It’s Bernie Times Three!

I see a lot of people searching for news on Bernie Ward.  He does have a blog where someone posts his writing.  It’s titled The Lion of the Left Speaks.  Here are his three recent postings:

Supply and Demand in the Oil Market

http://lionoftheleft.blogspot.com/2012/03/30-off-sale.html

Big Banks

http://lionoftheleft.blogspot.com/2012/03/for-onceyou-have-them-by-shorthairs.html

Easter Thoughts

http://lionoftheleft.blogspot.com/2012/03/going-on.html

By the way, I hate the new Facebook format.  I can’t see any of the discussions unless I open a Facebook account.  I’ve noticed the number of ‘Likes’ on the Facebook page of FormerKGOListeners is dropping.  And those are people WITH a Facebook account.  Now, people like me without an account cannot see what others are writing about KGO and the former hosts.  I enjoyed reading everyone’s opinions.  Now I’m stuck with Rich Lieberman’s blog but I love those commenters.  Read it for the comments if you can get through some of the strange, rambling posts.

Cumulus Media email blasts Radio Station Owners

Cumulus Media is out promoting their new conservative talk radio host.  According to an article by MailOnline, Cumulus has sent email blasts to station executives promoting their new syndicated show as a ‘safe’ alternative to an unnamed ‘you know who’.  Gee, Cumulus, who could that be?

Here’s the article:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2116696/Radio-Rivals-Mike-Huckabee-lined-poach-Rush-Limbaughs-listeners-war-airwaves.html

The Rock and Roll of Radio over the Decades

Photo by extranoise

Yesterday, I caught the end of a show on PBS and it was fascinating.  It mirrors many of the issues we are dealing with today in talk radio.  Not to mention that any of us, older than thirty, remember those days of listening to our favorite rock stations and the DJ’s who worked there.

*

*

*

I’m not familiar with the show and tried to look it up so I could watch the entire thing, and I find out it’s a movie that PBS has picked up for play, Airplay: The Rise and Fall of Rock Radio.

I’ve just begun searching for it to watch again.  It can be purchased by DVD or seen on PBS channels.  From the ten or fifteen minutes I saw yesterday, at the end of the show it was mentioned that some independent stations/websites have started to recreate the sound of the past decades of music, as it sounded to listeners at the time.  I’m just learning about all of this now, so I might be wrong about that, but I found some links that might help explain what it is.

Here are some links:

The Airplay Channel –

http://www.theairplaychannel.com/

Local PBS Stations Guide to Airplay –

http://www.theairplaychannel.com/airplay-movie/

A brief forum discussion about it –

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/archive/index.php/t-243375.html

And, even our own Ben Fong-Torres wrote about it in September 2011 –

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/09/01/PKJD1KR7OP.DTL

Rock on!

Bernie Says ‘I Told You So’ about KGO

Here’s what Bernie Ward says, short and sweet:

http://lionoftheleft.blogspot.com/2012/03/and-another-thing.html

Also, in my last post I mentioned that MZ of KSCO Santa Cruz read a letter on the air written by Lisa Golanty who is a member of the Facebook page of FormerKGOListeners  (http://www.facebook.com/FormerKGOListeners) and told her to call in to the station to talk about it.  This happened in the last five minutes of Dr. Bill’s program on Tuesday so I was hoping to hear the call on Dr. Bill’s Wednesday show but nothing was mentioned about it.  Except, Dr. Bill did say, again, how he thought the boycott uproar over Rush Limbaugh’s syndicated program was orchestrated by only a few loud-mouths who wanted to make it sound like a huge following but were, probably, only a handful of listeners.

Now, I see that KSCO has posted a poll on their radio website (http://www.surveybuilder.com/s/Jaa-whGCwAA ), as well as a question on their Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/KSCOSantaCruz), for listeners to vote whether or not KSCO should pull Rush’s show.  In some of the comments I see Lisa joined in the discussion.  You Go, Girl!

Oh, and be sure to ‘Like’ the Facebook page of FormerKGOListeners when you go over there!

Well, well, well… KSCO calls out a listener from Facebook’s FormerKGOListeners

I listen to Dr. Bill Wattenburg now every Monday-Wednesday from 12Noon-2:00pm on Santa Cruz station KSCO.  Yes, that station.  The one where Ray Taliaferro lit up the phone lines during his Ray vs. Kay match-up.

