The Seventh Annual State of San Diego Radio Address (January 1, 2004)

It is now January 1, 2004, and it's time for the Seventh Annual State of San Diego Radio and TV Address.

Instead of just doing the report on the local radio stations, we're going to extend it to the local television stations, as well as the local cable companies.

As far as radio is concerned, they better start programming aggressively against not just the eight-year-old Internet radio medium, but also the rise of satellite radio with well over a million subscribers as of the end of the year 2003. Local radio still excels above the other two medium such as local news and weather, sports, and public service, things the other two medium categories cannot do, but local radio needs to start address the exodus of listeners from their terrestrial sticks to satellite radio, the fastest growing threat to the existance of local radio.

Taking a look at the wide variety of radio format ideas XM and Sirius is presenting to their subscribers, the success of these two services should be telling local radio that it's high time to upgrade the roster of ideas by "stealing" them from satellite radio and putting them on the local airwaves. Since there is no way all 100 channels worth of ideas can fit on a measly 15 or so channels on the FM dial, programming from similar channels can be combined to form a unique channel such as dumping all the pre-90's classic rock to weekend mornings and playing all new adult rock music on KGB and Planet, having Z-90 play more than just the same 20 hip hop and R&B songs all the time, 91X and 94.9 mix in some real underground rock late at night, Magic 92.5 mixing in current dance hits to go with its 70's-90's old school/R&B/dance mix, Channel 933, My 94.1, and Star 100.7 purge songs older than two months old if they're no longer peaking on the chart and play only newer songs, Oldies 95.7 mixing in the entire Top 40 song collection of the golden era of 1955-1973 with live deejays, KYXY widening its scope on adult-based pop, KSON and Bob adding new country songs from several XM country channels, KIFM playing more jazz selections from the XM channels, KIOZ playing a wider selection of new hard rock songs, and so forth and so on.

In order to get the listeners back from satellite radio and to make them tune in to local radio more often, local radio needs to address the issues of music selection and update them according to demand. Also, the commercial loads need to be shortened to no more than three minutes a break, but there is no limit on how many commercial breaks a radio station can have per hour. Most people remember the first and last commercials that aired in the set, but commercials that appear in the middle are often drowned out by the next and forgotten quickly.

Many of the Clear Channel radio stations are not programming their formats strictly as period piece programming concepts. KGB played some rock made from the last ten years, but needs to make the mix of adult rock at least 50 percent newest music, but rockier than that heard on KPRI. The same goes for Planet FM as well. People like to hear melodic rock that doesn't put people to sleep, or gives them a headache, but just playing the same old songs everyday from the same 70's and 80's era just isn't going to make them want to tune in everyday. Crack open a new adult rock CD every Tuesday. Play several tracks off it. Ask listeners what tracks they liked. Put them on the playlist. When they get old, remove them while the newer tracks get more airplay. The key is to keep the formats fresh and interesting for everyday listening. You can't put on $10,000 Thursdays and expect people to tune in the other six days if they're not offering any cash contests on those days. When the contests leave, so do the listeners. They're just in it for the money, just like the radio stations are. Give the listeners a reason to tune in other than the lure of money contests such as an engaging and exciting rock and roll format for boomers and other listeners who want a serene alternative to pop punk on the other stations.

Magic 92.5 sounds fine, but needs to mix in some modern dance hits on streaming radio stations heard all over the Internet and satellite radio. Magic has a huge library of R&B and soul based songs dating back to the 60's and it's hard to get bored with this programming concept, but at the same time, boomers and Gen Xers like to hear the newer music that is compatable with the programming format of Magic 92.5, and modern dance music is the answer.

Programming for the lucrative male demographic needs to be addressed. Many stations are programmed for the females and younger listeners of either gender, demographics that are generally not rich enough to afford a lot of the products advertised, but the males, especially 35-54, are the ones with the money advertisers want to do business with. Program more male-leaning concepts that they will tune in to such as rockier country (none of this Shania Twain "Feel Like a Woman" stuff), dump the mellower rock stuff from the alternative rock stations and let KGB and Planet play them instead, and put on some harder hip hop and rap music late at night.

