Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Before We All Fire Up The Grill...


Anything you want to rant about, report, inquire or just vent, be my guest.

I'm starting to get hungry.


23 comments:

  1. So Cumulus sells a FM signal in their Dallas/Fort Worth cluster for $100 and the simulcast station was on one of the major sports talk stations. What does it mean?

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    1. Simple. KTDK 104.1 is licensed to Sanger, TX and at 6400 watts is a mere, low performing "rimshot" FM in the market. A sports simulcast of its 1310 sister.

      And it wasn't sold for $100 as you mentioned. A hundred dollars? Come on.

      The signal doesn't get well in Dallas / Ft. Worth and is unlistenable in buildings because of it. Cars ... it's difficult in the Metroplex.

      So, it means that Cumulus got millions out of a sale for a once-but-infrequent-performer ratings wise in the "real market" and found it not worth it.

      They were right. Buying just to claim a market that you can't be heard is dumb. It also broadcasts on an HD-2 frequency in the Dallas metro.

      No biggie here.

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    2. PS - A low cume of 294,000 and a 2.6 share in the beauty contest only numbers (only worse in the 25-54 demo) is a dog.

      Considering that the station it beat in the top 20, KRLD, has a 2.5 share, but a cume of 528,600. The return on investment for a station only in the North Dallas suburbs makes the station non-effective and inefficient in the sprawling Metroplex where there are three stations of sports radio competition, two in the metro. The shares are two low to support four sports stations, so, they kept the AM to compete with KRLD-FM and KESN (ESPN) Radio.

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  2. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – July 3, 2013

    Associate News Director Janice Gin Leaving KTVU

    KTVU announced today that Associate News Director Janice S. Gin will be leaving KTVU Channel 2 News on July 12, 2013, after 13 years with the News department.

    KTVU is the top rated television station in the San Francisco/San Jose/Oakland DMA and the KTVU Channel 2 News department has been honored with numerous awards over the last few years. Recent recognitions include a 2013 Northern California NATAS Emmy Station Excellence Award, 2013 Associated Press TV Radio Association Station of the Year Award, a national Edward R. Murrow Award for Newscast Excellence in 2012 and a prestigious George Foster Peabody Award in 2009.

    “Janice Gin has played a key role in the KTVU newsroom leadership for over a decade and we appreciate her years of service,” said Tom Raponi, Vice President & General Manager of KTVU/KICU. “We wish her the very best.”

    About Cox Media Group
    Cox Media Group is an integrated broadcasting, publishing, direct marketing and digital media company that includes the national advertising rep firms of CoxReps. Additionally, CMG owns Cox Target Media, which operates Valpak, one of North America’s leading direct marketing companies, and Savings.com, a leading online source for savings. The company’s operations currently include 14 broadcast television stations and one local cable channel, 57 radio stations, eight daily newspapers and more than a dozen non-daily publications, and more than 100 digital services. CMG currently operates in more than 20 media markets and reaches approximately 52 million Americans weekly, including more than 30 million TV viewers, more than 4 million print and online newspaper readers, and 14 million radio listeners. For more information about Cox Media Group, please check us out online at www.coxmediagroup.com.

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    1. Wow! More changes in leadership at KTVU, interesting.

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    2. Leadership? KTVU has leadership? More like a bunch of scared babies looking at the water lapping up against the hull of the ship.

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    3. Does anyone notice that her last day was the same as the day when the infamous Sum Ting Wong, Wi Tu Lo fiasco happened?

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  3. The good: tv commercial volume regulation agrees with me.

    The bad: the "prove you're not a robot" exercise to submit a comment is getting old & the '13 gold rush girls are dogs.

    The ugly: what's the point, Rich will censor it.

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  4. good riddance to JG!

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  5. I will celebrate the 4th of July by . . . .
    Not listening to KNBR from 5:00 to 9:00AM.
    I refuse to be subjected to juvenile radio.
    God only knows KNBR has a lock on that market.

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  6. Does KGO-TV really have to treat the BART strike like the next 9/11 with the constant scroll at the bottom of the screen? Like grandma gives a crap while she is trying to watch "The Chew."

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  7. Janis Gin should have been the Bay Area's first Asian woman TV News Director. Instead KTVU squandered her talents and knowledge by making her a tool of the now departed "Special Ed" Chapuis. It's sad how many careers that smug creep tried to destroy. Good riddance Eddie!

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    1. Janice, is that you?

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    2. Of course its Janis. Her blitzkrieg style of management got her run out of two news rooms. She lasted this long only because she was cheap and worked 24/7, no life outside of television. No chance to be a News Director. Wait a minute...there's an opening in Bismarck, North Dakota!

