ESPN L.A. Shifts Local Shows (Mar 6, 2010)

KSPN 710's schedule will change because Colin Cowherd's national show is moving to 7-10am PT.

The midday L.A. Sports Live show will move to 10am-2pm. Steve Mason and John Ireland's show will move to 2pm-6pm. The new "In The Zone" will air live from 6-9pm.

The Wires (Mar 6, 2010)

Jay Posner: Still hazy in radio booth for Padres

Jay Posner: Padres Shaking Up The Radio Booth

John Maffei: TUBE TALK: All Padres spring training games will be on radio for first time

Gary Lycan: Stryker, who joined AMP Radio 97.1 FM in afternoon drive one year ago, has returned to his previous home, KROQ 106.7 FM, 4-7 p.m. weekdays + KFWB 980 AM is making what could be a really smart move, trading rants for money news, starting March 15

NY Biz: No winners seen if WABC goes dark on Cablevision - As Saturday deadline looms in talks over retransmission fees, a blackout could prove costly to both parties if the dispute drags out for many weeks

Hear 2.0: Let me say this as plainly as I can: The Internet is coming to the automobile. And with it will come audio, video, and new user experiences matched to the medium, beneath the distraction threshold, and appropriate (if not essential) for the place - in a car and on the road

Inside Music Media: There is a dichotomy between what the radio industry thinks a program director's job is going to be in the future and what it will really be. For example, to radio CEOs anxious to keep cutting costs you see two paths: One, using a program director to oversee the content of more than one (often three or more) radio stations. Of course, this is absurd

The Wires (Mar 5, 2010)

Tom Taylor radio-info.com: Another smooth jazzer gone. Entercom bumps off 12-year smooth jazz KSSJ, Sacramento. The replacement format? Alternative rock, on a station known as "Radio 94.7" with new requested call letters of KFMS. Entercom had featured jazz on KSSJ, Fair Oaks since 1998 but had just recently dropped the "jazz" imaging. Entercom says "the audience for the station can no longer sustain the business of the station." The spate of smooth jazz rub-outs began almost exactly two years ago, in New York, Washington, Atlanta, Houston and Baltimore. Only a couple of months ago, Cleveland's WNWV (107.3) transitioned to adult alternative. Now here's KSSJ, Sacramento - a 4.4 share (age 6+ AQH share) and #7-ranked finisher in the January PPMs - being snuffed. There are still smooth jazz stations that are doing well with listeners, like Seattle's KWJZ. It ranks #6 in the January PPM. Down in L.A., "Wave" KTWV has a 2.9 share and a cume of about 1.8 million. The Sacramento switch happened at noon Wednesday, and the Sacramento Board of Radio-Info.com signaled "change" early in the morning.

The Hill: Rep. John Dingell assured broadcasters that he is against the "tax" he said would be imposed by the Performance Rights Act. He spoke just hours after fellow Rep. John Conyers Jr. said performers have the right to compensation.

PC World: Start Your Own Internet Radio Station for Free - As long as you have a PC with a broadband connection (and Skype) you have what it takes to inflict your talk-radio rants or musical taste on anyone who'll listen - For a quick and dirty way to stream music to your buddies, you can simply grab a male-to-male 3.5mm RCA audio cable, plug one end into the microphone jack and the other end into the headphone jack, and either start a Skype session or sign up for an account with a Web-based streaming service (Justin.tv or Ustream.tv, for example) to get going.

Inside Music Media: You can fool all of the listeners with voice tracking, some of the time, but you can't fool all of the listeners all of the time. Now, there is growing evidence that your leader in self-destructive radio strategies, Clear Channel, is forcing their employees to do voice tracking for free - as an add-on to the air jobs they apparently should be lucky to have.

FMQB: Latest File Sharing Court Ruling: $27K For 37 Songs

The Wires (Mar 4, 2010)

The Hill: Rep. John Dingell assured broadcasters that he is against the "tax" he said would be imposed by the Performance Rights Act. He spoke just hours after fellow Rep. John Conyers Jr. said performers have the right to compensation

Inside Music Media: If you cut news, your listeners will get it elsewhere - perhaps online. Some 26% of Americans get their news by phone according to a recent Pew survey. If you fire their favorite radio personalities, perhaps they will spend time with their own friends more on social networks, or find other diversions. If you lack variety, they now have options to find it. If you dilute local radio, they can punish you by relying on their own network of friends, sources and online websites

Randy Dotinga: Are local radio stars gone forever?

