Leykis: "San Diego Radio Sucks!" (Mar 3, 2006)

Leykis tells us that Bob Bollinger, who used to be the general manager of the now-defunct Planet 103.7 FM and is now the KGB general manager, was the guy who decided that the Leykis show wasn't right for folks in San Diego to hear, and now, as Leykis says, Bob's KGB now has to compete with the Leykis show in the afternoons.

Leykis coming on to 103.7 the day Free-FM was launched in late October would have to be Bob's worst nightmare.

Now, I'm quoting directly from Tom off the air as heard in the first hour of his show yesterday.

Says Leykis, "I met this guy, the general manager of KGB when he was running The Planet. We sat down and had a long meeting and talked about the weather and golf and whatever. Blah. Blah. Blah. And then he just very politely said to 'get back to us' and I don't know if he ever did get back to us, and so we remained off the air. We were not able to get on the air in San Diego."

He gets calls regularily from listeners outside the market complaining that their show is not on in their market and Tom tells them that none of the stations think that his show is good enough, and that's what happened in San Diego.

Continues Leykis, "I don't know why Bob Bolinger would never put us on the air. I guess he thought that if he played 'Crazy Train' enough, eventually he would beat KGB and he never did, so he did the next best thing: he quit and went to work at KGB, and now it's Bob's worst nightmare, because The Planet is no more, we are now Free-FM, we're up opposite KGB, and looky here, look at the numbers! G-- damn I love this!"

Leykis is referring to the Period One Arbitrends that were issued Tuesday afternoon.

In the money demographic 25-54 adults (I can't quote the actual numbers, sorry, but if Leykis wishes to have the numbers posted on sandiegoradionews.com, then he should contact Arbitron about licensing their propeitary data for use on my website and I'll gladly oblige) this is after being on the air 12 weeks, it takes a while for the ratings to perculate, Leykis's radio show has already gone from 23rd place to 12th place. That's just a three-month rolling average. If you just use January, then the Leykis show would be in the top five!

Continues Leykis, "We already beat Rock 105.3, that liberal talk station that's getting all the attention (the one that pulled its penny-a-pixel program and as of this date, d.t. still hasn't received a refund from the Cheap Channel bastard that charged me for a banner that was never seen on the freakin KLSD website). We beat 91X. We beat KFI. A bunch of stations! If the number holds, we're going to be beating a lot more people."

Continues Leykis, "But here's the one that I love because, #1: it's our target, men, and #2: it's also the target audience of KGB and Rock 105.3. We came out of nowhere. When we started, we were in 21st place in the afternoon. We went to 5th place... tied with Rock 105.3, effectively doubling the demo's audience for 103.7."

Leykis brought down the ratings for Rock 105.3 by a factor of 14 percent, and took down the ratings of KGB by a factor of 12 percent, just one-tenth of a point ahead of 103.7 Free FM.

Continues Leykis, "I told you that we were coming after KGB and Rock 105.3, and I don't care what Mikey (the morning man on 105.3) says, or Dave Shelley and Chainsaw (heard on the other one) or Randy Dotinga (the NC Times free-lancer) or any of those people. All these people who laughed at us when our show came on, all those people said that I was a piece of crap, or a misogynist, I'm bad bad bad. I'm kicking ass in San Diego. People can write all this negative stuff about Free-FM. That's fine. We came on the air in San Diego and in 12 weeks, we got right into everybody's shorts. I guarantee you're going to hear those shows talking about it. Talking about me. Trying to tear me down. And that's what they're going to do as I pass them, which I'm going to do in the next month or two. I'm going to pass these stations. I predicted this before."

