San Diego Radio Wires 3-27-03!

North County Times - Randy Dotinga
News and war politics mix...But wait a minute. Isn't KOGO a news organization? Why is it creating a news event? (The station, of course, covered the rally.) Now there's an idea for Cal Radio News. Create an event, and we'll cover it. Wait a minute. I think Clear Channel stole that idea from us. Get us a lawyer! We'll sue Clear Channel!

Also: Dixie Chicks radio boycott (editor's note: DFSX Radio does not play the Dixie Chicks not because of their anti-Bush statement; DFSX doesn't play the Chicks because their music is simply boring. Let's make that perfectly clear.) Randy Dotinga has been busy boycotting Dixie Cups.

NC Times Preview Letters
More people lament the loss of KFSD 1450... letter from A. ANDERSON: "Please bring back our classical music for daytime listening. I enjoyed KFSD (1450 AM) very much, but I can no longer listen to it since the changeover. San Diego is a world-class city, and it is unthinkable that we don't have at least one classical station full time. Not everyone likes "kid" music." Read more at the link.

The San Diego Reader Blurt
Story #1 excerpts: "Clear Channel was blamed five out of five times for "Why Radio Sucks," in the April 3 issue of Rolling Stone. Reasons included "Legal Payola", "Big Companies Are Getting Bigger," "There's not enough new music," "Local DJs are disappearing," and "Artists get bullied." Rolling Stone also mentions non­Clear Channel station FM 94/9 (KBZT) as one of four stations nationwide that represent "The Last Great Independent Radio." Clear Channel founder and chief Lowry Mays (whom Rolling Stone called a villain) told Fortune about his company's bottom-line success. "If anybody said we're in the radio business, it wouldn't be someone from our company. We're not in the business of providing news and information. We're not in the business of providing well-researched music. We're simply in the business of selling our customers products." (wait till Tanny gets back from vacation to comment about this!) Also: more Dixie Chicks radio airplay in the news (yawn). Fox doesn't Rox the TV ratings (12am is too late for the show!) Read more about it in Blurt!

The Rolling Stone 4-3-03

Other stations cited in the issue were WBEB Philadelphia, PA, "B 101", A/C (http://www.b101radio.com/), WXRC Charlotte, NC, "95.7 The Ride" classic rock (http://www.957xrc.com/),
and WOXY Cincinnatti "97X" alternative (http://www.woxy.com/). Streaming is available at 97X!

Three heroes are noted: Sen Russ Feingold, Jenny Toomey, and Rep. Howard Berman. You can write them and suggest that radio ownership rules should be tightened up, loopholes removed, and the return of the requirement to program several hours of community service programming and free public access time.

The radio villians: Michael Powell, Lowry Mays, and Eddie Fritts.

Arbitrons: San Diego
KYXY is #1. MORE-FM sinks (why not put dance in round the clock!) Country radio rises. People tiring of KOGO (but that may change next month now that the war in Iraq coverage began 2/3rds of the month down) More at Arbitrons, the dinosaur of the radio ratings surveys.

Linda McInnes Obituary Feb 27, 2003

The Readers Strike Back 3-27-03

Is there any chance that we'll get a dance radio station on in San Diego soon? I drove up to L.A. to listen to KDL 103.1's new dance music format and I couldn't turn the dial. The station is a breath of fresh air amongst the stale stuffy slate of radio stations up in Los Angeles and down here in San Diego. This is the kind of music (genre wise, not teenage-wise) we boomers grew up on when disco and new wave entered the pop music scene in the late 70's. Sure, the playlist needs some fine tuning but it has a few good points: no rap. no metal. no hip hop. no moldy oldies. no hard rock. no grunge. no chick folk. no yuppie jazz. no teenage pop. What's left? Dance, of course, a sub genre that deserves a format of its own.

And if you think that it only appeals to people who go to dance clubs and all night techno warehouses, guess again. We're basically the same kind of listeners as people who listen to other stations: we buy food, buy insurance, buy cars, go on trips, watch TV, use cell phones, use computers, get loans, find houses, etc. etc. etc. We're just like everybody else; we just don't prefer to listen to oldies or yuppie instrumental music.

The Readers Strike Back 3-26-03

While D.T. is on vacation, we've received a few letters of note here:

From Bud Kress:... Hi Dave, Just a Quick note to THANK YOU for including "That 70's Channel" on your website I noticed recently my LA streams were increasing I am sure your mentions help those numbers.

Again, Thank You So Much

Bud Kress, "That 70's Channel", The Biggest Hits of the 70's and More

Check it out online at
That 70's Channel

From Steven (no last name given):...

My only complaint about the new Fox 1450 is that it's on a weak AM station and I can't get it down here in Chula Vista. I prefer to listen to Fox 1450 than to any of those Clear Channel oldies stations. I can get That 70's Channel on the Internet okay since that's the only option for me when it comes to getting a taste of popular music the way it used to sound like before Clear Channel ruined it for me and sold Q106 to a spanish broadcaster. As a matter of fact, if I can't listen That 70's Channel, I prefer to listen to one of the Spanish rockers instead.

From Eric Wendell:

re: "Scott"

Do you know when KSDO 1130 will be flipping to Spanish?

From Cheryl Ulrich:

What's the deal with the Dixie Chicks boycott on some "Cheap" Channel radio station? Is this a publicity stunt just to get free press. When nobody is listening to your station, what do you do? Take advantage of what some "Ditsy" Chicken said about Bush and turn it to their advantage with a staging of a boycott campaign, call the press, and get free publicity. Nice going, "Cheap". It's no wonder I'm a KSON chick. Victor Diaz couldn't get country right, and neither can you.

From John Trevithick:

So much war coverage on TV and radio. How much is enough? When KOGO and KFMB keep repeating the same stories every 15 minutes, then it must be time to return to regular programming. But like the September 11th attack, they went overboard again with nonstop war coverage for four days straight. At least there was the NCAA hoops on to take our minds off the war for a while.