The Wires (Dec 13, 2008)

TV Tech: Portable DTV Sets More Available. RadioShack's Accurian 7 can be found at most Radio Shack stores.

TV Tech: Congress Approves Analog Extension. The bill directs the FCC to implement, by Jan. 15, a program to permit continued analog TV broadcasts.

TV Tech: Shutoff Test Data Pouring in. Broadcasters are getting a better sense of which viewers are ready for the end of full-power analog and which are not.

TV Tech: HDTV Penetration Tops 23 Percent. That’s up from just 10 percent of homes with HDTV in July 2007.

ZD Net: RegAssassin is a portable utility that can remove stubborn registry keys by resetting the key's permissions and then deleting it.

Inside Radio: Stern: I'm leaving Sirius. Howard Stern tells listeners "I believe I am going to leave after two years." His $500 million five-year contract expires in January 2011 and he signals he may be looking for a life outside radio altogether. He says he was ready to quit after his last CBS Radio contract, but was lured to Sirius

The Wires (Dec 13, 2008)

NC Times: John Maffei: The show must go on: Werndl back on the air after firing, but is it only temporary?

NBC made the right decision to invoke its flex scheduling rights and opt out of the Dec. 21 game between the Chargers and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Chargers, with a 5-8 record, have gone from prime-time players to network also-rans. The game against the Bucs will now air at 10 a.m. on CBS. NBC will instead carry Carolina (10-3) against the New York Giants (11-2) at 5:15 p.m. on Dec. 21. It's amazing that such a game was available to NBC.

OC Register: From Larry Elder -- "KABC management and I have decided that tomorrow (Friday) will be my last broadcast on KABC. I am looking forward to the other opportunities ahead of me, and I will post them on my web site, www.larryelder.com when I'm ready to announce them" (read more - Gary Lycan - OC Register)

Inside Music Media: Okay, I can't take it any more. Another one of my favorites (and his audience's) John Lander is cleaned out of Boston by CBS because of economic constraints. I hope CBS is planning to sell its entire operation soon because it's pretty well gutted now. I'm in sore need of some good, upbeat news right now. So many firings. So much talent on the street. It's hard to take (read more - Jerry Del Colliano - Inside Music Media)

Hear 2.0 The hardest thing about what radio is trying to do is they're trying to appeal to a broad audience. The bigger, the better. And that's what fails them, because they have a hard time understanding what their customers want - and by customers, I mean listeners and advertisers. What their customers want is a sense of connection, trust, and interest built around them as a collective, whatever that collective is (read more - Mark Ramsey - Hear 2.0).

The Wires (Dec 12, 2008)

North County Times: Randy Dotinga: The voice of doom has come to the land of radio. Its owner? Ryan Seacrest. Syndicated radio shows aren't new, of course. But now, across the country, nationally broadcast hosts like Seacrest are snatching up time slots once manned by local disc jockeys. And that means more DJs are out of work. It's a sign of the times.

Seattle PI: Radio, like other corners of the media universe, has been rocked by declining ad revenue, so it wasn't too much of a shock when National Public Radio announced Wednesday it's joining the list of commercial radio stations and companies that are cutting personnel.

NY Post: A day after NBC's Jeff Zucker stole the entertainment-industry spotlight by announcing a deal to keep late-night king Jay Leno at NBC with a new 10 p.m. show, CBS's Les Moonves derided the move as little more than a desperate ploy by a network unable to develop its own hit shows.

Lubbock Online: After 47 years of providing music and programming for the Texas Tech campus, the student-run KTXT-FM radio station made its last broadcast Wednesday after budget issues forced a complete shutdown of operations.

NY Biz: Emmis Communications is again considering selling or leasing its 101.9 FM frequency to ESPN, which has been looking for an FM home for its sports talk station WEPN-AM.

Radio and Records: Lakers Move To ESPN/Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Lakers and ESPN sports KSPN/Los Angeles announced a new, multi-year agreement moving the team's broadcasts to the station starting with the 2009-10 season. The games have aired on Clear Channel sports KLAC for more than 30 years.

The Wires (Dec 11, 2008)

LA Times: National Public Radio will cut shows and personnel (read more - Steve Carney - LA Times)

JS Online: It's not likely that Jay Leno will be the savior of NBC's primetime lineup. Instead, he's sort of a place holder as the once mighty network figures out what it's going to be now (read more - Tim Cuprisin - Milwaukee JS).

