The Growth of Radio News (revised 10-11-03)

No, we're not talking about radio news, as in, news you're hearing on a radio station. We're talking about the category of radio as a news topic, that is, what stories related to radio is there to report on.

If you pick up the San Diego Buffoon and the Lost Angleless Times, you'd think that there is nothing about radio worth talking about. The truth is, the editors, with all their credentials and Associates Degrees in Journalism and all that jazz, doesn't know jack what they're talking about.

Let's time warp way back to 1991 (about 120 years Internet time) when there was no Internet as we know it. The only radio news that existed to my knowledge existed in the Oceanside Blade-Citizen (before it merged with the Escondido Times-Advocate to form the North County Times) where Ken Leighton used to write the Friday radio columns (now written by Randy Dotinga), and the long time current radio scribe, Gary Lycan of the Orange County Times.

Just those two weekly columnists gave the readers an insight to at least some of the changes going on in radio. During those times, you hardly read anything about radio station ownership changes, but there was a lot of format change news back then. You read about the personality profiles, hirings, firings, programming notes, public services, charity drives, and a few reader comments and columnist editorials.

Back then, there wasn't that much about radio to talk about, but over the past few years, as radio consolidation began dominating and influencing what comes out of the radio airwaves, and Internet streaming is born, there was all of a sudden many more subtopics related to the topic of radio worth talking about, yet, the dinosaur newspapers continue to ignore such topics because the editors think that such topics are probably too cerebral to the average reader to comprehend.

Hello newspaper editors and journalists? Have you been living in a cave for the past five years or so? You put out boring 16-page tributes to the Oscar Awards and fluff pieces on some obscure avant garde off-Broadplay play that nobody outside of the Lawrence Welk village has ever heard of in their life. Sure, you satisfied their reading prefreneces. How about satisfying ours?

What do I mean by that? Well, let's take a look at the Internet and see what kinds of radio news that deserve to be put in print, but isn't for the most part.

North County Times "San Diego Radio Static" - Randy Dotinga: http://www.nctimes.com/preview/radio.html - Thursdays. This is the North County radio column I was talking about at the beginning of this story. I'm not sure how many years the radio column has been running in this newspaper, but in limited space, you get nowadays the best of local radio news every week. Surely, this newspaper could expand the column to cover more than one page. Didn't the old Blade-Citizen used to have a two-page radio column ten years ago?

John Maffei - North County Times TV/Sports: http://www.nctimes.com/columnists/column-maffei.htm - Fridays; you get some radio news if the subtopic happens to be sports. You read what's happening with the play-by-play broadcast teams, what stations they're playing on, what personnel are working, and more.

San Diego City Beat: http://www.sdcitybeat.com/ - Thursdays. Gives some small radio blurts on radio whenever they feel like it.

Chris Carmichael - San Diego Radio Net: http://www.sdradio.net - daily. That's right. Daily, as in Monday through Friday. Did you see this, Union-Buffon? Who says there's not enough radio stories in San Diego? Chris started out doing a weekly radio column at his own website in circa 1995, then did a weekly column in the North County Times between the Leighton and Dotinga eras, then after a few months at radiodigest.com, he moved to Houston in 1998 for a year. After he left, John Fox took over doing the San Diego radio beat at radiodigest.com (folded in Dec 2000). When Fox's San Diego column was cut last August, Chris returned with sdradio.net doing a daily radio column. So everyday, you can read Chris's site about the radio personalities' histories, comings, goings, and happenings, see some news about format changes, features such as 15 Questions with a local radio personality, some Hooked on Trivia questions before they're asked on KFMB's late night radio show, some programming notes, links to other reports about radio, ownership changes, some editorial commentaries, and more.

The San Diego Union: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/daily_index.html - daily, radio reports sporadic. This has to improve dramatically. Preston Turegano needs to get more into radio to justify the paper's outrageous daily price of 50 cents (was 35 cents until Sep 2003).

Jay Posner - TV/Radio Sports - The San Diego Union: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/uniontrib/fri/sports/inside.html - Fridays. Does a good job covering sports on TV and radio.

The San Diego Reader Blurt - Various journalists: http://www.sdreader.com/ed/calendar/blurt/ - weekly (usually posted Wednesday nights). Ken Leighton usually writes about the angles of some radio-related stories that Star's Tommy Sablan once deemend "not interesting." Most of these stories would never be seen on a regular newspaper. Not interesting enough? You be the judge.

Randy Dotinga's Radio Articles: http://www.randydotinga.com/ - archives of his "Static" and other news articles

Los Angeles/Orange

Don Barrett - Los Angeles Radio People: http://www.laradio.com/ - daily since 1997. Does the Smell-A Times care about covering radio anymore? Forget them. Check out Don's informative and entertaining radio news column about Los Angeles and Orange radio. Many reader e-mails are used in his daily news and Saturday Letters in shaping the scope of his radio beat. Radio personality birthdays, histories, happenings, and movings are covered. Many radio personalities are regular contributors monthly or so. This is what the Smell-A Times are missing.

The Los Angeles Times Calendar TV/Radio: http://www.calendarlive.com/tvent/ - daily; where's the radio news?

L.A., CA: http://members.tripod.com/~chinesecookery/ - a new kid on the block covering most of the links about radio news plus some brief headlines.

Wang-Net: http://members.cox.net/rwagoner/ - weekly, about Tuesdays covering Los Angeles radio

Nationwide

Radio Online: http://www.radio-online.com/ - daily, includes prep material. Unfortunately, most of the stories are for paying subscribers.

Inside Radio: http://insideradio.com/ - daily. Too bad all the stories are for paying customers.

New Radio Star: http://newradiostar.com/ - daily; covers a wide range of radio-related topics on a national scale like rronline.

Kurt Hanson's Radio and Internet Newsletter: http://kurthanson.com/ - Daily news and commentary on the key issues involving radio and the Internet

Radio Ink: http://www.radioink.com/ - Daily; mostly radio business news.

Measurecast: http://www.measurecast.com/ - Wednesdays; measures how many people are listening to the Internet stations.

All Access: http://www.allaccess.com/ - Daily; subscribers only.

Gavin - Industry: (now dead) http://www.gavin.com/ - weekly; another trade magazine dealing with radio and Internet issues.