Joe Finan (1927-2006)

Northeast Ohio Radio legend Joe Finan, most recently at WARF in Akron, has passed away at the age of 79.

Finan was a radio legend in Northeast Ohio, with an ample resume consisting of both radio and television since the mid 1950s. Until October, Finan was the midday host at Clear Channel liberal talk WARF "Radio Free Ohio". Prior to that, he had a 20 year stint in afternoon drive at talk WNIR (100.1FM) in neighboring Kent.

Joe was born July 6, 1927. He turned 79 this past summer.

Mr. Finan’s Family is planning a private burial service to be held this weekend. No Public services are planned at this time.

New features - just in time for the holidays!

As you peek around this site, you may notice a few additions. Namely, a few show and host links, as well as some funny little orange symbols that look like . What's that, you ask? Well, that little icon is used to denote an available syndication feed. In this case, it denotes a podcast feed link.

The symbols are located next to the names of various hosts and shows to show if there is an RSS/XML feed available. From that feed, you can download podcasts (mp3's) of those particular shows.

So, how does one do this? Well, if you currently have a browser that incorporates XML, RSS or other feed reading (such as Internet Explorer 7 and Mozilla Firefox 2.0), you're all set. You can also 'copy shortcut' to insert link into your own feed reader or any podcasting program.

Many of you may already use iTunes to download podcasts and shows, and that's fine. I plan on adding iTunes links as well, for people who prefer this method, as well as for shows (such as "Real Time with Bill Maher" or Alex Jones) that seem to be available only through that service. Oh yeah, did you know HBO's excellent "Real Time" is available as an audio podcast? Or even highlights from "Countdown with Keith Olberman"? Well, you do now! Check the links.

There are also some shows that don't provide feeds, or even make programming available to services such as iTunes. Rather, they feature show archives exclusively on their websites. I have those marked with a . You can click on any of those little icons for feeds, sites, etc. Neat, huh?

What about unauthorized feeds, torrents, etc.? Uhh... I won't go there. You're on your own with that. We're trying to be legit here, okay? However, some podcasters do use torrents to spread their shows. Those may be added.

More personalities, shows and podcast-only links have been added to the listings on the right-hand column, with more to come. So far, the list consists of both commercial (Air America, Jones Radio, Nova M, etc.) and non-commercial (Pacifica, NPR, PRI, etc.) radio shows, as well as podcast-only offerings (like the hilarious Irrational Public Radio). The goal is to create as complete a list as possible of liberal talk shows, hosts and podcasts, in addition to other recommended programming that isn't necessarily political in nature (i.e. Penn Jillette, Tom Joyner), but may be of interest to readers of this site.

If you know of any that you feel should be here, or that we just plainly missed, just drop an email. I've tried to keep up with links that have been sent in (thanks to Harry O, Barry Gordon and anyone else I missed for dropping me a note).

So, while other bloggers' 'added features' consist of massive amounts of slow-loading Amazon.com ads, we're giving you more of what you want. Just our way of saying "Happy Holidays".

"Boston's Progressive Talk" flips to "Rumba" on Thursday

After weeks of speculation, Clear Channel stations WKOX (1200AM) and WXKS (1430AM) will switch from "Boston's Progressive Talk" to "La Nueva Rumba," both simulcasting a "tropical" format of primarily Spanish-language announcers and music, ranging from salsa, merengue, and bachata to the contemporary sound of reggaeton. The move will come Thursday at noon.

WKOX plans to boost its power to 50,000 watts by August. (The station currently operates at around 10,000 watts during the day.) After the upgrade, the two stations will separate , with WXKS getting its own, as yet undetermined format. Station management may look at returning the progressive talk format to WXKS when the power upgrade goes into effect, if no other station has picked it up.

Management hopes that the two stations will fare better than the similar-sounding "Mega" stations, WAMG-AM (890) and WLLH-AM (1400) which gave up on the "tropical" format and were sold.

The two stations began airing the progressive talk format, consisting of Ed Schultz and shows from Air America Radio, on October 4, 2004.

As mentioned in comments for this post, former listeners of the two simulcast stations have started a Yahoo! Group, and one supporter has reserved a domain name, Bostonprogressivetalk.net, which will be active within a few days.

Air America Radio web listenership up for October

While many people, particularly certain failed weekend disc jockeys turned shitty bloggers, have been ghoulishly awaiting the hoped-for demise of Air America Radio, there are still quite a few people who don't feel the same way. At least that's what online listening ratings are saying.

Webcast Metrics, a firm that measures online streaming listenership, has released its monthly ratings for October, showing listenership to the official Air America Radio streams improving from September.

In October, 214,526 different computers accessed the official streams of Air America between the hours of 6AM and Midnight, Monday through Sunday, compared to 199,700 during the same period in September. For the time period between 6AM and 8PM, Monday through Friday, those numbers are 165,010 and 148,856 respectively. This is referred to as the 'cume', meaning the average number of unique persons (defined as the number of different IP addresses) who listen to a station for a minimum of five minutes within a reported time period.

