The Wires (May 29, 2010)

North County Times: Plug pulled on Scott and Billy Ray commercial

Sign on San Diego: Enberg favors Padres, just not while at work

Multichannel: Kent: NCAA Deal Could Help Boost Turner Fees. Time Warner's Turner Broadcasting System has managed to keep affiliate fee increases in check - and out of the papers - over the years, but TBS chairman and CEO Phil Kent told analysts Thursday that its recent deal with CBS to carry the men's college basketball tournament could lead to big increases for the channels

Multichannel: Mouse House To Replace SoapNet With Disney Junior In 2012

Inside Radio Survey: Two-thirds oppose royalty settlement. At the request of Congress, the National Association of Broadcasters has had a half dozen meetings with the RIAA, MusicFirst and other record industry trade groups to talk over issues and discuss possible ways to resolve the performance rights issue. But a majority of Inside Radio readers say the industry cannot afford to give up a penny of revenue.

Broadcasting and Cable: FCC Launches Media-Ownership Rules Review (Broadcasting & Cable).

TV Technology: Uncovering Television's Past (TV Technology)

Media Matters: Glenn Beck, who repeatedly and angrily tells his alleged persecutors to "leave the families alone," spent a good chunk of his radio program Friday morning mocking and attacking the intelligence of President Obama's 11-year-old daughter, Malia (read the transcript - hear the audio - Media Matters).

Glenn Beck apologizes in a statement: "In discussing how President Obama uses children to shield himself from criticism, I broke my own rule about leaving kids out of political debates. The children of public figures should be left on the sidelines. It was a stupid mistake and I apologize--and as a dad I should have known better

Washington Post: Gary Coleman, child actor, 1968-2010.

Gary Lycan's latest radio column on OCR.

Fast Company: RDN Publisher Larry Shannon asks -- Couldn't the radio industry use a "Lady Gaga-type" person or braintrust to help it find its way and bring it into the 2010's to compete with and/or marry the many other encroaching high tech programming channels available today? Why can't radio executives bring highly creative non-radio people into the radio programming rooms to shine the light in places where the current radio programming people only see darkness? "Five years ago, Lady Gaga did not exist. Then 19, Stefani Germanotta was waitressing and singing in dingy New York clubs. But she had bigger goals. "Don't ask me how or why," she sings in "The Fame," her debut album's title track, which recalls the genesis of her career, "but I'm gonna make it happen".

Ron Jacobs's Blog: In response to the many requests for the book KHJ: INSIDE BOSS RADIO since it went out of print in 2002, we are reissuing the 445-page volume. For more info--and a one-hour collage of 93 KHJ promos go to: www.93khj.com - Here is a portion of one page of quotes; the book is full of hundreds of these, based on dozens of interviews conducted exclusively for KHJ: INSIDE BOSS RADIO: Gary Mack: As the rest of the crew was hired: Robert W. Morgan, Roger Christian, The Real Don Steele, Dave Diamond, Sam Riddle and Johnny Williams. We set about the business of getting organized. Ron Jacobs was brought in as Program Director--the best I've ever met. Charlie Tuna: The Real Don Steele was the rock star leader of the Boss Jocks. Very mysterious, said very little off the air, but when he did, people listened. Sam Riddle was the businessman

Mel Phillips: FCC Must Right The Wrong Of 1996 -- They may have broadband on their minds but the FCC must right the wrong of 1996 in order to keep radio from sliding back into a third-world media source. Since Congress established the radio rule in 1996 and the FCC set up the TV - Radio rule three years later, empires have been built to crumble and fall.

Inside Music Media: The recession is over and the motto of radio's biggest group operators is - let the cutbacks continue. The radio industry has been cutting back its work force for years. Technically, you can go back fourteen years to the beginning of consolidation when a handful of acquirers bought their local competitors and put the newly-merged operations in the same building. Maybe that was tidying up on expenses back then when each station had a receptionist but suddenly only needed one. But over the years consolidators have cut into the bone in their attempt to lose financial weight.

FMQB: Will Limewire Be Forced By The Court to Shut Down?

All Access: NAB, iBiquity Respond To HD Radio Power Boost Challenges

All Access: FCC To Discuss Internet Regulation At Open Meeting June 17th

Hate Mail From Some Radio Programmer (May 28, 2010)

"You moron! You don't have a clue how to do radio. You think you can complain about how bad radio is then tell people about youre (sic) stupid radio stations and show you host?

