KGO is very boring. Duh! KGO, even in these archaic radio times, could be an innovator. But it requires skill and planning, something the current PD lacks.
All KGO hosts are liberal. No harm in that but it's all pretty much predictable takes when it comes to politics. Which makes for bad radio, a local version of that god-awful "Air America" which had no shelf life and was buried in the ratings and quickly disolved into failure. Mostly due to horrible programming and unimaginative and inept leadership. Sure, the left-leaning politics of AA may have been soothing for the listeners but it lacked for success.
KGO has no zip. It's all pretty much tiny, little bread crumbs. It has no spark or venom, just a lot of wonder bread and vanilla wafers. Where's the leadership? Where's the huzzah? Where's the beef? Nowhere to be found and eternal DOA status.
*It's beyond personnel and shaky leadership at KCBS. If you've read me long enough you know I've chronicled the yuck that is present-day KCBS. The fact no one seems to care or give a damn tells you all you need to know. There is NO accountability at KCBS. The PD doesn't give a damn either and rules like she has no fear of losing her gig because ownership doesn't care. Saturday and Sunday are a joke. The weekday morning and PM drive are full of RETREADS and no-talent has-beens. Any woner why everyone can't wait to retire or just bail on this DISASTER? Of course not.
*THIS is all you need to know about KNBR: when news of the Brittney Griner verdict in Russia was announced, KNBR's woeful hosts barely even mentioned it. Why? Because KNBR and its band of misfits don't know how to articulate anything other than Giants/Warriors/49ers oatmeal. KNBR is the JV of radio sports talk stations.
*Two times last week, KRON beat KTVU at 10 PM.
*KGO (Circle7) is trying to fit Dion Lim into a 5 PM package --they better hurry up.
*If PIX wooed Terry McSweeney from NBC Bay Area to pair with Juliette Goodrich at 6, they would give ABC7 some competition and ultimately kick MAJOR ASS.
*900 Front morale issue: you would think there's relative joy at the local mouse house but there is not: the natives are FED UP and quite pissed off over Disney's inherent cheapness. It's hard to build a bette Bay Area when your newsroom is chock full of anger and despair.
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KRON beat KTVU twice at 10 ... I love it! This is yet another step in KTVU's pitiful demise. Hasta la vista, KTVU.
ReplyDeleteI concur!
DeleteI’m also thrilled to see this! Anyone who watches ktvu with any regularity saw this one coming a mile away.
DeleteThis doesn't surprise me. One of the many problems with ktvu news is they use the outdated format of two anchors in a boring nondescript studio, sitting behind a desk, reading poorly-written stories. There is no energy. The newscast is flat, bordering on life support. The pace is slow. There's no connection between the viewers and the anchors. They sit there like braindead zombies reciting whatever they see on the prompter. It feels like you're watching people read news in a funeral parlor.
DeleteAt least with KRON, NBC, and ABC7 you can feel the energy of the newscast. They have a livelier flow, faster pace, more dynamic sets, and there is real interaction between the anchors so it feels like you're a part of a conversation. Plus the transitions between stories feels more natural, again, like the newscast is more a conversation, not a script like KTVU.
It’s all because of Teresa Estacio and her bare shoulders that she always puts on display.
DeleteI stopped watching ktvu when they started doing musical chairs with anchors and putting any warm body behind the desk. They suck ass.
DeleteI find ABC7 unwatchable. Too many long, uninteresting personal stories and too much "Building a Better Bay Area."
DeleteKTVU has thrown in the towel on its news operation and given up on any attempts at actual journalism. They’re running newscasts because it’s on the schedule, not because anyone involved has any interest or passion for it.
DeleteJames Torres, the reporter who gets the most airtime, can’t even form a grammatically-correct sentence. It’s really embarrassing, especially in our market. There are a few good reporters, namely Elisa Harrington, Cristen Kafton, and Brooks Jarosz (who I think is outstanding). Everyone else they throw on air doesn’t belong within 500 miles of any news operation, much less part of one.
They cover the most low-effort, inconsequential stories, such as car crashes, house fires, business break-ins, and maybe a Covid story. The remaining 75-80% of their newscasts are filled with stories from Fox News (Serioulsy?), Fox Business, and KCRA Sacramento, most of these stories have zero local impact whatsoever. To add insult to injury, they run these stories on repeat for 3-4 days straight.
