Media: Goodbye, KGO Newstalk 810

TORONTO, ONTARIO - There have been a lot of events in the past year or so since I ceased blogging regularly that should have brought me back to the keyboard for the hour that it normally takes to write a standard entry. Considering that this blog started with the 2008 Federal Election in Canada, it was especially hard to sit out the 2011 election, but my present employment had me in California for virtually the entire campaign, and besides time pressure, I did not wish to be commenting from a distance. There have been plenty of special events that I have attended, not just in my beloved Toronto but around the North American continent that warranted coverage, from a Maritime Festival in Seattle to scientific symposia in Montreal. There have been plenty of developments in United States politics on which I could offer a personality perspective that might be of value. There have been deaths, from Roger Abbott to Steve Jobs to Osama Bin Laden to Andy Rooney that I could have commented on. Yet, in the end, what has driven me back is the end of radio station KGO as we knew it.

It's not like those in the industry, or even observers like me, didn't see this coming. I've written about changes at this iconic radio station multiple times as the handwriting on the wall became more and more indelible, perhaps most strongly back in 2010 when Mickey Luckoff resigned. Yet, just because it isn't a surprise--the recent change in ownership to Cumulus meant it was only a matter of time--doesn't make it any less remarkable. As of Thursday, KGO ceased to be "Newstalk 810". It fired the majority of its talk show hosts (leaving only Ronn Owens on weekdays) and is now heading toward a news-based format with the new slogan, "The Bay Area's News and Information Station."

While it may not have technically been the first all-talk radio station, when KGO adopted a talk format in 1962--yes, that's right, almost 60 years ago--it was a pioneer that would change the industry. It came to not only dominate ratings in its home market of the San Francisco Bay Area, but to be a model for stations across the country, and it had remained a leader, really right up until now. While I had been introduced to the talk format on local stations in Seattle as a youth, it was tuning in KGO at night that caused me to really appreciate the potential of the format to inform and entertain concurrently and really justify radio listening as a background activity while doing other things.

In fact, it's not saying too much to say that KGO, along with other quality stations in the market such as KCBS and KQED, was a big factor in convincing me that I should go to college in the Bay Area, setting me on the life course that I am on now. Any area that could support such a good radio station and have such good callers to talk shows must have a population that was worth living amongst (a logic that I would later apply to Boston and the whole nation of Canada as part of my calculus in later moves as well, something that will never be repeated now).

While since leaving the Bay Area, my KGO listening over the Internet has been reduced to God Talk with Brent Walters and Brian Copeland on Sundays (which, ironically, continue onward--but nobody assumes they will survive the changes for long), there is no question that KGO has been part of my life since I was a youth. The end of KGO as a talk station means the end of what will stand as a significant era in my life, no matter how much longer I live.

Over on my web page about what makes a good radio station, after the 2010 update, KGO was the only talk radio station I felt was worth mentioning anymore. Now, there are none. There is no commercial talk radio station I find generally worth listening to anymore, anywhere in the world. Sure, there are individual programs out there, mostly on public radio, but no station cultivating quality talk programming as part of its identity. The genre of radio that once dominated my listening habits is gone, completely gone.

I will not argue that KGO had not become somewhat stale. It was easy to parody many of the hosts on their schedule (especially John Rothmann's penchant for political connections, Ray Taliaferro's mannerisms, and Dr. Bill Wattenburg's technological fixations). Their ratings had been falling for reasons besides new ratings technology. But, I would contend that the formula for making a great radio station has not changed. I happened to write my essay on the topic in 1998, but it could have been written in 1958, 1978, or now.

Instead, KGO's new owners want to take on market leader KCBS in news. It's folly. As much as I admire the San Francisco market, there's no way any new contender is going to beat out not just KCBS (which is on AM and FM these days) but also KQED, KALW, and KPFA on the public radio spectrum, where more and more people are tuning for news. In particular, they're not going to accomplish it on the limited budget that Cumulus will devote to the process. Making good radio costs money, partially for talent but also for operations, and owners don't want to hear that anymore. Instead, it's a race to reduce costs, leaving no product of any value. Some believe that KGO may fail so badly with an all-news format that its 50,000 watt signal may end up doing brokered foreign-language programming before long.

The argument has been made that what I would consider good radio isn't supported by markets. It is difficult to explain the health of public radio in light of that argument--more and more public radio stations are garnering ratings that would make commercial stations drool, and they find ways to raise money to pay for the programming that is accomplishing that. No, instead what we have is an oddly distorted market in which demand is very elastic and the suppliers can't seem to understand how the quality of their product impacts the demand curve--made all the more complicated by the fact that the customers are advertisers, not the audience immediately served by the product.

The commercial radio industry is broken, like many things in the United States. The end of KGO as a newstalk station demonstrates just how far it has fallen. I believe it is an unnecessary shame, and I will miss Newstalk 810.

