You've all been turned into lap dogs and will take such lame treatment from a lame radio company with a lame station that used to define greatness.
Shame on all of you.
They are still at the behest of the public and are obligated to broadcast "for the community" --they have to adhere to that. Still. That's why their license is up for renewal
When the Wine country fires broke out on a windy Sunday night last month they (KGO) didn't bother to call someone (like a Bret Burkhart, for example) and tell him to get this ass down to the studio and provide some coverage. It's a LOCAL story! It will be the BIGGEST story of the year, at least in the Bay Area. They are OBLIGATED to cover, for YOU no less, a community SERVICE! If there were a legitimate FCC that executed basic, fundamental oversight, they would have been censored and fined like no other for committing such blatant DISREGARD for the community they are licensed to serve! Oh, but for such weak dicks like the FCC and you LAP DOGS, they get away with it.
Texas was no local story. It was just a routine America phenomena called a massacre where 27 people got shot to death, including children --one as young as 5 ...and the albatross station was running canned financial assholes selling themselves. Classy stuff. And you all defend these clowns.
Lapdogs.
Of course they are not the vintage KGO. I get it. They will never be the vintage KGO because they have lemmings and quislings polluting their airwaves and a guy who still hangs on in the morning so he can get out of the house, cheat on his wife and sell mattresses when he's not mumbling.
You all deserve what you get. You lemmings.
I for one will NEVER back down as long as I have a pulse here. Those assholes that run the station now, like asshole Anthony and Wittmayer? Keep kissing their butts. I won't.
Sometimes I wonder why I keep doing this --because not all of you are wimps and lapdogs. The rest of 'yous?
I don't know anymore.
KGO radio cannot allow any heated political shows because they can no longer provide safety and security for it's host.
ReplyDeleteAs far as news???
What happens if you call the KGO newsroom after 10pm?
It just rings....and rings....and rings.
I don't think they have a Newsroom anymore. That's the problem.
DeleteIt's terrible I say, terrible nowadays. From Hangin' with Langan to Thurston and Copeland. Unlistenable!
ReplyDeleteYou forgot bearman and franklin? Thurstan I can listen to. Not my views mostly but intelligent. The others? Nope. Cartoon characters have more insight and intelligence.
DeleteI take serious objection to calling those who are critical of your never ending complaints about KGO lapdogs. We are not. We are not lemmings. We are not idiots. We are educated media workers, who know how to ferret out the truth. The truth is that KGO is a totally different radio station than what it was and what you want it to be. That isn't going to change regardless of how often you write about, how you feel about it and what you expect.
ReplyDeleteYou don't ask KSFO or the sports stations to call in their wildfire experts, and KGO now with a non-news format won't be calling in the ones they no longer have. KQED? Shall I go down the full list of call letters to see if any of them are worthy of your scorn?
Find a different dead horse to beat because that one isn't getting up. Your non-stop harping isn't going to change that. There won't be a what would Rich do moment by management.
Turn the dial and walk away because there is no longer anything to see there.
And insulting your readers because they don't agree with you is a very strong recipe for diminishing returns.
You, sir, are one of the lemmings of whom he speaks . You're a "media worker"? Well, you're part of the problem. Where's your outrage? What have you done to prevent further degradation of the medium you so proudly work?
DeleteNo, you just sit back lazily, meekly, amidst the cutbacks, firings, daily humiliations and let a once mighty and esteemed industry fail and fall into the proverbial corporate toilet.
Oh, but you've got yours, so screw everyone else.
Yes, like he's supposed to singlehandedly shut down the internet, smartphones and our advancement as a society. It's called technology. It killed the newspapers, it will kill AM talk radio soon enough. People don't want to waste their lives sitting around listening to talking heads spew their opinions in this day and age. We just don't need places like KGO anymore.
DeleteFor a tough guy who never backs down Lieberman sure is timid about posting comments from people who disagree with him.
ReplyDeleteStop rationalizing your anti-kgo rants. Cumulus owns the station and can do as they see fit. I loved the old kgo, but the OWNER can do as they please.
ReplyDeleteWith all your "expert" commentary it would seem you could start a successful new talk radio show tomorrow.
KGO is about entertaining as a San Francisco sidewalk reeking of human waste on a hot summer afternoon. Why even broadcast anymore ???
ReplyDeleteExcept that their afternoon host and giggly crew are actually in Los Angeles and "play" as if they're in the bay area. It's funny when some of their guests in their studio slip and say "it's good to be in LA on your show" or the stupid crew screw up locations and such. Idiots. What's funnier and pathetic is that most listeners buy this crap.
DeleteLocal AM radio is done and gone. Cable TV is where you'll get the full coverage of any incident. Even the local news only begins to tell the story, what is happening in LV? The Guard? The shooter? Chief of Police? FBI dude? No one sticks around and pokes the facts anymore, sheep line up here...
