TORONTO, ONTARIO - This is the one thousandth post to this blog. The looming significance of such a milestone was a significant factor in the decrease in entries to this space--I wanted to find something significant to mark the event. In the end, it was obvious--something else that had reached and surpassed a much more significant one thousand milestone--Jim French's "Imagination Theatre."
Way back in 1990, as the CBS Radio Network once more cancelled the distribution of its "Radio Mystery Theater" series (which had stopped recording new episodes in 1982), KIRO radio in Seattle wanted something to replace the series, which remained very popular in the Pacific Northwest. Management didn't need to look very far. They had on staff as their late morning "Midday" host someone who had been doing radio dramas since 1965, Jim French.
Before long, the "KIRO Mystery Playhouse" was born, producing both new radio dramas and re-playing classic episodes from French's earlier work on KIRO and KVI, including series like "Crisis" and "Dameron." Even early in his career, French had the foresight to retain the rights to these works, so rather than being lost in station archives, he could bring them back for further broadcast at his discretion. As time went on and the radio landscape changed, the show would shift to sister station KNWX in 1999 and away from the then-Entercom cluster to KIXI in 2003. Most importantly, though, it had been picked up in syndication in 1996 by Transmedia as "Imagination Theatre." French felt this was a much more descriptive name, as what the shows were doing was engaging the listener's imaginations, not necessarily solving a mystery. Transmedia and Jim French Productions amicably parted ways in 2006, and Jim French Productions would handle syndication for the remainder of the show's run.
Syndication brought "Imagination Theatre" not only to hundreds of stations and satellite radio across the United States over the years, but to other English-speaking nations, foremost Australia and Canada. Internet distribution would bring it to the entire world. What had once been a Seattle phenomenon perhaps also experienced in places like Alaska where KIRO could be heard at night grew to attract attention from radio enthusiasts all over the planet. French secured the rights to record classic and original "Sherlock Holmes" dramas, and this brought attention from British writers who would contribute to other series airing on "Imagination Theatre." Live tapings, which initially occurred at the Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI) in Seattle, Washington, moved to the Kirkland Performance Center in Kirkland, Washington in 1999 and continued on an approximately monthly basis.
These radio dramas were one of the reasons I became interested in radio. In my teenage years, I would go out of my way to be at a radio that could receive KIRO 710 AM at 9 pm on weekend evenings. I was able to catch a live taping of the "KIRO Mystery Playhouse" at MOHAI in 1992, and would enjoy an "Imagination Theatre" taping in Kirkland in 2006. The familiar voices from Seattle radio that acted in various dramas created a link to my childhood, never mind the setting of many of the Harry Nile detective stories in a post-World War II Seattle.
While series as diverse as "Kerides, the Thinker" set in ancient Egypt, "Raffles, the Gentlemen Thief" set in Victorian England, and "Kincaid, the Strange Seeker" set in contemporary America appeared regularly on "Imagination Theatre," arguably the most iconic series was "The Adventures of Harry Nile." Regular listeners know the entire history of the character, from his time in Chicago as a policeman and his interracial marriage, to his time in Los Angeles where he would meet his partner Murphy and have many adventures during World War II, to his time in Seattle. Originally started as a KVI series in 1976 with haunting theme music by David Shire, "The Adventures of Harry Nile" featured Phil Harper as Harry Nile and Pat French, Jim's wife, as his partner Murphy. (Murphy's first name, mentioned in only one episode in the entire series, would become a marker of devoted fans--if you knew Murphy's first name, you were in the club.) After Harper's death in 2004, Jim French's right-hand man, Larry Albert, would take over. Mary Anne Dorward would start voicing Murphy in 2011, leading to one of many inside jokes on the show as her first appearance was marked by Harry saying "You sound different." "The Adventures of Harry Nile" was so preeminent in the "Imagination Theatre" world that its web site was promoted as "harrynile.com" rather than "jimfrenchproductions.com".
Pat French's retirement was a warning that all good things do not last forever. Jim French's health began to decline, and it was announced that the January 30th, 2017 taping at the Kirkland Performance Center would be the last live taping. At the taping, it was announced that the last new broadcast would air at the end of February, and Jim French Productions would close for good at the end of March.
The final episode could be nothing other than a final episode of "The Adventures of Harry Nile" and the ending could only be the outcome that some fans had been waiting forty-one years to hear--even longer than the fictional Murphy had been waiting.
So, in this one-thousandth blog entry, I thank Jim French and his many associates for 1,093 official weeks of "Imagination Theatre," and in reality many more hours of quality broadcasting over the years. As E.G. Marshall would say at the end of each "Mystery Theater," may you have "pleasant dreams" forever.