Plus, does no one there find it odd that a station in the San Francisco Bay Area has to fill the majority of its newscasts with stories from the Sacramento affiliate?
The anchors are checked out and phoning it in. Many openly flaunt the fact that they’re only interest is pretending to be a social media influencer. Half their anchors can’t get through a newscast without making at least eight dozen gaffes. And then you have Julie Haener who rarely shows up, Bill Martin who for some reason is still at home, and Mike Mibach who looks like he’s about to drop a load in his Depends at any moment.
The show writing is absolutely abysmal. In an area with so many educated people, why can’t they find people who know how to write AND who actually know the Bay Area? The number of incorrect references to Bay Area geography is astounding. One example is a reporter who referred to Mission Street in San Francisco as ‘Mission Drive.’ These gaffes are on par with the number of times their reporters and anchors mispronounce Bay Area cities and neighborhoods.
While there are entirely too many mispronunciations to list, a couple that stick out are Frank Mallicoat’s reference to San Anselmo as ‘San Ass-lemmo’ and the reporter who referred to Daly City as ‘Dallie City.’
Oh, and on a related note, I can’t forget the morning Dave Clark REPEATEDLY read a story throughout the morning in which he referred to Madison Bumgarner as the ‘former Giants quarterback.’ Apparently no one there is paying attention.
With very few exceptions, they offer nothing in the way of interesting, insightful, or educational news content. None whatsoever.
All of which leads you to wonder, why the hell do they have 12.5 hours of news each day? No other local station is even remotely close to that.
Having so much ‘News’ exacerbates all of the above and turns an already abysmal situation into an outright disaster.
Have fun on the way down, KTVU.
6:35pm: Wow. You make a good point about the excessive news casts on KTVU though a quick fact check: KRON has 13 hours of news. The others are much only half of what KTVU throws out there each day, NBC 11 has 5.5 hours, KPIX has 5.5 hours, and ABC7 has 6 hours.
DeleteTime for ktvu too get lean as they say.
I switched to KRON at 10:00 pm after the insufferable Mike Mibach was made permanent. I also tired of the rotating sports anchors especially seeing Jesse Gary mangle words.
Delete*If PIX wooed Terry McSweeney from NBC Bay Area to pair with Juliette Goodrich at 6, they would give ABC7 some competition and ultimately kick MAJOR ASS.
ReplyDeleteWHAT?
Show your work Rich. Why would Terry jump to PIX when they won't spend any money on actual newsgathering? Did CNN finally lose interest?
NBC IS Job Stability...look at all the other OnO's in the NBCUNI system and you will see what I mean. People don't leave NBCCUNI unless they get fired or croaked.
C'mon Rich...
Does Terry's agent support this move?
@11:58
ReplyDeleteMore importantly why even bring up McSweeney at all? Didn't Rich just mention a few weeks ago that he re-signed with KNTV? He's not going anywhere.
If KGO management wants to introduce a little more conservative news-talk into their programming, better to do that w/live and local hosts. That's the formula that worked prior, giving KGO consistent top 3 ratings. Former moderate-conservative hosts like the Jim Eason, & Bill Wattenberg are the better examples. Given the SF Bay Area audience, best to eschew hosts advocating for voting rights restrictions or restrictions on women's choice. These putative new hosts would take the place of the current nation-wide evening conservative programs. Do I think that will happen? Not a chance.
ReplyDeleteAfter John Rothmann at 7pm, conservative Jim Bohannon has a syndicated call in show and after him at 10 pm conservative John Bachelor has his show. So KGO Radio does have some balance.
DeleteRich, is there no pleasing you? Time was when you were bitchin’ and moanin’ when the Trumpsters Armstrong & Getty were in KGO’s lineup. So KGO obliged you and A&G were banished to KSFO. So now you want them - or some conservative like them - back? What do you want the station to resemble, a Walmart in Modesto?
DeleteThere is enough conservative radio in the Bay Area. KSFO is all conservative, so is 860, and if you can get Sacramento stations they too are conservative. I do like Tom Sullivan for the most part, he goes a little overboard on bashing Joe Biden, but was willing to be critical of Trump, so there is some balance. John Bachelor is a different kind of conservative than Hannity or Levin, I often find his program interesting, and he doesn't yell and scream, he also at time have programs that go back in history that I find interesting and he will highlight historical figures liberal and conservative, such as JFK, Churchill, Truman others. Jim Bohannan is okay, nothing special he will have guests on that don't necessarily agree with him, he was recently out for several months, most of his fill in host just repeated the conservative talking points. I called in to one of those hosts, Rich Valdes, because the had some derogatory remarks about my native Denmark, he kind of listened to me, and then he asked a question that had nothing to with what I called about, and then didn't let me explain.