Culture: Gatherings at the Cathedral

The Trinity Cathedral in San Jose, California was observed prior to the Gathering at the Cathedral on 9-January-2011

PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA - One of the real gems of commercial talk radio in the United States is God Talk, a Sunday morning show on KGO Newstalk 810 in San Francisco, California. Hosted by San Jose State professor Brent Walters, what has been for the past few months a one-hour show at 5 am (after decades of being a three-hour show) presents religious topics in their proper historical context, leading to the kind of insight that one usually only receives in a college lecture.

As a long-time listener to the program through KGO's Internet archive, I have been following the fate of this show as it was almost canceled in the past few months, as reported on this blog. When Walters announced that he would be holding an in-person "Gathering at the Cathedral" while I was planning to be in the Bay Area, I decided to make sure that I could attend.

Somewhere around fifty people gathered at Trinity Cathedral in downtown San Jose last Sunday at 5 pm. The somewhat diminutive 1861 building is simply gorgeous from an architectural perspective, and I probably could have spent time just taking in the stained glass and displays inside.


Brent Walters spoke to the audience at the Gathering at the Cathedral in San Jose's Trinity Cathedral on 9-January-2011

However, we were there for a lecture, and after a brief introduction from the Cathedral's Dean, the Very Reverend David Bird, Brent Walters went right to the topic of the day, the historical context of the Gospel of James. The lecture format worked much better than the radio show for getting complicated material across, as the questions remained relevant, there were no commercial breaks, and the visual slides helped keep focus on the matter at hand.

Furthermore, in a one-hour lecture context, Walters was able to get across material in a way that was much more effective to me. I had no idea of the symbolism of many Biblical names--that the same word was used for both Jacob and James, or for Joshua and Jesus, connecting them. Walters made a compelling case for the Book of James being the oldest Christian document that exists, being written by a brother of Jesus who would lead what was then a Jewish movement when he became an elder at age 40. The context of James considering himself a "slave," meaning that he was repaying the debt of the people, was clearly presented and served as a great case study to the kind of historical analysis that is Walters' bread and butter.

While the content of the evening was why we were there, the real treat for me was getting to see Brent Walters in person and meeting some of the rest of the God Talk audience, most of whom were locals but some of whom were from even farther away in England. Walters was clearly an experienced college lecturer, notable as he walked back and forth in front of the audience, and it was amusing to see his Dr. Pepper bottle next to his Apple computer during the talk. His analogy of Wisdom Literature to using Twitter, while possible to take too far, was something I found quite insightful.

Regardless of the fate of the radio show, the Gatherings at the Cathedral will continue monthly, on the first Sunday of each month. For more information, watch Brent Walters' God Talk web site or contact him directly at the e-mail addresses listed on that page.

Economy: Putting a Very Public Face on It

TORONTO, ONTARIO - At long last, the mainstream media in the United States has started to focus occasionally on the long-term unemployed. I found it especially significant to hear a systems engineer from California as a guest on the NPR talk show On Point when it explored the topic, as that could have easily been me with slightly different life decisions. Yet, it was another radio show that provided an example that may resonate with just about anyone that's lived in northern California in the past generation.

On Brian Copeland's Sunday morning talk show on KGO in San Francisco, he took a call twenty minutes into his third hour from a Mike in Vallejo. The Mike was soon revealed to be Mike Pechner, the well-known meteorologist who worked at rival KCBS in San Francisco for forty years. I even knew Mike Pechner's name before I moved to the area from listening to the station at night from Seattle and while visiting the area--for people that grew up listening to KCBS for news, Pechner was an absolute institution. Probably nobody was more closely identified with morning weather forecasts in the Bay Area than Pechner, certainly not for as many years as Pechner was on the air.

Furthermore, I had met Mike Pechner. Besides being a radio personality, he is a railroad enthusiast, a member of many of the fan groups that I also participated in while in the Bay Area and especially active surrounding any railroad in the north bay where he made his home. He has been an outspoken advocate of the restoration of service in that region, all the while providing expert forecasts to railfans who wanted to check out train action on Donner Pass around snowstorms.

So, needless to say, I perked up when it became clear that it was Mike Pechner calling in. It turns out that since he was laid off by KCBS, he has become a member of the long-term unemployed. He described how he has unsuccessfully tried to pursue alternate careers to broadcasting but that his age--he is now 64--was proving to be a major problem. About the only way he had found to earn a partial living was substitute teaching--but with the rash of teacher layoffs in California, this was becoming less and less frequent.

Anyone that has met Mike Pechner knows that he is a hard worker--and I suspect most people who heard him on the radio don't have much difficulty imagining that. While I haven't seen him since I moved out of the area, I had heard second-hand even before this radio call that he is nearly as vigorous today as I remember him from a decade and a half ago. He is a classic example of an older worker with a lot to offer the world--but in this economy, he's just another member of the long-term unemployed.