Showing posts with label radio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label radio. Show all posts
Sunday, March 12, 2017
Friday, December 2, 2011
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.
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.
Friday, November 26, 2010
Radio: Review of Day 6
TORONTO, ONTARIO - It's been some time since I've reviewed a radio show on this blog, and I don't normally wait several months after the start of a new program to subject it to such a treatment. However, it's probably time to weigh in about CBC Radio One's new Saturday morning program, Day 6.
Essentially replacing the former "GO!" variety program (to which I almost never listened), host Brent Bambury has carried over from the previous show and continues to provide a lot of energy to the new broadcast. While focused on popular "cultural touchstones" as opposed to hard news, Day 6 is in a very real sense a "heavier" program than its predecessor. The Issues of the Day are discussed, often comically, between Bambury and a string of guests, even if those issues are anti-Muslim preachers and whether Craigslist runs adult-oriented material and not timelines for leaving Afghanistan, health care reform, or whether the Canadian senate is functioning properly. The production values, as we come to expect from the CBC, are second-to-none.
What was striking from the first show, though, was the sheer amount of material from the United States being presented. While in some sense this is recognition that events in pop culture in the United States drive much of pop culture in Canada, it is a little jarring to see a Canadian-produced program focusing on events in the US. Not only have movements like Islamophobia and the TEA Party been explored, but in one early show, the trivia question for the day was about the event when President Obama's seal fell off a podium where he was giving a speech.
I may have found that notable from the first show, but it didn't really strike me as going too far until The Big 6 contest was announced last week. Listeners are being asked to vote on which stories they think best represent six categories, Newsmaker of the Year, Trend of the Year, Flameout of the Year, Feel Good Story of the Year, Comeback Story of the Year, and Feel Good Story of the Year. The show presented one suggestion for each category. Of those six suggestions, only one--Justin Bieber for Trend of the Year--was Canadian, while three--the TEA Party, Conan O'Brien, and Jersey Shore--were American. For a show on a network chartered to showcase Canadian culture, this seemed a major failing.
Perhaps the CBC is minimizing the Canadian content in Day 6 in an attempt to make it palatable for syndication in the United States. Yet, there's already an overload in Saturday morning public radio programming to run after Weekend Edition in the United States--with Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me, Car Talk, Whad'Ya Know, This American Life, West Coast Live, and Bob Edwards Weekend just to name some obvious options. Good production values are not going to be enough to give Day 6 a slot in many, if any, markets.
I don't see Day 6 living on in its current incarnation. Perhaps with more emphasis on Canadian content, it can continue with a similar format for some time in the future.
Essentially replacing the former "GO!" variety program (to which I almost never listened), host Brent Bambury has carried over from the previous show and continues to provide a lot of energy to the new broadcast. While focused on popular "cultural touchstones" as opposed to hard news, Day 6 is in a very real sense a "heavier" program than its predecessor. The Issues of the Day are discussed, often comically, between Bambury and a string of guests, even if those issues are anti-Muslim preachers and whether Craigslist runs adult-oriented material and not timelines for leaving Afghanistan, health care reform, or whether the Canadian senate is functioning properly. The production values, as we come to expect from the CBC, are second-to-none.
What was striking from the first show, though, was the sheer amount of material from the United States being presented. While in some sense this is recognition that events in pop culture in the United States drive much of pop culture in Canada, it is a little jarring to see a Canadian-produced program focusing on events in the US. Not only have movements like Islamophobia and the TEA Party been explored, but in one early show, the trivia question for the day was about the event when President Obama's seal fell off a podium where he was giving a speech.
I may have found that notable from the first show, but it didn't really strike me as going too far until The Big 6 contest was announced last week. Listeners are being asked to vote on which stories they think best represent six categories, Newsmaker of the Year, Trend of the Year, Flameout of the Year, Feel Good Story of the Year, Comeback Story of the Year, and Feel Good Story of the Year. The show presented one suggestion for each category. Of those six suggestions, only one--Justin Bieber for Trend of the Year--was Canadian, while three--the TEA Party, Conan O'Brien, and Jersey Shore--were American. For a show on a network chartered to showcase Canadian culture, this seemed a major failing.
Perhaps the CBC is minimizing the Canadian content in Day 6 in an attempt to make it palatable for syndication in the United States. Yet, there's already an overload in Saturday morning public radio programming to run after Weekend Edition in the United States--with Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me, Car Talk, Whad'Ya Know, This American Life, West Coast Live, and Bob Edwards Weekend just to name some obvious options. Good production values are not going to be enough to give Day 6 a slot in many, if any, markets.
