15th Annual State of San Diego Radio Address (Jan 1, 2012)

This is another annual state of San Diego radio address that we usually put out at the beginning of each year.

This year, in 2012, is the year broadcast radio has to strike back at the Internet.

We have Slacker, Pandora, Spotify, iHeartRadio (owned and operated by Clear Channel) and other music streaming radio services continuing to chomp away at the amount of time people listen to commercial radio. Phone apps, satellite radio, streaming music services on the Internet, and rogue music download sites are as mainstream in today's culture as they're going to get. Connect an Internet phone that can stream music from Pandora onto the input jack of a home or car stereo, and you got an instant radio station with a playlist made your way.

Radio stations, on the other hand, are just not trying hard enough to get the listeners back to listening to their formats. A radio station generally has one programming format, and that is the one playlist created by the programmer that airs on the broadcast antenna as well as their streaming service. Most of the stations here have one or two extra HD side channels for music programming, but that's a weakness if the radio station doesn't put a "LISTEN" link for those HD channels on the home pages of the radio station websites. KPBS-FM, for example, has a "LISTEN" tab, and it lists its main 89.5 signal as "Live Radio" to listen to, as well as what I suppose is a link to listen to its HD2 classical music channel. I don't see one for its HD3 channel Groove Salad there.

Channel 933 has a "LISTEN" link for its main station only, and not one for its HD2 channel Pride Radio. C'mon, guys. Make it easy for the listeners to listen to your HD2 and HD3 channels.

Why stop there? If Internet streams seem relatively unlimited compared to the FM broadcast band, why not put "LISTEN" links to the entire Clear Channel San Diego radio cluster from any of the seven sister radio station websites? Cross-promotion is always good. Put "LISTEN" links to all of the HD2 and HD3 side channels so the listener can just tune in any one of the seven stations and 7-14 sub channels from a single website. You spend that amount of energy making these sub channels. Promote them better.

It doesn't stop there. KOGO could also add in some selected streaming sister radio stations from outside the area such as KFI, KIIS, and whatever other stations is similar to the stations. That could help keep the listeners on your website longer, and the more they stay on the website, guess what they'll see? More advertising banners. That's the idea, which is in part why some listeners are avoiding commercial radio. Long commercial stop sets, limited playlists, and lack of musical diversity.

Clear Channel San Diego has just four music stations. Two play contemporary pop, and two play mostly classic and old rock and roll. Is that all that is commercially viable to program? Some work, some don't work.

Speaking of what don't work, consider FM 94/9's ineffable music format. It's not working with the listeners. Is Mikey working on the morning ratings? Maybe today's new rock music just isn't appealling. Is anybody making good engaging masterpiece progressive rock and roll anymore? Would flipping to a classic rock format to compete with KGB's format help? It could if it modified the classic rock format to include a more diverse selection of 70s and 80s rock and roll, wider playlist, deeper classic cuts, and retiring the worn-out songs that have lost its meaning. There hasn't been a classic rock competetor since 2005. Jack-FM plays a mix of rock music, but some station could do better than Jack and KGB.

The so-called power pop dance format is mainstream as heard on Channel 933, Z90, 96.1, and other stations featuring CHR music. It seems that the dance music format that was the norm ten years ago has vanished from several of the streams that I used to listen to. Nowadays it's dance mixed with hip hop and techno, which is hard on my ears. Seems that techno is everywhere on the air now, and I'm very much worn out on the genre after 20 years when it was first exposed on Power 106 in Los Angeles. I'm thinking that people are ready for the return of grown up pop and rock music with real instruments, tame lyrics, and easier melodies.

The state of funny music, alas, is terminal, and I'm thinking that the genre of funny music is dead. Even though "Weird Al" Yankovic's last album hit #9 on the Billboard album chart for a week, it wasn't enough to convince the radio programmers to program comedy music on their playlists. Worse, people are giving funny music the same bad rap as they're giving rap and hip hop music. Just because some of them are explicit and mature in nature, it doesn't mean that the whole genre itself is tainted. Creators have a right to produce such explicit material for sale, but radio, following FCC rules, has to request special edits of such songs in order for them to get played. Some stations avoid them altogher, reasoning that if a song needs to be censored, then it doesn't deserve to get played.

If people who make funny recordings keep making profanity and obscenity, it makes the whole funny music and spoken word genre look tainted. That's what some of the readers told me over the past year why they are too shy to listen to Dave's Fun Stuff Radio, as they think they'll hear nothing but four-letter words, obscene humor, and mature topics. With streaming radio, there is no FCC to tell them what they can and cannot air; you're very much going to have to expect to be shocked at what comes down the stream, so many people are staying away from comedy as a programming stream idea because of how nasty funny music and comedy has become as of late.

There just is no market for funny music. Sales are just not there. Stevens and Grdnic, when asked why they don't make their funny recordings that they once produced for morning radio stations available for sale on CD, answered that there is no market for such material and it wouldn't sell enough recordings to justify the expense of producing and distributing the albums to record stores. I'm one of the few exceptions, but that's the problem. There's too few of me to help make the sales of such comedy successful.