Delete2:50, I still need to know why all of KGO 810 programming is in English. Not one single Spanish-speaking host or show.. Yet they say they’re all for diversity and inclusion. The station even let Chip denounce “white privilege” for years before he got pink-slipped for (I assume) bad ratings. How can folks at KGO blast “white privilege” and broadcast only in the language of white English colonizers?
DeleteNikki Medoro is half Puerto Rican, that should cover the Spanish issue.
DeleteNot that I want Aaron Pero back but I have to say that under Pero KRON's newscast had a lot more zip than it does now. They have this big set with all these video walls and monitors and yet I am now seeing entire prime time newscasts transpire and (excluding weather and sports) we only see the anchors behind the desk.
ReplyDeleteIt used to be KRON was the leader in set utilization. Yeah, maybe that's not saying much but it was true. KGO maybe had a bigger set but they have absolutely sucked at utilization since the moment it was installed six years ago. Even now KGO can't seem to keep their anchors on the same screen when everyone else in the Bay Area has been doing that for most of the year. Inexcusable.
So when KRON came along with its new set nearly two years ago it was like a jolt of lightning to Bay Area news. Finally someone knew how put in a good set AND make use of it to the hilt.
The other stations started taking notice (except perpetually-in-hibernation KGO). KTVU has the worst set in Bay Area TV (and they remodeled after KGO did) but even they started trying to make use of every inch of that pitiful little set. Hell, even KPIX (which had a decent set) has started making set utilization a priority but they don't have a lot of room to work with as their space is too small so they really need a new set better designed for that kind of utilization. And now NBC Bay Area which previously had a really antiquated layout has come out with the best set in Bay Area news (though there is a lighting consistency issue with one corner of the studio which is too dark) and they are making the most of it.
Meanwhile the station that started it all, KRON, has fallen behind considerably compared to KPIX and NBC Bay Area (forget about KGO...they don't want to wake up and join the 2020s). I lay the blame for this on the feet of the news director. It's no coincidence that KRON's slide backwards occurred after Pero was fired. The current news director has made KRON's news visually stagnant again.
The set is the problem?
DeleteNobody cares about the silly set(s) anymore. They care about Inflation, CrimeFlation, Bums and Junkies in the streets and teaching reading, real applied science and math. You get real viewers by covering real stories that people care about...not the stories your advertiser demand.
The 9am editorial meeting at my station is nothing but deskies and producers telling us what we CAN'T cover, and not what we CAN enterprise and cover.
Don't rock the boat, or you piss-off the sales office, or worse...
You get a call from the national sales boss in NYC asking why you want to upset Pfizer (our major local sponsor) for our news products.
This media market is all "pay for play"...we call those stories "lifestyle" fluff pieces. The rest of our stories are "must cover" and stringer car axe's.
Under Pero they had no chance at attracting the talent that has started walking thru the door. His reputation was abyssmal for favoritism and tyranny. That management change was far overdue and the fact that they're beating KTVU at 10 is testament to the fact that they've made the right move. Can they get better? Sure. But under Pero no way.
DeleteThe set isn't necessarily the problem (except at KTVU and maybe KGO which has a horrible looking newscast ever since it remodeled...and I'm talking picture quality and lighting...it's just unpleasant to watch). But when you have a set with features and you don't take advantage of it, you are screwing up your newscast. It's a style issue. You're talking about substance, which is a totally different issue. But both are important.
DeleteAaron thanks for chiming in. Your manager at Subway does not want to be late for you next shift.
DeleteThe set features? Sounds like a set design company trying to drum up business. It’s local news not CNN or Fox News.
DeleteKPIX in 1985 - best set in the market history. Simple, easy to see the newscast name, blue made the talent pop.
KUSI in San Diego - same set for 25 years, but they cover different, more community oriented stories and hire more approachable talent than the others. And they regularly pull #1.
Now I know why Killion rarely does radio interviews: She said “you know” or “I don’t know” dozens of times in a brief chat with the far more polished Marty Lurie today.