I don't see Day 6 living on in its current incarnation. Perhaps with more emphasis on Canadian content, it can continue with a similar format for some time in the future.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Media: Changes Twenty Years Ago
TORONTO, ONTARIO - Lest anyone think I haven't had some practice commenting on changes in radio and lamenting the future of the medium, try to think back twenty years and read my Highlight report from 29-October-1990, which came from a decidedly Seattle-centric perspective:
Today, for the first time, I saw a Judy Muller feature, on elder surfers, on ABC Television's World News tonight. Muller used to be a regular CBS radio commentator, and I enjoyed her features nearly as much as Charles Osgood's. When she left CBS last August, my radio listening enjoyment decreased considerably. In fact, in my opinion, radio in general has been getting worse all year. Stay tuned. [An Audi commercial played in the original audio version of this essay.]Twenty years later, it's interesting to see where some of these individuals have ended up. Judy Muller is still a television correspondent for ABC News. The KIRO Mystery Playhouse, produced by Jim French, has since become the syndicated Imagination Theater and still produces a one-hour show each week. KOMO radio dropped talk in favor of all-news, though its daytime format now includes talk shows from 9 to 3. John Hockenberry worked for NBC television for a time, but returned to public radio and now hosts the youth-focused morning show, The Takeaway. KCBS is still an all-news station, and now simulcasts on FM. Art Finley retired as a news anchor in 1995, and reportedly lives in British Columbia.
I used to really enjoy listening to the radio, at virtually any time of the day or night. All my weekend nights would be spent listening intently to the highly professional Mystery Theater. However, as of January 1st, the Mystery Theater went off the air and its replacement six months later, the KIRO Mystery Playhouse, just doesn't stack up in suspense and quality endings.
At the end of the summer, more little changes occurred. Judy Muller left CBS radio, and several Seattle-area FM station changed their format, to less likable combinations of present-day music and classic rock'n'roll. Just when I had adjusted to these losses, more changes happened.
KOMO radio abandoned its weeknight program October 22nd in favor of Sally Jesse Raphael and Tom Snyder shows. I like being able to consistently hear Tom Snyder, but I will miss the excellent local news of KOMO's News at Ten.
This Monday, National Public Radio abandoned their evening Heat program with John Hockenberry. Though I wasn't a consistent listener, whenever I did tune in, I was always impressed by the quality of the satire on Heat.
The final straw is coming this Thursday, November 1st, when my favorite radio station, San Francisco's KCBS, will go to an all-news format. No longer will I be able to hear Art Finley's Nightbeat, in my opinion the most entertaining talk show on the air between 8 and 11 pm.
Change is inevitable, but I don't understand why all these reformattings and dropped programs are usually very negative and at best are quite mixed. At least Judy Muller will have an opportunity to be creative on ABC TV.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Media: The Rim-Shotter
TORONTO, ONTARIO - Part of the bargain of private broadcasting is putting up with commercials. In an era in which the "spot load" on some stations has exceeded 20 minutes per hour (compared with a maximum in the industry of 18 minutes per hour that seemed to exist for years), though, the quest for a station with more programming and fewer commercials can be enticing. In the days before satellite radio and portable digital media devices, one way to satisfy this quest was to listen to "rim shot" radio stations, or weak stations from outside the market whose signals just barely enter a metropolitan market.
Sometime in high school while living in the Seattle area (and after the demise of i107.7), I decided to carefully go through the dial on a great receiver my parents had in the living room and discovered KISM 92.9 FM from Bellingham, Washington. At the time, it had an Adult Album Alternative format, which for some reason had yet to appeal to me on "the Mountain" (KMTT 103.7 FM) but really impressed me on KISM, serving as my introduction to artists like the Crash Test Dummies and Suzanne Vega. The most compelling attraction, though, was that it played fewer commercials, being in a smaller market. The reduced spot load was the main reason that one radio spent a lot of time on KISM--though it was the only radio in the house that could get that signal clearly (and in stereo). In fact, I would keep tuning in KISM when I returned to Seattle until it re-formatted to Classic Rock in 1999.
Having found one "rim shot" station, I later spent time scanning the dial for other stations that receiver could pull in. "Mix 96 FM" (KXXO 96.1 from Olympia, Washington) turned out to be my preferred light rock station when I was in heartache, both for a larger playlist (I can't think of a Seattle station that played Roxette's "Almost Unreal") and a much lower spot load than local adult contemporary stations. I also sampled another Bellingham station, "the soft rock KAFE" (104.3 FM, since moved to 104.1 FM) when I tired of local radio.
