FRIDAY QUICK HITS*An Industry guy has told me that 95.7 FM 'The Game' and its new PD are scanning the Raiders deal to see if they can dump the lame-duck, Vegas-bound, Silver and Black. It's hard to sell local ads when you're one foot out the door to Vegas. Jon Gruden may be a temporary save but you still have to have players, "Oakland" players.
*This is bordering on excessive repetition but has to be said: When that earthquake hit Thursday morning --it was a pretty good jolt for five or so seconds, KCBS was the place to go --overnight anchor, John Evans was literally on the air doing a spot and had to take a break to gather himself; Evans was shaken up like the rest of us who felt it and immediately went to the phone lines to get reaction. He received reaction from quite a bit of Eastbay KCBS staff: namely, Holly Quan, Doug Sovern, Rebecca Corral, and ex weather gal, Roberta Gonzales, and quite a bit of listeners too. It was a reminder of truly "live and local" and Evans anchoring provided listeners an immediate listening post. Great gob.
The albatross 810 AM --an alleged radio station, KGO was its usual horrid self running a taped "Coast to Coast" and sounding utterly ridiculous. But what else is new? Nothing, of course.
*Almost every KQED manager makes well over $200 grand; some senior ones, much more. This fact is brought up because KQED is playing stingy with low-paid staffers on and off the air trying to live on peanuts in the most expensive place to live on the planet. Good way to drive up morale.
*The Carolyn Johnson back to the Bay Area rumors (NBC Bay Area is trying its best) are heating up again because the peacock is trying to lure her back with much more moolah but they might need more than that. She loves the Bay Area but she loves El-Lay too and has family there. Still watching.
*Depending on who you believe or more aptly whether you care, there's two stories making the rounds on why Gary Radnich was 86ed from KRON's usual low-brow NYE show: he was effectively thrown off the show because KRON and its new corporate daddy wanted a fresh face (Grand Lodes and wifey, Justine Waldman) or Radnich didn't want to do the show because he wasn't thrilled with the money. I'd go with the former.
*Lawrence Karnow looks like he got the fulltime weeknight weather gig on KRON (replacing Brittney Shipp) and is OK with the scale compensation. Karnow wants to be on TV too even if it has to be KRON. I guess it's better than nothing.
*I guess KGO-TV (ABC7) has a love affair with Dion Lim --in spite of one of the WORST voices in Bay Area TV News history. She sounds fake and phony and her delivery has a nasal effect worse than a MUNI bus ride through Union Square. I can't watch her anymore, sorry, brutally honest but truthful. 
*I have more and more respect for Kristen Sze every day; she may be tough to work with (I don't know why) but she's earned her stripes and doesn't take crap from certain nobody divas that leave early.
*KTVU staff might be OK with the ND but management is beginning to think otherwise. Good ratings aren't everything.
*KPIX wonders why its a joke: the other day when it (OMG, started raining!) sent a full crew to Walnut Creek for reaction about the phenomena --a full crew to Walnut Creek! I mean, they could have saved a couple thousand or two had they simply went OUTSIDE and interviewed a few dolts ...but Walnut Creek, bastion of perfect DEMO white folks and token people of color prevails.
*Lead story on the CBS Radio News this Friday morning: that nasty flu. I know first hand and I'm still on the DL. Limping along Chicken soup avenue.
*Lead story on the CBS Radio News this Friday morning: that nasty flu. I know first hand and I'm still on the DL. Limping along Chicken soup avenue.
I’d choose Dion’s voice than Neda. She sounds like she needs to see an ENT specialist over that stuffy and raspy voice.
ReplyDeleteOften times people who are loud and yell alot are hard of hearing. Neda may need to get her ears checked out.
DeleteRich, you are so right about Dion Lim. I have stopped watching KGO news because her sickening plastic delivery and phony facial expressions have become unavoidable at any time of afternoon or evening. How can anyone describe her as "professional?"
ReplyDeleteWhat worries me is that KGO most certainly didn't hire her just to fill in for maternity leave. When Ama presumably returns, We'll still be stuck with Dion. She wouldn't have accepted a temporary position.
At this point, I wish local cable and satellite providers would carry KSBW out of Salinas/Monterey. No personality contests there, just delivery of the news.