If a man that more than a generation grew up listening to as their weatherman can end up without a job for more than two years, just about anyone can. Besides being a quality radio conversation between two pros in Pechner and Copeland, this segment of a radio program provided the most compelling example of just how bad this economy is for so many people. If everyone in northern California had been listening to the Brian Copeland program and heard the call from Mike Pechner, there would be almost nobody there left not supporting the extension of unemployment or some other assistance to the long-term unemployed. I encourage everyone to listen to it before it disappears from the KGO archives next Sunday.

Radio: Dr. Dean Edell to Retire

TORONTO, ONTARIO - Other talk show hosts from Larry King (leaving his daily CNN show on 16-December) to Dr. Laura Schlessinger (leaving her daily syndicated show for satellite radio at the end of December) have received more publicity for their retirements this year, but the most significant announcement may have come yesterday. Dr. Dean Edell, the long-time medical advice talk show host, has stated that he will be retiring at about the end of the year.

While I first encountered Dr. Dean Edell when he appeared on KVI in Seattle as a weekend tape-delayed show along with Rush Limbaugh, he didn't really become significant to me until I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area. There, he has aired live at 1 pm (or noon, for some years) on his flagship station that gave him one of his first big breaks in broadcasting, KGO Newstalk 810 in San Francisco. Edell's show has been a fixture on KGO since 1978. Whenever I didn't have class or work as an undergraduate, Dr. Edell would be my after-lunch education and entertainment, and always seemed worthwhile. Generally, my class schedule allowed me to hear at least one day of the broadcast a week.

Yet, Edell's significance is not so much as an early doctor on the radio or even as a long-term host on one of the premier talk radio stations in the world, but as a pioneer in syndication. In the late 1970's, local content was considered essential in radio, and there was great resistance to airing the same program in multiple markets. While network programming (including at the time Larry King) did air in multiple markets, that was a different, centralized model intended to air on all stations in a network. Syndication was about providing a program that individual stations could independently choose to air or not. Edell's medical show and his handling of callers was so unique and compelling that it broke through. It was syndication that brought him to WGY in Schenectady, New York--the station on which I used to hear Dr. Edell on Sunday afternoons when I lived in Boston. It was in fact the syndicated network founded by Edell that started to distribute Rush Limbaugh and created the conservative talk radio revolution in the 1990's.

After making his announcement on Wednesday's program, Edell discussed some of his broadcasting and syndication history. However, his impact on people's lives soon came front and center. Former producer Daphne Brogdon (who was Edell's producer during my undergraduate years and until 1999; successor Heather Hamann is largely credited with Edell's high ratings in recent years) called in and emphasized this point. Edell's scientific method-based and often leading-edge opinions on topics like homosexuality, circumcision, vaccination, and over-prescription of medication have pushed his audience and attracted the most educated listeners amongst syndicated hosts in the United States.

The relation between KGO's recent scheduling changes which were moving Edell's show to tape delay and Edell's retirement is not clear--the host mainly cited a desire to be a more active grandparent. While Edell announced plans to find a successor host during the Wednesday show, those listeners all across the United States will still inevitably find a big hole even if a syndicated medical advice show in the current time slot continues. No longer we will be greeted with "Hello Friends" and told to "Be Well" each weekday.

With the retirement of Dr. Dean Edell, the radio world is losing not just an old, comforting friend. It's losing one of the most significant figures of his generation.

Media: The End of God Talk?

TORONTO, ONTARIO - About a week ago, word leaked that the radio station recognized by many as the premier commercial talk radio station in the English-speaking world, KGO Newstalk 810 in San Francisco, California, was making its first schedule change since the resignation of long-time General Manager Mickey Luckoff. While most attention focused on the end of the live broadcast of Dr. Dean Edell, the doctor whose medical advice show has aired in the afternoons on KGO since 1978, the most devastating change is the cancellation of the Sunday morning God Talk show.

Dr. Dean Edell is not being canceled. Instead, his live show will no longer air on KGO weekdays at 1 pm, but instead on tape delay from 1-4 pm on Saturdays (a slot which has been filled by rotating guest hosts since Bob Brinker quit broadcasting on Saturday), and from 6-8 am on Sunday. The Noon News, which has come and gone over the years, will return to the schedule, and legal talk show host Len Tillem moves into's Edell's current slot. In addition, Brian Copeland's "haiku of talk radio," currently airing from 9-11 am on Sundays, would be extended to 8-11 am, the standard show length on KGO. That leaves no room for the current occupant of the 6-9 am Sunday morning slot, God Talk.