"I've been in the radio business for decades. What do you do, Mr. minimum wage worker? Bitch and wine (sic) about how San Diego radio sjcks (sic) and tell people to tune in to yur (sic) station instead? You can't do radio. Youre (sic) just a amateur radio wannabe who will never make it in this radio business.

"I worked to make the radio stations I work for get high ratings and listeners and command top advertising dollar. What do you do to make yurself (sic) useful in this world? Sit in your mommy's basement and posting hate speech about how bad corporate radio is? How big of you. Your (sic) nothing but a wortless (sic) hack who hasn't a clue what radio is all about.

"Radio is more than just paying ten bucks a month for a cheap streaming service. That's all your station is. Just a microphone and an Internet connection. It aint a radio station!"

Response to Hate Mail (May 28, 2010)

This what I have known since 1996. San Diego radio has been at the forefront of the consolidation radio nightmare, a dishonor I never wanted in my city. This consolidation nightmare has been spreading to other cities, resulting in homogenized CHR playlists, voicetracking, national contests, elminiation of diversity in music, the rise of foreign-language formats, the firing of longtime radio personalities, and the exodus of fed-up listeners to Satellite and Internet-based music entertainment.

From radio's OWN doing, and not mine, broadcast radio is sucking big time. San Diego radio sucks. It sucks. That's why I'm here. Because KGB sucks. KPRI sucks (sorry, but look at your ratings, Robert, it's not working), KIOZ sucks, Channel 933 sucks, Star 94.1 sucks, XTRA Sports sucks, KFMB-AM sucks, KOGO sucks, ESPN 98.9 sucks, 94/9 sucks (for firing Halloran and hiring the hatemonger Mikey), Recurdo 102.9 sucks (freaking boring, owned by Univision, another corporate), Sophie 103.7 sucks, La Nueva 106.5 sucks. Jack-FM sucks.

Somebody has to tell it like it is. Radio is just bankrupt in the idea department. They're not doing radio right. That's why listeners like me are smart enough to tell their readers about new Internet radio stations, exciting new music for mature people, radio shows that aren't hosted by right wing wackos of convicted felons, topics that are NOT limited to political bias or endless sports gossip.

I don't have to work in radio to criticize it. I'm human, unlike most of the suits that work at some radio company headquarters thousands of miles away from San Diego. The people who select what new songs radio stations have to play are out of touch, and we're out of time to deal with a radio company's inability to use judgment in selecting the good and discarding the bad.

In other words, Mr. radio cretin, we're real people. We're not an advertising dollar. We want what radio promised, but the Internet is delivering on radio's promise instead.

When we were promised diversity when radio consolidation begin to happen, we didn't think about cookie-cutter playlists, reduction in formats, cancelations of the Dr. Demento show, removal of dance and electronica music in favor of contemporary teen pop and rap, the rise of Spanish-language formats, stations programming two or more similar-sounding formats in the same market (KGB and KIOZ, 933 and Star, KYXY and Sophie) instead of coming up with diverse music formats, more right-wing talk mostly to deaf ears and low ratings, more sports talk with abysmal ratings, and the loss of commercial classical radio stations.

If you're such a radio pro, why didn't you spellcheck your hate mail? I didn't bother to correct your spelling mistakes. It's funnier that way so people will know what kinds of radio professionals are in the broadcast industry today.

So you see, Mr. professional radio scab, you're complaining about what bloggers have known what's wrong with radio for over a decade, yet you and your employer are still making the same mistakes that's driving listeners away. I'm not stupid. They're not stupid. They think YOU and your employer are stupid.

You get on the social networks only to plug your cookie cutter music instead of using it as input for people to tell you to play better songs and to stop playing the junk!

I am with Team Internet Radio and I will spew out whatever my likes and interests are to the masses through the Internet. I will not cave in to the moron broadcaster interests who are only interested in maintaining the status quo of mundaneness and sameness.

So instead of crawling back to Channel 933 where the programmer doesn't know s--t about selecting the good hits, I will spew out a recent Internet radio discovery below.

And as for your comment about radio being more than paying ten bucks a month for streaming and calling it a station: it shows how good radio can be when you get your brain out of the exhaust pipe and thinking about putting on what people might want to hear. In my case, it is comedy and novelty, something your professional radio station doesn't care to do. All you want to do is to play the mundane garbage, dangle some nationwide thousand dollar radio contest, and get people to waste their time listening through all of the musical dreck while waiting for a one in a million chance to dial the nationwide toll-free number that could make them win a four or five-figure cash award.