ReplyDeleteLapdogs, huh? Rich, most of have been in media longer than we care to count. Most have left 'da biz' because it ain't what it used to be. Those who remain, make due in the changing scheme of media, of corporations merging, of cutbacks and job slashing because it's still a business at the end of the day. We work with less not because we WANT to, but because this is a field that we believe in. There are still a few decent people who haven't sold their souls to the devil, or stations or bosses yet who still, for some inane reason, follow this blog despite the cranky yenta who demeans us when he can because he thinks he can. Don't take us for granted, Rich. We don't have to read or support you. There ARE a few of us who are in the trenches working HARD every day. It ain't glamorous, but it's what we do. Don't EVER mistake our silence for stupidity...for even Lapdogs have teeth.
ReplyDeleteI want to hear more about those who remain, "making due"...Did you mean "doo"?
DeleteRich, I think its about time you used the power of your blog and all who follow you to take action. By that I mean have everyone who may still care about that station begin a petition drive and put all the email addresses for the FCC, its chairman and every member of the board to complaint about the station. In addition everyone should inundate the FCC with filing complaints against the station and its failure to serve in the public interest. Instead of all the comments people post, take action, do something about it. I already have.
ReplyDeleteAs if putting a petition together is gonna do any good. The FCC is being ripped apart like all other government offices now. It's not 'of the people, for the people' any longer.
DeleteI can salute the survivors at KGO who bristle at being called lapdogs, but will defend Lieberman´s lament: it's inexcusable that any operator of a 50kw clear channel AM doesn't have at least one person in the newsroom 24/7. In the case of Cumulus SF, emergency coverage could easily be shared with KSFO and the KNBR´s. Around 2004, the FCC slammed the monster previously known as Clear Channel after Minot SD was the scene of an overnight rail accident that released dangerous chemicals, but all the radio stations were automated so the locals couldn't be alerted. More people died in the wine country fires, which started around 10pm on Sunday October 8, when only KCBS was in any position to cover it. In recent FCC arguments about even more deregulation, broadcast owners said that ore people get their news from social media. But in the fire areas, phone and internet networks were among the first casualties, so people couldn't get reliable info. AM radio was once the backbone of emergency communications, but, y´know, infomercials.
ReplyDeleteI don't disagree in principle that KGO arguably "should" operate a news room, but they no longer do. If you "call the news line after 10 pm" of course it just "rings." THE PEOPLE YOU ARE TRYING TO CALL WERE FIRED A YEAR AGO. The "Newsroom" doesn't exist as such: it's a bunch of re-purposed production cubicles that the few remaining producers use to surf the web before their shifts.
ReplyDeleteAll this anger at a few stuffed shirts at the call letter deficient station is misplaced: the crime was committed years ago, when 2 gigantic corporations gorged themselves on 90% of the radio stations, going into ridiculous debt, and then attempted to compensate for their overspend by gutting the product. If you bought the SF Giants baseball team and then fired all the best players, would you then be surprised if you didn't make the playoffs the following year?
KGO and KSFO co-existed just fine with the Internet, selling sold-outschedules in the mid-90's right through the turn of the century, every second ad ended in "dot com this" or "dot come that." IT IS NOT THE INTERNET THAT KILLED THESE COMPANIES. It is the fools who attempted to buy their way to the top, and who killed the golden goose along the way. Anthony and Wittmeyer and the fools who suffer under them are SYMPTOMS of this, not the cause.
Until Cumulus and Clear Channel ("i heart") disgorge themselves of their quasi-monopoly, and thus allow creative people to come in and rebuild the industry, it will not change. Mary Berner herself pointed out that for every dollar of "cost savings" (firing talent, reducing headcount) there have been TWO dollars of revenue loss. But nothing's much changed in the 2 years since she did so; only now we have a competition amongst office staff on who can refer advertisers to sales. That's about it.
It is sounds like the FCC should crack down on KGO. But does the FCC even care anymore about local news requirements? If they don't care; all bets are off. Tomorrow KPIX is pulling ALL news from the airwaves. Because "they don't have to."
ReplyDelete@Peter Be Collins: KSRO in Santa Rosa did a fantastic job of fire coverage around-the-clock, offering news, official information, carrying press conferences, etc. and proving exactly what you say: AM Radio CAN be the backbone of emergency communications. It just requires some staffing and programming discretion such that you set aside your paid programming, your commercials (gasp!) and your informercials, and empower people to go do their work. Little KSRO ran rings around the entire Cumulus cluster; Cumulus' contribution is only a days-after-the-fact telethon that raised a few hundred K, followed by a bunch of self-congratulatory "promos" to congratulate themselves for doing so. No actual reporting occurred on any of our stations.
ReplyDeleteIndependent radio like KSRO can do what corporations can't; they put their time and money into the communities they serve. Bloated media corporations don't care about local, all they care about is money.
DeleteKSRO did a pretty good job but if you listened as intently as I did (my power was out, no internet, no cable) you would notice that in the first two days of the fire they reported (repeated) every rumor they heard without checking it out. "Kaiser has burned down","Cardinal Newman is lost" etc. then instead of listing shelters that were open (we were looking for places to go) they listed the ones that were closed, not really helpful when looking for an open one.
Delete@Some Guy, We appreciate your knowledge and as someone on the inside it's refreshing to hear honesty about working for a place like scumuless. Could you ever give us, veiled of course, more info on what you do there, anything that will shed light on the truth? Thanks!
Delete