In an ironic way, KNBR has been, at the very least, devalued. KGO is, in effect, competing with KNBR, how funny is that? And take away the 49ers and Giants and you basically have a KGO on KNBR. Here's proof positive and ratings don't lie.
Cumulus is not likely to ambush the all-sports (680 AM/104.5 FM) outlet in such a manner anytime soon but down the road? Most certainly and save a few million bucks along the way.
There's a clause in the 49ers/Giants contract with Cumulus that states, (in so many words) if a new format is initiated, then it, (the client) can talk about it with broadcast partner; given the NFL's in bed with gambling folks, I don't think it'd be an issue and the Giants? They don't have much leverage anymore.
Consider the variables here.
Either way, Bay Area radio suffers and is in formal dire straits now.
It's a crock and a further marginalization of just how lousy our media guys here have been in steady decline, talk about "devalued." Which is why you come to me and get the real deal.
*Pat Thurston was on my hit list early on; I didn't like her wacky cackle and her ultra-left politics collided with my more centrist-left views but she won me over in time; I liked her interviews and news-talk substance and she navigated the topics of pop culture, politics and breaking news real well.
Rothmnann is good-regard him as much; the idea he won't be broadcasting on Election Day with Thurston is a travesty.
*The KPIX-Juliette Goodrich experiment with a standing anchor looking back to a monitor is better than what was PIX's prior look but that's it, a look. I want more substance and meat loaf-TV news; how 'bout some talk-back interviews and multiple live shots from the mayor's office? What about MOS interviews in Oakland on the crime wave? Hard news and presentation is hard work but the rewards are aplenty and they work. Furthermore, Goodrich has both the acumen and talent to pull it off.
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John Rothmann was very fair to his callers, no matter what end of the political spectrum they belonged to. One of the problems with right-wing radio is that they want an echo chamber of right-wing viewpoints, and they bash and ridicule anyone with a different point of view. This is what made KGO, and in particular, John Rothmann, unique. Yes, most of KGO's shows had a liberal slant, but they allowed dissenting viewpoints on the air. I learned so much by listening to KGO. You are right that it is a travesty that John and Pat won't be on the air during the upcoming election. That is a long standing tradition which will be sadly missed.
ReplyDeleteAgreed 100% here in San Diego. KGO was my go-to station online everyday, and I observed for years that Rothmann was almost always willing to allow right-wingers to voice their beliefs––even though he would lose his patience after awhile. That said, I have not heard many ultra-right-wing hosts on any station––local or otherwise––who exhibit the kind of patience that Rothmann showed daily.
DeleteThere is no important or interesting contested election in KGO's area of coverage.
Delete@12:28 are you kidding? He wasn't fair at all. He would regularly talk over them and alot of the time "had enough" and cut them off. And he would pick the craziest few so that Marge in Marin and Diane in San Francisco could then call in and do the whole echo chamber thing..."Can you believe that person?", "Trumpers", etc. All call screening. Be smarter. Drink less kool-aid.
DeleteI think you were listening to another John Rothmann than the rest of us. When a caller would nail him on an inaccuracy, his standard response was to talk over the caller, lower their volume and hang up on them. He didn't want to debate people who knew more about a subject than him.
DeleteWith all due respect, this is astounding! Don’t confuse people with the facts.
DeleteRothmann was often a bully to his callers who did not agree with him. That was a big turnoff.
DeleteThe only KGO talk host who treated his listeners with respect and never bullied anyone was Al “Jazzbo” Collins
DeleteNo talk radio in the Bay Area. But multiple sports content that is horrible in every instance. KGO should just run Christmas music year round to get better ratings. Cheap too.
ReplyDeleteNot so fast. KGO would find a way to eff up playing endless Xmas music.
DeleteJust came to reiterate Greg Papa is a play by play announcer. On Kittle's fumble yesterday, he got so behind in describing the play because of his formation/terminology jumble that he went from Jimmy G rolling out to "Fumble" and missed the part where Jimmy threw it to Kittle and Kittle fumbled. He also rarely mentions yardage in a play and you have to wait for him to give the line of scrimmage to figure it out in your head what might have happened. He just doesn't want to "paint a picture" - he's more interested in dropping football terminology that he never explains and thinks will impress you. He's broadcasting to his ego, not the listener. Also, why doesn't John Lund give the scores of other games during the halftime show? Alright, I'm done.