Just program good music instead. That will get the listeners.

You can have a million dollar radio station, but it ain't worth the value of bird cage lining if you don't have anything listenable to show for it.

I have commited Clear Channelacide once again.

Tom Taylor: Podcasting Without Internet (May 28, 2010)

"Push Radio" is the working name of the technology, to be developed jointly by China's Jolon Media Broadcasting and Commercial Radio Australia. It's possible because of the expanded capacity of DAB+. That's the next-generation version of the regular "DAB" digital radio standard the UK's working on, and it's capable of sending pictures and text. But the Chinese-Australian use of DAB+ for podcasting seems to leapfrog the usual enhanced broadcasting model, to send an unrelated audio file directly to a DAB+ receiver. The Digital-Media Australia site says the Chinese and Australians will be working on Push Radio for the next 12 months, with a trial in Australia later this year. Commercial Radio Australia's Joan Warner says "to free listeners from the necessity to connect to the Internet to receive podcast and other specific information and targeted programming is a major step forward" for DAB+.

Read about Internet-free podcasting trial slated for late 2010 right here

Also read Gizmodo: Digital Radio Could Push Podcasts To You Over Broadcast Band

Commentary: Podcasting Without Internet (May 28, 2010)

As Internet radio gets more mobile, it will become more like terrestrial radio, in fact, podcasts such as the David Tanny Show (hint, hint) could be just like a terrestrial radio show, except that it brings funny music and comedy to the masses in their cars.

This is what HD radio needs to become useful. They need to become podcast relay stations to serve up a podcast of your choice instead of streaming distant radio stations or playlist loops all the time.

Already, you can download podcasts on your iPod, hook it up to your car radio, and listen while you drive. You can also download some podcasts onto an USB drive, and plug it into your car radio equipped with a USB jack.

You can use those current methods to listen to the Berger and Prescott podcasts in your car and pretend it's 1988 and your radio is tuned to KGB, or 1991 and your radio is tuned to 91X.

The Wires (May 28, 2010)

TV Technology: Costa Rica Dumps ATSC DTV Standard. The country concluded that ISDB-Tb was technically more robust. Read more at the link.

TV Technology: FCC Mobile Wireless Report Cites Higher Frequency Advantage. I hope this statement is a hint that the FCC may consider taking away less than 20 channels.

Ron Jacobs Blog: In response to the many requests for the book KHJ: INSIDE BOSS RADIO since it went out of print in 2002, we are reissuing the 445-page volume. For more info--and a one-hour collage of 93 KHJ promos go to: www.93khj.com - Here is a portion of one page of quotes; the book is full of hundreds of these, based on dozens of interviews conducted exclusively for KHJ: INSIDE BOSS RADIO: Gary Mack: As the rest of the crew was hired: Robert W. Morgan, Roger Christian, The Real Don Steele, Dave Diamond, Sam Riddle and Johnny Williams. We set about the business of getting organized. Ron Jacobs was brought in as Program Director--the best I've ever met. Charlie Tuna: The Real Don Steele was the rock star leader of the Boss Jocks. Very mysterious, said very little off the air, but when he did, people listened. Sam Riddle was the businessman.

Art Linkletter Passes On at 97

Ch-Ch-Changes to TWO Funny Music Shows (May 27, 2010)

Two long-running dementia radio shows, "Revenge of the Particle" and "I Still Get Demented" are changing days and times.

DJ Particle, host of "Revenge of the Particle" (http://www.djparticle.com/revenge/) heard on dementiaradio.org, is moving her show from Saturday evenings to Friday afternoons beginning on May 28th.

"ROTP" will stream beginning at 5pm Eastern Time, 4pm Central Time, and 2pm Pacific Time.

For those who are not-yet Smartphone enabled such as this editor, the episodes will be posted on themadmusicarchive.com soon after it airs.

The other show that's changing days and time slots is the David Tanny hosted "I Still Get Demented" radio show.

Though it will continue to air at 10am Eastern time on Saturdays, it will also air at 7am Eastern time. That's 4am and 7am on the West coast. By design, the default "ISGD" playlist feed is the same as the "ISGD" timeslot feed, so after the regular timeslot for the show ends, "ISGD" will repeat again, then every six or seven hours at unpredictable times. This starts on May the 29th.