Yeah Rich, I have to agree about Dion Lim. Hey, I LOVE Asian women, and we have some great ones on local TV. I have really tried to like Dion Lim, but as you said, her voice is too shrill, and she talks too fast. I have figured out that my brain is about 10 seconds behind what she is saying, as my brain is still slowing down what she said 10 seconds ago! Then, when they do closeups of her, and I see those awful painted eyebrows, well, it just disgusts me. I still don't know why it is that women seem to think that shaving off their eyebrows, and then, drawing them back on again, makes sense. Believe me, men do not give a rats ass about eyebrows, and would rather see real brows that drawn on brows! As for Kristen Sze, well, I think if she had some dental work done to reduce that gummy smile of hers, she would be ok, but it is really annoying when she does those big smiles of hers, and you see more gum than anything else! And I still say that Natasha Zouves does a great job, even if she does leave early!
ReplyDeleteSometimes women lose their eyebrows during chemotherapy for breast cancer and they don't grow back. She may not have shaved them.
DeleteTownsend tells the same stories often every day and he has an annoying cackle, the worst is him and michael urban, two boring windbags who just drone on and on on the same subjects for four hours..
DeleteThrough the entire existence of the station, it seems like nobody at The Game has an issue with Chris Townsend. They roll him out for post game shows for A's, Raiders & Warriors. Am I just crazy, or is he the most overvalued sports radio personality in the Bay Area?
ReplyDeleteI second that! And see if you can (bear to) listen to him for five minutes without hearing a name drop of someone famous he knows in order to show you how important he is.
DeleteI listened to him more when he was on knbr. But I'd rather have him back there than the useless amateurs there now: Lund, Frandsen, Hoffar, and Covay...I simply gave up ever listening whenever any of those clowns appear.
DeleteI agree about Chris Townsend a total bore and when he starts talking about his library of stories is when I tune out and switch stations
DeleteCoast to Coast interesting. But, good god the amount of commercials and playing an entire rock or Country song for the "bumper" is so obnoxious.
ReplyDeleteAND the guest's mandatory suck ups to Noory who thinks he's god's gift to radio and pretends that he's way better than the great Art Bell.
DeleteRich how bad are Eric Thomas's nightmares after having to sit next to Dion every weekend?
ReplyDeleteDion Lim = Terilyn Joe 2.0
ReplyDeleteAt least Dion is prettier than Kristen Sze, but Kristen has a better voice and real sense of humor. I cannot wait to see Ama back on her job.
ReplyDeleteNYE? I'd go with the latter.
ReplyDeleteYou don't go out and purchase a $100k+ car this week if you're about to lose your job.
As they say in Oakland, Richmond, EPA in the late 80's, and a weird fella from Hayward that posts on there, "haters gonna hate".
I'm sure Grand Lodes and wifey, Justine Waldman drew tens of fans...and Stan holding himself because Radnich wasn't there.
ReplyDeleteIf Karnow got the weeknight position, who will take his weekend evening position?
ReplyDeletewho cares.
DeleteRe Dion Lim - to me, not so much nasally, but a sound one can duplicate by pressing your tongue on the inside or your mouth to the back of your upper teeth and making a breathing in sound with your mouth almost shut. You get this slshshslshslshsl sound. Quiet but very annoying and repetitious throughout the newscast.
ReplyDeleteClose your eyes and she sounds like Cheryl Jennings, who I couldn't stomach.
DeleteShe is better than Natasha Zouves with a big big bigger smile, I cannot even stand KGO putting Natasha on evening news and promoted to morning news, her voice and fake ness is worse....
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteI agree with you about Natasha Zouves. She's inappropriately too cutesy reading the news. She's unnatural anchoring real news.
DeleteRight after I was jolted awake by the earthquake, I turned on KCBS to see what was up. Shocked and delighted to hear live coverage and *GASP* taking calls! It was like I had entered another dimension. I was transported to another time, when local newstalk radio was awesome. Good work, KCBS.
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear this, about KCBS. They are the best in the area, old school. Lead in ratings now. I don't know if they are left or right slanted, and that's the way it should be. Consistent just like Cronkite and anchor Pete Wilson.
DeleteGlad you are feeling better Rich. You're absolutely right, KCBS did an excellent job reporting immediately on the recent quake, keeping everyone up to date, taking calls, new info practically by the second. KGO as you mentioned, they provided nothing. It appears KGO management no longer cares. Jeers to KGO, and Kudos to KCBS!