It took me years in the San Francisco Bay Area before I found a "rim shot" station. One evening while riding Caltrain back to Palo Alto from San Francisco, I was scanning the dial and discovered KKIQ 101.7 FM, out of Livermore and Pleasanton. Running a hot adult contemporary format, it didn't have a strong signal on the peninsula, but once more, its reduced spot load relative to the San Francisco and San Jose stations caused it to displace KEZR as my preferred music station for quite some time.
When I moved to Boston, it took much less time for me to find the rim-shotters. Once I got used to "Mix 98-5" (WBMX 98.5 FM, now 104.1 FM), WBOS (92.9 FM, now reformatted), and "Magic 108" (WXKS-FM at 107.9 FM), I very rapidly discovered that WXLO, a hot adult contemporary station out of Worcester, Massachusetts at 104.5 FM, had a smaller spot load, and made it my preferred station. I also spent time listening to WHEB 100.3 FM out of Portsmouth, New Hampshire when it had a Top-40 format, and of course the most significant rim-shotter of all in Boston continues to this day to be "The River" 92.5 FM, WXRV out of Andover, Massachusetts (formerly Haverhill, Massachusetts).
In the age of digital music, though, I haven't bothered to find the "rim shot" stations around Toronto. When one can listen to "The River" (WXRV), Alice (KLLC), or any number of preferred stations off the Internet, never mind listening to one's own collection of MP3's with no spot load at all, there's not a lot of incentive to scan the dial.
Sometime in high school while living in the Seattle area (and after the demise of i107.7), I decided to carefully go through the dial on a great receiver my parents had in the living room and discovered KISM 92.9 FM from Bellingham, Washington. At the time, it had an Adult Album Alternative format, which for some reason had yet to appeal to me on "the Mountain" (KMTT 103.7 FM) but really impressed me on KISM, serving as my introduction to artists like the Crash Test Dummies and Suzanne Vega. The most compelling attraction, though, was that it played fewer commercials, being in a smaller market. The reduced spot load was the main reason that one radio spent a lot of time on KISM--though it was the only radio in the house that could get that signal clearly (and in stereo). In fact, I would keep tuning in KISM when I returned to Seattle until it re-formatted to Classic Rock in 1999.
Having found one "rim shot" station, I later spent time scanning the dial for other stations that receiver could pull in. "Mix 96 FM" (KXXO 96.1 from Olympia, Washington) turned out to be my preferred light rock station when I was in heartache, both for a larger playlist (I can't think of a Seattle station that played Roxette's "Almost Unreal") and a much lower spot load than local adult contemporary stations. I also sampled another Bellingham station, "the soft rock KAFE" (104.3 FM, since moved to 104.1 FM) when I tired of local radio.
It took me years in the San Francisco Bay Area before I found a "rim shot" station. One evening while riding Caltrain back to Palo Alto from San Francisco, I was scanning the dial and discovered KKIQ 101.7 FM, out of Livermore and Pleasanton. Running a hot adult contemporary format, it didn't have a strong signal on the peninsula, but once more, its reduced spot load relative to the San Francisco and San Jose stations caused it to displace KEZR as my preferred music station for quite some time.
When I moved to Boston, it took much less time for me to find the rim-shotters. Once I got used to "Mix 98-5" (WBMX 98.5 FM, now 104.1 FM), WBOS (92.9 FM, now reformatted), and "Magic 108" (WXKS-FM at 107.9 FM), I very rapidly discovered that WXLO, a hot adult contemporary station out of Worcester, Massachusetts at 104.5 FM, had a smaller spot load, and made it my preferred station. I also spent time listening to WHEB 100.3 FM out of Portsmouth, New Hampshire when it had a Top-40 format, and of course the most significant rim-shotter of all in Boston continues to this day to be "The River" 92.5 FM, WXRV out of Andover, Massachusetts (formerly Haverhill, Massachusetts).
In the age of digital music, though, I haven't bothered to find the "rim shot" stations around Toronto. When one can listen to "The River" (WXRV), Alice (KLLC), or any number of preferred stations off the Internet, never mind listening to one's own collection of MP3's with no spot load at all, there's not a lot of incentive to scan the dial.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Media: Remembering WBOS
TORONTO, ONTARIO - When I arrived in a new town, I used to scan the dial searching for new radio stations to sample. When I arrived in Boston, Massachusetts in 1997, I knew where I was going to get news (WBZ 1030 AM and WBUR 90.9 FM), but the only music station I had really sampled during a brief visit had been "Mix 98 5" (WBMX), a hot adult contemporary station and one of the best I had encountered to that time along with Chicago's WTMX and the long-defunct i107.7 in Seattle.