ReplyDeleteWhen the Giants don't win or play "good ball" Marty is predictable and a bore. Click! I'll go listen to a podcast and wait for the game to come on. Never criticizes the team, individual players, Kapler, Larry Baker, Farhan, Eric. Why don't they try and mix things up? Put our best 9 players on the field two games in a row and see what happens. Analytics don't work! Look at batting averages. The shift and a predictable home run or strike out or weak ground out is killing this once great game! Do better GIANTS! Do way better Manfred & MLB!
DeleteTime to move Ming Sze at 11PM Only newscast.
ReplyDeleteLeave Ming on the 3PM so the pets can watch her and the rest of us dont have to.
DeleteKNBR JV? They wouldn't even be frosh-soph. A joke.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy listening to Jon Miller on the radio and Kuip on TV; however, Flemming is like Mayo on white bread. Utterly boring and lifeless. Well educated, but he cannot tell stories, recite baseball history or offer any insight or extemporaneous thoughts.
ReplyDeleteBut, as I have mentioned before, he is excellent at whining.
ReplyDeleteKNBR hardly mention Grimer. Because no one gives a 💩 about this poor Obpressed drug carrying woke bissh!!
ReplyDeleteJulie Haener hasn’t missed work ever since your article Rich. Her bosses and co-workers can’t get her to show up for work but apparently you have the magic touch lol your influence is remarkable!
ReplyDeleteKGO/Cumulus will use the excuse of NO MONEY...Which is true. But what Cumulus really likes is LESS Talented people that will do what they are told, and not push back...What you have working at KGO these days are Low to mid-range talent that Need Jobs and don't want to get fired...Lee Hammer is a perfect example of that...Don't make waves, don't attract attention of upper management...especially the payroll dept.
ReplyDeleteWe’re rarely told what to do and that’s part of the problem. Every program operates on its own and decisions are made by the hosts. PD autopilot is not a recipe for success. Plenty of us push back and are just simply ignored. The standards are low and the excuses are endless.
DeleteSo sad to see how KCBS has disappeared down a rat hole. When morning stalwarts Stan Bunger and Steve Bitker retired it was like a baseball team losing 2 key starting pitchers. The mush-mash of different hosts on the air, the constant commercials and the technical screw ups are non-stop. Someone told me that the news anchors have to also have to produce and engineer during the entirety of their shifts, while also playing all of the commercials, watching the clock, and running the board. That’s the kind of thing you see in small markets. No wonder they have so many glitches. Ridiculous!
ReplyDeleteThe anchors have long run their own board, including Stan. It’s part of the job. It’s not easy and mistakes are made more frequent when anchors are working different shifts all the time. This station is dying from its own inconsistency.
DeleteNobody cares about Griner
ReplyDeleteYou do the crime, you do the time. When you break the laws of a sovereign nation, you are subject to their judicial system. Even though we may think we are the center of the world’s universe, there are no exceptions for Americans nor are we allowed to break laws of other countries and get released just because we’re American.
DeleteIt’s unfortunate she was sentenced to nine years but again, when you’re in Russia you’re subject to their laws - not ours.
Another cheap shit show on KCBS this morning 5:15am sports segment, a repeat from last week about Vin Scully saving someone from a water tower years ago. Are there any bay area sports going on...?
ReplyDeleteI currently do not care for any of the anchor teams, except for Hackney and Juliette on Sunday nights. But KTVU has long-time Chron crime reporter Henry Lee, and my age-appropriate crush Amber Lee.
ReplyDeleteWould y'all (including you, Rich) stop with the McSweeney-should-go-to (insert station or market here). I've known the dude for 30+ years, and as several of us pointed this out the last time his name was brought up here: Terry won't ever leave KNTV...or the San Jose area. It's more than a money thing--he cut his teeth at the old KNTV (ABC days) and loves that he's back--albeit at a bigger, better 11. And he'll never give up his anchor two days/report three days gig...because he loves reporting and is pretty damn good at it.
ReplyDeleteAs far as anchors running their own boards at KCBS. I agree that it’s cheap and sets up the possibility of technical errors. KCBS is supposed to be the leader in the ratings, But if they can’t even afford an engineer to work the board, they’re behaving like a small market. SF is a top ten market, so stop going cheap! KGO has engineers who run the boards and tell the news anchor when to take breaks. This gives the anchors a chance to focus on what they’re primarily hired to do; anchor the news! KNBR and several other stations also have producer/ engineers. Why doesn’t KCBS? They certainly have the resources to hire one or two...
ReplyDelete