Cleaning out the closet Part 2: Planet of the apes

Looking at the calendar, we can now see that it is indeed April, a month unofficially known as 'Green Month." April 22 marks Earth Day. And last saturday, we saw the "Earth Hour," in which entire cities turned off the lights for one evening hour across the globe and dined in candlelight. The continuing celebration of all things 'green' is evident in the radio industry.

Yates Communications received approval this week from the FCC to purchase radio station KAND (1340AM) in Corsicana, TX (south of Dallas) and announced that they will use the platform to create what they call the nation's first true "green" radio station.

"We've produced weekend syndicated earth-friendly radio content for some time. The programming ran locally in Texas' largest cities, including Dallas/Fort Worth and Houston/Galveston," says company president David Yates. "We wanted to expand our reach, but were not able find a station interested in weekday programming that encourages listeners to live a more healthy life, save money, and save the planet. We decided to do it on our own."

Veteran Dallas/Ft. Worth broadcaster Kevin McCarthy will host a show from 10A-Noon weekdays. "In Boy Scouts they taught us to always leave the campsite in better condition than we found it. I'm really excited about doing this new form of 'radio' with a great group of talented people who believe in working to make the world a better place and having fun doing it!" exclaimed McCarthy.

"Green Radio" is looking at a June 1 launch, and will displace KAND's current classic country format.

Yates Communications' new venture may create the first full-time 'green' radio station, but other stations are also flashing the green. There is, of course, progressive talker KKGN (960AM) in San Francisco, which heavily promotes the enviro-friendly lifestyle in promotions and a daily talk show hosted by Angie Coiro. Down the coast, 'hot talker' KLSX (97.1FM) says that it's going "green" for the month of April, dedicating the period as "Earth Month" and offering "green" promotions, programming, and information. Events will include a screening of the documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car?" with director Chris Paine on April 23rd.

VP/GM Bob Moore said that he is "excited that we have the opportunity to provide information to our listeners on ways they can help our planet. Everyone wants to do something to help, we just want to make it easier for our listeners by giving them ideas that are simple and painless."

And green programming is spreading to other ventures. Cary Harrison, who's late, lamented show on KTLK in Los Angeles, "Harrison On The Edge," was utterly brilliant, is back with "Think Green Radio with Harrison," which launches in over 30 markets throughout the U.S., including Boston, San Francisco, Washington, DC, Denver, Indianapolis, Raleigh, Norfolk and New Orleans. Welcome back, Harrison.

And then there's the other side. Of course, right-wingers, who seek to create nonsensical black-and-white political issues out of everything, poo-poo anything connected to environmental awareness, since so-called 'tree-huggers' make such convenient targets for ridicule (as anal retentive fundie gasbags like the Falwell/Robertson crowd do for us). In celebration of last Saturday's Earth Hour, wingnut talk radio outlet KQTH (104.1 The Truth) in Tuscon and their morning man Jon Justice (obviously not his real name) reacted to the whole concept by going live on Saturday night during the appointed hour, for an "Hour of Power" that encouraged listeners to use more energy. Callers, who evidently dialed the station up with the same knuckles they drag across the ground as they walk, said they were turning on every appliance and light in their houses to protest the environmentalists' message for Earth Hour. Oh, those wacky wingnuts...

Of course, leave it to the holier-than-thou hide-behind-the-flag crowd to constantly fly in the face of tact and good taste. At least everyone's favorite facist MILF Melanie Morgan, the queen of bullshit bluster, got her comeuppance as the media monster environment that initially created her was the same one to kill her radio career. For fourteen years, Morgan tortured the airwaves of San Francisco with her over-the-top histrionics and blatant attention whoring. She even issued her own personal fatal fatwas against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and New York Times editor Bill Keller. She also claimed that billionaire financier and philanthropist George Soros of “cheerfully and willingly went to work for the Nazis... in order to further his own career (insert ironic punchline here).“ Pot, meet kettle. Last month, in an example of sheer irony, Morgan got the axe by Citadel Communications, owner of KSFO, due to budget cuts. In the real world, we call that karma.