Pretty rapidly, I settled on three music pre-sets, WBMX, top-40 "Kiss 108" (WXKS-FM at 107.9), and a station that was a little different, WBOS 92.9 FM. I would soon learn that since 1989, WBOS had officially had an "Adult Album Alternative" format with a wide playlist, but it was a little different than any "AAA" station I had encountered before. While it was willing to play deep cuts and older music, the contemporary portion of its playlist was little different than WBMX. Because of its greater variety, I tended to favor it more and more the longer I lived in Boston. One of their better promotional slogans was "We play the father and the son," referring to Bob Dylan and his son Jacob (of the Wallflowers). Their "EarthFest" free performances around Earth Day often brought artists like Edwin McCain and Abra Moore to play at the Hatch Shell along the Charles River. I considered these free events one of the highlights of living in Boston.
However one describes it, I soon discovered that WBOS was the official pizza joint station in greater Boston. Whether in East Boston, Cambridge, or Dorchester, I'd walk into an inexpensive restaurant serving pizza and I'd find WBOS in the background. It became a bit of running joke in my group of friends that the pizza world would be in upheaval if WBOS ever re-formatted.
The WBOS "AAA" format never received great ratings, and was constantly rumored to be going away. It didn't help that another "AAA" station, "The River 92.5" (WXRV) was on a near-adjacent frequency, and was generally regarded as the better-programmed station, just with a weaker, "rim-shot" signal into Boston proper. Serious proposals to make WBOS into an FM talk station (in 1999, which instead went to 96.9), smooth jazz (in 2000) and a "Jack" station (in 2005) never came to fruition, as the format would always have a good ratings book right before its owners were intending to make the change, allowing the format to survive.
The handwriting was clearly on the wall in 2005 when the station started emphasizing music over DJ's (which it had always done to some extent) and a digital signal. When I heard the slogan "the same music sounds different on WBOS," I knew it was only a matter of time before the station would be gone. WBOS as I had enjoyed it during my stay in Boston disappeared in February 2008, as the station flipped to modern rock. The WBOS calls live on, but the station is now marketed as "Radio 92.9." WBOS is yet another station from my past pre-sets that is no longer on the air as I recall it--and I have no idea what station is played in area pizza parlors now.
Pretty rapidly, I settled on three music pre-sets, WBMX, top-40 "Kiss 108" (WXKS-FM at 107.9), and a station that was a little different, WBOS 92.9 FM. I would soon learn that since 1989, WBOS had officially had an "Adult Album Alternative" format with a wide playlist, but it was a little different than any "AAA" station I had encountered before. While it was willing to play deep cuts and older music, the contemporary portion of its playlist was little different than WBMX. Because of its greater variety, I tended to favor it more and more the longer I lived in Boston. One of their better promotional slogans was "We play the father and the son," referring to Bob Dylan and his son Jacob (of the Wallflowers). Their "EarthFest" free performances around Earth Day often brought artists like Edwin McCain and Abra Moore to play at the Hatch Shell along the Charles River. I considered these free events one of the highlights of living in Boston.
However one describes it, I soon discovered that WBOS was the official pizza joint station in greater Boston. Whether in East Boston, Cambridge, or Dorchester, I'd walk into an inexpensive restaurant serving pizza and I'd find WBOS in the background. It became a bit of running joke in my group of friends that the pizza world would be in upheaval if WBOS ever re-formatted.
The WBOS "AAA" format never received great ratings, and was constantly rumored to be going away. It didn't help that another "AAA" station, "The River 92.5" (WXRV) was on a near-adjacent frequency, and was generally regarded as the better-programmed station, just with a weaker, "rim-shot" signal into Boston proper. Serious proposals to make WBOS into an FM talk station (in 1999, which instead went to 96.9), smooth jazz (in 2000) and a "Jack" station (in 2005) never came to fruition, as the format would always have a good ratings book right before its owners were intending to make the change, allowing the format to survive.
The handwriting was clearly on the wall in 2005 when the station started emphasizing music over DJ's (which it had always done to some extent) and a digital signal. When I heard the slogan "the same music sounds different on WBOS," I knew it was only a matter of time before the station would be gone. WBOS as I had enjoyed it during my stay in Boston disappeared in February 2008, as the station flipped to modern rock. The WBOS calls live on, but the station is now marketed as "Radio 92.9." WBOS is yet another station from my past pre-sets that is no longer on the air as I recall it--and I have no idea what station is played in area pizza parlors now.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Media: Remembering Alice@97.3
TORONTO, ONTARIO - I wasn't planning to start a series on music radio stations, but after last week's entry, I happened to scan the dial here in Toronto yesterday and settled on "Boom" 97.3 (CHBM) for a time. After a liner announcing "the greatest music of all time," they played Alanis Morissette's "Head Over Feet." I realize it's Canadian Content, but one of the greatest hits of all time? Not even in Canada. Still, it was amusing for me to hear "Head Over Feet" on the 97.3 frequency, as likely the first station I ever heard that song on was "Alice@97.3" in the Bay Area.