Continues Leykis, "So Bob Bollinger over at KGB, Bob, had you done this when we met with you, you would still be at what is now Free-FM. You would be there. And you would have beaten KGB. But you didn't have the balls to do it. You didn't have the balls to put this show on. So now we have to interrupt your golf game to let you know that we're about to surpass you in the afternoons. I didn't think this would happen this fast, no I didn't. 12 weeks is outrageous. I had no idea that it was going to happen this fast. I'll bet Bob Bollinger had no idea. Bob had to come back from the golf course and meet with program directors. Who is the program director of KGB, playing 'Tiny Dancer' in the afternoon? Elton John, yea, part of their huge playlist. They're ROCKING San Diego. Here's YOUR song! Remember this from 1970. Oh KGB! I think it's just about over. (taps playing) KGB goes into the sunset. That's right. We leave them behind in a cloud of dust to be swept up by the old radio broom. Then it will be time for Lowry Mays of Clear Channel to start making a decision over who's going to be the next general manager of KGB next month, because we will surpass them by next month. I'm not making this up."

Continues Leykis, "Does Dave Shelly and Chainsaw talk about the afternoon numbers? I'll bet you they forgot to mention this. How about Mikey. Did Mikey mention this? No. Of course not. Did Mikey mention the afternoon numbers? Mikey was notoriously tight-lipped about this. It would be a real tragedy if one of our listeners got through on one of those shows and asked these guys what they thought of our juggernaut in the afternoon in San Diego. That would be a tragedy if someone got on the Mikey Show and asked Mikey what he thought about our numbers. Mention my name and the name of the station. Be a shame. Hate to see that happen (sarcasm). Tell you what."

Continues Leykis, "So everybody who talked us down and said that this was never going to happen. It started with Bob Bollinger who wouldn't put us on the air years ago at The Planet, and it continued with this Randy Dotinga of the North County Times who written a hack piece, then it continued with Dave Shelly and Chainsaw making jokes about me on the air and Mikey making disparaging remarks. Guess what, boys? We're about to be one of the top shows in afternoon drive in San Diego, I mean, we're there! We're already in the top six, actually tied for fifth place. We are there, and we are not done!"

Continues Leykis, "What's KGB going to do then? Double up on the Elton John? 'We gotta play more Bob Seger! Get that Hollywood Nights on the air, it's a great song off of our 8-track. We're not playing Like A Rock enough. Smoke On The Water needs to get more on rotation.' That's that thing. They are handcuffed. They are stuck playing dinosaur rock. They've got no choice. There's nowhere to go, except to change the format (to La Preciosa?) Thank God the Planet changed their format and became Free-FM. Isn't this great or what?!?!?!"

Leykis makes more fun of KGB by informing the listeners of Free-FM what they're missing on KGB during the hour, and he's not making these up.

Look at some of those fine tracks that KGB is playing right now. Leykis went to the KGB website and picked up on some of the so-called hot tracks (they were hot 27 years ago) they're playing. "Barracuda" by Heart? It will get the guys. "Working For MCA" by Lynard Skynard? It's what we call a deep track. "Weld To The Machine" by Pink Floyd? Alright. Here's a rocker. Here's a ROCKIN song! "Landslide" by Fleetwood Mac? Are you kidding? That's rock? Stevie Nicks singing that song? That's rock?

Also played "Come Sail Away" by Styx? With a playlist like this, you would think you're listening to soft rock KYXY instead of classic rock KGB. Also, "American Pie" by Don McLean? The jock had to take an eight minute leak. The KGB PD is Jim Richards. Looks like Jim is going to need a new gig.

Everybody below Bob Bollinger the general manager is going to take a hit for what Leykis is doing to KGB in the afternoons. KGB has gotten seriously flabby in the last ten years, being sold from one owner to another four times in the 1990s, canning the live deejays in favor of computerized playlists, and sounding basically worse than a classic rock station on live365.com.

Leykis gets some callers from San Diego.

Dominic in San Diego says that Dave Shelly and Chainsaw are the biggest douchebags that he's ever seen in their lives. The show is weak. Movie reviews. Wacky sports segments. Welcome to 1977. He says that whaver he agrees with Leykis or not, he's entertained and that's what's so good about his show. He says about that Mikey guy that he sees his mug on the billboard and he wants to pee in his pants because he hates that guy. Tom is cutting edge. Tom is telling the people what they want to hear.

