Thurston Delivers Meat and Potatoes Talk Radio; Deserves Full-Time Shot on KGO; Monday Nosh

GUESS WHAT?

I have warmed to listening to Pat Thurston on KGO.

Why?

Because although her politics are a little more to the left then mine, Thurston has become more entertaining and informative. She's broadened her appeal and I'm now more a believer.

I've often said that I want entertaining broadcasts and I'm on board. Case in point, the late Lee Rodgers, whose politics were more far right than I cared for yet Rodgers was a must listen because he was great on radio regardless of our disagreements.

Thurston is more my appetite politically but she's also good at picking topics and talking news of the day.

Her movie shows are a good listen and I'm not even a big movie fan. The other night I was glued to the radio as she and film critic, Tim Sika, schmoozed movies and the show elicited cogent conversation and excellent callers.

On a totally different and far more serious matter, Thurston discussed the opposition to Breast-Feeding UN resolution orchestrated by the Trump administration and was outraged, like everyone else, over this affair. It was genuine and compelling and it hit a talk-radio zeitgeist; the very epitome of caller interaction and debate, (although I don't know how anyone could take the opposite side but that's not the point here).

Thurston, at the very least, deserves a permanent shot Monday through Friday, although three hours on the weekend, say, 4-7 PM, would be welcome too, at least for me.

Her playlist is solid. She's got a nice voice. She's an excellent interviewer and she loves to engage and debate. That's good radio. I'll take it.

Pass the pickles.

415 Media Friday; KPIX's Liz Cook Is Prego; Media Notes

 As some sage observer wryly pointed out to me, maybe "there's something in the water there"--in this case, it would be at 855 Battery: home to KPIX.

Another TV anchor is pregnant: Elizabeth Cook. Her first.

My 5 spy is everywhere.

Cook is part of "baby-talk central"--she joins Michelle Griego and Elizabeth Wenger, who are also expecting.

MEDIA NOTES FRIDAY

*Never met Erica Kato but by all accounts a really nice person and cheerful woman, KRON's loss, Erica, go out and breathe some fresh air.

*I have no idea how and why KSFO has been running old and outdated "Melanie Morgan--Brian Sussman promos." Morgan left the show back in July, 2013. I don't think they're coffee buddies, just a hunch.

*Desperate local weather people: "we can report some sprinkles are possible Sunday Night, but only a 10% chance and mostly in the North Bay." Thanks for providing us such informative updates. Fill more time.

*From a local radio broadcast observer about a certain painful, new local nighttime "talk-show": "It's bad when the show is merely awful and gets poor reviews--it's worse that it's so bad people just haven't even talked about it."

*Chip Franklin: started fast out of the gate but limped coming into the stretch.

*I would write more about FM radio in this town if their were something to write about other than Jack Kulp/KOIT and KCSM.

*Noted without comment: They were playing hip hop music under a concert tickets giveaway on the KGO Radio Morning News Friday.

*"I'm Jason Middleton, LIVE in the studio." As opposed to live from the parking lot. Thanks Jason.

*First known impression about the new Cumulus SF Cluster building on Battery: the coffee sucks.

*Voting for a union is one thing--negotiating a contract? Good luck.

*The only show on KPIX that did OK during sweeps was the noon news which has an older demo.

*Listen to a Savage monologue some day and understand why he's the best storyteller on radio. That doesn't mean you have to like him.

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Ask Rich Lieberman --Monday Questions and Answers

 MONDAY Q and A

Time for your questions and answers on Bay Area Media Monday. Please, try to keep it short and simple. Be nice too and stick to TV/Radio. I'll do my best to answer your inquiries.

Fire away.

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New 415 Poll: What Bay Area Media Personality Gives You Thoughts Of Orgasm

 NEW POLL: Name the Bay Area media personality, male or female, TV/radio, that gives you thoughts of orgasm.


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Bay Area Media Sunday Message; SF Bay Area Ain't No NY

Friday's rant on some of my least favorite media peeps and things was over the top which I intended. What? You want PBS or nicey-nice? This ain't the spot. In fact, this is tame compared to NY.

