The Eighth Annual State of San Diego Radio Address (January 1, 2005)

It is now January 1, 2005, and it's time for the Eighth Annual State of San Diego Radio and TV Address. We've been doing this every year since 1998.

Well, another year has just passed us by, and broadcast radio continues to underestimate the collective intelligence of the music fan who desires to hear more than just the top 15 oldies songs from a given year in a programming format. The two satellite radio providers have over four million subscribers combined, proving that there is an audience for music fans that desire much more than the limited selection of pop oldies, teen top 40, women's pop, watered-down country, lite jazz, hip hop, youth alternative, and old rock music formats that the commercial radio stations seem to keep on dishing out to the listeners year in and year out. Also contributing to the exodus of listeners from music radio are progammable MP3/WMA/ACC players and iPods that are turning any music fan literally into a music director, programming in the songs that they want to hear, and shutting out the stuff they don't like.

Now, as of last month, a corporate radio conglomerate I don't need to name figures that the reason people are leaving radio is because of the high commercial load. That is not just the case. The real reason is that there are so many alternatives to stale playlists programmed by the commercial radio stations that the listeners very much have no interest in what radio thinks they should enjoy hearing anymore. As time goes on, more people will be getting their new music education via downloads, satellite, shared from their friends, and other alternatives to radio, which keeps on hanging on to the same old songs year in and year out for fear that their older listeners who grew up with the songs will leave. The opposite is true. The older listeners are sick of hearing the same old songs everyday and are paying for satellite radio and downloads to learn about new kinds of music, new songs from their favorite artists that local radio isn't playing, and music of their taste in genre that is being ignored. Those are the reasons why listeners of the broadcast music stations are dwindling down year by year. You can have zero commercials in an hour, and people still won't tune in because they're sick and tired of hearing the same old songs they already heard the day before, and the day before that, and so on.

I mentioned the streaming Internet radio medium last year in my seventh State addreess. Now nearing its tenth year in 2006, the local radio stations, as well as non-broadcasters, are utilizing this important medium to stream their playlists to a world-wide audience. Local radio is wisely employing this tool to get their signal into places such as work areas and valleys and many distant points where their limited broadcast signal simply won't touch. Local radio is still great at giving a local connection to the programs with news, weather, traffic, sports, and public service, but local radio needs to do something to stand out above the other competeting streaming and satellite services such as expanding the list of genres to play, dropping old songs that are way past their prime, and keeping their commercial sets to three minutes or less. Local radio needs to do something besides reducing their commercial load and hyping the local connection to give the listeners a reason to tune in to their stations.

Satellite and internet radio provides listeners with genres local radio is completetly ignoring, such as all-reggae, novelty, dance, folk, blues, and even cartoon among others that people enjoy hearing. Why pay for radio when you can get it for free? It's because you're getting what local radio isn't giving you what you want out of it, pure and simple. With local radio having a limited capacity of some 100 AM and FM stations, they're limiting themselves to programming a concept that is intended for a broad audience, which is why you're hearing a limited selection of genres and songs in a given radio station. Satellite radio has over 200 stations between XM and Sirius, giving the listeners almost anything (except all novelty and cartoon music) that the listener desires to hear. There are about six stations playing dance music formats that people enjoy listening to at work and on the road, for example. I rather have someone in the car awake and alert while listening to dance than to fear for my life as I am tailgated by a sleepy driver listening to smooth jazz in an SUV.

Top 40/CHR music needs to get the adult listeners back outside of having musicians doing publicity stunts such as Britney Spears' 55-hour wedding, Janet Jackson's breast expose, and Ashlee Simpsons' pre-recorded vocal mishap on Saturday Night Live, as well as the media's obsession of Lindsay Lohan who seems to be everywhere except the middle east; hey, let her help the Armed Forces find Osama Bin Laden! Put the fun novelty and dance music back into the playlists. The hip hop/R&B/soft rock genres are of no interest to many listeners including myself.

I said it last year, and I'll say it again: 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.

Broadband Internet has bypassed dial-up Internet as the preferred way to connect. Why? So you can listen to 128k Internet streams from radio stations, as well as to download music faster. Local radio should see this as a serious threat to their existance as Internet radio may be moving towards the next big audience: the commuter in the automobile.