And finally, the recent cutbacks in the radio industry have likely left a void of talent (if you could consider right-wing talkers to be 'talent'). But have no fear - there's new programming on the way. That is, if you could call 20 year-old Presidential speeches 'new.' Somewhere in radioland, somebody got the bright idea to recycle snippets of old Ronald Reagan speeches into new programming content for conservotalk stations, whose listeners crave decades-old ideas. But Reagan Radio? Hey, why not get it straight from the source, right?

I guess this fits into the whole 'green' concept of recycling, as these hoary old radio addresses have been regurgitated into a series of 30 two-minute radio commentaries. The segments are being produced by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation. The non-political segments, airing under the title "Ronald Reagan Speaks For Himself," features Reagan speaking on issues such as the economy, immigration, abortion, terrorism, taxes and more, though somehow, I don't think it will sound like this. Nonetheless, I'm sure you all can't wait for this.

Cleaning out the closet Part 1: The industry shell game

Quite often, there are many little goings-on in the radio and media world that are difficult to really flesh out into individual articles. Or there is quite a bit that I may have missed over the course of a few days or weeks or whatever. Over the past month, there were a few items that fell by the wayside. As I write this, I found that I had so much to talk about that I actually had to split it up into three parts. Let's play catch-up, shall we? Here's part one, in which we touch base with happenings in the broadcast industry.

First, there's been a lot going on in the industry. The Sirius/XM merger got closer to reality, as the Department of Justice gave their stamp of approval to Sirius' $5 billion buyout of its satellite radio rival. despite the hurdles thrown out by the land radio-based lobbying group National Association of Broadcasters, regulators felt that the merger is not likely to substantially hurt competition or consumers. The merger still has to pass FCC muster, but it looks like it will get the green light from Chairman Kevin Martin, a notorious fan of overly-consolidated radio.

Although the merger of the only two satellite radio companies will basically create a monopoly, the move could be good for listeners who have had a difficult time choosing between the two. Sirius honcho Mel Karmazin has been floating around the idea of a la carte packages, available for as low as $6.95 a month, to make it go down smoother.

Though detractors claim that the satellite radio merger will create a sanctioned monopoly, all parties involved may see a new kind of competition, from the phone companies. AT&T and Verizon were the big winners in the recent FCC spectrum auction, in which chunks of the 700MHz broadcast spectrum were sold to the two telephone giants. In addition, the conditions of the sale will also allow third parties, such as Google, to participate in one form or another. What's to become of the so-called "C Block"? Likely, we'll see some form of the much-promised Wi-Max technology, which will bring more wireless internet service to portable devices. And with that, people could simply listen to internet radio or more personalized services such as Pandora. with much more efficiency. Nobody knows what exactly will go on with this reallocated spectrum, which is currently being used by television channels 52-69 and will be vacated next February when the country switches full time to digital broadcasting. Which reminds me, have you antenna heads requested your DTV tuner box coupons yet?

While Sirius, XM and the telecommunications industry have something to smile about, the same could not be said for Clear Channel, a company that saw its fortunes skyrocket during the Bush Era. Unfortunately, those same fortunes turned to dust as the Bush Era economy has gone down the toilet. With banks currently afraid of lending money to anyone, this bodes poorly for their proposed sale to a pair of venture capital firms. What comes around goes around...

Elsewhere in the radio industry, the HD Digital Radio Alliance only wishes it had the problems of these 'Masters of the Universe' (borrowing a line from Tom Wolfe). Yes, HD Radio is still around and they're still peddling this poorly-promoted technology, which as of late seems to have fallen off the face of the earth. The cure for this ailment? A new marketing campaign, of course.