San Francisco is the most smug and provincial city on the planet. Even Herb Caen wrote as much in his sunset years, with the idea that the city was still golden in spite of its cultural and identity issues. And yeah, that's why we're here, I get it, the restaurants, the hills, the fog, yada, yada, yada.

Our media minions are weak. Criticism is meek and mild. The Chronicle, like all the other papers, is lost and has been for years searching for an idea and trying to find the magic formula and missing mightily. Thank God for Jon Carroll and Scott Ostler. That's about it over there at 5th and Mission.

The  rest of the pack is miserable, save for an occasional op-ed piece in the San Jose Merc. Lowell Cohn and Tim Kawakami manage to fire up the sports blogosphere, and Ronn Owens on KGO and Michael Krasny on KQED are still relevant. Everyone else, best case, is simply ordinary.

The "medium" here is mediocre. That's the message. Of course, its that way in many other metropolitan areas, but more pronounced here for an area that prides itself on being sophisticated and mojo-cosmopolitan. Ha!

And the broadcasting business has gone to hell in a hand basket, being thoroughly "clearchanneled" and "citadeled" to death with an emphatic stomp. Nobody is close to being a star. They're all dead or merely trying hard to survive in the "American Idol/Ryan Seacrest" world.

Hope you have a lovely Sunday.

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Thursday Bay Area media rundown notes and comments

**Bay Area summer weather forecasts: morning fog, sun, coastal clouds, warm/hot inland. See ya in November when the first storm deluge floods Marin.

Next.

**Local anchor throws to sports: "Wow, exciting soccer day for USA, eh Lair?"! (In truth, like mostly everyone else, anchor/anchorette phonies don't have a pucking clue about soccer and if USA were not involved, World Cup "action" would be lost and outta sight, outta mind.

**Nice that the local lawn furniture sale station that places infomercials in its news blocks is sending love letters via its various foreign correspondents.

**No, its not that all shocking that sports anchors are now being used to do occasional news tonsiling. It's part of the new business model and with leaner bottom lines, (still) perfectly reasonable. Goshee!, imagine!, toy-dept. idol HAS TO READ NEWS? Yeah, rough life, kid. We feel for you.

**A few weeks back, I wondered aloud what Herb Caen would think of all this mess. Add the late Pete Wilson to the mix.

**Worse than root canal dept: anonymous "commenters" that spew out crap and try to make it look legit. Hey, we know who you and the more crude you spit out, the more 'yous expose yourself. If you want to rip, cool, fine, be man enough to identify yourself, otherwise you have to watch an "Ellen" re-run.

**Is there ever a point in MY life, YOUR life, ANYONE's life that KQED will ever state that its not in trouble and is making money and not saddled with financial issues? For three decades, all I've ever seen and heard is, pledge drives, cooking shows, pledge drives, upper-tier managers making six figures, budget problems, pledge drives; OK spit out Charlie Rose, Jim Lehrer, a few Northern California news shows, Belva Davis, and a new restaurant show and you have your Channel 9/KQED.

**News item: Managing "Editor" of SF Examiner is gone. You know, I don't know if I'm going to be able to sleep tonight.

**Who was the genius that somehow perched Walnut Creek as the locale to do MOS "opinions?" As if Walnut Creek is the zeitgeist of "culture"? Tell you what. I say Walnut Creek is the brainchild of every pucking CONSULTANT that aims to get WHITE, YOUNG, A25-54 demos into the sales dept. Just don't be so damn quiet about it.

**KGO radio Jennifer Jones-Lee memo: The "It's FRIDAY!" weekly blurt-out was real annoying the first time you uttered it; now, its become overly nauseating, like Jerry Seinfeld-making love-to-Lady Ga Ga, nauseating.

**Dear Cheryl Jennings/ABC: What I meant was you look GREAT and happen to be one helluva TV anchor, that's all, (psst, the "old" thing was, uh, intended to send a message)

**Same dept. sort of dept: Yes, I know I've said this too many times, but I trust Rita Williams more than I trust anyone else over there in Jack London Square. Yo, Cox, don't mess with her.

