KGTV Loses ABC Affilliation (April 1, 2004)

ABC's parent company, Disney, and its 27 year affillate, KGTV, had long discussions on a new network contract that would considerably raise the fee the station has to pay in order to carry the network programming KGTV once got for free. ABC, citing the high cost of carrying "Monday Night Football", has asked many affilliates to pay a substantially higher fee to help subsidize the rights ABC and ESPN paid to carry NFL football on their broadcast and cable networks.

Darrell Brown, KGTV General Manager and Vice President, says that terms of the price ABC is demanding is confidential, but he states that "our first commitment is the public interest, such as having the funds to staff our news department, and unfortunately, we had to make a choice between paying the NFL or serving our general public. We're putting the public interests first and dropping ABC from our programming lineup."

In September 1999, KGTV also balked at Disney/ABC for raising the cost of carrying ABC's network programming by dropping several shows in protest such as Politically Incorrect, Mickey Mouse Works, Port Charles, and other low-rated ABC programming, choosing to carry the bare minimum of programming until the dispute was resolved later that month.

KGTV plans to replace all of the ABC blocks with a tenative schedule in July according to sources that agreed to share them with us on the condition of confidentiality:

MON-FRI
5am - 10 News at 5am
6am - 10 News at 6am
7am - 10 News at 7am
9am - Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
930 - Inside Edition
10am - Magnum P.I.
11am - KGTV News at 11
NOON - KGTV News at NOON
1pm - Afternoon movie
3pm - Judge Joe Brown
330 - Judge Joe Brown
4pm - Oprah
5pm - 10 News at 5
6pm - ABC News
630 - 10 News at 630
7pm - Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
730 - Inside Edition
8pm - Movie
10pm - 10 News at 10
11pm - 10 News at 11
1135 - Oprah (replay)
1235 - 10 News at 11 (replay)
110 - Movie
310 - Movie

SAT
7am - 10 News Saturday
10am - Paid Programming
afternoons - movies and Paid
8pm - Movie
10pm - News

SUN
7am - 10 News Sunday
afternoons - movies and paid
7pm - Magnum PI
8pm - movie
10pm - News

ABC started out part time in the early 1950's on KFMB-TV 8, which at the time cherry-picked from the programming provided by ABC, CBS, and NBC when it was once the only local network station in town. Later, KOGO-TV signed on taking on the NBC programming, and XETV 6 took the ABC programming, and stayed there until KCST 39 (now KNSD) in a court decision stripped XETV of the ABC affilliation due to the illegality of retransmitting American programming from Mexico before NAFTA made it legal 20 years later. KCST had the ABC affilliation for four years before KGTV took over the then #1-rated ABC network in 1977 and gave KCST its current NBC affilliation.

Also in television: Fox 6 pulls their low-rated morning news program and returns Popeye, Bugs Bunny, Smurfs, and The Flintstones to the elementary school-bound children.

The Wires - San Diego (April 1, 2004)

From e-mail: 91X's Steve West swears off punk rock due to Clear Channel's strict lyrical guidelines and switches to 80's new age music.

In a related headline, Clear Channel makes plans to ban additional words such as "star", "oldies", and "planet" on their San Diego radio properties because they are subliminal plugs for their competeting radio stations.

Today on KFMB: Rick Roberts has a heart-to-heart talk with Michael Jackson.

Jeff and Jer add a third member to their morning show: John Boy.

This afternoon on Double Dog Dare: Mike Halloran explains the significant importance of the music of Britney Spears.

From SD City Beef: Ted Leitner revealation: "I'm a closet Dodgers fan!" Details today on The Mighty 1090

From the San Diego Bleeder: Police raid home of Dave Rickards, find old episodes of "Hello, Larry" on Betamax. Tip from Mojo Nixon.

From Randy Donttango: Jessica Simpson visit Jagger and Kristy. Mysteriously, the average IQ increases.

