Yet another historic anniversary on this day. Forty-five years ago, on Sunday February 9, 1964, Beatlemania officially began, as the Liverpool band took the stage on The Ed Sullivan Show, in front of 73 million Americans, then a record audience. Not bad for a British rock band nobody had even heard of more than a month prior.
Otherwise, here's a little roundup of what's going on, including a few things I've forgotten to write about...
Roots Up Radio hits the web
Many apologies for the delay in bringing up this one. I just plain forgot. Winter must be freezing my brain too.
Anyway, following his departure from WXXM Madison, Lee Rayburn has resurfaced via a new online project, Roots Up Radio, which launched on Inauguration Day. The new venture is described as "a new-media collective of community broadcasters from across the country."
Joining him will be Jeff Farias, formerly of KPHX in Phoenix, who's show will run 7-10ET. In addition, other hosts, including KTLK Los Angeles' Bree Walker will soon join the venture.
Roots Up Radio was founded by Joe Connolly with the intent of giving local broadcasters a forum they have lost as media corporations have grown and local programming has given way to syndicated hosts.
"Most of the hosts are veteran broadcasters," Connolly said of his planned Roots Up Radio lineup. "With all the change happening in radio, most stations seem to be run by one or two people now and there's not a lot of support for local points of view. That's what we're trying to provide."
Bye Bye, Obama 1260
As of today, liberal talk on WWRC (1260AM) in Washington, DC is no more. Replacing it is business talk, which was tried years ago on the same frequency and failed, along with many, many other formats. As they say, insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Oh well.
For those of you needing at least some kind of liberal talk fix, Ed Schultz has been moved over to sister station WTNT (570AM). And to their credit, they are airing the show live from 12-3P.
Bill Press has a Washington Post op-ed about the format change here.
And for those station programmers that can't figure out how to attract ratings with progressive talk, perhaps they should talk to whoever's running similar stations in Madison, where WXXM had a phenomenal book, or even Portland, where KPOJ is currently the #4 station overall in the market, with a 4.3 share. Oh wait - the tighty-righties are saying nobody's listening. Yeah, whatever.
It was 45 years ago today...
Oh yeah - Here's video of The Beatles' first appearance on Ed Sullivan. Enjoy!
Another video can be found here.
Eureka, CA 
2 comments:
AM-1260 could have the best programming and promotion and still have a nill audience. Why, because "nobody listens to liberal talk" (GOP TM) ? Hardly, because 5,000 watt signal licensed to WWRC is so poor it sounds more like a 500 watt station (and that's being generous). Business yack will bomb, then whatever comes next and then what ? "Progressive Talk" had a least a blip of ratings which the owners will probably remember as the good ole days :P
I did give "Money 1260" a listen online and they had a cute promo; something like "We got him elected now lets get the economy fixed! The new Money 1260!"
I'll second what TMODE said. I tried and tried to listen to 1260am, but the signal is awaful and gets even worse after 5pm, I gave up and just listened to XM radio. I don't understand radio industry and why they can't make the signals a bit stronger and why it changes after certain hours.
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