**If David Louie, Don Sanchez, ever split KGO, call Matier and Ross.

**Hey, now this is cute...a certain sports editor of a local outlet recently brought 2 of his just-awarded Emmys into a local bar/restaurant. What isn't known was that his tab was slightly  more than the value of the gold-plated Emmys.

**Brain Sussman of KSFO "great American" and "You're a 'Great American" latest count at 1,765 as of June 21. The over/under is 2000. (Take the over)

**THIS JUST IN: "Sleeptrain" and Steve Moskowitz are attempting to form a trifecta of Jan Wahl, Henry Tannenbaum, and Tommy Tolbert as a side freak show at the Bay Bridge toll plaza. All donations will go to the sales dept. at "Mattress Discounters."

**KNBR and KRON are reportedly considering a new in-house mutual ad slogan: "OUR interns are better than YOURS!"

**Should be the ultimate perfect storm this weekend: Boston Red Sox in town against the 'Gints, gay pride parade weekend, hot weather forecast--I can sense SFPD brass are just thrilled. Only thing missing is Critical mass.

**Just love to see the local herds send out their dim bulbs to "cover" the idiot morons who wait in line overnight to snatch up the latest Apple IPhone, schmyphone. As if Apple needs more publicity and the mutant TV dummies whose "gee-whiz" reaction amounts to vomitized gushing. OMG, do us all a favor and press a live MUTE button. I did.

**Geraldo Riveria is reportedly considering a SF visit. Attention all massage therapists!

**Well, so much for that Randy Shandobil--Ron Dellums dinner at Tommy's Joynt.

**"Today on the Gary Radnich show, Gary gives us the virtues of being responsible, having kids, highlighting the latest rap single from 'lil Wayne, and oh, by the way, 'for the 900th time, Dan, (thank you Patrick) 'make sense?" Uh, no, Gary, not really, but what the hell, forgive us, we thought you wanted to talk sports, SPORTS? Whatever.

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Sports writers and stadiu issues; Gasia alert; Bay Area media notes

**The 49ers and their pursuit of a new stadium in Santa Clara got a huge boost with the voter approval of subsidizing from redevelopment funds. Now the hard work begins.

This stadium issue is a complex mother of all puzzles. It involves land deals, financing, the NFL bureaucracy, the Raiders, (perhaps) and a bevy of politics.

As such, sports writers, bloggers, talk-show hosts should take note. In some ways, this is NOT really a sports story. It's a business affair involving sports. The 49ers are a big entity in the Bay Area--I acknowledge that and know the landscape. A lot of the writers/bloggers/broadcasters here are writing this as if its a "sports story"and it isn't.

**KTVU's Gasia Michaelian has been noticecibly absent from the airwaves of late. I get a lot of e-mail asking where she's been. The answer is she's been on maternity leave.

**World Cup: Sorry, but I have no interest. Hockey took awhile, but I love it. Soccer, ney, futbol does nothing for me. Still this day, I have never seen a goal scored. I won't wait. Enjoy your World Cup and beer.

**The 9-Noon knibber sounded positively gibberish the other day.

Saying the prospect of the 49ers playing in a shared-stadium with the Raiders in Oakland was "nuts and crazy", the 'mail-in-inner' had to be reminded that both the NY Giants and Jets will share a stadium this year.

"Yeah, but...continued the glob, 'its only 9 miles from NY to NJ--there's no bridge?" Huh? Yeah, just a few tunnels and a cloud of dust in someone's head.

**Comcast SportsNet anchors have begun doing sports updates at night on KNBR.

**Word through media circles here points to another big-time purge, (read layoffs) at a major media outlet. The would-be purge rumor comes at a time when continued ad shrinkage has wreaked havoc inside the various sales departments. "Ain't no recession, 'dude, call it a mini-depression, " said a longtime sales guy.

Stay tuned.

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