ReplyDeleteI listened to most of the game at work, and at one when the score was 17-3 ol "papa bear" said the Panthers needed to go for two here,huh??? And after 4 years his touchdown call sounds as forced,contrived,and insincere as ever..on Monday's johnny lund kisses his 4 hours same thing knbr plays his calls 20 times a day,enough alrrady
DeleteCouldn’t KGO have a “mash-up” format that would combine politics with gambling? With Rothmann and Thurston calling out the odds, listeners could place bets on the election outcomes in all county, state and federal races?
ReplyDeleteIs the irritating honking horn they had before traffic reports gone? If so, that's a positive.
ReplyDeleteYes, the honking horn while I was driving my car would constantly scare the crap out of me. Never got immune to the sound and don't think I would want to. I would always look hard all around and still felt like perhaps I missed something. The horn sound used this way when the intended audiene is mostly driving a car should be ilegal.
DeleteKGO, like every other legacy talk radio station was TRIBAL. It was there to create programming that would attract an audience of die-hard party specific political cultists who tune into an echo chamber of narratives to feed their respective confirmation bias... in this case a Far-Left DNC focus...
ReplyDelete560 KSFO serves the TRIBAL RIGHT..
The realvreason KGO couldnt succeed ia new media and long format programming on YouTube.
Joe Rogan, Tim Pool and other talking heads are gathering huge audiences due to their formats and unashamed curiosity and skepticism..
Unlike legacy media, they were correct on subjects like Kyle Rittenhouse, Covington Kids, Jussie Smollett, Trump-Russia Hoax... and so much more.
Why???
Because, they didnt just run with spoonfed narratives that came out of The Establishment Elite created to Gaslight us.
I cant blame Cumulus for wanting to be profitable... they think they can sell more Ad spots with their new format by attracting more of the 18-35 males to the station.
Joe Rogan = Moron. Enough said
DeleteThe subjects you say right wing media was right one, just shows how you didn't bother to find alternative opinions. First of all no one I listened to that were liberal supported Jussie Smollett after all the facts came out. The Rittenhouse case was much more nuanced than right wing portrayed, doesn't mean I think the verdict was wrong, but it was not black and white, neither was the Russia issue.
DeleteYes, of course a business wants to be profitable, but KGO was profitable before Cumulus got involved. The issue is what Rich is writing about, with the demise of KGO the Bay Area is left without a radio talk station that is not conservative. It is a huge void. Those of you who are conservative have several choice, liberals had one choice, and still some think we shouldn't even have that.
18-35 males do not typically listen to AM radio. Period. Unless you give them a reason to, and also if you tell them about it so that they'll seek it out. Cumulus does no promotion whatsoever, so pretty much 99.99 percent of 18-35 males in their coverage area will never even know about the new format on 810, much less actually listen to it. A few will stumble upon it, but the idea that you can "attract" 18-35 males by changing up a format on AM radio and letting it sit there is inherently flawed logic: Cumulus really has no clue how to do radio.
DeleteC'mon you guys..KGO after 2011 was just a shadow of its former self. I listened for about one more year on and off and started having dreams of my spleen being removed. The real question here is who the heck would want to even work for the cloud on the radio side of things? Horrible to dedicated employees and horrible to dedicated listeners.
ReplyDeleteEvery one of the KGO hosts at the turn of the 21st century was a No 1 talent, unparalleled throughout the country: Ronn, Pete, Gene, Ray - and yes, Bernie. On the weekends, Len the Lawya and Dr Bill were also top class. Imagine the selfish greedy stupidity of Cumulus to can them and replace with low cost second stringers
ReplyDeleteHere comes more erectile dysfunction ads
ReplyDeleteRemember when Peter McGowan was looking for investors to buy the Giants? KTVU and KNBR we're in for 5% apiece. What do you think that 5% is worth today?
ReplyDeleteKNBR is NOT RADIO - it is babbling morons who think they are funny, hip, and intelligent (on which they are wrong). They can’t think on their feet. Days of gushing about Draymond’s punch, days of yakking about Jimmy G, weeks of describing the Giants as “still in it”. (Any real Giants fan could see they were toast by the all-star game). Add some idiotic drivel about their musical tastes, or dinner menu, and you have days, weeks, months of Shee-Tay radio. Please Cumulus, pull the plug on this fetid cesspool known as KNBR🙏🙏🙏
ReplyDeleteIt has to sting Bay Area Progressives that KSFO is still on the Air as a Conservative station! Let's face it Liberals never do well in talk radio they never have. One word Air America! Political talk radio is been dominated by Radio Giants such as Rush for decades and most likely will always be that way. All you had with KGO the past few years was My Kids My Kids My Kids, Trump Trump Trump & PG&E PG&E PG&E Than you had poor old Mark T The one man liberal Armstrong & Getty! My biggest question is what will come of the Ronnnnnn Owens Memorial Studio?