Top 40 has become so heavily urban, and lacking the fun pop, that I hardly tune in to them anymore if any. People need to start buying more pop dance records in the stores and far less stuff from Jay-Z and J-Lo in order for radio to realize that people want to hear pop dance more often. That's what radio stations use to program their stations is to go by what people are buying in the record stores. Requests for songs are honored only if the song suggestion happens to be on their playlist. It's time for Top 40 radio to open up their airwaves to ideas that are outside their narrow choice of genres and play music that better reflects the pulse of the local community, and to get back the listeners who left Top 40 in droves to other mediums.

With Tony and Kris gone from KSON, it remains to be seen if that station will be competetive against the low-rated Bob 99.3, which has never made much of a dent in the ratings dating back to its Califormula days. Califormula should have turned this station into modern dance since the frequency of 99.3 went English in June 1999 as sister station Z90 concentrated on hip hop and R&B, genres dance fans don't care to listen to. It could be premature for 99.3 to think about a format change now since without Tony and Kris on KSON, Bob could actually get bigger ratings.

But nevertheless, San Diego can use an all-modern dance radio station that plays the dance hits of today. Guess what major demographics with money it will attract? The Latinos, of course. The Italians, naturally, since they also dig the beats. There's also the local gay population that has money for the advertisers who plug their products on the dance stations. There's the rest who don't care for pop punk or rap music. See, radio needs to cover all of the rich demographics with programming that will get them to tune in.

Covering the Iraq war and major fires in San Diego county, only KOGO, which is the only commercial radio station in San Diego that has a sizable news department, covered them both as well as they can, but KFMB-AM was a bit hampered by relying on the news department of its sister TV station with the AM airing reruns of Rick Roberts and its TV station eschewing the paramount importance of the danger of fire in favor of CBS prime-time programming. Why is KFMB simply handing over the award for best radio news coverage to KOGO?

We're not done yet. Let's turn on the television. What in the heck is going on with the seven local television stations? I can't find a reason why I should put a TV set in a house for a latch-key child? When a child gets home from school, what's on the TV for them to watch? What's with all the mature subjects on the talk shows talking about ideas too challenging for a kid to understand? Kids shouldn't be exposed to all the sex stuff until their parents are ready to discuss it with them when they're old enough to reason and figure out what it all means. TV has a perverted way of presenting the adult subjects to all viewers.

This is why I like talk on the radio better than talk on the TV. The subjects on the radio are more varied and though provoking. The subjects on TV are basically soap opera and dating game predictaments that are not designed for children to watch. So why are the local TV stations programming them when the kids are home alone?

Take off Jerry Springer! Take off all those dating game shows. Take off reruns of Cops. Take off the mindless cartoon shows. Put on something educational and fun for the kids to engage in. Put on some classic rerun comedies of years past. Revive the big daytime game show blocks. Television is really gotten so bad for the most part that I never look forward to watching anything before 8pm anymore. A lot of the programming is just plain dumb.

How much local news is too much? Why is there a need for a 4pm news, 5pm news, 6pm news, and 6:30 news, if they're simply repeating most of the major stories, sports, and weather every time? Why not get bigger ratings by having just one hour of early evening news at times the most people are at home to watch it, anytime after 5pm will do.

Cox Cable's value of expanded basic has gotten worse and more commercialized while raising the price to $40 for a measly 70 channels, most of which show informercials and shopping on about eight channels at a time. What a waste of channel space and subscriber's money! Get rid of the four shopping channels. Expand UCSD 35 to 24 hours a day. Move Hallmark and Game Show Network channels to expanded basic. Carry KCAL 9 for the Los Angeles Lakers games. Move the pay and all movie channels off the expanded basic and replace them with several channels from Tijuana. Put ESPN Classic back on expanded basic. Move Discovery Health, Food, HGTV, and Animal Planet over to digital cable.