Also such morning show recording subjects tend to have a short shelf life, such as satires on political figures, recent topics in news, and celebrity brushes with the law. Successful albums stick to topics that are universal and timeless. That's why such material is heard only on some morning radio shows for a week, then never heard again.

Few comedy acts make it on the Billboard album charts. Most never make it onto the Billboard singles charts. Novelty music, the root of funny music, has bascially been killed off not only by the contemporary hit radio programmers, but, believe it or not, the lack of quality new novelty musicians coming onto the scene to produce entertaining funny music for all ages to enjoy.

If you want to sell a lot of records, aim it at the 25 and over audience, and make them serious with grown up lyrics. Comedy, teen, profanity, and edgy material just don't work for the most part for listeners for age 35 and older anyway. Novelty has seemed to seque into nerdcore, which is not the same as comedy, and has more of a degree of mainstream than novelty, as nerds and geeks are nowadays mainstream instead of a niche novelty audience that they once were three decades ago.

There's 24/7 Comedy Radio making its way onto broadcast affilliates across the nation. Also available is All Comedy Radio. Those two formats are broadcast friendly, meaning no profanity or adult nature material that cannot be broadcast. Are the audiences so turned off by spoken word comedy and funny music that they're not as popular or widely available as they should be?

So let's just say that good old traditional comedy exists on the terrestrial radio stations that wish to program them for a PG-rated audience, but the rogue streaming comedy radio services that play profanity and obscenity are what's causing the genre of funny recordings to be tainted.

So what can radio do? With sports talk radio stations, program some non-sports talk progrmaming. ESPN 1700 features brokered financial shows from 9am-2pm for example. Coming in April 2, Tom Leykis makes his return as a radio talk show host, in time to help celebrate a quarter of a century of Leykis on the radio in Southern California (he was first heard on KFI in 1988). When play-by-play sports isn't on, and people are tired of all the sports talk, give Leykis's New Normal Radio production a call to help give sports talk a brief break.

All this brings up a question: is talk a viable format anymore? Most of them are foundering in the ratings. Most people don't listen to talk. Many prefer music, but most who have smartphones use it to program their own playlists with Pandora.

This brings up personalized streaming radio. In 2002, Live365 was the rage as it let people upload their song collections and stream them to their listeners. It was great for a while, until they started charging for the service. Some stayed, but others became just listeners. With Pandora and other new streaming services allowing anybody to create their own music playlist free of charge (with some ads), where does this leave live365? It's becoming a dinosaur service compared to Pandora. You can't program your own playlist on live365 except when you become a paying programmer who buys an package, and when you do, you'll have to upload songs you have to buy and rip yourself, which costs money and time. Take it from me. I'm phasing out live365 because I hate renting a service based on the amount of space and you have to keep uploading, deleting, and upload another batch of songs every week in order to retain listeners. I just don't have the time for it anymore, especially when listeners aren't interested in large numbers to listen to the stream you paid to put a playlist on. Live365 needs to change with the times and become more like Pandora, or become a footnote in the history of websites.

For the past two months, Roger Hedgecock has been airing on KOGO-AM while LaDona Harvey's show aired on KOGO-FM. The difference at the top and bottom of the hour? The local news breaks are heard only on the FM, while the AM has Fox News. I'm not sure why the split in the news as the local news could have also been heard on AM and FM at the same time at the top and bottom of the hour.

Roger Hedgecock moves to KFMB 760 January 2. KOGO expands talk to the FM dial. Will KFMB-AM do the same? If so, they would need to lease a Mexican owned FM radio station to program it on since their Jack-FM is doing well. KFMB-AM's ratings are on the fail end of the ratings.

KCBQ should have gotten an FM station by now to simulcast its AM 1170 talk format, so why can't they lease the 96.9 signal from North County and put KCBQ on up there?

XTRA Sports 1360 needs a North County translator. Can't they get AM 1450? No, they can't. Clear Channel is at a maximum of seven radio stations in San Diego. AM 1360 don't come in North County before sunrise and after sunset. Chris once reported that he got an AM 1360 from Phoenix an hour before sunrise. Totally bizarre.

Is AM relevant anymore? Might as well expand the FM band to 54-72 and 76-108 MHz, move all of the AM broadcasters there, add in the pure digital full powered HD radio stations on the 54-72 and 76-88 Mhz portion of the band, and give the AM band to Shortwave. AM is riddled with so much static nowadays that it's become unreliable and unlistenable for distant stations. There's just too many AM stations, period. Have the smaller stations move to FM while the bigger AM stations could be allowed to adjust their broadcast contours to cover a wider area, even becoming nighttime regional stations. The most successful ones should broadcast sports such as basketball, hockey, baseball, and more so that people in distant cities could hear the team broadcasts some 500 miles away during the night. Talk radio on a clear channel or strong nighttime receptive regional station just isn't enough. Play some music on the strong AM stations! Back then, I used to listen to X-Rock 80 (AM 800) from El Paso in 1974 when it played the hits of the day that were very similar to KCBQ 1170's top forty format.