The Monday regular timeslot airings of "ISGD", however, will end. Beginning on May 30th, "ISGD" will run three times in their new regular Sunday night timeslots beginning at 7pm, 10pm, and 1am Eastern time. Western listeners can listen at 4pm, 7pm, and 10pm, then repeats every six or seven hours afterwards.

"I Still Get Demented" features 93 minutes of comedy and novelty-dementia, plus about 45 minutes of the ifunny Weekly Top 10 where viewers vote on their favorites by naming them on the voting page provided on http://www.ifunnyradio.com/

Also, the "ISGD" channel has been upgraded to a 96k feed with CD-quality fidelity so the songs will sound better. The "ISGD" feed is free, but cash donations are happily accepted to help pay for the cost of the live365 stream.

On a related note, the latest Dr. Demento's weekly shows will begin streaming on a Friday (two days before the latest dated show) on drdemento.com, but there is a $2 fee to listen to the on-demand streams.

Lee DeWyze Wins 'American Idol' (May 27, 2010)

iPartyRadio Shuts Down (May 27, 2010)

iPartyRadio.com, which has been entertaining us dance-deprived music fans in an age where corporate radio has eliminated dance from their cookie-cutter playlists, has closed down at the end of May 26th after five years of bitcasting the grooves and remixed hits.

Says an ipartyradio rep on the air: "The advertising revenue isn't keeping pace with the royalties that the station is obliged to pay."

The station is going to restructure the station and then come back once they're ready to relaunch, the rep continues.

Posted on their site today:

"iPartyRadio thanks you all for 5 amazing years of memories. Sadly, we have to say goodbye. Today will be our final day on the air. We have outgrown the old royalty system and cannot afford the rates needed on the new system with our current structure, so FOR NOW we have to say goodbye. Perhaps we'll be able to restructure and return one day.... Nonetheless, thank you so much for the love and the memories.

"Wednesday, May 26th will be our final day of webcasting and will go off the air at midnight central with our final goodbyes.

"We will miss you."

From their recent twitter postings:

"Relax, Take it easy. I want to thank everyone of you listeners for believing in our dream of providing the very best dance tracks and Party favorites. Without you, we wouldnt have made it 5 years... 2 more hours left (as of 8pm PDT), please join us till the end of our journey. -------Skyler"

"The phonelines have been clogged but please leave a voicemail. 877-563-9090. we want to thank you for everything, its the final 3 hours of iPartyRadio -------Skyler"

"If anyone cares... Lee Dewyze just won American Idol... We're calling foul on that one.... It should have been Crystal."

"so anyone hiring for a 23 year old radio jock? let me know skylerontheradio.com haha -------Skyler"

From Chance Lewis, APD of Y100 in Green Bay, WI: "This should be a wake-up call to all of us...How real the attacks on us from the record companies through bills that create taxes and fees because they haven't figured out how to survive in the new "day of the single"...Royalties have affected a great station and put them dark today...Let's not let congress pass the performance tax, or we will all be going black. "Viva La Resistance!""

sandiegoradionews.com NOT For Sale, But... (May 27, 2010)

We can, however, post your paid business banner on THIS index homepage as its visited by over 500 people a week.

Since this is basically aimed at San Diego, we want to hear from local business websites who do business worldwide or locally, as rates and terms for the run of the banners will vary.

Contact the webmaster and suggest any reasonable rate and term you wish to pay, along with the name of your business (legit ones, only) and website so it can be reviewed before being accepted and billing sent via paypal.

The Wires (May 27, 2010)

Randy Dotinga: Out on the dance floor, '70s-style. It empowered just about everybody who felt like they weren't anybody ---- blacks, gays, women. It was boogie without woogie, a steady beat without rock 'n' roll and, to much of the country, just about the worst thing they'd ever heard, thank you very much.

The Wires (May 26, 2010)

New York Times: Congress will begin a process to modernize telecommunications laws that were last overhauled in 1996 but barely mention the Internet.

Inside Music Media: Social media is on the verge of a meltdown in consumer confidence that could totally redefine its role in traditional and new media -- The crisis stems from recent and increasingly numerous revelations that Facebook, MySpace and even Google have played foot loose and fancy free with privacy issues that turned out to matter to hundreds of millions of social network users. Facebook was recently outed for giving heretofore thought to be private user data to companies for advertising purposes.

ZDNet: Facebook breach: user phone numbers exposed but who's to blame?

FMQB: SoundExchange Explains $200 Million In Unpaid Fees.s

All Access: Howard Stern Leads Nominees For Radio Hall Of Fame.