Tirade: KGB and X1FM (Mar 3, 2010)

I was digging through my 2,000 e-mails that have been collecting dust since last fall because of a huge website project I've been working on, and came across two from a couple of cretins that work in local radio. What do they do for work? Twiddle their thumbs while drinking whiskey on the job? Are they doing anything for San Diego in terms of giving us what we want to hear on the local airwaves and on the Internet? Nope.

They must be stoned for writing me and complaining about my DFSXmas station I programmed last fall. It's not my fault that they can't program their stations right. There's nothing I can do about it.

They're so rude, they didn't bother to put in their names in the e-mails.

We'll, judging from the tone of their e-mails that I've received, I got it down to two of the worst offenders of music programming in San Diego. One works at KGB-FM. The other works at X1FM. I'm not naming any names, but to those two people at those named companies who say that I'm nothing but a pizza man who don't have a clue...

KGB and X1FM, YOU SUCK!

I've been in tune with what San Diegans have been wanting for decades and have programmed exciting formats on the Net that interested people such as DFSXmas playing all funny holiday music, DFSX radio mixing in novelty with the best of the non boring pop and rock, and currently, ifunnyradio.com, an industrial-strength radio station that plays funny all the time.

Progressive adult rock is what San Diego rockers want. They listen to 91X, 94/9, KPRI, and XM channel 40. They don't listen to KGB because they're stuck with playing the same short timespan of songs other programmers were brave enough to break out when they were once new. The people at KGB can't do rock radio right.

Comedy is what San Diego wants and comedy is what they want. If KGB doesn't want to pay Dave, Shelly, and Chainsaw for what they're worth, then KGB-FM is toast! They'll tune in ifunnyradio.com or somewhere else for comedy.

KGB and X1FM are the ones that don't have a clue. KGB's tanking of the ratings prove that without the DSC, they're DOA. X1FM is a train wreck that sounds nothing like the mix that 91X used to have when it was new. X1FM is the ultimate station that plays songs that are not hits, and songs nobody cares about. X1FM is a total bore; KIFM's smooth jazz format sounds like techno compared to X1FM.

What does KGB call classic rock and roll? Elton John's "Tiny Dancer?" Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide?" WTF! What kind of idiot calls these songs rock and roll?

I can't name the people behind those stations here, but I can tell them that they can go ahead and suck my dipstick in Mobil 5w/30w oil!

The people in charge of the music at X1FM and KGB should work at a Burger King instead. Like Burger King, the people don't have a clue, so it would be a perfect match for them. Let the people who love music program radio the way it should be.

KGB-FM is dead. It's not happening. Time to bury KGB and bring out progressive alternative dance, the music format for the digital age.

But KGB and X1FM is not my biggest beef of all. The following is.

WABC-TV Greedy (Mar 3, 2010)

Yes, Disney, the ones that took off most of the sports from ABC-TV and put them on its expensive cabler ESPN networks, the ones that assaulted the world with Hannah Montana on the Disney Channel, the ones that air mostly reruns of C-level family entertainment on ABC Family (except Sabrina's show is more of a B-level show), the ones that program crap for entertainment on ABC-TV's prime time schedule, and the ones that are pulling out all kinds of tricks to get cable subscribers to cough up massive amounts of money to the cable operators that carry their channels.

WABC-TV in New York city is a Disney owned television station. New York City is largest television market in the nation. Cablevision serves the New York area. It carried WABC-TV on its system for decades.

Now, Disney is telling WABC-TV to get Cablevision to beef up its corporate coffers by forcing Cablevision to either pony up the extra money to continue to carry WABC-TV, or have it pulled from its system.

Cablevision serves its customers in Long Island, Westchester, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and selected suburbs of Connecticut and New Jersey. Those are very large swabs of customers that WABC may be losing if they don't get their money.

As of 12:01 a.m. ET on Sunday, March 7, 2010, WABC-TV will be replaced by nothing if Cablevision does not accept their greedy demands for retransmission fees. If Cablevision gives in, they would have to raise their rates, like they did when ESPN and Disney Channel demanded more money for carriage, for their paying customers, who are already paying too much money for basic and expanded cable as it is today.

I called 1-877-990-ABC7, and a message said in their own spin that Cablevision collects millions of dollars while WABC gets nothing from the cable fees Cablevision collects. Here's my spin. The broadcast and cable stations deserve nothing from the cable customers. Nothing. If they can't get enough advertising revenue to keep their stations afloat, they should consolidate, sell, or shut down their excess networks. The cable suscribers have been getting screwed by Disney, Fox, and all of the other large broadcast conglomerates for decades with escalating carriage rights fees that are passed on to the customer, whose average cable bill for just the basic and expanded cable lineups are about $50 a month. That's far too much for a customer to pay for just the dozen out of 60 channels that they regularily watch a month.