For most of the time I attended college in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, the music stations on the radio were not particularly impressive--they seemed remarkably unimaginative in format. Then, in my junior year, I started noticing more and more dormitory radios tuned to a station on 97.3 FM, KLLC. Launched in 1995, "Alice at 97.3" played many songs I had not heard before, some of them quite hip-hop leaning for my taste, but in any event far from the conservative formats of other music stations.
Little did I know, but the format had actually originated in Denver, Colorado in 1994 as "Alice@106" (later the branding changed to 105.9), KALC. According to Wikipedia, Frank Wood, Chuck Finney and Gregg Cassidy came up with the idea, which took the base of a "hot adult contemporary" format and added alternative music to it. The format has had various labels applied over the years, including "female-oriented modern adult contemporary," "modern contemporary hit radio," and perhaps my favorite, "warped adult contemporary" from founder Wood. The use of a female name was not a coincidence--the format emphasized female artists (a popular move in the mid-1990's) and more closely targeted a female demographic, resulting in later years in such community events as breast cancer research fund-raisers.
Whatever one calls it, "Alice" attracted student listeners, many of them hungry for more unusual songs. While the station played Alanis Morissette, Sarah McLachlan, Donna Lewis, Tori Amos, Erasure, Collective Soul, and Duncan Shiek, it also played what was then reasonably cutting-edge stuff like Dog's Eye View, Alisha's Attic, and Abra Moore. The iconic songs of "Alice," though, were downright weird. People could not stop talking about White Town's "Your Woman" or Geggy Tah's "Whoever You Are" (which eventually end up famous from a Mercedes-Benz commercial in 2001).
Over the years, "Alice" seemed to gradually drop some of its alternative bent, becoming much closer to the "hot adult contemporary" or its current official classification "Adult Top 40", while still courting the female audience. Still, when I was visiting the Bay Area in 2005, I heard them play "Your Woman" one lunchtime and knew that I was listening to the same "Alice" of my undergraduate years. i107.7 may have been the radio station of my youth, but "Alice@97.3" was the radio station of my college years.
For most of the time I attended college in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, the music stations on the radio were not particularly impressive--they seemed remarkably unimaginative in format. Then, in my junior year, I started noticing more and more dormitory radios tuned to a station on 97.3 FM, KLLC. Launched in 1995, "Alice at 97.3" played many songs I had not heard before, some of them quite hip-hop leaning for my taste, but in any event far from the conservative formats of other music stations.
Little did I know, but the format had actually originated in Denver, Colorado in 1994 as "Alice@106" (later the branding changed to 105.9), KALC. According to Wikipedia, Frank Wood, Chuck Finney and Gregg Cassidy came up with the idea, which took the base of a "hot adult contemporary" format and added alternative music to it. The format has had various labels applied over the years, including "female-oriented modern adult contemporary," "modern contemporary hit radio," and perhaps my favorite, "warped adult contemporary" from founder Wood. The use of a female name was not a coincidence--the format emphasized female artists (a popular move in the mid-1990's) and more closely targeted a female demographic, resulting in later years in such community events as breast cancer research fund-raisers.
Whatever one calls it, "Alice" attracted student listeners, many of them hungry for more unusual songs. While the station played Alanis Morissette, Sarah McLachlan, Donna Lewis, Tori Amos, Erasure, Collective Soul, and Duncan Shiek, it also played what was then reasonably cutting-edge stuff like Dog's Eye View, Alisha's Attic, and Abra Moore. The iconic songs of "Alice," though, were downright weird. People could not stop talking about White Town's "Your Woman" or Geggy Tah's "Whoever You Are" (which eventually end up famous from a Mercedes-Benz commercial in 2001).
