thinking along the same lines - but awhile back. After all, this is our community. We don't need some yokels back in Hotlanta running our stations.
Delete> Yeah, I know I'm way out in lefty land here.
DeleteNo, you're not. You're dead center.
Since Kelo, Public Use in the 5th amendment has been recast as "public good." In other words, you can no longer use your own property as you see fit. If someone else can be more profitable with it (and fork over more taxes to the government), then the government will use eminent domain for the "public good." The Supreme Court discovered with Kelo that it was a crapshoot when you bet on someone doing better with the land than someone else. SCOTUS rolled snake-eyes on that one.
That said, radio frequencies are government regulated to begin with, so I'd think that anything goes regarding reallocating them.
Rich, do you have more insight into KSFO. They had Spencer Hughes on mornings of and on for several weeks, last week they had someone named Eaton (I believe) Bearman, he didn't sound half bad, until he started to say his name, and I guess to get callers and people listening to remember his last name, he started to growl like a bear several times, it sounded like this my name is Eaton Bearman, growl, you know like a big bear, more growls. What is it with KSFO and all their stupid sounds, toilet flushing, canned laughter, other stupid noises and now bear growls. What asinine, juvenile audience are they trying to appeal to??? I'm not a fan of Barbara Simpson, too much conspiracy and hate Obama totally out of proportion lately, but at least she has an intelligent and professional demeanor.
ReplyDeleteAlso Rich, are you going to comment on the new "Patriot" station? I don't listen for the most part, too predictable. From 3 to 6 p.m. and have some young guy I have never heard of before Andy something, listened a few times, did not find him interesting, the 3 to 6 p.m. slot in the Bay Area are totally devoid of any interesting talent. Choices are Mark Levin (too much yelling and hanging up on callers he does not like), Gil Gross yawn, yawn and this new non descript guy. At 7 p.m. the choices are Alan Colmes, whom I like although he gives too much time to people who are way out on the fringe. 960 has Tom Sullivan who can be very good, when he is not repeating Republican talking points (already covered by Rush and Hannity) they other night Tom talked about The Beatles and what impact they had on the US when they arrived here 50 years ago, being of that sixties generation (born mid forties) it was very interesting, and a welcome departure from politics.
Word is cumulus couldn't afford to keep the person they wanted for ksfo, so now they're looking again. They will end up with a second rate talent or syndicated show.
DeleteEthan Bearman has a daily show on KSCO Santa Cruz. He's a one trick pony of a host. His main topic is: crime in Santa Cruz. A real bore.
DeleteOn another note, did anyone catch America's Rabbi Lapin's show today on KSFO? He sounded like he was broadcasting from a bathroom using a tin can and a string as a microphone. Awful sound quality. Towards the end of the show the rabbi got cut off mid sentence and then dead air for a few seconds before the geniuses went to commercials. College radio sounds more professional than either KGO or KSCO. I'm not exaggerating. Check out KALX or KZSU...
Rich, So glad you said "Mike Finney's fine consumer program".
ReplyDeleteOn Sat. I heard Finney blurb re: "The United Postal Service, and how some are trying to get their hands on our wonderful old Post Offices". You know those beautiful old Post Offices in prime-sweet locations with hand-painted murals depicting early America.
Probably very few Conservatives even know this is occurring, it's never mentioned on RightWing Radio nor FOX TV or Republican media.
http://www.savethepostoffice.com/new-deal-post-offices
Donald Trump already bought himself one of our NYC Post Offices.
Do you think the average America will ever again enjoy seeing this American antique?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/first-look-inside-the-planned-trump-hotel/2013/09/10/e316d112-1a2d-11e3-82ef-a059e54c49d0_story.html
Like 12:33 above, and Michael Finney, I'm really saddened by what the political conservatives are doing in a concerted effort to deep-six the USPS, no doubt for the benefit of their crony-capitalist friends at either UPS or FedEx. It figures that the move began under the corrupt G.W. Bush administration. G.W. Bush, who never met an oligarch that he didn't like.
DeleteYour reference should be to Republicans, not conservatives. Conservatives, i.e. Constitutionalists, despise crony capitalists as much as any Marxist (although with different ideas about what to do about it.) What you are talking about are WSJ, country club, corporatist Republicans, such as the Republican leadership in DC. Don't blame conservatives. As for Bush, ha! Obama in the sixth year of his presidency, and you're still harping on about Bush.
DeleteMy apologies to you 3:42! Thanks for clarifying the distinction for me. And glad to know that even constitutionalist conservatives don't care for the WSJ, country club, corporatist Republicans or the leadership of either party in DC. You and I are in agreement on those issues. And I even voted for Obama, only to be very unhappy with his aggressive attempts to get the Trans Pacific Partnership fast-tracked, despite the Congress having no inputs on it. The same is true for his unwillingness as a previous professor of constitutional law to admit that the NSA's wholesale gathering of data is a violation of the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches. I think that we of both major political stripes can agree that having a government agency prying into our lives brings back memories of what J. Edgar Hoover got away with for decades. And he got away with it by blackmailing legislators. The current NSA situation is a perfect setup for members of that agency to begin blackmailing legislators as well. And I don't doubt for an instant that it's already going on.