I, also, used to read the Facebook page of FormerKGOListeners several times per week to get my old-KGO news.  That is, I was able to read it until a few days ago when Facebook changed its user interface to a timeline format and I can’t read the discussions on there without a Facebook account.  Not ‘gonna’ happen.

But I sure wish I could see what’s going on in the postings there.  One of the admins from FormerKGOKListeners wrote a letter to station manager, Michael Zwerling (who likes to refer to himself as MZ), about the recent Rush Limbaugh uproar.  Long story short, the Admin, Lisa Golanty, is not happy with Rush’s behavior and wants MZ to stop carrying Limbaugh’s syndicated programming.  Until that happens, Lisa will not listen to KSCO and will boycott the local advertisers on his program.  That is the extent of what I can see on the Facebook page.

So, today, I’m listening to Dr. Bill’s program on KSCO and at the very end of the second hour, MZ calls in to Dr. Bill so he can read a letter on the air.  First, Dr. Bill makes some sort of statement about how surprised he is that more women are not calling his show to talk about Rush, and that, in his opinion, the letters and email the station KSCO has received to date seem to be only a handful of out-spoken people.  He said that the response has been so minimal that he believes MZ will no longer hold back any local advertising on Rush’s show and will go ahead and play the spots from now on.  MZ chimes in that he just might do that.  Why should he run Rush’s show ad-free now that it seems there is no threat of a boycott to his local sponsors?  Then he and Bill have a good chuckle about it.

MZ tells Bill, you know, let me read you one of the letters that threaten to boycott.  They both laugh, and Bill says, go ahead.  So MZ reads Lisa Golanty’s letter to him on the air and tells her to call his show tomorrow to talk about it.

I was working so I’m not sure if I heard everything correctly, so please let me know if I’ve misunderstood something. (I’m sure the station will post the podcast eventually).

It’s as if MZ is making fun of Lisa for writing him a letter of protest and now he wants to talk to her on the air.

Why would anyone call that station?  I don’t think anyone is even listening to that station any longer (except to hear Dr. Bill).  I don’t see anything about this incident on the Facebook where Lisa is Admin (but I can’t see half of the discussions since the format change).

So, if you have a Facebook account, go over there and let her know.  It’s on! (and, no, I’m not going to say like Donkey Kong)

http://www.facebook.com/FormerKGOListeners

Don’t forget to ‘Like’ their page!

I hope I can listen tomorrow.  If not, then Dr. Bill is not on the air again, locally, until Monday.  There is no reason to listen to that station after Wattenburg signs off.  But I would love to hear what MZ has to say.  I think Lisa will be able to hold her own against that guy.  If only she knew about it…

Is There Hope in this new Radio-Land of ours?

Mike Stern of Talent Mechanic.com still has hope for the radio industry (yes, but has he met Cumulus Media yet?).  Stern’s article refutes ‘Why Terrestrial Radio Will Never Be Great Again’ in response to Rick Aristotle Munarriz’s AOL post.

hmmm… I know of two Bay Area radio hosts who might want to use Mr. Stern’s services: Karel and Rich Lieberman.

Here’s the link to the Talent Mechanic.com article:

http://talentmechanic.wordpress.com/2012/03/02/defending-the-medium-radio-already-is-great/

His article was in response to this post:

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/03/01/why-terrestrial-radio-will-never-be-great-again/

(Read the comments on this one)

I appreciate the optimism of our Talent Mechanic, but I wonder if he’s heard a Cumulus station recently.  I’d love to hear his feedback on that.

What do you think?

What You See Is What You Get

And I see nothin’…

Photo by MTHarden

Facebook changed its user interface and I no longer have access to the Facebook page of FormerKGOListeners (http://www.facebook.com/FormerKGOListeners).  I can see only what the admins post but when I try to get into the good stuff, the place where anyone adds to it, I’m blocked with a Login prompt.  So, there goes my fix of FormerKGOListeners.  I’ll have to go it alone now and find things of interest on my own.  I liked the variety of the Facebook page with so many great comments and thoughts posted there.  Oh, well…  The last thing I want to do is register for a Facebook account.  Not interested.  The only useful page I’ve found on it has now been blocked.  Sorry, Zuckerberg, I’m ‘not gonna’ be tricked into becoming a member.

It might be that FormerKGOListeners has decided to keep that section private on its page, but why would they want to turn away daily readers?

First KGO, now this.  I’m locked out everywhere!

But, if you have a Facebook account go over there and ‘Like’ their page and let me know what I’m missing!