Commentary: Radio San Diego Follies (June 4, 2008)

But the really bad trend in radio has to be the Ryan Seacrestization of Clear Channel radio. Live midday on air personalities are dead meat. It's cheaper to put Ryan on than it is to hire a midday worker, which is a sad trend in radio. So much for serving San Diego. Clear Channel just can't get it right, even with just seven stations.

Clear Channel can't do radio right. Just look at the ratings of XTRA 1360, if you can use a microscope to see their tiny ratings the sports talker is getting. The station should have been airing the Los Angeles Laker games all along since the station flipped formats this past November. Some Kings or other sports games would have worked, along with putting the syndicated Tom Leykis on in afternoons would have boosted listenership. Lee Hacksaw Hamilton in the afternoons is stuck with a limited range of topics, all sports, and all overrepetetive like many other sports talk shows are. How many callers does he get? Fifteen in all of last month?

Channel 933 is a total disaster. It's unlistenable. It's not top 40 like it was back in the day. It's total teen crap. It sucks. KFMB 100.7 should go after them with something like Q100 to replace the faultering Jack format. The Walrus isn't showing up in the ratings yet, but it's only a matter of time, and remember that Walrus's transmitter is coming from Tecate, which is a difficult place to receive radio signals from.

KPRI and Sophie are battling it out for the most boring station in San Diego. Unfortunately, KIFM no longer holds that honor. Sad the say that Sophie is now getting better ratings than Free FM ever did.

Lots of talk on KCBQ 1170 and on XEPE 1700. Too bad the audiences aren't embracing them in droves. Where are they?

Another oldies station, KURS 1040, isn't showing up either due to its weak transmitter. What should be done with it? Donate it to SDSU?

KFMB 760 is rumored to be duplicating its signal on its sister 100.7 signal. Bad move. It will lose a button on my preset if that happens. Midwest Television is another company that can't do crap with radio, and it has a crappy TV station to boot with mediocre CBS programming. Its AM station is losing ground against KOGO 600. It seriously needs to dump that scumbag Michael Savage off the local airwaves. 100.7 would be better off playing podsafe music than right wing talk.

I don't have a preset for KGB, so I can't comment on their dinosaur classic rock format. They have to pay me to listen to this train wreck of a station that once shined in glory back in the day.

Just heard on FM 94/9: "Business Time" by Flight of the Conchords, just yesterday at 4pm during Mike Halloran's Dog Dare feature. 94/9 is the only station in town that has the testicles to play comedy music like that when dared. Good job, whoever requested the song.

91X needs to retool its format and dump the horrible goth crap or whatever it is they play that's hard on my ears. The days of Korn, Limp Bizkit, and Linkin Pirates are so 1998; they even sucked back then and they still suck today. It's not alternative rock. It's pure shit. I wish I could just get inside the 91X music library and just smash the songs that suck to pieces. Ain't gonna happen.

Z90 and Blazin' 98.9 need to decide which one has to flip formats. The battle of the hip hop stations are a bore itself. Neither station is taking any chances on comedy rap or nerdcore music. What happened to house dance music?

On the net, the upstart X1FM.org could use a stick to broadcast its format on. Any takers? Or should Free Radio San Diego just relay that on 93.7?

Magic 92.5 has brought back the old school dance mix shows at NOON and 5pm. Too bad they're on for only 20 minutes. Why not make it a good hour and be done with it!

Does KMJC 910 even have a San Diego prescence on the web? I googled it and can't find anything about the station. Is there even a physical office that exists in town?

XESPN 800 isn't doing anything with its weak signal. I'll wait until fall when the baseball playoffs begin before I attempt to listen to their scratchy signal again.

Radio is just going to keep getting worse. As more people listen to music on the Net or portable music players, the audience for radio is going to keep getting smaller. The listenership for XM and Sirius combined isn't much of a factor after seven years, but if they ever find a way to make the service free with paid advertising to fund the operations, then it would really give local radio hell in the ratings.

What does radio resort to? Simple. Network and syndicated feeds. Somehow, they could make money with just a sub 0.5 rating with this method, but I don't see how. They might as well close up shop and let another owner have a crack at operating the stations if they can find a way to make money off of it.

Leykis once said two years ago that the reason he was on San Diego radio because it sucks. Except for FRSD, 94/9, Walrus, and perhaps Rock, San Diego radio is a vast wasteland of mediocrity.