The Wires - Nationwide (April 1, 2004)

From the Clear Channel press release: Dr. Laura Schlessinger suspended from radio for saying a clinically-acceptable word that is no longer allowed under the zero-tolerance policy.

rronlion.com: Period 2 Arbitron Trends for Detriot show #1-rated station has an all-polka format.

newradiotar.com: F..k Radio is launched in Iraq due to more lienient broadcats standards.

allaxcess.com: Viacom to give away $1 million in radio stock in new nationwide radio contest.

"Bonanza" Stars...Where Are They Now? (April 1, 2004)

Here is an update.

"Bonanza" (1959) [TV-Series 1959-1973]
Lorne Greene ("Ben Cartwright")...dead.
Michael Landon ("Joseph 'Little Joe' Cartwright")...dead.
Dan Blocker ("Eric 'Hoss' Cartwright") (1959-1972) (his death one year before the series ended)
Victor Sen Yung ("Hop Sing")...dead.

Well, looks like they're all dead. Sorry, folks. Thanks for the question. Next week, updates on the original cast of "I Love Lucy" and "Chico and the Man." Ah, screw it, we'll tell you now. They're all dead.

Backwaves: The Readers Strike Back! (April 1, 2004)

From Andy Peterson:

This is the worst radio website I ever visited. It's mostly chatter about out of market stuff I don't care about. Who cares about Demento music? I want news about top 40 music heard on the San Diego stations. When are you coming to your senses?

From Rachel:

Totally useless site. Where's the Ryan Seacrest countdown song list? Your site is so unconnected with reality. Are you living in San Diego or some guy from Detriot making this website?

From Ignantz Linkletter:

Your website is full of s--t! Completely out of touch with reality. I don't give a f--k what your talkign about. I want free mp3s of songs heard on z90.

From Frank:

Where's the news about what matters to San Diego most such as labor unions, crime, immagration, and local sports? What planet do you live on, Dave or Wayne? Talk about something San Diego cares about for a change and get rid of the same old radio stuff you keep repeating over and over. If you can't, then go back to college and get a real education, loser!

From Orlando:

San Diego Radio News sucks. Nothing but Clear Channel corporate crap. Or is that who's running this website?

From Oliver Landis:

Please, David, enough is enough. I don't care about your stupid holiday season, the weekly Demento subjects, or links to other websites. Give us some real news on your site or just give up and close it down. Many other newssites do a far better job than you will ever do. You're not fit to be a real journalist like those in the newspapers. Go back to your job asking if they want fries with the order and get off of the Internet.

Thanks For Reading (April 1, 2004)

APRIL FOOL! (April 1, 2004)

OK. Here are the Real SDN News Stories of the Day!

Past April Fools Jokes (The Real April 1, 2004)

For your reading pleasure, you can read some of my documented April Fools jokes on radio, as well as a few jokes we pulled on the readers years ago.

TV Bytes Apr 2002 has a joke on Letterman moving
Radio Bytes Mar 2003 has some radio jokes on a national level
Cheap Channel Inc. Website Up and Running plus April Fool's Joke 2002 (Apr 1, 2002)
April Fools 2001 Jokes
April Fools (April 2000)...this was the granddaddy of April Fools Jokes we pulled over the course of two weeks when this site used to be Dave's Radio Waves or DFS News, whichever it was. Two weeks of fake news scoops led to a climax on April Fools Day 2000 with teasers about radio ownership changes and buyouts. The headlines read on the climax report: The Mother of All Radio Deals, New Syndicated Radio Show to Launch Nationwide, Software-Driven Digital Radios Announced, "Weird Al" in Plagiarism Lawsuit Over Gump Song, Friends and Frasier (oddly enough, in 2004, both shows are leaving NBC in May) Cancelled by NBC, Dance Station Logo Revealed.
April Fools (April 1999)
Jacor Pulls the Big Switcheroo (April 1998)

In 2003, Jim McInnes took over the afternoon shift on The Planet 103.7, the first time he's been on the radio since his dismissal from that other dinosaur rock station in town. This led to his regular current afternoon a month later.