Tom Taylor: CBS may be close to announcing more station sales. Leslie Moonves made a point of bringing it up during his most recent quarterly call, and despite the fact that this is not the optimal time, TRI hears Moonves may be entertaining offers for as many as five markets. In the rumor mill - San Diego. Phoenix. Orlando. Cleveland. And Riverside-San Bernardino.

Adjacent Stations Receiving HD Interference As HD Power Grows (May 25, 2010)

KMLA 103.7, a radio station serving the Oxnard/Ventura area, is receiving adjacent-channel interference from a Los Angeles station that is so strong that its the HD sideband of the distant station is co-channeling with the distant station that is assigned to the frequency to broadcast.

KOST 103.5 in Los Angeles broadcasts in HD, but due to the nature of the HD broadcast footprint, it broadcasts at a range from 103.3 to 103.7 MHz edge to edge instead of the analog-only footprint of about 103.37 to 103.63 MHz.

KMLA 103.7's analog signal goes from 103.57 to 103.83 MHz. Normally, there is adjacent channel interference when trying to receive a distant analog radio station if you're too close to the local station.

But KMLA and KOST are about 60 miles apart, which is so close to each other in distance that there are spots that the two step on each other's frequency footprint boundaries, with the uppermost KOST frequencies stepping on the lowermost KMLA frequencies, an overlap between 103.57 to 103.63 MHz, so on analog receivers, if you try to tune in KMLA on 103.7 though your radio can "see" the signal, and you're too close to KOST, you'll hear the adjacent channel interference from KOST.

But with KOST's digital footprint ending at 103.7 MHz, the digital interference is between 103.63 and 103.7 MHz, stepping on the lower analog frequency of KMLA, causing adjacent-channel digital interference.

The digital hiss, if full power, can render reception of KMLA unreceivable in most areas of the area its licensed to serve.

There are also reports of another small radio station, KATY in Idyllwild, broadcasting at 101.3 FM, is receiving HD interference from KRTH 101.1 in Los Angeles some 90 miles away. KRTH's digital signal extends its footprint from 100.9 to 101.3 Mhz. KATY's analog signal is from 101.17 to 101.43 MHz. KRTH's upper HD digital signal is stepping on KATY's analog signal from 101.23 to 101.3 MHz.

The HD interference problem is acute when there are radio station spaced too close to each other in distance relative to adjacent frequency. At 120 miles between San Diego and Los Angeles, adjacent channel interference isn't as bad (eg: 97.1 Los Angeles vs. 97.3 San Diego) as it is when adjacent stations are spaced 60 miles apart. When digital power is boosted, possibilities of digital interference with analog signals 60-120 miles away will only get worse.

The Wires (May 25, 2010)

Ron Jacobs: In my opinion, KGB-AM-FM in San Diego was the most underrated station that I programmed (1972-1976). When I left our company, Watermark, in ’72, "American Top 40" had become as tedious and repetitive as the KHJ Boss Radio format and all my other gigs that, when perfected, ended up being boring. (Implicit in the word "format" is that things will go over and over and over again.) The most scientific study and application of music programming theory I was ever involved with was at KGB. Computers were in a primitive stage, mostly found on campuses and only the biggest public and private operations utilized them. It was 1972, the time of the “Do Not Punch, Staple or Mutilate” cards, full of tiny holes that meant something -- a zero or a one -- to the sensor, which began the process that resulted in those giant, perforated, accordion-folded printouts. My goal in San Diego was to set the AM straight and then plunge into the interesting stuff: Coming up with a “hip” new FM format.

Now and Then: Unpaid Performance Royalty Millions Pile Up -- The recent announcement by Digital Music News that $200 million in unpaid performance royalty money is piling up has been confirmed by SoundExhange. Besides being an embarrassment for SoundExchange, what does it say about properly dispersing performance royalties?

KOZT Dropping Dr. Demento (May 24, 2010)

Edwin on rec.music.dementia posted: "I was just listening on KOZT streaming radio and just before they were going to play the show. Vicky (the evening deejay) announces that they will no longer be playing the show on terrestrial radio as of June 6th (Dr. Demento has been blacked out on the stream since September 2006). She said that their sponsor Home Style Cafe will no longer pay for the show to be played. She said that they played the show for 16 years and that they hate to not to be able to play it any more. Dr. Demento bites the dust on another radio station!"

According to the drdemento.com website, only five stations remain that carry his show.