Commentary: Radio Officially a Wasteland (May 17, 2010)

It's gone downhill, that's what!

Back in 1990, it was the peak of how good radio can get.

91X was the cutting edge of rock. KGB was STILL playing new rock and roll. Jammin' Z90 just launched its mix of urban and dance format. Power 106's churban format could still be picked up in San Diego in most areas of the county. Jeff and Jer just landed in town. Dave, Shelly, and Chainsaw launched their show on KGB. Berger and Prescott moved to 91X. New music for adults and teens were hand in hand on the radio. Liberal Tom Leykis was heard on KFI weekday afternoons. Conservative Wally George was heard Monday nights on KLAC. B100 was playing hot adult hits. Q106 was playing the pop hits. Mike Halloran was heard on 91X doing afternoons. Dr. Demento was doing his live two-hour show on Sunday nights and his syndicated show was heard on hundreds of stations worldwide.

All this before the Internet age, and all this before corporate radio mergers took place.

Fast forward to 2010. Nothing much to listen to anymore. All of my radio idols are gone from the local airwaves. Gone. A few have since passed on. Totally sucks big time.

What's going on with the people who run the radio stations?

Halloran got fired from 94/9 earlier this year. DSC left KGB over contract renewal cost issues they couldn't agree on. Jeff and Jer are off the air. Leykis's show disappearred last year and won't be back until 2012 as per CBS Radio contract. Berger and Prescott are doing podcasts. Z90 isn't the same without dance hits. Q106 has been replaced with some Spanish-language format that's foreign to my Euro cultural tastes.

Radio mergers should have given us more diverse programming, not less, as in, more Spanish language formats, more teen/pop formats, and more right-wing talk formats.

Too many of the same kind of programming is what's killing radio today. What happened to the diversity we were promised? Just not there.

91X is back to being independent since its programming rights were sold to Jacor, then Clear Channel, then back to independent status, but the energy at 91X is gone. The music mix is flat, stale, uninspiring.

Star 94.1, a so-called replacement for B100, just isn't the same. It's bland, boring, god-awful!

Sophie 103.7 is another hot AC wannabe. Again, the music mix is uninspring, and downright unlistenable.

KGB 101.5 used to be THE station for classic rock and roll until 1990. Sounds like crap. The imaging is awful. The deejays are bored. Nothing to tune in for anymore.

JACK 100.7's mix of old hits is missing an awful lot of rock and rhythm songs they could be playing instead of the same classic rock songs KGB is playing to death.

Channel 933 is supposed to be the replacement for Q106. Skews too young. Nobody over the age of 17 could stand this mix.

FM 94/9 since losing Halloran has gained ratings thanks to the unlistenable Mikey in the morning, the most boring morning show host in recent memory and religious wacko. The music mix has gotten bland since Halloran left.

Dr. Demento's weekly radio show and many of his archived shows from the past are heard on drdemento.com for $2 a show, or subscribe to his Demento Online Club for some $160 a year.

Most of the talk shows on AM radio lack a lot of personality, are full of hatred towards the poor and the gay, and offers no reasonable solutions to the welfare state other than calls for the government to cut the poor off. This is public service radio? This is what corporate radio is now playing. Hey, KOGO, KFMB, and KCBQ, you're not serving the public interest with hate programming like this and may your FCC licenses get pulled for airing programming like that.

Has radio gone downhill since 1990? You betcha. They're not playing what we want to hear. People are listening to Internet radio on their cell phones nowadays with whatever apps they're using to whatever brands of phones they're compatable with. They're listening to music they want to hear, talk programming beyond right-wing wackos they want to hear, and they're showing them to their friends and getting them to listen to them.

As for Tom Leykis, he's officially launched his own company last week, The New Normal, on newnormalnetwork.com, and launched a podcast not yet hosted by Tom on his website, but still give it a listen. When he returns to doing live shows in 2012, he will literally be dominating every cell phone in the nation with his live call-in talk show. He will be taking advantage of the Internet by making his show directly available to his listeners with no radio station middlemen telling you "sorry, you can't listen to Tom Leykis because his show is not for your city."