They're claiming that consumer awareness of HD Radio is high, at around 77%. But let's get real here - the Alliance's bungling has made it too difficult, expensive and confusing to actually obtain a radio capable of hearing it. Granted, a few auto manufacturers have signed on, most notably Ford and Volvo. But just try finding an after-market audio unit that doesn't require a separate tuner (bringing back the dreaded days of the old FM converters for AM factory units back in the 70s). The earlier generation HD Radio units had their flaws, and seem to have disappeared from the marketplace. Retailers have no clue how to sell them. And where are the portable units? People don't listen to radio that's plugged into a wall socket, unless they're at work, and broadcast signals often have problems penetrating those big glass cubes that house many of these workers. HD Radio has potential (except for the AM part of it, which is a really bad idea), the side channel concept is a really good one, and the technology has room to grow. But it's simply not ready for prime time, and until the Alliance becomes less concerned with collecting royalties off it and becomes far more focused on attracting consumers, it may go the way of AM Stereo. Such wasted potential.

Air America 3.0? Not for the impatient

Okay, so as you all know by now I have awoken from my long slumber. And after withdrawing almost completely from everything LTR, I decided to do a little catch-up. One of the first stops was the website of Air America Radio.

The first thing I noticed was, apparently with the new ownership and the passing of their fourth birthday a couple days ago, yet another website redesign. This following their most recent remodeling last May. And yes, the old logo is back, for those of you who like the whole throwback look.

So now, Air America Premium is now called "OnDemand." Doesn't seem like the whole concept has changed, except they now offer condensed recaps of the shows (a good idea). They also offer a la carte choices, so if you like Lionel (c'mon, admit it) but don't like Randi Rhodes, you can subscribe that way. Hey, they even claim that they'll have the stuff up immediately, which I guess is motivation for the smart folk who have wised up to the fact that they can get Rhodes, Rachel Maddow and Thom Hartmann shows via individual radio station websites (thanks, Clear Channel!). And yes, you still gotta pay, though they offer a two week trial to get hooked on it.

So, about the redesign. Well, compared to the clean look of the last incarnation, this one takes some getting used to. Actually, it's rather confusing. But they added quite a bit of stuff. Widgets. Lots and lots of widgets. Widgets with news headlines, blog posts from guest bloggers, show hosts and website guy Sam Seder himself, and whatever else can possibly be turned into a widget. Audio clips that they promise will be up-to-date (in case you're tired of that Mark Crispin Miller interview from three years ago that was prominently featured for what seemed like forever).

Likely, this is all part of the grand plan to give Air America a stronger web presence. As they should. Heck, Huffington Post came out of nowhere just a few years ago and is now more popular than the stalwart Drudge Report. Air America has been dragging ass on the online front from the get-go, not even coming close to realizing its potential. They have long missed the opportunity to become a go-to spot for the left, as HuffPo, Daily Kos, Democratic Underground, Buzzflash and others have become.

But if they are going to even come close to getting to that point, they better open up the tubes. This fancy-schmancy new site is a P-I-G pig! The slowest thing on the internet since 12 year-old kids started slapping up their own gaudy graphics-clogged Angelfire pages back in 2000 or so. So slow that I hit the link, got up, smoked a cigarette, walked the dog, washed the dishes, came back and it was still trying to load. I normally use Firefox, so I thought that perhaps it wasn't optimized for the browser yet (a big no-no). I tried it on the new Windows version of Apple's Safari 3.1 browser (which, to be warned, Apple may try to foist on you next time you update iTunes). A little faster, but didn't even load the first time. Next, I tried the dreaded Internet Exploder. Loaded up much faster, but it looks like complete hell. A box popped up eventually on Firefox claiming that the site was asking to load funny scripts. What the hell is going on here?

The newest incarnation of airamerica.com looks like an exercise in all the newest web programming fads, including enough Web 2.0 stuff to make your head spin, and other gimmicks, bells and whistles that most everyday browsers can barely understand.

Perhaps I'm the only one who's noticed this. After all, my system is getting a bit long in the tooth. Or maybe not, judging from the complaints on Air America's site, which bitch about incompatibility with Firefox, problems with accessing audio files and archived shows, streaming issues, and all the meat-and-potatoes stuff that people currently go to Air America's site for.