Leykis answers, "People always gives me a hard time. They say, well, you're in L.A., why should you be on in San Diego? I'll tell you why. Because San Diego radio sucks! It sucks! So far, his talking about me has gotten me right into Rock 105's shorts now."

Tom Leykis breaks that news about a listener party in San Diego that might be happening before long. He talked to Jim Daniels and Charlie Quinn (of CBS Radio San Diego) and there will be one sometime before June as he estimates.

Tyler says about San Diego radio that when he moved from Seattle to San Diego, he felt that he aged 10 years. Leykis responds that San Diego radio is comatose.

Leykis says that most of the AM talkers are always saying how great the president is doing all day long and that's all they ever talk about, and by the way, he says he's going to beat KOGO, the big talk station.

Tom in San Diego calls in. He suggests switching Tom's show with Adam Carolla's to really beat KGB.

Says Leykis, "That would be Dave Shelly and whatever's worst nightmare if I was on opposite them." The caller says that Leykis would bankrupt KGB's morning team and they would be looking to Leykis for a job.

Leykis says about Adam Carolla that he's a big supporter of Adam, and he's just getting his feet wet with the morning show, and it takes time with these shows to build them up.

There's a story in The College Times in the Phoenx Area. The Most Hated Man In Phoenix... In an age where nothing seems to shock people anymore, radio talk show host Tom Leykis has found a new outlet to jolt people into laughing out loud or pound their steering wheel in disgust. He tells the truth. And, as many have found out, the truth can be hurtful, hilarious, sexist, misogynistic – and utterly entertaining. .

David in San Diego wrote Tom to say that he didn't know anything about his show until he heard Mikey during the Mikey Show bashing him, and later in the day, he tuned in 103.7 Free-FM to see what he was talking about, and he's been a loyal listener ever since. Thanks Mikey (snicker).

Jim from San Diego calls in and says he's lived there all his life and agrees with the callers and Tom that San Diego radio sucks. Mikey can't talk about beer and women. Dave Shelly and Chainsaw seems like they just complain all the time. Leykis interjects saying about them that their job must be boring recycling the same material for so many years.

You know what you just missed hearing on KGB? This is true. I'm not making this up. We got it off their own website. We missed hearing "Landslide" by Fleetwood Mac. Don't cry. They'll repeat it in 27 minutes. Grandmas can rock to that one! We're not pretending that these are the songs they play. We're not exaggerating their playlist. This is the stuff that they call rock and roll.

We're rocking San Diego now at KGB! That is really painful. This is what Leykis is competeting with. A radio station that continues to live in the past with songs made famous by music directors almost two generations removed and continue to be played ad infintum until their target audience dies off. No new rock and roll. No new artists. Just the same pathetic idea of a rock and roll radio station. KGB has sucked since 1991 as I have been writing, and Leykis has validated my view about KGB shared by millions on minions who are abandoning Clear Channel automated classic rock in favor of XM and Sirius radio.

So KGB, where are your rich 25-54 male listeners going? Want to guess?

Oh, here's another song you just missed hearing on KGB. I'm sure that you would have wanted to hear that one too. "Come Sail Away" by Styx. Leykis talks up the post on that song announcing that they're "KGB Rocking San Diego." Don't worry. They'll play it again in 69 minutes.

What decade what this song? This would fit in with KYXY or KOST.

By not listening to KGB, you also missed hearing "American Pie" by Don McLean.

Mike in San Diego calls in complaining that every talk show in San Diego is political bulls--t. He says that he listened to Dave Shelly and Chainsaw many years ago and at first they were kind of cool (was that back in 1991?) but they just started doing the same old schtick and the same old stuff and it got so boring that he had to turn them off.

Tom Leykis, a show so stimulating, he's got the pimps from Clear Channel to listen to him.