Will KSIQ flip to country, or will it flip to a Spanish language music format. Its limited signal in East and South County needs a format that works in those areas.

Last year's power outage was a huge disappointment for the local TV stations. With no power, and hardly any portable digital TV sets available, how could we watch to the news? KOGO, KFMB, and KPBS-FM (who contributed to KOGO's news coverage) was all we could use with our AM radios.

Local TV stations need to get an AM radio station to simulcast their local news shows for commuters and people without a TV. Digital terrestrial TV sucks. Digital TV is great for satellite TV, it's great for cable TV, it's great for streaming on a computer stream via the Internet, but for terrestrial broadcast, it just don't work. Nada. I tried using a portable TV set five miles from the KGTV transmitter atop Mount Soledad. I was in Claremont. The KGTV signal was extremely pixelated, reminiscent of Max-Headroom. Some TV revolution. It's so revolting!

Cable TV needs to stop raising the prices for its cable services. Dump the converter box and put the boxes into new TV sets. Make it simple, stupid TV manufacturer companies.

And now, for my annual wish list.

AM 540 talk - just flip it to something that people will listen to or sell it.

AM 600 news/talk - bring back the morning news drive.

AM 760 talk - Leykis beginning in April. Cut down on the conservative talk a bit.

AM 800 Spanish language sports - good enough.

AM 910 religion - no comments

AM 1000 simulcast all TV audio.

AM 1090 sports - flip to 60s and 70s hit radio with sports broadcasts.

AM 1170 talk - simulcast some local TV station audio.

AM 1360 sports - simulcast some local TV station audio.

AM 1700 talk/sports - get a general talk format in the morning.

FM 88.3 jazz - add in more music genres.

FM 89.5 news/classical - no comment

FM 90.3 is it CHR?

FM 91.1 alternative rock - drop the oldies and just play the newer alternative rock hits.

FM 92.1 country - how well is this station doing simulcating KSON-FM?

FM 92.5 old school - mix in some modern dance music.

FM 93.3 top 40 chr - too much techno dance. Still too much rap.

FM 94.1 hot AC - Flip to adult pop.

FM 94.9 alternative rock - lose Mikey. Flip to either classic rock or New Normal-type rock.

FM 95.7 KOGO simulcast. - Why not all comedy?

FM 96.1 Campo - flip to Que Buena format from Long Beach. How about bringing back Radio Disney?

FM 96.5 AC - no comment

FM 97.3 country - no comment

FM 98.1 smooth - no comment

FM 98.9 Rock en Espanol - flip to something that San Diego wants.

FM 100.7 hot AC - be more unpredictable. Play everything that was a hit.

FM 101.5 classic rock - widen the playlist!!!!!

FM 102.1 AAA - play some harder rock.

FM 102.9 Spanish Language - bring back EZ103.

FM 103.7 Hot AC/AAA - reformat to AMP radio.

FM 105.3 hard rock - take more chances on new rock music

FM 105.7 oldies - no comment.

FM 106.5 Spanish Language - move La Nueva to a Tijuana stick, lease it to Q96 and redub it as Q106 on this frequency!

The Top 10 Best Things in Radio in 2011

2. The DSC on Jack - after a change of heart, this is actually listenable.

3. Dance Radio on the Internet - there are not very many radio stations specializing in dance music, but the Internet has been a big help in getting this genre to my ears and to millions of modern uptempo music fans worldwide.

4. New Normal Music - Tom Leykis has the nats to bring us his selection of new rock and roll songs, some of which were heard on local radio a month or two later.

5. Oz on 91X in the mornings - music instead of talk in the morning.

6. San Diego Charger Radio Broadcasts - Josh Lewin enjoying another season as the play-by-play voice of the Chargers and former Bolts running back Hank Bauer providing color commentary sure beat the monotone Brent Musburger and somebody else calling the ESPN college games. Josh should replace Brent the first chance he gets!

7. Steve West Sunday Mornings - He's back hosting Resurrection Sunday mornings.

8. 24/7 Comedy and All Comedy Radio - in 100 cities, none near San Diego. Any takers?

9. Casey Kasem's Retro Top 40 Countdown Shows - they air on XM channels 7 and 8, but no station locally that I know of. This is how pop music used to sound like, that is, good enough for people 25 and older to enjoy it.

10. Underground Rock in Sirius/XM 21...this is what classic rock should sound like.

The Top 5 Worst Things in Radio in 2011

2. Mikey on 94.9 - just plain unlistenable.

3. KGB-FM - 50 year old rock just doesn't interest anybody outside of Social Security age.

4. Spoken Comedy/Satire/Funny music - rest in peace, it's dead. People are just not interested in buying comedy audio anymore. Totally ruined by a few dozen beyond repair.

5. Rock in Espanol 98.9 - it's just not happening.