Well, radio stations that don't play what we want, you're the ones getting screwed. It's your lack of vision that's hastening the demise of AM radio, and FM radio isn't that far behind in going out of business as well with Internet radio well established in homes, gaining traction on cell phones, and coming soon to cars. There will be no way local radio (in any city) could compete with 1,000,000 streaming radio staitons, so they will have to go out of business, and the FM band may be converted to nationwide 20MHz Internet radio broadband service with enough bandwidth to serve everybody any radio station they want to hear.

Even better yet, there should be technology coming up that will stream Internet music radio stations in WAV format. Now that's true CD audio fidelity, not compressed mp3 or Windows Media Player or AAC sound formats. Now that would be the Holy Grail of Internet radio broadcasting once WAV streaming becomes a reality.

Maybe we'll get to hear Dr. Demento stream live in WAV format on the Internet radio one last time before he goes away forever.

Letter #1 (May 20, 2010)

That pretty much sums it up about local radio being a wasteland. That's probably why when I'm in my car I listen to KPBS a lot of the time. I don't connect to the music or talk stations on now which are bland and predictable at the best, and otherwise obnoxious and unlistenable.

LA radio probably peaked around the early 80's when I lived there before KMET went down. It had 4 hours of Dr. Demento, and was balanced with a vibrant mix of personalities and music. KROQ (The Rock of the 80's) was playing new wave & punk rock years before 91X was launched. KLOS was a very good AOR station at the time, and is a better classic rock station today than KGB. KRTH was playing a wide selection of oldies. Today our Walrus has the edge even W/O Shotgun Tom. There was also KEZY, KNAC, and a couple of good top 40 stations in the day. Now LA radio is even worse than San Diego, except for having a full time news station KNX, and on weekends when Leo LaPorte is on KFI.

When I'm at home I only listen to internet streams. There's the Absolute Radio channels from the UK, which are like commercial stations should be done here, which have a good mix of personalities that connect to their audience, news, and decent music. Error FM is actually internet only and has one channel for personality and the other for music which is a somewhat eclectic indie/alternative channel that I like a lot. A couple of notable public music stations online are The Current and WXPN. Great Big Radio and Bob Morgan from KGBS have a couple stations with a very wide selection of oldies. There's Legato Cafe for AAA, and eclectic Legit Radio which harbors some local DJ's like Chris Cantore. Radio Paradise a unique eclectic mix, Radio Free Phoenix for choice obscure album cuts and singles that don't get played anywhere else. Classic Alternative Radio Nigel hosted by Steve West. iParty Radio and Dementia Radio speak for themselves. Planet Pootwaddle and Spastic Radio a bit un predictable. WCPT-AM from Chicagoland has Stephanie Miller, Ed Schultz, Thom Hartman, and Norman Goldman streaming online to counter the right wing monopoly on our dial.

When I'm at home I have over 50 preset streams that are free on my PC's iTunes player. No need for AM/FM or radio antennas here.

Letter #2 (May 20, 2010)

I'm all for XHMORE 98.9 dropping ESPN in favor of music. Put on a mix like the old Z90 was back in the 90s that appealled to listeners on both sides of the border. Sports talk just isn't happening. I was also a fan of Rewire on Friday nights. They should have gone the dance route without the rap and carved a listener base turned off by the other music stations. CHRles on a dance board on radio-info.com updates his list of dance stations on the Internet. His latest list is located at http://boards.radio-info.com/smf/index.php?topic=166395.0. He updates it every month or so.

Lack of good NEW music for ALL ages is what's killing radio today. I can't stand all of them. They're not taking chances with good enjoyable music, so we keep getting the same old songs from decades ago all the time. That's why broadcast radio is heading into oblivion.