That show also has a long history on KGO, having been on the air since 1979 with only three regular hosts. I discovered the show in the mid-1990's while living in the Bay Area when it was hosted by its second host, the now-infamous Bernie Ward; I never had the pleasure of hearing original host Tom Hunter, who passed away in 2008. While it might have been on Sunday morning and called "God Talk," it was nothing like other religious programming I had heard. Nobody quoted scripture; it was perhaps best characterized as a newstalk show focusing on ethics and values. Host Ward was willing to take on hypocrisy in any religious institution, including his own Catholic church. He was one of the most outspoken voices against the priest child abuse scandal as it first broke. More than anything else, though, the early hours of the show gave it a very intimate feeling and it spawned a community of generally ecumenical people that wanted to bring out the best in religion. Anyone that listened in that era looked forward to hearing from Susan Prather of Fresh Start, Stan from Oakland, and Steven from Santa Rosa--not to mention the theme of "Amazing Grace" played on bagpipes.

That community was badly strained after Ward was taken off the air in December 2007 and ultimately jailed for trafficking in child pornography; not long afterward, Stan from Oakland and Prather both passed away. Interim host Ravi Peruman, a KGO reporter active in interfaith circles, did a yeoman's job of trying to hold it together until a permanent host was named--and what a pick it was.

Brent Walters, owner of a 25,000 book library and professor at San Jose State University, took over the show in spring 2008 and took it to a new level almost unprecedented in commercial talk radio. He began exploring various religious topics by putting them in a detailed historical context, which often revealed amazing chasms between those times and modern practices. The information content of the show became like that of a college class, but the inclusion of callers kept the emphasis on community. KGO had often been called the "college education of the airwaves," but it had never been so true as when Brent Walters was on the air. Not a polished broadcaster at first, he rapidly learned the medium, choosing the new themes, Linus of Hollywood's "Sunday Morning" and Scouting for Girls' "I Need A Holiday" to wonderfully set the mood for each show.

In announcing the cancellation of the show last Sunday, Walters stated that the decision was final and no amount of public outcry was going to save it. However, in his newsletter this week, he stated that the response to the announcement had been loud enough that the station was considering an abbreviated show or "guaranteed weekly podcast." It seems there is room to contact KGO Program Director Jack Swanson, General Manager Diedra Lieberman, and even Citadel Broadcasting President Farid Suleman--who is rumored to be the driving force behind the schedule change--to try to save the show.

For those (like me) concerned about the future of KGO, the very fact that Walters was given two weeks notice demonstrates that the classiness of the station has not yet disappeared, something many credit to Swanson, who has been in his role continuously since 1994 as well as from 1982 to 1990. Will Brent Walters join the likes of David Brudnoy (in 1990), Bernie Ward (in 1997), and Steve LeVeille (in 2009) as hosts saved on the air by their listeners? Only time will tell, but if he is not, the quality of my Sundays will decline considerably.

Margin Notes: Chill, Houses, Grover, KGO

Wilson Lau ran the steam locomotive at the Toronto Railway Heritage Centre on 24-October-2010, with the chilly air resulting in a nice plume of steam

TORONTO, ONTARIO - There has yet to be a low temperature below freezing this season in metropolitan Toronto, but temperatures have been creeping down, enough so that steam locomotives are much more spectacular. Locomotive #3 put off nice plumes of steam in the chilly weather all day today--and probably will again in its final weekend of operations for the season next Sunday, including the evening runs for Halloween--see TRHA web page for details as they become available.

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It's not cool temperatures but flooding that is the concern in New Orleans. A new floating house has been developed that normally sits at ground level but will rise to float if flooding occurs, as has been widely reported. Why weren't these brought to North America long ago?

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Perhaps everyone has been too busy watching Sesame Street's parody of the recent Old Spice commercials, "Smell Like A Monster." For those that have missed Grover imitating Isaiah Mustafa, check it out on YouTube, or check out this amusing re-mix.

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That skit will apparently not be a permanent fixture on Sesame Street, but KGO radio has made an interesting change in the San Francisco Bay Area. For some years, KUOW Seattle has made a practice of saying that various features would be coming up in "X minutes." As I heard while visiting the area, KGO hosts including Ronn Owens and Gil Gross have started saying that a topic will be coming back in, say, "3 minutes" before a commercial break, or "6 minutes" after the news. It sounds very weird on a commercial radio station.

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As a final note from my trip west, I should credit Virgin America airlines for actually delivering an orange juice shortly after I ordered it on the return trip, unlike on the initial trip. Apparently, the ordering system works after all.

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Finally, those into airline call signs may find it amusing to learn that Virgin America, a Burlingame, California-based airline, uses the call sign "Redwood." If you initially missed the double entendre, then you should be congratulated for having a clean mind.

Media: Say Goodbye to KGO?

TORONTO, ONTARIO - I've raised alarm bells about this before, but I think this time it's a genuine possibility. One week ago, KGO radio general manager Michael "Mickey" Luckoff resigned from his post after 35 years of running the San Francisco radio station. The era of greatness in talk radio on KGO, already slowly decaying, may have finally come to an end.