ReplyDeletePapa and his puppet were(are) positively giddy and orgasmic over the hiring of Gruden. Truly pathetic two grown men going on and on about a team abandoning the Bay Area. You need a crowbar to pry Pappa's lips from Davis's ass.
ReplyDeleteMakes perfect sense that 95.7 wants to jettison the broadcasting rites.
haha. Yeah, Greg Papa was excited, but a lot of that also could be that he's friends with Jon Gruden.
DeleteI wouldn't call Bonta his puppet, even though I find it weird they haven't added Bonta's name to the show yet. He's been on the show for a little over a year now..... Bonta has great sports knowledge, and has worked his way up to get to this point. That being said, Bonta is/grew up a Niner fan. I guess when you work with Greg Papa you have to be somewhat partial to the Raiders.
They need someone willing to stand up to Papa and put him in his place. His good in spurts but most of the time it’s just noise. He will be gone with the Raiders right?
DeleteChuckie is past his prime and not in love. His last years at Tampa Bay were all loserdom.
ReplyDeleteAnd-- who cares about the Raiders? We took them back only to learn that Mark Fauntleroy was registering LV Raiders in 1999.
Let them go for another 2 decades of losing. The Eastbay washes their hands of them.
Past his prime at 54? Was Bill Walsh past his prime then? The would be 1985. And what about Parcells he won everywhere he went. Gruden, he won a SB with TB, had a winning record and 4 of 7 seasons were winning records. Just no QBs to coach. Do your research before popping off Hayward dude...
DeleteTo be fair, that SB win was made way easier by the fact that Jon Gruden literally wrote the opposition's playbook, groomed their quarterback and worked a head coach (Callahan) who has recently suggested he threw the game because he wanted JG to win a SB...
DeleteHaving said that, don't expect a SB next season; this is purely Mark Davis' way of selling tickets for a lame-duck team on its way to Vegas...it will be exciting to watch, one way or the other...
Dion is the bomb. She is very professional and knows her stuff. Does not overstep her position.
ReplyDeleteDion is a bomb.
DeleteGlad to know she's not "uppity".
"John Evans was literally on the air doing a spot and had to take a break to gather himself; Evans was shaken up like the rest of us who felt it and immediately went to the phone lines to get reaction."
ReplyDeleteShaken up? Gather himself? For Christ sakes, this is California! We natives live with this stuff and shrug it off. I was woken, dogs were woken, all rolled over and went back to sleep. Geeze.
Exactly! Earthquake ... bfd! Natives are unperturbed.
DeleteYeah, if it had struck at 2:39 p.m. instead of a.m., nobody would have cared. It was the 'just woke up in a panic' factor.
DeleteIn regards to Dion Lim... if we the viewers see how bad she is, why can't the people who make the decision to hire her see the same. I won't watch circle seven when she's on. She sounds awful.
ReplyDeleteYou obviously didn't get the memo stating that management doesn't care.
Deletethe A's are the team really stuck, they have to stay at KGMZ and be totally ignored by all of the so called "talk hosts"..I can't think of any station that would take them whenever their deal ends, they will probally have to re up
ReplyDeleteThe A's just don't move the needle like the Giants do. The A's keep trading away their stars, they're kind of boring to watch even though they have some good young players they should be building around, they play in an empty stadium most nights, and they are now back to square one in searching for a new stadium since the Laney College plan fell through.
DeleteIt looks like they will probably stick around on 95.7 for now, but who knows what their future will be on that station.
KBRG will take them
DeleteI still like 95.7 da game. I mean, maybe it's damning with faint praise, other than Tolbert, who does the Knibbler have left? They foolishly jettisoned Ratto, then hired that ogre Jon Lund. Eventually Cumulus will drop Tolbert like a bad transmission and 95.7 will scoop him up. By then, hell, there may not BE any more Knibbler on the air.
ReplyDeleteRatto was awful. They never recovered from Ralph. KNBR must exist solely on older demos. They don’t have one single interesting young broadcaster. The Game isn’t much better but Papa and Damon will occasionally catch me. They try to hard to be hip. It’s all bad really. That Bontay guy seems over his head and mornings are terrible at ‘da game!’ I feel like the station wants to pretend it’s a hip hop station.
DeleteI like Ratto although he can be predictably negative and his predictions usually don't pan out. Papa is hilarious especially when he's on with one of his friends like the Saintly One.