The biggest mistake being thrust among the radio broadcasters continues to be the FCC having a perverted idea on what the adult radio listener should be listening to. With the Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction during last year's Super Bowl, the FCC, after recieving a flood of complaints about the incident, decided somehow to get more aggressive in acting on listener complaints about indecency on radio and television, ignoring complaints about Oprah Winfrey simply because she is beloved, and if that's not favortism, then I don't know what is. Clear Channel and the FCC have picked on Howard Stern by pulling him off and getting his show fined. Stern responded by attacking the FCC and Clear Channel on his own morning radio show and on David Letterman's late night TV show, giving the viewers a reason to tune out Clear Channel for what they did to Stern. To add insult to injury, Stern is moving to Sirius radio in 2006 because his style is cramped so much that he can't do the same kind of radio show as he did in 2003. There's no update on Stern's efforts to get Dave, Shelley, and Chainsaw fined by the FCC as he said he would be doing half a year ago.

The talk radio landscape has gotten a bit better, but not much in San Diego. We've witnessed the launch of a new liberal-leaning Air America radio network, adding a San Diego station, KLSD 1360, in August, providing listeners an alternative to Rush and the right-wing political way of thinking. All Comedy Network, meanwhile, has been adding new stations totaling some 100, none of which are anywhere near San Diego unfortunately, and none that I know of are streaming on the Internet. This is a programming concept I'd like to see on in San Diego.

Local television, meanwhile, continues to have problems with original ideas and likes to program mostly news blocks most of the time people are at home, mostly rehashing the same story every 30 minutes, and shorter stories. Even worse, the newscasters, especially the females, tend to over enounce the "S" sound to the point where it is twice as loud as the voice they're speaking in, and sometimes whistling, making the newscasts almost unbearable to listen to.

Cable television continues to lag far behind in original ideas, programming mostly the same kind of stuff on multiple channels repeatedly over dozens of channels. Why do we need 300 movie channels showing the same kind of lame movies? Why am I paying $40 a month to Cox for only 12 channels I bother to watch regularily? Cable ala carte is the answer and is way overdue to be implemented. Let me pay for the channels I want and not pay for what I don't like. If they disappear, then fine with me; it just proves that there is no audience for a channel nobody wants to pay for.

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.

And now, here is a station-by-station evaluation of all the formats for the year 2005:

AM 540 oldies - no comments

AM 600 news/talk - needs to get some interesting programming on the weekends. How about adding some from All Comedy Network?

AM 690 sports - break it off from Los Angeles and let ESPN 800 move to this frequency.

AM 760 talk - needs to stream full-time since many workplaces can't get the 5,000 watt signal in outlying areas.

AM 800 sports - try to get AM 690 from Clear Channel and move ESPN there. I can't stand dealing with co-channel interference with another Mexican music channel while I try to listen to the sportscasts. Turn AM 800 back into a local Mexican Ranchera format.

AM 910 religion - no comments

AM 1000 talk/oldies - why not go all oldies?

AM 620 nostalgia - hire Happy Hare in the morning.

AM 1030 spanish - localize the format to fit Tijuana.

AM 1040 Gospel - no comments

AM 1090 sports - stop cutting away from popular games to cover an unpopular game such as the Ducks.

AM 1130 Spanish religion - no comments

AM 1170 talk - bring back Tom Leykis and Don Imus, drop the talkers that are getting no ratings.

AM 1210 religion talk - no comments

AM 1240 asian - is anyone listening to this format?

AM 1360 liberal talk - no comments

AM 1450 classical - how long will this last? Bring in 70s-80s oldies.

AM 1700 spanish - anyone know this exists?

FM 88.3 jazz - add in more genres.

FM 89.5 news/classical - no comment

FM 90.3 hip hop - how long can this station survive competeting with upstart Blazin 98.9? bring back dance!

FM 90.7 classical - Victor Diaz is gone. How long can this station survive? Convert it to a public access radio station.

FM 91.1 alternative rock - bring back the alternative in alternative music.

FM 92.1 country - how well is this station doing simulcating KSON-FM?

FM 92.5 old school - mix in some modern dance hits

FM 93.3 top 40 chr - hip hop and rap are still popular ten years past its peak?

FM 94.1 hot AC - needs more variety.

FM 94.9 alternative rock - needs to add some synth-dance rock songs

FM 95.7 country - no comment

FM 96.5 AC - no comment

FM 97.3 country - no comment

FM 98.1 smooth jazz - no comment

FM 98.9 hip hop - bring back Rewire and electronica

FM 99.3 oldies - reformat the station to all modern dance

FM 100.7 hot AC - stop talking so much

FM 101.5 classic rock - play mostly new rock

FM 102.1 AAA - play some harder rock

FM 103.7 classic rock - play mostly new rock

FM 104.5 latina - forget talk

FM 105.3 hard rock - take more chances on new rock music

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