Over the years, "Alice" seemed to gradually drop some of its alternative bent, becoming much closer to the "hot adult contemporary" or its current official classification "Adult Top 40", while still courting the female audience. Still, when I was visiting the Bay Area in 2005, I heard them play "Your Woman" one lunchtime and knew that I was listening to the same "Alice" of my undergraduate years. i107.7 may have been the radio station of my youth, but "Alice@97.3" was the radio station of my college years.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Media: Remembering i107.7
TORONTO, ONTARIO - Usually, the music radio station of one's youth helped define one's personality. It might have defined one's social group in middle school or high school. It might have guided rebellion against a parent's musical tastes, or even challenged their musical tolerance. Above all, it probably occupied one's listening habits for years. This was not so for me. When I think of the defining music radio station of my youth, I think of a station that only existed for about one year--i107.7.
Clearly, I must have listened to popular music on other stations for many more hours than I ever listened to i107.7. I'm old enough to remember contemporary music on AM--in Seattle, on such stations as KJR, KOMO, and even KVI before it went to the then-innovative "Oldies" format. FM, though, was already dominating music. I remember KUBE before it played rap when it was competing with the limited-playlist "K-PLUS" (KPLZ), which morphed into "Z 101.5" in a clever re-branding using the same call letters.
A station I didn't listen much to was "Magic 108," call letters KMGI, at 107.7 on the FM dial. Apparently going on the air in 1985 (I was oblivious), it played what programmers called "Gold" music--the top singles of the past decade. Not just easy listening (that was the realm of KSEA 100.7 in that era), but any "adult contemporary" music. I barely knew the station even existed; I wasn't interested.
Then, in 1990, a suddenly re-branded "i107.7" sponsored an unlimited hydroplane as part of a massive advertising blitz. When I first saw the advertisements, I was unimpressed, as choosing the last letter of one's call letters as a new image seemed old hat after the K-PLUS/Z 101.5 transition. But, as a loyal hydroplane fan, I decided I had to at least try out the station.
For the first time, I was introduced to a true "Hot Adult Contemporary" format. Not just pop hits of whatever genre, i107.7 had a "sound" that was reasonably consistent. However, it didn't put me to sleep like KSEA or even "K-LITE" (KLTX) 95.7, a "soft rock" or "Soft Adult Contemporary" station. It had real rock music, but no rap like KUBE or Z 101.5. In the summer of 1990, I very rapidly adopted it as my favorite radio station.
For the next year, I would listen to hosts Ron Harris (the regular DJ from 6 pm to 8 pm) and Angie Good (8 pm to midnight) on many evenings. It was not uncommon for me to just put the radio on i107.7 and let the music play for hours on end as I worked on homework, especially if I was on the computer. I grew to live by its hourly "clock," knowing there would be just a short commercial break around twenty minutes after the hour, another about thirty-five minutes after the hour, and the longest one around fifty minutes after the hour. This allowed for "ten in a row" by skipping the first commercial break on certain hours in the daytime and the weekend. My musical tastes for the era were largely defined by what i107.7 played, which included Madonna, Phil Collins, Roxette, Gloria Estefan, Richard Marx, Amy Grant, Extreme, and even artists I didn't favor much like Michael Bolton and Mariah Carey.
I rarely listened to the "iGuys" who did the morning show (if station management had exceptional foresight, they would have trademarked i-Everything and pre-empted Apple's later product naming), but pretty much any other time of day that I wanted music, I would put the dial on 107.7. I remember riding to a state math competition and the driver punching up i107.7 and the Fine Young Cannibals' "She Drives Me Crazy" soon started playing, and that became an iconic moment in my high school experience.
Then, I remember getting out my radio after bicycling down to the Wilburton Trestle to wait for the daily local freight train to go by one day in the summer of 1991 and realizing something had changed. The bumper music was the same, the hosts were the same, but suddenly the station was "Magic 107.7" not "i107.7" and the music had returned to the "adult contemporary" format of the old Magic 108. I couldn't stand it, and drifted off mostly to "Mix 100.7" (the former KSEA) which had gone adult contemporary and would soon become true hot adult contemporary.
On 23 August 1991, it was all over. After several days of stunting, KMGI was officially no more, and "The End" (KNDD) took over 107.7, starting by playing REM's "The End of the World As We Know It." "The End" would prove to be the premier alternative music station in the premier grunge city in the world, Seattle, and exists in an iteration of that format to this day. My favorite Ron Harris stayed with the station for some time (he would later move to eastern Washington state), but I wasn't listening. I would mostly turn to "Mix 100.7" for music until it became KIRO-FM in 1992, and then mostly turned to KLSY 92.5, which by then was an interesting hybrid of "Adult Album Alternative" and "Adult Contemporary" formats until I went away to college.
Yet, to this day, "my" music station is still i107.7. If I could tune in and hear Angie Good (who has since moved to California) introducing Firehouse again, I would. i107.7 may have only existed for a short time, but it had a big impact on my life.