Cable companies pay cable programmers to carry advertiser-supported networks such as ESPN (which runs about $4 a month), CNN, USA, MTV, ABC Family, and dozens of others; the fees that they cable companies pay out are entirely paid for by means of passing on the fees to their cable customers, or else, the cable companies would simply go out of business. That's how it really works. Cable isn't exactly getting that rich on $50 a month basic/expanded cable tiers.

Cablevision says in a statement:

"It is shocking that in these difficult economic times, ABC Disney is threatening to remove WABC unless Cablevision and its customers pay $40 million in new fees for programming that it offers today for free, both over-the-air and online. It is not fair for ABC Disney to hold Cablevision customers hostage by forcing them to pay what amounts to a new TV tax. We urge ABC Disney not to pull the plug and instead work with us to reach a fair agreement," said Charles Schueler, Executive Vice President, Communications and Community Relations, Cablevision Systems Corp., in a written statement.

Cox in San Diego, for example, charges about $15 a month for limited basic, and about $35 for expanded basic. Out of that, unknown shares of the charges go back to the programmers of the broadcast stations and cable networks in the form of retransmission fees.

Well, let me tell you about ABC. This was the network that, for example, did a lot of screwiing up on the viewers. For example, they cancelled a top 20 show in 1981, "Eight is Enough", that once ran on Saturday nights in 1981. That I never forgave ABC for doing. As an insult to injury, in the fall of 1981, a new horror movie host, by the name of Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, debut with a series of hosting movie shows that got so popular that it may have put a dent in the ratings of KABC in Los Angeles, which ran dog network programming after "Eight" got canned. What a sense of timing. I guess Elvira would have never made it if "Eight" never got cancelled.

Later on, when ABC was getting back on a sitcom roll after hitting a nadir in its ratings due to the rise of NBC's programming in the mid 80s, ABC had another hit featuring, well, another large family, with two parents and eight children, called "Just the Ten of Us," which did well on Fridays at 9:30pm opposite the waning "Dallas." Guess what? ABC cancelled it in the spring of 1990. Another bonehead decision.

In 1993, ABC cancelled another great family show, "The Wonder Years", with the producers expecting the show to continue the show for one more season. Instead, the series finale gave a quick rundown of the season that never was during its final minute of the last show of the series.

In 1996, yes it involves another large family show again, ABC had a problem with its planning for the fall schedule that year. "Step by Step" was, yes, a victim, but the twist of it was, it wasn't cancelled. It was delayed until March of 1997 until the first run cycles of two of its then-new shows, "Sabrina the Teenage Witch", and "Clueless", finished most of their first-season episodes. The producers of "Step by Step" and another show, "Family Matters," which also ran on ABC, got so pissed off that they moved their shows to CBS the following fall of 1997. ABC, meanwhile, cancelled "Clueless", but that turned out to be a clueless act as the show later began to gain ratings momentum during the summer. It moved to UPN where it lasted for two more seasons.

"Sabrina," meanwhile, struggled in the 8pm slot on Friday night. Why didn't they put it on Tuesday nights at 8pm, the slot "Full House" used to have until 1995 when the show itself called it quits? "Sabrina" lasted two more seasons until, yes, the rat bastards at ABC cancelled it after its fourth season, because they wanted to put a fourth weekly installment of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" on it. "Sabrina" moved to the WB where it stayed for three more years until it ran out of ideas (my own observation) for stories and just begged to be cancelled after its seventh season.

ABC-TV squandered away these and other fun shows such as "The Bionic Woman", which was cancelled because it had too many shows to renew (it moved to NBC Saturday nights, ironically, "Eight" replaced its ABC Wednesday at 8pm slot in the fall of 1977!)

ABC also squandered away other shows that still had some steam and ran some older series too long. "Best of the West" was the best of the sitcoms ABC had in the early 80s; it, like "It's a Living", "Bosom Buddies", and "Too Close for Comfort," never had a chance to catch on before being cancelled after a few seasons. It also cancelled "Soap" with one more season for the producers to show in 1981.

In the mid 00s, ABC also lost probably the most popular prime time series ever, "Monday Night Football", to its sister cable network, ESPN. MNF belongs on broadcast television, not cable!

To ABC-TV...f--k you! You deserve nothing from the cable companies or the television viewers you screwed.

The Wires (Mar 3, 2010)

Google: Dionne Warwick wants performers paid for radio play

B-Net: The whining by broadcast networks, local TV stations and newspapers about their news business woes is pathetic. The cause of their self-made problems is their stubborn resistance to replace - not just tweak - business models that ceased to function with the rise of social media and instant news by the people, for the people.