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  8. I'm so sick of Gil and Frosty on 910 am, I have tried to be nice about it, saying Gil is a nice man (I believe he is) but he sooo booring these days. His stupid stories about old movies ((I'm a big movie fan and love movies from the forties, fifties etc. ) his stupid dump criminals and school stories drives me crazy, well not really, because I change the channel. All he does is talk to expert, or people who he thinks are interesting, then recounts several stories that already has been on the internet, and then his stories from the past, past radio, old movies etc. it all adds up to an extremely boring program, for 4 hours no less. Please spare me, Frosty is following the same format, not sure why. I send Gil a couple of e-mails trying to critic his show, in a positive way, they kept bouncing back saying they were to lengthy, although I had scaled down the second one considerably. Also posted on 910 facebook page, not sure they posted it. Gil was never one of my favorite hosts, nor one of my least favorable, if he had a good subject I would listen. Now I'll rather listen to a bad host who takes calls. So disappointed, thought 910 was really trying to give up good programming. Like Lloyd Lindsey Young and Sebastian Koontz, but want to hear callers more than anything. 910 please pay attention. John Rothman is filling in for Gil on the 4th and 5th, can't wait to hear him, but it will also remind me how much we have lost in Bay Area talk radio. What is 910's business plan? Do Gil really get decent ratings? If someone has answered I'm dying to hear them.

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    1. You speak for the silent majority. Today Rothman AGAIN as a fill in took tons of calls on a supposed ”slow news holiday”. Big mistake by 910 am to give so much air time to Gil and that idiot Frosty. His name alone should disqualify him from a radio gig for life. What a creepy name, it sounds like the name someone would use to lure a well known sportscaster and his Bentley in the back alleys of the Tenderloin

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  9. Frosty seems too...unsure or hesitant or meek in his delivery to hold me on the station most of the time. I guess that says something about me, that I'm so easily directed based on the sound and tenor of the speaker's voice, but, alas, it is true. Not always, but oftentimes, if the host speaks with conviction and passion and what passes as spontaneity, I will be more inclined to hover on that station, till I've had a chance to consider the truth of non-truth of their statements. There is only a fine line between protesting something and whining about something. A protest gets my attention and may keep it, a whine is when the speaker is not confident that what they have to say makes any difference. I understand that radio is simply a medium of communication, and the hosts are sometimes fabulous actors and proficient mimics wearing masks that fit the moment. I know that.

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  10. I'm listening to John Rothmann on 910, and two things stand out:

         1.  He resisted the urge (no doubt) to talk about the middle east for four hours, and,

         2.  He sounds HAPPY!  He's playing his patriotic music clips and taking lots of calls.  He is even going to play Gene Burns' recitation of the Declaration of Independence, which should bring tears to your eyes for a couple of reasons.

    Give this man his own show!

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  11. Liz Whatsername on KPIX tonight seemed to be having difficulty reading - some sort of phlegm overload. Roberta told her to keep out of the heat and that ended that.

    I certainly hope she doesn't lose her voice. A voice and a couple of eyes are required for newsreading (but of course brains are optional).

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  12. I too listened to John Rothman off and on today, yes he got callers, I took what I would he took a few polite stabs at Gil or at least the stations format for not taking callers. After a very informative call about the Bay Bridge, John said: You learn so much from callers, we have very intelligent listeners. AMEN.
    Not taking calls on a talk show is a slab in the face to fans, I don't know if Gil is not taken calls, because he doesn't like to, or his ego is so big that he does not think he can learn anything.
    He does not come of as someone with a big ego. Ronn Owens has a big ego, even admits it, but he takes calls. Don't hold Frosty's name against him, he is not great, but he is better than Montemayor on KGO, but until I hear him take calls I can't really say if I like him or not. I want to hear what others are thinking.
    John Rothman will be sitting in for Bill Wattenburg this sunday 8 to 11 p.m. on 910. Perhaps 910 will see their rating go up when John is on and find a spot for him, half of Gil's show, all of it, I wish, but don't count on it.


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  13. I posted the comments above (9;29 p.m.) today I was off work at 4:30 John Rotman is filling in for Gil, and on 960 David Lazarus is sitting in for Norm Goldman, two excellent hosts on at the same time, makes me thing back to the good old days of talk radio. I like Norm Goldman better than Gil, prefer that to Gil's current format. What I like about John, other than he is intelligent, calm, informed and asking excellent follow up questions, is he really makes it clear how much he enjoys being a talk show host. He is very polite and appreciative to the callers, he always say "there is no place I would rather" and you believe his sincerity. Frankly I don't know how Gil feels about his listeners , he does not want to talk to them, he rarely addresses us directly. We are being force fed what he thinks is important and interesting. Ronn Owens often changes a subject if he does get many calls. How do you know what your audience likes if you don't address them or want to talk to them?

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  14. Listening to John Rothmann sitting in for Dr. Bill tonite from 8 p.m to 11 p.m tonite, what a pleasure he is to listen to, and what a delight it is to hear him banter with callers, and challenge them, he is so informed, intelligent. It is such a pleasure to hear a host who actually invite callers, and there is no shortage of callers. Cannot for the life of me understand why Gil and Frosty does not take calls. Someone explain please, I just don't get it.

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  15. Today (July 11, 2013) is 7-11-13 -- that looks vaguely familiar -- then I realized that pattern from Bay Area TV guides of the 1970s, '80s and early '90s. Most on this blog would recognize this when I share the patterns for the other networks: 3-4-8 and 5-10-12-46 (and later 2-35-40). The "7-11-13" was for ABC: KGO 7 (SF), KNTV 11 (San Jose/Salinas/Monterey) and KOVR 13 (Stockton/Sacto.). This ended around 1995 when KOVR 13 switched to CBS.

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