DeleteYou have to wonder why KQED won't release their financials to the public. If they're paying managers that much what else are they overpaying for? Lunches at Tadich Grill for the bosses? I use our DVR on pledge nights. What a relief, just record the show in advance and fast forward 3X through the "we need your contributions" to pay out executives.
ReplyDeleteOn Pledge Night. WTH??? It's ALWAYS Pledge Night!!!!!
DeleteNo. When a PBS station isn't showing anything you want to watch...that's when it's NOT pledge night.
DeleteRich: Refresh me if you can. I do not remember any posts explaining what PIX and other stations' own reasons are for always choosing Walnut Creek's fountains if it isn't the Caucasian factor. (Not sure what percentage of Rossmoor is pro-Hairpiece; so I can't assume all of these citizens are of a particular good or bad type.)
ReplyDeleteThere is easy parking...and food.
DeleteThat's why they go there.
Kevin Kline Show on Live 105.3 was cancelled. He and Ally Johnson and Danica were all let go. I really Liked Ally. Hope she gets her own show in the Bay Area.
ReplyDeleteHow will Ally pay for her Honda?????
Deleteit's not that Woodson wasn't good enough for KNBR, more like they don't deserve him.
ReplyDeletePlease. What Larry/Gary said the other day about how sports talk hosts who feel that they are so important that they have to take time from sports talk radio to talk about how they feel on political issues and tell the listener how they should feel are a joke and need to get over themselves...was so true. And I have a feeling that it was directed at someone in particular. *wink*
DeleteDid you know Raddy dropped the Bentley? He admitted that I was right- it was a money pit that sat in the mechanics shop as often as it did in Raddys driveway.
ReplyDeleteSo he got a Merc 360s. Funny,but I had one right in front of me in Haywood and..it looked a lot like my Toyota,but bigger.
Raddy will find that although better made then Bentley by far..Ain't no shop going to carry extra parts for that. Its all order from Germany.
I suppose he can still say he's driving better then his bosses at Nexstar. Just what they want to hear...
560 son. I doubt you see those in Hayward.
DeleteWow, that would be huge news if 95.7 dumped the Raiders as their flagship, even though it would be understandable with the Raiders pending move to Vegas. It wouldn't make any sense for 95.7 to carry games for a team that will be out of this market.
ReplyDeleteWith that being said, I wonder if 95.7 dumps the Raiders, would they then try to pick up the Niners. Yes, KNBR has the Niners right now, but if 95.7 can give them a better deal like they did the Warriors, and give the Niners top billing during football season, it would be interesting to see if the Niners make the move as well. Plus, the Niners coverage on 95.7 is better than the Niners coverage on KNBR.
KNBR is just not as good anymore. 95.7 is really where it's at for Bay Area sports conversation
107.7 KSAN FM, The Bone carries the 49ers, too.
DeleteTrue yes, I honestly didn't think about that. I still think 95.7 tries to get the Niners though once the Raiders leave. We'll see.
Deletebetween KGO/ABC 7 sound problems from the sports desk side or when they stand [tonight shuma sounded like he was in a cave when reporting on gruden] and dion lim I find I just can't take it anymore. so in addition to muting her I decided to email the station about both. I agree with everything said here about lim's vocal quality, her affectations, the odd laughter, the umms, ohhs and mmmms [what is THAT supposed to signify ? concern ? interest ? good grief] and then she [and all the women actually] keep glancing at their male desk partners with these nods, smiles and gazes....what in the world is THAT about ? So if I see her on I switch the channel or mute - I can't take it : )
ReplyDeleteThought I was the only one that felt that way about Dion Lim; Very phony.......
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone know why KGO-TV conducted its 11 p.m. newscast on Sunday, January 7th out of its newsroom? The broadcast seemed plagued by technical problems, too. Is the usual studio (just renovated not too long ago) out of commission?
ReplyDeleteAbout the PIX love affair w/Walnut Creek for breaking news;
ReplyDeleteBack in the day, PIX's Photogs took the news vans home with them (do they still do this?)--and most of them, along with most reporters, lived in that part of the East Bay. I believe it was easier then--as it probably is now--to rustle up a photog/crew from that area???
I remember noticing the love affair w/WC when I worked there...and even asked someone on the desk why this was so...and was told that it's easier for them to find a photog.
And the photogs love it because it's easy to park, easy to get interviews because it's non-hostile...and there is FOOD!
DeletePhotogs only respond to food.