Perhaps the unacceptable sluggishness of the new Air America site is merely due to growing pains. Maybe they just have to open the pipes a bit. Maybe the webmaster is holding out for more money. I'll give them some time to get their act together and make it all functional once again. Hey, I may even get used to it and learn to like it. But if this is a sign of things to come, I'd better stock up on cigarettes.

Shakeups in New York, Sacramento and Palm Springs

In my month-long sabbatical from LTR, I was surprised that I didn't really miss a whole heck of a lot. I noticed that comparable blogs, on both sides, have been rather quiet as well. So, I guess I picked the perfect time to be burnt out.

There are a few situations to catch up on, just to keep y'all in the know. First in New York, WWRL (1600AM) has been undergoing some radical changes as of late. First, morning man Richard Bey left the station, due to what has been cited as a 'personal situation.' And now, the flagship station of Air America Radio has suddenly found itself with a whole lot less Air America. First, hometown host Lionel is gone, replaced by infomercials. Thom Hartmann has now been replaced by Ed Schultz. And Clout has been replaced by Al Sharpton's syndicated show. All that's left really of Air America on the station is Randi Rhodes and Rachel Maddow.

Air America is said to be looking for another New York station that could be more of a full flagship. Meanwhile, a more limited agreement will keep some Air America programs where they are.

And while Hartmann is no longer on WWRL, he has picked up four affiliates. WINZ (940AM) in Miami (where he replaces Ed Schultz), WZNZ (1460AM) in Jacksonville, WNWF (1120AM) in Destin, FL and KBAI (930AM) in Bellingham, WA are now carrying his show.

In Sacramento, progressive talk and Air America are gone for good, as KSAC (1240AM) has pulled the plug, flipping last Friday to gospel music as KRJY. "It's not a ratings thing - we have plenty of listeners," said nighttime host Mike Malloy on his show. "KSAC is experiencing what most other liberal talk show format stations are experiencing - it's not a lack of audience, it's a lack of business support." Meaning that the station isn't selling much in the way of advertising. Of course, selling advertising time on a station with no sales staff is a challenge in itself.

Owner/GM Paula Nelson said that she's happy with her decision."I was ready for this change - I just wasn't having fun anymore," Nelson says. "The whole political thing has gotten nasty, dirty and contentious."

And it didn't help that major political companies didn't support the station during its four years as a liberal talk radio station, she says.

"There are all these Sacramento Democratic organizations that haven't spent a dime on (advertising) for our station," Nelson says. "To them I say, 'You did this - you were complicit, you shut us down.'

"If you're not sending us the marketing dollars, then you're part of the problem."

Malloy said that his network, Nova M Radio, is currently searching for a new home for his show.

In Palm Springs, some listeners of KPTR (1340AM) have been a little worried about some developments at their owner, RR Broadcasting. In a complicated set of transactions, the company is buying the station's former FM sister, KWXY, and selling one of their stations to a Spanish-language broadcaster, which plans to move the station closer to the Riverside/San Bernadino area. KWXY's easy listening format will move to its former home at 1340AM, displacing progressive talk. But not to worry - progressive talk will survive. The format will move to 1450, replacing mostly-wingnut talker KGAM. The move is expected to take place in the next few months.

Time to say goodbye

Well, here it is. The last post ever on LTR.

Yes, after three and a half years, I have decided to wrap this thin....

APRIL FOOL!!!

Okay, just kidding. Yes, I have returned after a long-deserved siesta from this blog. Why so long? Well, I got burned out by it, and bogged down by real life. Like Garry Trudeau, the longtime cartoonist who created "Doonesbury" and is currently on his own three month hiatus, I decided to step away and recharge the batteries a bit. I was getting a bit tired of it, and pretty discouraged by the overall state of the dying medium of radio, the ridiculous state of news reporting, where some ridiculous 'controversy' involving Barack Obama's outspoken former preacher gets more airtime than the economy or how John McCain angled to send much-needed defense industry jobs to his cronies in Europe.

But I've heard the calling from you. You told me to get off my ass and get back to work. So back to work at LTR I am, fully recharged and ready to rock and roll.

Yep, the bitch is back!