Under Luckoff's management, KGO has been the premier talk radio station in San Francisco, but also in the opinion of many, the top talk radio station in the entire country. With a focus on live and local hosts and a fair helping of news (and having the San Francisco 49er football broadcasts for many years didn't hurt), KGO led in the ratings for 30 of Luckoff's 35 years. The loss of the 49ers, combined with KCBS' move to an FM simulcast, have dropped KGO in the ratings in recent books, but many industry analysts and this blogger still consider its talk product the finest on commercial radio.

The station has long been able to attract incredible talent in talk radio. In my listening years, it has brought in Gene Burns from Boston and Gil Gross from New York, and recruited professor Brent Walters to its Sunday morning show on religion. Walters and KGO's Brian Copeland are the only commercial talk show hosts I now listen to regularly, downloaded from KGO's daily archives. A large part of why the station has been able to attract talent is that Luckoff stood behind the product and the station's hosts.

Luckoff didn't just resign for an early retirement. As reported widely in the local media, Luckoff had nothing good to say about the present owners of the 50,000-watt, clear channel station. Since Las Vegas-based Citadel took over the former ABC owned and operated radio station across the country three years ago, other heritage stations like WABC in New York and WLS in Chicago have seen their local on-air staffs decimated and ratings erode. Luckoff had said he would stay on--just as he did when Disney purchased ABC--as long as he could continue to put the same quality product on the air.

He has made it clear that he no longer believes that to be true. Luckoff has felt that Citadel was trying to undermine his management for some time, and he had his resignation ready for nine months before giving two weeks' notice last week. It has not leaked out what finally caused him to leave, but the fact that a man long regarded as one of the most professional in the business has so openly criticized his employer implies that it had to be a severe transgression. The tension was further heightened when Luckoff was invited to speak on the station's Ronn Owens program, but was banned from appearing by Citadel.

Speculation on discussion groups is that Luckoff's departure means that KGO will do what other Citadel stations have done--allow local hosts to run out their contracts and then replace them with syndicated programming. From virtually all live and local, KGO may end up looking like sister station, conservative KSFO, which has exactly one local show on weekdays, during morning drive.

Still, there is some reason to believe that won't happen. Program Director Jack Swanson remains in place, and he has presumably had a lot to do with KGO's successful recruiting and retention of hosts. (This blogger has respected Swanson since meeting him when he was still with Seattle's KING Newstalk 1090 in 1992.) Citadel has already appointed a new General Manager from within KGO, former sales director Diedra Lieberman, rather than bringing in someone from the outside. While there is speculation that Lieberman might be a weak manager, if she can put Swanson in a position to keep going his job while dealing with Citadel better than Luckoff was able to do, the on-air quality might be maintained.

Just the same, there was panic earlier today when KGO left the air for nearly an hour. Alas, it was not an internal revolt in support of Mickey Luckoff, but an internal equipment failure. We can only hope that without Luckoff, the mighty KGO will not be, as predicted by one Internet wag, "reduced to stick value in a year."

Radio Pick: Mario Andretti

TORONTO, ONTARIO - This week's radio pick delves into commercial radio. In the realm of general talk, there are relatively few masters of the trade, and one of them is Ronn Owens of KGO in San Francisco. Granted, Mario Andretti is an easy guest on the radio because of his laid-back style and good humor, but Owens does a great job of handling callers in this 54-minute segment of his show. Furthermore, for those familiar with Owens' show and his attempts to bring his guests into the Sleep Train ad, Andretti offered a challenge that might have been the most amusing I've heard yet.

Listen to the Ronn Owens Show "Mario Andretti"

Media: Down to One

TORONTO, ONTARIO - I went through the process of updating my web pages on radio stations today for the first time since 2006. There's nothing much to get excited about; the updates are minor and do not currently appear on my web site. They won't be publicly accessible until I migrate the enati.com domain to my new provider in the coming days. Yet, I cannot let the moment pass without some comment on the decline in radio in the twelve years that these pages have existed.

The first thing to note is the number of shows on my idealized schedule that are no longer on the air. In come cases, the host has died (in a surprising number of cases, tragically); in most cases, the show was simply canceled. The entire weekday evening schedule no longer may be heard except for the news programs and This American Life on Friday. This is not a coincidence; the money in broadcasting is during drive-time, and to a lesser extent, during mid-day. Audiences are not as large in the evening, so shows most appropriate to that time of day are not cultivated. The few stations that do produce live programming in those time slots instead of repeat programming don't spend much on it, usually providing a talk show host without a producer. Cheap shows generally aren't notable, and hence there hasn't been anything new and notable and hence the old shows remain in place.

There have been few shows to add in the past four years, period, all of them from public radio. The only commercial show to appear on the schedule now that wasn't there in 2000 is Dr. Joe Schwarcz's one-hour weekend show on scientific topics, and it existed in 2000; I just didn't know about it yet. Commercial radio isn't attracting or cultivating its talent in a way that I find interesting.