Inside Music Media: The personnel cutbacks in radio continue. Forget that it's only a few weeks before Christmas. Each week another group gets to make a fool out of itself to shave more costs while rationalizing that they are doing better radio. Someone must believe them -- but not my readers from the next generation who know better and -- believe it or not -- the programmers and managers who know how to run a good radio station. Or what I call the unemployed. This week, it's CBS Radio on a rampage (read more - Jerry Del Colliano - Inside Music Media).

FMQB: RADAR 99: Over 234 Million Listen To Radio Weekly. Listening is up from a year ago as Arbitron releases early data from RADAR 99 report.

Questions (Dec 10, 2008)

Will 95.7 be the return of an oldies format to siphon listeners from The Walrus 105.7?

What will XX Sports put in as local programming from 5am until midnight?

Are Jeff and Jer secretly planning a move to Sophie?

Is Jack going off and being replaced by a competetor to Channel 933?

The Wires (Dec 10, 2008)

John Rook: My appreciation of radio was reborn last year with the discovery of Wifi. Soon after the C. Crain receiver arrived, I discontinued my subscription to satellite radio and seldom listen to “local” radio anymore. Why pay for programming when Wifi radio delivers it with no subscription fee, free of static and offers far more choices, including reception of most radio stations not only in America, but worldwide?

SD Union Tribune: Bill Werndl of XX Sports 1090-AM, whose gravelly voice and “Philly Billy” accent and sharp-stick opinions indeed made him a staple of the genre in San Diego, confirmed yesterday afternoon that he was suddenly “let go” by the station. Likewise jettisoned was half of another 1090 sports-talk team, Joe Tutino.

Inside Music Media: The next generation discovers the music they want to hear through social networking, filesharing and other mobile and Internet-based ways. Radio has less to do with what's a hit today than it did even five years ago. Now, the peer group is mighty. The dj is not even a factor. Maybe that's why so many radio stations don't even have djs. Or is it the fact that so many stations don't have knowledgeable djs that drove the music loving public away.

FMQB: Investigation Finds "Abuses Of Power" At FCC. "Deception And Distrust," a Congressional report on the FCC's practices is released.

Top 5 Headlines Of The Week (Dec 1-7, 2008)

5. My Network TV beats the CW for fifth place. Is shooting for fourth. NBC watch out!

4. Christmas Day hype is in full force.

3. No number 3. Editor still puzzled on how the BCS ignores the undefeated teams for its so-called championship game.

2. Jimmy Valentine is fired from KOGO.

1. Chargers beat a sucky team. Who cares!

XHBJ Gets a Digital Channel (Dec 9, 2008)

No word what digital companion channels will be for XHTJB 3 or XHAS 33.

Tribune Files For Bankruptcy (Dec 9, 2008)

The Tribune Co. has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after collapsing under a heavy debt load just after a year after Sam Zell took it private accoring to Reuters.

Tribune owns the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and six other major daily newspapers.

Tribune also owns 23 television stations including KTLA in Los Angeles and KSWB in San Diego.

Zell loaded up the privately held publisher with about $8 billion in additional debt when he took the company private in a transaction largely financed by company contributions to an employee stock option plan.

Tribune has been trying to unload the Chicago Cubs MLB team for over a year.

With many newspaper subscriptions being dropped in favor of reading the news for free on the Internet, the newspapers are struggling for survival.

According to a newsman on KNX yesterday afternoon, the Los Angeles Times had just two pages of business news. It's a sign of time times that newspapers are reducing their pages while increasing the cost of the papers. That in turn is causing subscribers to flee.

Less subscribers lead to less advertising revenue, so the only way to make up for the shortfall is to reduce the number of pages and raise the price of the issues.

Inside Radio says that CEO Sam Zell says the credit crunch has made it "extremely difficult" to support its $12 billion debt load.

The New York Times, not owned by Tribune, is planning to mortgage its own building in order to finance its own debtload according to KNX.

The Wires (Dec 9, 2008)

Inside Radio: Power hike seen as key to HD Radio. Getting carmakers to embrace HD Radio and the creation of portable devices are among the reasons iBiquity is asking the FCC to approve a proposed ten-fold power boost. Some engineers think the FCC should phase-in upgrades to tackle potential interference problems. But one owner thinks a power boost amounts to a "bailout" of HD Radio.

Milwaukee JS: Friday's axing of one of Chicago's biggest radio names, Steve Dahl of CBS-owned WJMK-FM, which is going back to its "Jack" all-music format all day, is another sign of the enormous changes rocking broadcasting - Ironically, as local radio competes with the Internet, iPods and satellite, it should be going more local - The short-term benefit can't help the longtime health of the radio biz.

