Top SDN Stories of 2003 12-25-03!

Stories behind the radio also made the highlights as reported here at the almost five-year old San Diego Radio News (starting out as Dave's Radio Waves), everything from format shifts to pirates to Mexican interference to personnell moves to programming.

Two weeks ago, I asked you to rank your favorite radio stories of 2003. Here are some of the highlights covering radio in a maximum wattage (as opposed to minimum contour as reported by the newspaper) spectrum in order of your choosing. Some added events not mentioned earlier.

1. The launch of a new domain: sandiegoradionews.com (ok, I'm biased, so that's why I put it there!)
2. Radio talkers such as KOGO's Roger Hedgecock led a recall Gray Davis and Repeal the Car Tax drives. Hasta la vista, Davees! Now Sacramento has some muscle for a change inside the governor's chambers.
3. The October 2003 fire coverage on radio and television shows the strengths of their news departments at KOGO, KUSI-TV, KNSD, and XETV, and weaknesses on KGTV and KFMB AM-TV. Rule #1: if there is a disaster, pre-empt the prime-time shows; KFMB-TV ignored rule #1.
4. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Sabrina the Teenage Witch ending their supernatural network runs (so many people e-mailed me about them that I decided to combine them). Today, we have totally unwatchable dumb blondes on Fox and MTV masquerading as talent, driving young males away from Fox and the WB in droves. For the rest of us, we can watch the smart and sexy Sarah Michelle Gellar and Melissa Joan Hart shows spanning seven seasons each rerun on cable. We need some new independent blondes who have smarts on TV, not these Paris Hilton/Jessica Simpson bimbos. Farrah Fawcett had more appeal to this male in 1977 than any of these MTV/Fox idiots ever will to males 25 years later.
5. Weird Al Yankovic gave a concert at the San Diego Fair. Not a radio event, but any musician who plays a diverse selection of genres (necessary because of the wide spectrum of parodies) makes the radio highlights of the year, showing 94/9, KPRI, and KGB that diversity includes comedy music. Weird Al also released his Grammy nominated album "Poodle Hat" that year.
6. KDL changes format to some alternative format (not determined at press time) after 11 successful months as a dance radio station. Yes, this is Los Angeles, but dance music on 103.1 has brought in some listeners away from their MP3 players who yearn for fun pop music without the drama or the rap junk that's all over the urban airwaves. With KDL dance gone, another station should take up the slack to get those listeners before they invest in Sirius and XM satellite radio receivers, which have nine dance channels to choose from between the two. Fans of dance are not necessairily fans of rap, and most don't want to sit through the rap and soft pop in order to hear music that they like. Got that, KIIS and Channel 933?
7. Hip hop, rap, and R&B becomes the dominant genres of Top 40 radio, showing how narrow the scope of pop music radio has become by focusing on demographics too cash poor to afford most of the stuff being advertised. Meanwhile, the exodus from Top 40 and urban radio to MP3 players and satellite radio continues as people fed up with lack of good music defect in droves.
8. KDL 103.1 signs on in Los Angeles, getting its highest ratings since the glory days of Groove Radio in 1996, proving that there is an audience for the dance music genre.
9. The Best of Dr. Demento appears on XM Radio, finally giving San Diegans long starved for dementia a reason to fork over $200 for an XM Radio kit and a $10 monthly subscription. Even without Demento, XM beats the crap out of Cox's stupid Music Choice anyday! Will LA and SD finally get Dr. Demento back on their stations after seven aching years? Shades of Roseanne Cash's hit song from 1981.
10. Upstarts XPRS 1090 and FM 94.9 beat their corresponding competetors, XTRA 690/1150 and 91X in the ratings within their first years.
11. Jim McInnes hosts a weekly two-hour show and an afternoon shift on 103.7 The Planet. KGB's loss is The Planet's gain.
12. Cox threatens to put ESPN on their digital tier, but ESPN is also charging too much in carriage fees for a basic channel. Both titans are corrupt!
13. Ted Leitner quits KFMB and reappears on XPRS after a long break.
14. Mike Cook's Hooked on Trivia (turned 20 in November) moves from KFMB-AM to KCBQ during the spring. Phil Flowers hosted "I Still [kcb]Q" until April 26 that year and was producer of the "HOT" show from May until December 2003 (Flowers passed away on December 23, thanks to Chris Carmichael for the e-mail blurt, no other details yet).
15. Premium 92.1 is bumped off to AM 1000 at night as Astor sells the station to Jefferson-Pilot to beam KSON country up into the North County. Due to interference with 97.5 in Riverside, many residents can't get 97.3 from the South County.
16. The FCC redefines the radio markets, closes the loopholes in several radio markets where a broadcaster has an oversized share of radio stations serving the markets.
17. AM 550 from Tijuana signs on to cause interference with XSURF 540 from Rosarito and AM 550 Bakersfield's nighttime reception. Did the Mexicans think that AM 540 came from Los Angeles?
18. Clear Channel folds XTRA 690 into 1150 and creates a super sports station from Los Angeles. AM 690 originating from Los Angeles. Nothing new to me. Remember the days of the Mighty 690?
19. XTRA picks up the Oakland Raiders games. Meanwhile, so many San Diegans root for the other team to beat the Raiders that they caused the team to go from the Super Bowl to 4-11 as of today. See, there was some good for XTRA carrying the Raider games after all.
20. KCBQ 1170's six towers in Santee are demolished in favor of building more stores.
21. 91X presents 20 Years of 91X, playing songs from each of the years in October, many of which haven't been heard since that year, showing competetor 94/9 the real meaning of diversity in music from the past.
22. MORE FM 98.9 adding more electronica dance with "Rewire After Hours", Saturdays 11pm-Sundays 6am, showing that San Diego's clubbers are out until dawn.
23. 1450 The Fox's really short lived far out trip back to the 70s.
24. Cox Cable drops FM cable and places them on their expensive digital tier, forcing fans of KCR and KSDT to fork over $12 just for the box and an ala carte package that is not their choice to choose. Bad call.
25. ESPN 800 carrying USC Trojans, XTRA carrying UCLA, and XPRS carrying Aztecs ballgames, giving local sports fans three more reasons to keep a radio.
26. Steve West up 54 hours playing classic 91X songs and raising tons of canned food for the hungry.
27. The overcommercialized Radio Disney disappears from KSON 1240 and is taken into Asian language with a new owner after Disney passed on the purchase of the radio station. Bad move, Disney. You lose.
28. Cox puts PAX on cable channel 96 (as of 12/8/03), a cable channel that shares the same frequency as several radio stations from KYXY to KGB. Once again, Cox blunders. Cox should have put CSPAN 1 and 2 on their cable channels 95 and 96, which get interference from the local FM broadcasters and there's nothing anyone can do about it anyway.
29. The Padres moving from KOGO 600 in 2003 to XPRS 1090 in 2004.
30. CC being investigated about unfair control over it's TJ radio properties and thus the potential mandate to sell the LMAs off.
31. Sunday Night Football not on XPRS or ESPN 800. Also, only one game of the Westwood One doubleheader (heard on KFWB 980) is heard on SD's 1090. With NFL Football very popular here, why is radio not making any touchdowns by broadcasting more games?
32. English-language KSDO 1130 changes format and owner into a niche Spanish-language religion format.
33. Brian Schock is reassigned to KGB after upstart competetor 94/9 sinks 91X in the ratings. Should have happened sooner.
34. Pirate 96.9 broadcasting for a year.

Thanks for your votes.