Everything's Gone Green

I don't care if I'm Irish, I usually don't do much to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. To me, it's just a day where all you non-Irish people (who normally would be directing hostile and idiotic insults toward people like me about my ancestry and family's religious background) go out, get plowed at the local watering holes and make fools out of yourselves. And on top of it all - you tell everyone you're Irish! No wonder us 'real deals' get such a bad name!

Hey, I don't go 'round telling people I'm Italian on Columbus Day. Or tell people I'm Jewish on Yom Kippur. And I certainly don't claim to be African-American on MLK Day (I don't think they'd believe me). Leave us Irish folk alone!

So, not much to report, but I'll do it in green text, just to make it look festive. Drive safe!

The Air America mystery wheel lands on... Nicole Sandler

So far, there's an opening at Air America for what was once their highest-profile time slot. The network has, in typical fashion, refrained from naming a permanent replacement for the recently departed Thom Hartmann. David Bender filled in the past two weeks, and this week, you can hear Nicole Sandler, formerly of WINZ Miami, on the network from 12-3P.

Beyond that? Who knows?

I do, however, know of at least one experienced and respected radio host that's available for a gig...

Montel's first affiliate?

Speaking of Air America, the network may have found at least one new affiliate for incoming mid-morning host Montel Williams. Robin Bertolucci, PD of KTLK in Los Angeles, is keeping her options open.

"I am definitely interested in hearing his radio show," said Bertolucci. "At this point we're trying to see what's going on with Randi Rhodes and such but I am excited to hear him," she said in an e-mail to the Orange County Register.

But Williams' new show would air live on the West Coast from 6-9A, the same time as Stephanie Miller, who's show airs from KTLK's studios. Not to worry - KTLK will not lay a finger on Miller's show.

A more likely time would be 12-3P PT. Currently, the station is airing Nancy Skinner in the time slot, but this doesn't sound permanent. And given that Skinner's 'network' is an unknown entity at this point, it may not be a long-term thing.

Randi update

Most of the emails I get concern either Nova M Radio (or what's left of it) and their former afternoon host, Randi Rhodes. The same Orange County Register article quoted above has the only thing close to an update on the status of her show. Here's what they say:

She has been off the air since she left her syndicator. Word is if and when a deal is worked out with a new company to distribute her program nationwide, she will return to the air.

And yes, that is all I know too. Randi and her people aren't known for telling anyone much about her or her show, and they most certainly don't tell me anything, so for now, it's all speculation. Same as it ever was.

ESPN Radio ups its affiliate price

So, all you radio management types that thought running a syndicated sports radio feed off the board would be a stupid-proof way to rake in some ad income, right?

Wrong.

And for this, I turn to Sports By Brooks:

...A source told me that ESPN is planning to charge some non-ESPN owned and operated sports radio stations fees to carry its radio network programming. For big markets (Top 30), the annual charge to stations is as high as $100,000.

Even in good economical times, that move is a serious horse pill to ingest for local sports talk radio stations.

My reaction, as a former sports radio program director and on-air personality for 16 years (including on ESPN radio affiliates), is that very, very few (if any) Top 30 markets would pay a six-figure sum to air ESPN network programming.

So, let's do the math. Cost to run ESPN in a large market: $100K/year.

Cost to run an all-syndicated progressive talk format: Zero, aside from ceding aside some ad time to the syndicator.

Then again, radio doesn't operate on the common sense plan.

Not green - gangrene

I was going to mention something yesterday, and even started an entry, but I got a bit distracted by reality and didn't get a chance to make a clean entry out of it all. Yesterday saw Don Imus announcing that he has stage II prostate cancer, and we also saw the announced passings of both Ron Silver kicked the bucket and yet another major city newspaper, which has bitten the dust. Pretty grim, huh?

Well, it's not like either of those two guys will get much sympathy from the types of people reading this blog, particularly Imus, if all the stories that I've heard from first-hand sources regarding his personality are true.

Probably not much love from the left for actor Ron Silver either, particularly given his ideological turnaround in recent years, as he became one of those "9/11 Republicans" that think the best way to protect our country from terrorists is to support the people who let the attacks happen (i.e. Bush and Cheney). Nonetheless, Silver had a passion for what he did, and he was a very actor, particularly in roles where the audience is supposed to really hate the character. It was too bad Jeremy Irons blew everybody off the screen in "Reversal Of Fortune", otherwise Silver's role of Alan Dershowitz would have been remembered even more fondly.

Sure, the guy came off sometimes as kind of a creep, and does anyone really believe that he was more or less 'blacklisted' from Hollywood, especially since staunch right-wingers like Robert Duvall and Adam Sandler still get lots of work? As for his political bent, who cares? Misguided or not, he was what he was.

And finally, yet another newspaper has folded. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is kaput after 146 years and shift to an online-only presence, yet another victim of the rough economy.

This move comes less than two weeks after another major daily, Denver's Rocky Mountain News, also ended its run altogether. The Tuscon Citizen will likely shut down this Saturday.

Hearst, which owns the Post-Intelligencer, put the paper on the market in January, warning that it would close down the printing presses if a buyer didn't come forward.

In addition, as yet another sign that the newspaper industry is hurting due to modern technology such as the internet and the lousy economy, Hearst has also made noise about selling or even shutting down their highest-profile paper, the San Francisco Chronicle. Tough times indeed.

Time magazine recently published a column on their website, claiming that the newspaper shuttering could go even further. They cite 24/7 Wall St. with an article that says venerable dailies such as the Chicago Sun-Times, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the Boston Globe and the Miami Herald might not make it to the end of the year, unless things turn around.


Okay, enough of the gloom and doom. Have a safe and happy St. Patty's. And by all means, if you're not Irish, don't tell people you are. Sheesh!