LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT ...So, the company that KILLED and MURDERED the greatest radio station in the Bay Area has begun a slash and burn program --jobs are being lost; people are getting laid off and fired. News people--from an operation that bills itself the "Bay Area's News and Information Station." Funny, I thought you needed news people to have a news station, maybe I'm missing something here, but oh well.
This new format that the past-greatest station's past big fish gleefully said "will be great" and mind you, "we have the best people--this is going to be great!" Tony the Tiger would have been mighty impressed (Grrrrr8T!)
So, how's this been working out? You have a radio station back in 2011 that was #4 in the market, billing roughly $37 Million and sales people drinking shots at the Old Ship; everybody getting wasted, everyone having a good time and the bottom line in fairly good order when suddenly, some dip shits in Atlanta decide they know more about radio even though they really don't know shit and proceed to really FUCK up something that didn't need anything. See, that's what guys in suits based in Atlanta do. They're rich because they inherited someone else's money and pay themselves obscene bonuses all the while screwing up the livelihood of people far more involved and ingrained in the company's big 415 flamethrower. And the worst thing, the most glaring element is the fact that these mental midgets don't know a damn thing about RADIO! They ruined KGO, WABC, KABC, need I go on? If there were a broadcasting wing of the World Court in The Hague these guys would be put out to pasture in an international setting. Tarred and feathered. Get out the canes.
To sit here today and fully comprehend what these dirty rotten scoundrels have accomplished is to, well, in a way, marvel at their mass incompetence --I mean, seriously, give these guys; these motley crew of mostly white, middle-aged guys that drink a lot of white milk and probably read a lot of porn in their hotels and mimic how wonderful they are; the same white guys that Ronn Owens posts pictures of himself on his Facebook page; to think that these mutants of mass destruction could have pulled all this off is stunning, damn stunning, but as Mr. Softie said repeatedly; with the temperament of a junior-high school glee participant, "Dammit, we needed to do this!"
THAT'S RIGHT : Let's fuck something up that wasn't broken.
Let's FIRE some newspeople after we FIRE some talk hosts as we systematically disintegrate into a #24 station in the market that literally CANNOT GIVE AWAY FREE SPOTS!; that has NO News Director, NO Program Director (for the most part), not one thing or program redeemable other than a new studio and office building on Battery that will probably be locked over when the feds decide to regulate radio stations and their means of operation through their stockholders, the few of them left.
MAN, I AM JUST GETTING STARTED.
#DEVELOPNG..
Turn up the heat, Rich!! Put these bastards to the fire!! As Anderson Cooper recently said, "Gay Nintendo? Sign me up!"
ReplyDeleteOe Aemazeng Graec, houw sweat the suond...Oe yaeh...
ReplyDeleteFact:
ReplyDeleteYou only need 1 person to call it a news dept.
That is the preferred outcome.
What the fuck happened to the KGO I used to know? Where's the spirit? Where's the guts, huh? This could be the greatest night of our lives, but you're gonna let it be the worst. "Ooh, we're afraid to go with you Bluto, we might get in trouble." Well just kiss my ass from now on! Not me! I'm not gonna take this. Dicky, he's a dead man! Marmalard, dead! Niedermeyer...
ReplyDeleteDEAD!
You ought to write a book on the Dickey's, Rich. With real research, not just rants. Call it "How to Destroy a Radio Station" or something.
ReplyDeleteI'd buy it.
You can call it...
Delete"How to suck your own.................."
Welcome to the oligarchy, Rich!
ReplyDeleteYou'll be seeing a whole lot more of this sort of insanity, pending a reversal of Citizens United and pending a restoration of legitimate ownership of media outlets. This sort of insanity will continue to be brought to you by the thousands of obscenely rich, morally-vacant bastards in this country. These are the psychopathic and sociopathic losers who already have enough wealth to live a grand lifestyle for millenia, but who keep on grubbing for more and more (think Koch, think Walton). They're poster children for mental illness and amorality; they're not role models for how successful people should be defined.
They're the ultimate sick bastards who don't know how to do anything but gleefully screw up the lives and welfare of the "little people;" the people who do the real work in this society: the dieing Middle Class. The Middle Class that is dieing because of these thousands of socially dysfunctional, amoral plutocrats. The plutocrats who are steadily turning this country into a banana republic, where they call all the shots.
I'd love to witness dysfunctional rich guys like the Dickeys, or the Kochs, being given a slow and painful attitude adjustment in a dark alley. An attitude adjustment that's simultaneously delivered by hundreds of angry people whose lives they've screwed up... people carrying torches and pitchforks, like the angry mob in the original Frankenstein.