The ratings report, similar in some respects to the terrestrial radio ratings measured by Arbitron, also measures average quarter hour (AQH) ratings, the average of the number of listeners recorded every fifteen minutes for each station. From 6AM-8PM in October, that number is 5,129, compared to 4,824 the previous month. From 6AM-Midnight, those numbers are 3,623 and 3,498. In both surveys, Air America holds the #10 position of the top internet radio stations. Keep in mind that all of the services in the Top 10 broadcast multiple streams. Air America's main stream and its secondary stream, which currently airs only the Thom Hartmann show, are included.

Here's how the top 15 stack up, from 6AM-Midnight:

1. Digitally Imported (Electronic/Dance)
2. 1.FM (Multiple formats) (Multiple formats)
3. AccuRadio (Multiple formats)
4. 977Music.com (Multiple formats)
5. ABC Radio Group (Multiple formats)
6. RadioIO (Multiple formats)
7. ESPN Radio (Sports Talk - two streams)
8. EMF Broadcasting (Multiple religious formats)
9. Soma.FM (Electronic/Dance)
10. Air America Radio (Political talk)
11. Big R Radio (Multiple formats)
12. WNYC (Public Radio)
13. Beethoven.com (Classical music)
14. HitzRadio.com (Contemporary hit music)
15. ChoiceRadio.com (Multiple Formats)


You can see Kurt Hanson's report on the October rankings here, or go directly to the Webcast Metrics site. A month-by-month reference can also be found there.

And finally, it should be noted that the numbers provided are for the official Air America streams only. They do not include the webstreams of individual affiliates, which make up a sizeable percentage of online listening.

WHLD/Niagara Falls drops liberal talk

"The Voice of Reason" has been silenced.

The group that runs WHLD in Niagara Falls, NY, has flipped the station to a format consisting mostly of gospel music and brokered shows, effective today.

Brian Brown-Cashdollar, WHLD's president and general manager, said the station's ratings were "respectable" for a start-up station and advertising revenue shot up "tenfold" during the 10-month effort. But ultimately, it was not enough to satisfy investors concerned about cash flow.

"We went from 3,600 to about 20,000 listeners by the end of September. By all indications, we would have continued to grow," Brown-Cashdollar said.

"We've done a lot of things right, but in the end we fell short. We had a business opportunity to protect the shareholders, so we took it," Brown-Cashdollar said.

The station's license is owned by Citadel Broadcasting Corp. and will continue to be operated by Niagara Independent Media. Brown-Cashdollar said there will be layoffs but could not yet say how many.

WHLD's left-of-center format evolved out of an effort in January 2004 by the Buffalo Coalition for Progressive Media that brought Pacifica's "Democracy Now," hosted by Amy Goodman, to Buffalo. It was the first time the nationally syndicated program landed on a commercial station. At the time, much of WHLD's programming came via time brokered programming.

Eventually, the station built around the Pacifica programming, adding shows from Air America Radio, as the small AM station became a full-time progressive talk outlet. They added more locally produced shows, such as "The Newsroom," which aired mornings with Joe Schmidbauer and Grady Hawkins," "Radio Civil Liberties," "The Einach Report" and "Speakeasy radio." Schmidbauer said his abrupt dismissal came "with about five minutes notice," and expressed disappointment for "all the people whose hopes and dreams rode with us."

The station competed with another local station, Entercom-owned WWKB in neighboring Buffalo, which airs a mostly syndicated talk format consisting of hosts such as Stephanie Miller, Bill Press, Ed Schultz and Lionel. Brown-Cashdollar, in a statement on the station's homepage, encourages his former listeners to support WWKB.

"Democracy Now" will still air, for the time being, on WHLD, but will eventually move to WBBF (1120AM), which is also owned by Niagara Independent Media and carries a gospel format.

In related news comes word that KTXX-FM, located outside of San Antonio, has flipped it's format from liberal talk to a Spanish-language music format. The station is owned by Border Media Partners, which previously operated the Texas Progressive Network, and aired programming over stations in San Antonio, Dallas and Austin. The group sold Dallas affiliate KXEB in September. The sole remaining Texas Pro affiliate, KOKE in Austin, will still carry liberal talk programming. The flip of KTXX is not surprising, since they really aren't a San Antonio station, as their signal is located too far outside the city to really make an impact in the local ratings. Basically, KTXX hits a lot of Texas ranch land. The flip to a Spanish language format does make sense, in this case.

Meanwhile, reports out of El Paso say that KHRO, a newcomer of sorts to the format, has dropped liberal talk for an undisclosed format. KHRO was never a player in the El Paso market, who's demographic makeup is roughly 80% Mexican origin, and it doesn't appear that they did a whole lot to promote the mostly automated format (though, rumor has it, they did allegedly carry at least one local show). As proof of their lack of promotion, the station's rather pathetic website has, since their sign-on earlier this year, consisted of a blank page, with only a solitary link to Air America Radio's website. And they expected this to be a success? Can't wait to see what their format will be next month, and the month after that, and so on and so on...