SDN From 2003: Radio may or may not have done any April Fools jokes such as the lame annual early daylight saving time start, or switching around the formats to their sister stations, or even a rumor saying that the area freeways are closed for sweeping and mopping. The worst involve space shuttle landings on airfields not designed to handle such landings, plus the added inconvieience of traffic jams of people trying to get a view of the vapor shuttle landing, as well as extra police officer work, straining our local resources. Whoever did that prank should be sent to a satellite orbiting Earth permanently.

From 1991: KPWR 105.9 goes Disco for 12 hours! This was once a former competetor of KIIS 102.7 when it played remixes of Hot 100 alternative and dance hits to counterprogram KIIS, as well as playing other hits that never got popular, but they took a chance anyway and was the #1 station for many years through 1991. That year, they did one stupid thing: programming all-disco as an April Fool's joke. The listeners who didn't get the joke went away, thinking that this was the new format.

From 2001: Mike Wagner at KRLA decided to make KRLA "A Thing of the Past" by recreating Top 40 radio from the golden days and KFWB, KHJ and KRLA were recreated with music, jingles, and the djs who worked there. Ted Quillin did the KFWB, The Real Don Steele did KHJ and Johnny Hayes did the KRLA portion.

Quote from Chachi, former Star 100.7 and KIIS-FM, and currently on Indie 103.1: "I can't stand April Fool's Day. I don't like the holiday. It's just mean."

Past April Fools Joke (Archives April 1, 2002)

News Flashes (April 2, 2002)

"We're doubling up on the music so from now on we'll be playing twice as much music as the other guys," says afternoon deejay Cha Cha of "Channel 933" as the handle of the station.

For about 20 minutes, the station played a different set of songs aimed at each speaker, even the bumper spots were heard at different times. One bumper spot proudly said "Play one song at a time? Pansies! We're giving you twice the amount of songs in the same amount of time."

After the sets on each speaker ended, Cha Cha took phone calls from listeners who said they couldn't understand any of the songs that were played (were they using mono radios?) One thought it as OK in a low key mood.

After the commercial break, Cha Cha finally exposed the stunt as an April Fool's joke.

Has a radio station in your area (or yours) stunted an April Fool's joke? Send them in!

Past April Fools Joke (Archives March 31, 2001)

Saturday, March 31, 2001: All of the the infamous singing newscasts from April 1, 1969 as well as novelty songs from the KCBQ music surveys of the 60's and 70's.

Right in the middle of "I Still Q in My Car" this past Saturday night, at about 7:20pm, the station went dark.

John Fox forwarded me an explanation:

"If it was a joke, it was on us. There was a power outage in Santee ... apparently coincidence and not stage 3 ... and the generator failed. An engineer was dispatched who confirmed that it wasn't just out of fuel. The only option was to wait for SDGE to once again grace us with service. I believe it took over three hours.

"We of course continued with the show since live streaming had not been interrupted. Surprizingly, the majority of calls and e-mails during the show are from people listening on the Internet ... some as close as North County."

When the station came back at around 10:20pm or whatever, "The Talk Connection" came on. The host blamed it on Gray Davis jokingly.

The show started out with Napoleon XIV's novelty classic "They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!" from the mid 1960's, a song that has been a staple on the Dr. Demento radio show for the past 34 years in the Funny Five on occasion (a new version of the song was just played on his radio show this past weekend!)

Yes, it was the special "I Still Q in My Car" April Fools/Funny Songs edition last Saturday night. Gary Allyn was also a guest on the show.

They also talked about the late Dickie Goodman with his break-in interviews where he asked the questions and snippets of the hits of the day provided the answers. KCBQ engineered a version of their own with "The Locker Room Rocker" or "Who's Sparry Now" tied into the current Charger owner news.

Sound checks from Gary Allyn were also played.

They also played The Beatles' "Under The Sea or Octopus' Garden", one of the group's more fun songs. Also Jack Blanchard and Misty Morgan's "Tennessee Bird Walk" from 1971. Also from that year, Hudson and Bauer's "Ajax Liquor Store" I heard one "O.B. Ranger" episode over the airwaves.

But who knows what else was played when the 1170 transmitter power was cut off at about 7:20pm? Any help?