This leads to the change that stood out for me. The pages include listings of commendable radio stations in various genres, including commercial talk radio. These are stations that are so compelling that one can just turn them on and leave the dial there basically all day without getting tired of them. When I first wrote that page, there were several commercial talk radio station that I felt belonged on that list, from KABC in Los Angeles to WABC in New York.

Not anymore. There's one station left, KGO in San Francisco. All of the others run too many repeats, too many syndicated shows, too many unlistenable hosts with ridiculous fringe viewpoints that won't take intellectual discussion seriously. This isn't just a right-wing phenomenon; I haven't found any left-wing stations that do not demonstrate those disqualifying features, either, though perhaps with a few less repeats and additional listenable local hosts KPOJ in Portland, Oregon might make it. Balanced or moderate stations are hard to find, period.

KGO is the only commercial talk station I think I could leave on for hours on end and not feel desperate to change to something else. If anything, the station has improved in the past four years since my last update, with Gil Gross taking the afternoon shift, John Rothmann moving into late nights, and Brent Walters bringing a truly collegiate perspective to God Talk. Its news blocks aren't great, but the station clearly sets the standard for talk radio in North America.

I don't buy the argument that good commercial radio can't exist in the current economic and media environment. I agree that it's hard, but if KGO can do it, others can also. Program directors and talk show hosts need to spend some time listening to KGO's on-line stream and bring similar non-banal, non-radical discussions to their own markets. I suspect they would find their efforts rewarded with listeners and thus advertising dollars.

Meanwhile, I wonder if, before the next time I feel the need to update those web pages, something awful will happen to KGO and I'll have to eliminate my list entirely.

Radio Pick: Taliaferro Defends Woods

TORONTO, ONTARIO - This one won't make my weekly radio pick in part because it will be gone from the archives by Sunday, but if you want to hear a fundamentally entertaining hour of talk radio, check out KGO's Ray Taliaferro doing a rare fill-in for Pat Thurston and defending his "brother" Tiger Woods. It's not intellectually fulfilling and some of callers are remarkably oblivious to Taliaferro's shtick, but in terms of pure hilarity, I hadn't heard an hour like this in a very long time. Taliaferro may be 73, but he is still capable of excellent radio.

Hat tip to VanMan on the ba.broadcast newsgroup for alerting me to this hour

Listen to MP3 of KGO's Ray Taliaferro defending Tiger Woods

Media: Rothmann Gets the Nod

TORONTO, ONTARIO - Perhaps the most-watched vacancy in the radio industry has finally been filled. KGO Newstalk 810 in San Francisco, which many view as the premier commercial talk radio station in the United States, has announced a host for its weekday, 10 pm to 1 am slot which has been vacant since December 2007. Longtime weekend overnight host John Rothmann will take over the time slot starting tonight.

KGO had been using a long series of rotating hosts from its fill-in stable since Bernie Ward was removed from the time slot (which he had held since 1992 except for a stint in the 7-10 pm slot) when he was indicted on child pornography charges. Early in the process (that's almost eighteen months ago now), long-time fill-in and one-time weekend host Christine Craft and weekend host Charles "Karel" Bouley alternated two-week assignments. That ended when Karel was fired from the station, and other voices including Rothmann, Pat Thurston, and Joanne Green were heard, as well as some who clearly were not interested in the permanent position because of other commitments including Brian Copeland and Jim Gabbert.

The varied voices in the slot kept the show fresh in the opinion of some, but it was also uneven, and it got to the point that even regular listeners didn't know who was on. When taking a taxi ride in the Bay Area in December 2008, the driver had tuned in to KGO and I asked him, "So, who's working the 10-1 slot tonight, Christine Craft?" "No, the other woman... Pat Thurston." It was actually Joanne Green's voice that greeted us after the commercial break ended.

While many observers had hoped that a woman would again get a weekday slot on the station (Sean Nix had once held the same 10-1 shift in the mid-1990's while Bernie Ward had been on 7-10 pm, so it wouldn't have been a first), Rothmann is a hard choice to question. His knowledge of world politics is impeccable and the biggest complaint about him has been that his topics do not branch off often enough into other areas (well, other than the minority that seems to dislike how he pronounces "Pakistan"). However, when he has gone into more pop culture areas when filling in for morning host Ronn Owens, reaction has been positive.

The biggest question is why KGO management waited until now to announce Rothmann as permanent host. Presumably, he has been available and interested the entire time. It almost seems like KGO was courting an outside candidate who finally decided he or she was not interested, and then they looked internally and decided Rothmann was the cream of their own crop.