Marie Antoinette supposedly said: "They have no bread? Let them eat cake!"
The Dickeys no doubt say: "They have no entertainment? Let them hear infomercials!"
One can only hope that our latter day filthy-rich bastards meet the same sort of fate that the French Queen and her obscenely wealthy cronies did, at the hands of the common man, who they have so grievously abused.
Where can you find a guillotine when you really really need one?
Thank you for pointing out theses are white guys. Incompetent to the core white guys.
ReplyDeleteThe rare occasion it's a white. Well since you brought it up and pointed it out, thanks for playing.
Delete10:44 put it best Rich. That's what has happened at KGO, but it's also what has happened to our once great broadcasting industry.
ReplyDeleteThe sad thing is that most young people today are clueless when it comes to the traditional media. They think the world started in 1999 or 2000, or more recently when they graduated from college and joined the job market.
They have ZERO historical prospective on anything. Their attention abilities are that of a house fly. They instead spent hours looking at Facebook, instagram, tweeting, texting, or going to blogs or satellite radio.
In many respects one can't blame them. This is unfortunately the world that they were born into. Deregulation ruined the media, and t he '21st century media' is helping to make radio, TV and newspapers less and less relevant each day.
Clueless programmers at radio stations are screaming at their staffs: "WE'VE GOT TO ATTRACT THE MELENNIALS! WE NEED THEM!!" Uh, hello folks..
the 'mellinials' aren't listening to the radio, aren't reading newspapers or magazines, and aren't watching that much TV, because they can get virtually everything they want off their 'Smart Phones' which are mini-broadcast transmitting and receiving units.
Where is all this leading? Who knows, but while commercial radio isn't dead and never will be, (since it's about the only thing left out there that is FREE!) it is a lot less relevant that it used to be!
KGO - the one-time greatest radio station in the nation (not just the Bay Area). If it can fall, no radio station in America is safe. This is simply unfathomable to long-time listeners.Simply unfathomable ...
ReplyDeleteFolks, KGO (and all of ABC radio) was swallowed up by CORPORATE RAIDERS who don't give a shit about you or about radio programming in general. They don't care about society or the public good. They are out for a quick buck and that is ALL. They will spit out whatever's left when they're done, and that is when things will get interesting again. They have less respect for the industry than they do for a rented mule.
ReplyDeleteBeing corporate raiders isn't by itself necessarily a bad thing. What these guys did was think they were too smart for the room and that cookie-cutter concepts work everywhere. The smartest people in the room are those that live in the room. Had they proceeded more cautiously, retaining and keeping market veterans who have a track record of local success, things might be different now.
DeleteKGO downfall started when they fired Len Tillem. There are so many commercials now that they have ruined Ronn & Finney for me. I stopped listening live & went for the podcasts. Then they messed up the ability to download the podcast a few months back. I am done with them for good.
ReplyDeleteGreat article Rich. In the latest deck chair realignment on the Titanic move, Cumulus has hired Bill Hess as their new national corporate news-talk ,replacing the disgraced Randall Bloomquist:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.allaccess.com/net-news/archive/story/142394/cumulus-promotes-bill-hess-to-corporate-pd-news-ta
Hess may be a qualified guy, if he keeps in his pants he'll be an improvement over Randall Bloomquist, but who has a chance of succeeding when the Dickey's are calling the shots?
The entitled white male is the most dangerous evil in society today. To me, the Dickheads represent that breed in its most insidious form. They stand for nothing, have no morals, no character. All they seek is to fatten their wallet. There is no there there. They remind me of the idiot executive from J Crew who fired 180 people in NY then went out to get plastered with his buddies to celebrate AND THEN proceeded to post his celebration on social media mocking the fired employees. Look it up. It happened recently. BASTARDS!
ReplyDeleteThe entitled white female is even worse.
Deleteare these corporate raiders making any money?
ReplyDeleteIf they aren't, they're simply writing off their losses and walking away with plenty of green. This is unfortunately, one more reason that we need a little 'socialism' in this country; more regulation, more 'evening of the playing field,' and less, that's right LESS profit.
ReplyDeleteThe angry few who will throw a tantrum when they can't have all of their toys, (and you should see rich people squirm when their precious bottom line isn't fat enough) but they will hopefully be the exception, and not the rule.
The problem in this country is that most of us Americans have become so greedy, so self-involved; thinking our own farts down smell, that we can't see more than five feet.
What is happening at KGO and at radio stations around the country? Just another small example of why this once-great nation is going to the dogs!