DeleteWe'll have to agree to disagree about old G.W., though. Whatever else G.W. might be rightfully called, and despite some of his positive achievements, his total lack of financial conservatism played a huge role, though not a solo role, in the creation of the Great Recession.
Once again, my apologies for my mislabeling of corporatist Republicans as conservatives.
MARE-in county? Jerry St? @ least the idiot didn't drop a "SAN FRAN" on us!
ReplyDeleteRich, we all wish that broadcasting hadn't changed so dramatically for the worst in the last 16 some odd years, but I guess there's not much we can really do about it now that corporate media runs the biz.
ReplyDeleteOn another front, someone mentioned the word: 'Consultant,' in a recent post and I had to laugh. What is a radio 'consultant' anyway? Usually someone who wasn't good enough to get on the air and had to work behind the scenes in programming, then FAILED MISERABLY as a programmer. I give you as an example, Rick Scott, who advised several of the stations in the Bay Area over the years. This guy was a station manager in Seattle, who's poor decisions basically put several radio stations up in the NW into the toilet, and then he becomes a consultant? Worse yet, the idiots who run stations down here in the Bay Area actually listen to what this guy has to say?
This would be akin to someone who failed the bar exam, advising lawyers how to try a case, or someone who washed out of medical school being granted a license to practice.
Only in radio does such folly become possible. It's a business run for the most part by dysfunctional, egotistical, bloviating, clueless nincompoops, and that's especially true these days with short-sided companies such as Cumulus, Clear Channel and Infinity running most stations. Most of the 'real' broadcasters have wisely gotten out of the biz, either retiring, or choosing another profession. That's why so many stations today in major cities like SF feature rank amateurs who never would have gotten a sniff at a big-market job years ago. But most of them are being paid peanuts, have no idea of the history of what has happened to the profession, and like many young people in America today, could care less. Anything that happened before their time or awareness is simply irrelevant. Sadly, that's what radio is fast becoming today!
I'll revise your comment, if you don't mind. The same thing happened to newspapers in the 80s and 90s. Failed publishers became "consultants" who lived off the hog bs-ing other publishers that they held the key to future success. Never mind that we lost all the shopping ads to mass mailers (such ads were the mainstays of my small-town newspapers). Watch for more implosions and changes, just like newspapers. I also agree with an earlier comment about conservatives. Although I don't like labels, put the blame on Republicans who are in a decades'-long love affair with the military-media-industrial-Wall Street crony capitalism-political oligarchy of America.
DeleteSimply file some type of "police report" with the FCC for false reporting.
ReplyDeleteYou would need to support your documentation with date, time, etc.
A recording would be helpful.
You could even call "The Chips"..... and ask what the hell are they talking about?
Ya they said something about the 580 freeway in Fremont ?
? .... 580 freeway in fremont ?
They also reported downpours and flooding here when in fact,... it was dry with no rain here. ???? ....okay dummies.
Hey Dallas Dummies...... Where is Hospital curve?
ReplyDeleteWhere is the Nimitz and MacArthur ?
Somebody call the FCC.
Turned on KNTV last night at 11:00pm to see if Terry Mcsweeny was co-anchoring - he wasn't - haven't seen him for a while. However, they had TWO weather people on!!
ReplyDeleteRob Mayeda ( He is always GREAT!) and ???? Loren from the week day morning show ( Not a fan). I don't understand why were there two of them ? Anyone know what is going on?
Station is going all out to put it's best foot forward for 2 words: Olympics Coverage.
DeleteMy Grandma and Grandpa and uncle are buried in Colma, and my they were lifelong listeners to the old KGO. They are rolling over in their graves in hilarity at KGO. Saw it happen in the newspaper business in the 80s, 90s and 2000s. Welcome to downsizing and getting every drip out of the dollar possible, while shortchanging staff and making them do the jobs of two, three and four people. Great update, Rich.
ReplyDeleteand experienced news people like me can't even get an interview.
ReplyDeleteDon't feel too badly 8:31 pm. I have had many years experience in the biz too, but am now considered either 'too old,' or 'too expensive.' These stations don't care about quality anymore or continuity or credibility. They are run by bloodless corporate weasels who only care about one thing: PROFITS. And you get that by hiring cheap, inexperienced labor, and making them work overtime for no extra pay. That's what American business is all about now. That's what deregulation is all about. That's what the right wing and the republicans have been touting and foisting for years. Thy think it's good for America. Actually, it's good for CEOs and shareholders, but not the worker bees who make these companies what they are and have always been their lifeblood. But these companies don't care. They want to get the most for the least and they aren't interested serving the public. They're like spoiled little children; only interested in themselves and what they can come away with.
ReplyDeleteYesterday a caller on whoever is on before Copeland dropped the f-bomb. I couldn't believe it. He apologized immediately but the host got flustered. Aren't callers on delay? After the way the mass media have been destroyed by corrupt politicians and greedy, incompetent owners, I better not ever hear about how awful affirmative action is. These guys are overwhelmingly white males and have made the dissemination of information a complete failure and an embarrassment.
ReplyDelete