The hiring of Rothmann is interesting in light of the host hired for Ward's other former show, the Sunday morning God Talk show. San Jose State professor Brent Walters has been holding down that position superbly since mid-2008, and he is well-known for his personal library called the Ante-Nicene Archive. Rothmann has been accused of sounding like a college professor on the air and has his own 15,000-volume library. Combined with weekend 10 pm-1 am host Dr. Bill Wattenburg, a former college professor, there's quite a stable of academics on the air at the station.

While that might indicate that KGO is increasingly pursuing more high-brow and intellectual talk shows, some have questioned whether that will help them pursue a younger audience. Like many AM talk stations, KGO's audience has skewed older and older in recent years. However, the young people that do listen to the radio at all (and not just their portable music players) do tune in National Public Radio in reasonable numbers, and perhaps KGO will be able to make inroads into that audience with hosts like Rothmann and Walters. Whether KGO returns to its glory era as I expressed concern about last November remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, another thing KGO is known for, Mike Amatori's production skills, have been put to good use in announcing Rothmann's new shift. A promo is running with sound from Richard Nixon: "There are so many decisions that are made that shape history and there is no longer a need for the process to be prolonged." Just perfect.

John Rothmann's first shift as 10 pm-1 am (Pacific time) weekday host on KGO airs tonight, 14-September-2009.

Radio Pick: The Burrito Analogy

TORONTO, ONTARIO - Since the audio file will only be available until Sunday morning, I'm going to do an extra radio pick this week. Brent Walters, a professor at San Jose State University, does a weekly Sunday morning talk show called "God Talk" on KGO Newstalk 810 out of San Francisco that focuses on religious and moral issues in a newstalk format, using his historian's perspective to shed light on many issues. In an excellent hour on mis-perceptions about the historical Jesus Christ, Walters opened with a "burrito analogy" for how religious traditions have been distorted. Whether one accepts the analogy or not, it's an interesting perspective, and exactly the kind of thought-provoking material that should be more common in talk radio.

Listen to a MP3 of God Talk "The Burrito Analogy"
(This link will only be available through Saturday)

Media: One Less Live and Local

TORONTO, ONTARIO - In the latest edition of Northeast Radio Watch, Scott Fybush has reported the news that WBZ Newsradio 1030 out of Boston has dropped its live and local overnight talk programming. As part of layoffs that also included afternoon sports reporter Tom Cuddy and the overnight news position, WBZ chose to let go Saturday night hosts Pat Desmarais and Lovell Dyett (who Fybush notes had been at the station for 37 years!) and, most critically, overnight host Steve LeVeille. This means that WBZ will no longer be live and local in the overnight hours.

Fybush notes in his article that this isn't the first time WBZ has tried syndication--in 1990, David Brudnoy was briefly supplanted by the nationwide Tom Snyder program, but the public outcry was overwhelming and Brudnoy was literally brought back for the rest of his life. The Libertarian Brudnoy was a clear radio highlight of living in the Boston area, worth listening to for at least a portion of his five-hour show each weeknight. Fybush also opines that the environment has changed so much that there is basically no possibility of a reversal of this decision--Jon Grayson or a successor will likely be on overnight on WBZ's amazing signal reputedly reaching 30 states after dark. Grayson's show, out of St. Louis' KMOX, will also air on KDKA from Pittsburgh and WCCO out of Minneapolis. A listener in, say, Indiana, would be able to hear the program on all of these powerhouse stations.

For those that care about broadcasting, the end of live and local overnight programming on WBZ is not a trivial matter. Having a local voice on the air at all times of day to turn to when a crisis occurs--or simply to call in and complain about a local issue--is something that ought to be available everywhere. As recently as fifteen years ago, there was a station that was live and local all day in virtually every major market--and those stations tended to be the ratings leaders. They were popular for a reason--they connected with their local audiences. While the significant audiences are during the daytime, the commitment to be local and available to listeners all the time was part of the appeal of these stations.

Slowly, one by one, these stations have given up on being live and local in significant day parts and turned to syndicated and repeat programming. Stations as remarkable as WABC in New York City and KIRO in Seattle no longer offer unique programming in the night-time hours. WABC has joined the herd of stations across the country running Coast to Coast AM, while KIRO offers Phil Hendrie and repeats of its own Dave Ross show.

The loss of WBZ's live and local status matters because as recently as when I left Boston in 2005, the thought of WBZ offering syndicated programming was unthinkable. Its commitment to serve the community all day and all night was long-standing, steadfast, and well-known. That the unthinkable would occur only three years later shows just how much the broadcasting industry is hurting.

Clearly, everything is on the table now. Might KGO's overnight Ray Taliaferro and John Rothmann be next? That was once unthinkable, but with KGO's late evening slot still open and the change at WBZ, it doesn't seem so unthinkable anymore.

Media: The End of KGO as We Knew It?

TORONTO, ONTARIO - When KGO radio talk show host and longtime KGO-TV anchor Pete Wilson tragically died of a heart attack during hip replacement surgery in July 2007, it may have been a portend that a golden age at that San Francisco institution would come to an end.