John Gorman: There’s no greater recipe for disaster than two floundering companies joining forces - CBS Radio meet LAUNCHcast. Let’s start with this question. What does the future hold for CBS Radio?

From Radio and Records: Workday Radio Reaches More Consumers Than Primetime Network TV In L.A.

No All Things Considered Coverage? (Dec 8, 2008)

First off, Arbitron doesn't rate noncommercial radio stations, so who knows for sure how many listeners KPBS-FM had.

Second, there's no coverage because nobody is talking about it in the radio news websites I frequent. Who got hired or fired in the past week? What kinds of coverage are they planning to debut. What features are working for the program. What features in the past didn't?

Nobody is talking about All Things Considered in the scope of what the radio news websites cover such as staff firings and hirings.

If you want to read about All Things Considered, just go to npr.org and select the All Things Considered link. SDN can't repost the articles here because they're copyrighted and they don't cover the scope of this website anyway.

The reason the radio news websites cover conservative crap is because that's all commercial radio is spewing out, conservative crap, and the radio news sites have to report something that's making news. They're reporting on what they're talking about because some of the radio hosts in part are sending in some stories to Chris Carmichael of sdradio.net and he's posting them on his site.

If any liberal, independent, gay, or atheist radio hosts want to send in some summaries on what they're talking about here on the radio, then go for it and send them to SDN. If you're right wing, send them in too. We're not censoring the viewpoints because nobody is sending in anything related to what SDN needs.

We talked about Jimmy Valentine being uncermoniously fired by the thugs at Clear Channel because that's what made news last week and he sent in the news through his mailing list. That's the kind of radio news that fits the scope. Who did Clear Channel hire as the new producer of the Roger Hedgecock show? Send in the name of the person via e-mail.

As for All Things Considered, who did they hire recently on the staff that's making an impact on its audience?

And if you don't like the Republican slant, then send in some other viewpoints to balance it out. We talk about Tom Leykis, the independent atheist every now and then when he makes news with something. You want to talk about what the hosts on America's Left or Air America are talking about? Send them in!

It seems that talk radio is doing not much but cater to the right wing interests. The sad thing is that's all radio wants to cover all the time. Air America on KLSD didn't make it into 2008 because Clear Channel couldn't hold on to a format with low ratings, so it replaced with XTRA Sports and it did even worse, so bad that KLSD didn't show up in the ratings. If KLSD stuck with Air America while Obama was on the rise, then its ratings would have gone back up.

Are there any stations that are going to pick up Air America in San Diego? Let SDN know.

Steve Yuhas' Scamera Alert (Dec 8, 2008)

In the past few weeks, KOGO Sunday evening host Steve Yuhas has compiled a list of intersections where cameras are located in the city of El Cajon. See the updated list at steveyuhas.com

Soon we will know where all of the cameras of El Cajon, CA are - until then - email their location to me at steve@steveyuhas.com and

We'll get them up with the address/cross streets and pictures of them so you know what to look for. When the cowardly mayor Mark Lewis comes on his show to explain why there are so many cameras in this high taxing non-responsive to the electorate city - we'll consider ending letting people know where they are (a small sample):

2nd and Broadway
Mollison and Broadway
Magnolia and Broadway
Dehesa and Granite Hills
3rd Ave. and Washington
Washington and Jamacha
1st and Washington
Washington and Anza
Madison and Washington
Avocado and Washington
Washington and El Cajon Blvd.
Chase and Avocado
West Main and Marshall
Magnolia and Washington
Johnson and Fletcher Parkway 

BTW: the mentioning of KOGO is not an implied endorsement of their broadcast company.

Where Are The Portable Digital TV Sets? (Dec 8, 2008)

Nowhere to be found in town are portable TV sets that can pick up the digital TV signals. No portable analog TV set has been around for sale in the stores for over a year, and by now, there should have been some portable digital TV sets for sale.

Those digital TV converter boxes would work well with home TV sets, but would be awkward for dealing with portable analog TV sets. It's just too much work to bother with for a portable analog TV set.

It's a better idea to donate your old portable analog TV set and tell the store managers to stock some portable digital TV sets in their stores.

Cable does them no good unless they're housebound.

The future for these portable analog TV sets are bleak unless you can sell them in Mexico where the country's TV sets won't turn off their analog signals until after 2020.