ReplyDelete"Progressives" do best with their nighttime shows on Comedy Central. The network just fits.
DeleteHow on earth did Andrea Nakano got the 11:00 spot, shouldn’t Brian Hackney get that spot??
ReplyDeleteOne programming move that Cumulus did: Moving Westwood One's national sports broadcasts to 810. I noticed during the Raiders-Chiefs game that 1050 had ESPN Radio and 680 its regular talk show. Only later tonight did I find the game on 810 after I couldn't tune in to either of the Raiders network stations that normally reach my area at night (KGB 760 in San Diego and KHTK 1140 out of Sacramento).
ReplyDeleteWith the demise of KGO perhaps it's an opportunity for Rothmann to move over to TV. Local TV is sadly lacking in editorial or commentary content. Phil Matier touches on commentary at times. We could use more "Thinkers" on TV, even if they are elderly.
ReplyDeleteI haven't listened to all of it, but the "KGO in Exile" post mortem with Thompson, Rothmann, Thurston, Kim et al today is very interesting. Sadness, anger, but in general they were all very realistic. You can get to it via Twitter.
ReplyDeleteThese people mistakenly believe they were God's gift to the Bay Area, that they will be sorely missed, and are pursuing a subscriber-only version of their wisdom and acuity to save the world from collapse. Nikki Medoro? In three months they will be forgotten.
DeleteKPIX side - Can’t complain about Goodrich, does an amazing job as always anchoring.
ReplyDeleteAndrea Nakano is again taking care of the 11pm on a 4th straight week, not to mention she was anchoring sports on Saturday night. Lets hope Nakano stays for the 11pm news on weeknights. She is amazing.
Andrea Nakano is doing an excellent job anchoring at 11:00 pm at KPIX. If Sara Donchey declined the slot then Andrea should be permanent anchor. I quit watching KGO7.
Delete4:01 pm. You're right. KGO was hardly worth listening to once Cumulus decimated it.
ReplyDeleteWhat about Lee Hammer. PD, VP of KGO and KNBR? Did they can his ass? Because, he never wanted to run KGO after Kevin Metheney's death at his desk in 2015. KGO meant nothing to him, in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteHe was absolutely clueless how to run a KFI type winning news/talk station. He gutted it. Awful. I hope they had the common sense to show him the door!
Lee Hammer was in fact fired and is no longer working in radio in the Bay Area. Good riddance jerk! Hammer couldn't find his way out of a paper bag. He ruined KNBR & KGO. Clown! Maybe they'll bring back lil' Bob Agnew.
DeleteIf they promise never to air a Kars4Kids commercial, I'll listen.
ReplyDeletekars for kids and pre-recorded Tax Deal ads continue apace on the new station. The advertising strategy in effect is play your crap everywhere, so the format change did not affect those ads.
DeleteYou mean you don’t want a ‘maximum tax dedication and vacation voucher?’
DeleteGoodrich looks overwhelmed to me. She needs a co-anchor. A real dumb idea.
ReplyDeleteThank you for accurately calling our local shitpile, otherwise known as SFGate, what it is, lamestream media.
ReplyDeleteI stopped reading their site a few years ago and I haven’t looked back. I couldn’t take anymore of their plagiarism, the nonstop stories about the ‘best’ this and the ‘best’ that, endless coverage of burritos and the never-ending bombardment of awful photos of purple houses. The nail in the coffin for me was learning that virtually all of their ‘editors’ are millennial or gen-z wannabe social media influencers. They obsess on their Tik Tok and Instagram follower counts. Very, very few have any background in anything even remotely related to journalism.
Once in a while a friend will send me an article from that site. clicking the link to read an article takes me to a site cluttered up with an endless stream of ads, click bait content, ‘sponsored’ stories, and pop ups.
CBS / Paramount has no clue about what to do with its local station newscasts. Some latest bean-counting types have undertaken making KPIX and its sisters elsewhere "CBS News Bay Area" and it has bitten off more than it can chew giving local O&O news operations a completely new architecture. Some branding shows KPIX and some tries to make it look like a replica of the network broadcast, thus the "With Juliette Goodrich" thing. It's a complete muddle, and all KPIX needed was more muddle and indecision.
ReplyDeleteSorry Rich, there's no world where MOS is news.
ReplyDeleteEven though I like Goodrich her slot misses something. I find my self changing the channel.
ReplyDelete