NY Daily News: Howard Stern blasts 'Tonight' show's Jay Leno: 'Just the mention of his name makes me want to vomit'

Inside Music Media: Free or paid? I'd take free, how about you? However, when I can't get what I want for free and I really want it, then I'll have to consider paying. This brings me to my passion that is the transition from traditional to new media. You know all those many local radio personalities out there who have a following but no radio station at which to work? They may be able to charge micropayments for podcasts, blogs and websites. That is assuming the personalities are unique enough that the audience does not want to live without them.

Mel Phillips: Richard Wiley was the FCC Chairman who led the drive to ban cross-ownership in 1975, now he wants to kill the monster he created. Wiley was opposed to media companies owning a newspaper and/or radio, TV property in the same market, but now a counsel to the Newspaper Association of America and whose Wiley Rein law firm represents CBS Corp, Clear Channel Communications Inc., Gannett Co., Morris Communications Co. and Belo Corp., Wiley is the chief advocate to reverse his own ban.

Jacobs Media: Is it any wonder that the record industry is in deep trouble? Like other "old media" sectors, the establishment music industry has made one lame decision after another. And it continues to lay the blame for its troubles in all the wrong places

All Access: Broadcasters Head To Capitol Hill Today. Conyers: No Performance Fee = 'Involuntary Servitude'

The Wires (Mar 2, 2010)

CNN News: More Americans get their news from the Internet than from newspapers or radio, and three-fourths say they hear of news via e-mail or updates on social media sites, according to a new report from Pew Internet and American Life Project

NY Post: NBC's decision to return Jay Leno to his "Tonight Show" perch starting tonight, pitting him against Letterman's "Late Show" for a second time, has revived a long-running war with CBS

PR Newswire: Regent Communications has reached an agreement in principal with its lenders for a consensual financial restructuring that will reduce the Company's debt and strengthen its balance sheet resulting in the elimination of approximately $87 million of the Company's debt

Gary Lycan: It's shake, rattle and roll time in local rock radio - classic rock KLOS/95.5 FM is the most listened to rock station for six straight months. And alternative rock KYSR/98.7 FM topped rival KROQ/106.7 FM for the first time in several key categories, including overall listening and Adults age 25-54

NY Times: Think of it as a 100-lane highway with various lanes set aside for particular uses, including AM and FM radio, TV and wireless computer technology. The government - specifically, the FCC - is in charge of deciding which devices use which lanes. Because we can't create additional spectrum, we must make better use of the existing space. And the target that looks most promising in this regard is the spectrum used for over-the-air television broadcasts

LA Times: "I'm a big alt-country fan, but I got to a place in my own musical listening where I was starting to not listen anymore," Stephen King said when he called the other day to talk about volunteering his voice as narrator of Shooter Jennings' atmospheric tale of a late-night radio talk show host who is the last voice of freedom in an increasingly restrictive society. "I didn't buy much music anymore, then I got an XM radio and discovered this show, `Outlaw Country,' hosted by Mojo Nixon, and to me that sounded like the way rock 'n' roll used to sound back in the day when I was a kid

Hear 2.0: Now, more than ever, the audience knows when you're faking. Especially the more active and engaged audience. There's so much crap and manipulative nonsense in this world, your audience will thank you for a moment of authenticity. They'll heave a sigh of relief for a gift that has real feeling behind it

Hear 2.0: "Let me state it as clearly as I can: internet radio cannot and will not replace over-the-air broadcast radio." So says iBiquity's Bob Struble, and I could not agree more. But I think Mr. Struble is making the wrong point

FMQB: Regent Files for Chapter 11

All Access: Radio News Covers Chile Quake, Tsunami Threat

KCSN in Northridge switched their station to full-time Triple A programming Monday at 10am. The station will run the Triple A programming 24 hours on weekdays. The station will continue to run its current schedule of volunteer programming from FRIDAY at 9p through SUNDAY midnight. The classical-American hybrid KCSN (88.5) shuffles the Brahms and Beethoven to its HD2 channel and embraces adult alternative artists like Norah Jones and John Mayer. The Cal State-Northridge-owned station says it's looking to "fill a gap on the L.A. radio dial, where a lot of good music has been missing for a long time."

KSON/SAN DIEGO "CLIFF & Company" morning sidekick Morgan Thomas has exited. Co-hosts Cliff Dumas and Bill Tanner, along with Producer/Traffic Reporter Tori Peck, still remain on the show.