The Top 10 Stupidest Things Radio Did in 2003

1. AM 1450 out of Escondido Adopts a 70's Based Music Format. Lasted just two months. Some committment.

2. Histar.com's Stupid Star Zone Requirement on their website. This is why My 94.1 is gaining listeners. Internet Explorer has security issues and you can't use anything other than a Windows operating system to view its website. Even its Star Zone is riddled with spyware, having programs report something collected from your computer back to some website. Star Zone sucks! How stupid!

3. (was #4 last year) The Dominance of Hip Hop, Rap, and Soft R&B On Pop Radio. This lame year in music has produced an even worse year CD sales than in 2002. Expose garbage on the radio equates to lack of sales. Tower Records and The Wherehouse are hurting so much that many music stores went out of business. Radio's fixation on teenage sex-appeal acts instead of new quality acts adults can enjoy is one other reason why CD sales hurt so much this year. Listeners want wider selections of genres. They want more diversity.

4. XEKTT Blasting on 550, then on 560. This Mexican station has cost listeners by interfering with 540 and 570 adjacently, as well as causing co-channel interference with radio stations in Bakersfield and Phoenix on 550, and San Francisco on 560. There are no spots for this station to exist on the AM band in the San Diego-Tijuana area with daytime power of 20,000 watts and nighttime power of 10,000 watts. Limiting it to 500 watts daytime and 250 watts nighttime would have been the only answer, as well as remaining on AM 1600 (or going to AM 1590) and not causing interferenfce regionwide.

5. KGB rerunning morning shows evenings and Saturday mornings. Enough said.

6. Disney refusing to buy KSON 1240. That cost them the San Diego prescence of their overcommercialized Radio Disney as Jefferson-Pilot sells it to a broadcasters who takes it into an Asian language.

7. Star 100.7 rerunning Jeff and Jer in the evening. Replace it with 80's and 90's dance mix shows from Thump Radio. Have the listeners tune them in the mornings and boost the AM ratings. Put J&J reruns on the Internet if they miss the show and want to tune in again.

8. KSON Losing Tony and Kris. Big mistake. Bob can beat KSON in the ratings by the end of 2004.

9. The Mighty 1090 passing on Sunday Night Football. Why???

10. The rise of the popularity of people who are famous for no damn reason whatsoever. Jessica Simpson? Ashton Kutcher? The ex-hubby of Liza Minnelli? Paris Hilton? Anybody from American Idol? Trista and Ryan. Radio folks are talking about them in the mornings. Who cares?

Worst Rumor. A third country station to sign on in the San Diego area. Sheesh! Like we need three of them?

The Top 10 Best Things in Radio in 2003

2. Dance Radio on the Internet - there are not very many radio stations specializing in dance music, but the Internet has been a big help in getting this genre to my ears and to millions of modern uptempo music fans worldwide.

3. Dr. Demento's Radio Show - thanks to the Internet pirates, we can get our weekly fill of funny music.

4. Sports on the Radio - can't stay at home to watch the games? Hear them on the radio!

5. Bob and Tom are rated the best nationwide radio show hosts. Sorry, Howard Stern.

6. Mike Halloran. I'm glad somebody who still gives a damn about music is programming at least one station in the San Diego Outland.

7. Mike Cook's Hooked on Trivia on 1170 KCBQ. We need more game shows on the radio. This is fun.

8. Rewire dance mixes on 98.9. All night on Saturdays now. How about dance mixes every night?

9. KSDS covers the entire county, but why just one format like all-jazz? Clear Channel's formats are more diverse compared to this. Play what they don't play locally!

10. KPRI 102.1 plays adult rock and roll, music that KGB and Planet should be playing.