At the time, all seemed as well as could be when a beloved media figure loses his life unexpectedly. As tributes to Wilson poured in, veteran host Gene Burns--no stranger to filling in after the death of a host, as he had done on KGO following the suicide of evening host Duane Garrett in July 1995--held fort on the 2-4 pm afternoon shift until a permanent replacement, long-time broadcaster Gil Gross, was named the following September.

The signing of Gross continued a long-standing tradition of quality talk radio at KGO-AM. The station was one of the pioneers of the concept of talk radio. New program director Jim Dunbar started moving the station that direction in 1962. By 1978, the format was not only established, but KGO Newstalk 810 became the #1 radio station in the San Francisco market, and it amazingly has held on to that status ever since. It is a feat almost unparalleled in North American broadcasting.

It's not hard to understand why. The weekday daily lineup of talkers at the station when I first became aware of it in 1992 was basically a list of radio legends--Ronn Owens, Dr. Dean Edell, Jim Eason, Lee Rodgers, Michael Krasny, and Ray Taliaferro. Owens, Edell, and Taliaferro remain in the same time slots to this day. Eason has retired, Rodgers now does the morning show on sister station KSFO, and Krasny moved to KQED-FM public radio in 1993. As each slot opened, KGO would recruit a broadcast heavyweight from another market--someone like Gene Burns--or insert a local talent into the format--someone like Pete Wilson, previously known for television work. Because of the station's reputation, the big names would come.

Through a series of owners (most notably Disney when it acquired ABC) and new management names, the tradition rolled on. Gross, who had on his resume such positions as ABC news anchor, a national night-time talk show syndicated by CBS, and regular fill-ins for Charles Osgood AND Paul Harvey in a 30-year career before being signed by KGO, was actually just a typical hire for the station.

Yet, since the hiring of Gross, KGO has been in decay. Evening host Bernie Ward, who had spent most of the time since 1993 in the weekday 10 pm-1 am time slot, was indicted on child pornography charges on 6-December-2007. The station initially took him off the air yet stood behind him, but as evidence mounted that the charges were founded, he was fired at the end of the year. Ward, who ironically had been a Catholic priest, done a "Godtalk" show on KGO Sunday mornings since 1985, and led the station's Thanksgiving Charity drive that had raised over $4 million over the years, ultimately admitted to passing pornographic pictures of children and is currently serving a prison sentence that will last until at least 2014.

However, instead of replacing Ward within a few months (as Ward had followed after the exit of Krasny in 1992), KGO has been using various hosts in the time slot for nearly a year. Most often, Christine Craft and Charles "Karel" Bouley have alternated two-week stints in the time slot. The station had been known to try out hosts in the past--most notably when Garrett and now-ABC network newsman George Weber split time following Rodgers' exit in 1994--but never for this long. (By contrast, Ward's other shift on the "Godtalk" program has been ably held down by San Jose State professor Brent Walters since April.)

Karel may no longer be an option for permanently filling the slot, or even continued fill-ins. On his own weekend show on 1-November-2008, while he thought a microphone was off, he uttered a series of harsh, unrepeatable obscenities against Joe the Plumber, the better-known name of Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, the John McCain supporter who received much attention toward the end of the presidential campaign. Facing fines from the Federal Communications Commission for airing the obscenities, KGO suspended Karel, and based on his removal from the station's web site, may soon officially fire him. San Francisco Examiner columnist and blogger Brad Kava has probably best summarized Karel's situation on his blog.

With three hours open every day on its schedule (Ward's 10-1 weeknight shift and Karel's 7-10 weekend shift), KGO now appears to be fraying. Even the normal hosts don't seem to be as good as they used to be. When I traveled in California some weeks ago, I was appalled to hear Ronn Owens unable to get the facts straight about the Masked Avengers' prank call with Sarah Palin, and Gene Burns was incredibly ignorant about some of the basic facts surrounding California's Proposition 1A on high-speed rail despite choosing to talk about it for an hour. It displayed a stunning lack of show preparation that had so long been the hallmark of at least the daytime KGO hosts. I had actually been in listening range to hear Karel's incident, but he had so failed to impress me on previous shows over the years that I hadn't bothered to tune in long enough to find out what topics he would be talking about, much less listen to the whole show.

Just adding to station's predicament, other AM leaders (including KGO rival KCBS All-News 740) are moving to the FM band, and the new Arbitron Portable People Meter that is replacing log books as the basis for ratings may have a negative impact on well-known stations like KGO. Has the end of KGO as San Francisco's #1 radio station finally arrived?

The present situation at the station may not quite represent a crisis, but the next few weeks will be telling. Either management will act and KGO will re-establish itself as the English-speaking world's premier talk radio station, or the slow decline will continue, and more and more listeners will turn to podcasts and competitors. For now, the heady days before the death of Pete Wilson seem terribly far away.