Clearly, I must have listened to popular music on other stations for many more hours than I ever listened to i107.7. I'm old enough to remember contemporary music on AM--in Seattle, on such stations as KJR, KOMO, and even KVI before it went to the then-innovative "Oldies" format. FM, though, was already dominating music. I remember KUBE before it played rap when it was competing with the limited-playlist "K-PLUS" (KPLZ), which morphed into "Z 101.5" in a clever re-branding using the same call letters.
A station I didn't listen much to was "Magic 108," call letters KMGI, at 107.7 on the FM dial. Apparently going on the air in 1985 (I was oblivious), it played what programmers called "Gold" music--the top singles of the past decade. Not just easy listening (that was the realm of KSEA 100.7 in that era), but any "adult contemporary" music. I barely knew the station even existed; I wasn't interested.
Then, in 1990, a suddenly re-branded "i107.7" sponsored an unlimited hydroplane as part of a massive advertising blitz. When I first saw the advertisements, I was unimpressed, as choosing the last letter of one's call letters as a new image seemed old hat after the K-PLUS/Z 101.5 transition. But, as a loyal hydroplane fan, I decided I had to at least try out the station.
For the first time, I was introduced to a true "Hot Adult Contemporary" format. Not just pop hits of whatever genre, i107.7 had a "sound" that was reasonably consistent. However, it didn't put me to sleep like KSEA or even "K-LITE" (KLTX) 95.7, a "soft rock" or "Soft Adult Contemporary" station. It had real rock music, but no rap like KUBE or Z 101.5. In the summer of 1990, I very rapidly adopted it as my favorite radio station.
For the next year, I would listen to hosts Ron Harris (the regular DJ from 6 pm to 8 pm) and Angie Good (8 pm to midnight) on many evenings. It was not uncommon for me to just put the radio on i107.7 and let the music play for hours on end as I worked on homework, especially if I was on the computer. I grew to live by its hourly "clock," knowing there would be just a short commercial break around twenty minutes after the hour, another about thirty-five minutes after the hour, and the longest one around fifty minutes after the hour. This allowed for "ten in a row" by skipping the first commercial break on certain hours in the daytime and the weekend. My musical tastes for the era were largely defined by what i107.7 played, which included Madonna, Phil Collins, Roxette, Gloria Estefan, Richard Marx, Amy Grant, Extreme, and even artists I didn't favor much like Michael Bolton and Mariah Carey.
I rarely listened to the "iGuys" who did the morning show (if station management had exceptional foresight, they would have trademarked i-Everything and pre-empted Apple's later product naming), but pretty much any other time of day that I wanted music, I would put the dial on 107.7. I remember riding to a state math competition and the driver punching up i107.7 and the Fine Young Cannibals' "She Drives Me Crazy" soon started playing, and that became an iconic moment in my high school experience.
Then, I remember getting out my radio after bicycling down to the Wilburton Trestle to wait for the daily local freight train to go by one day in the summer of 1991 and realizing something had changed. The bumper music was the same, the hosts were the same, but suddenly the station was "Magic 107.7" not "i107.7" and the music had returned to the "adult contemporary" format of the old Magic 108. I couldn't stand it, and drifted off mostly to "Mix 100.7" (the former KSEA) which had gone adult contemporary and would soon become true hot adult contemporary.
On 23 August 1991, it was all over. After several days of stunting, KMGI was officially no more, and "The End" (KNDD) took over 107.7, starting by playing REM's "The End of the World As We Know It." "The End" would prove to be the premier alternative music station in the premier grunge city in the world, Seattle, and exists in an iteration of that format to this day. My favorite Ron Harris stayed with the station for some time (he would later move to eastern Washington state), but I wasn't listening. I would mostly turn to "Mix 100.7" for music until it became KIRO-FM in 1992, and then mostly turned to KLSY 92.5, which by then was an interesting hybrid of "Adult Album Alternative" and "Adult Contemporary" formats until I went away to college.
Yet, to this day, "my" music station is still i107.7. If I could tune in and hear Angie Good (who has since moved to California) introducing Firehouse again, I would. i107.7 may have only existed for a short time, but it had a big impact on my life.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Media: No Double Teaming, KIRO-FM
TORONTO, ONTARIO - I've avoided comment on changes that started last week at KIRO-FM in Seattle, Washington. However, after listening (via podcast) to the new "co-hosting" arrangement on the Dave Ross show for more than a week with two different co-hosts, I'm finished. The Dave Ross Show, and by extension KIRO-FM, is no longer part of my regular radio listening experience.
I had made KIRO-FM's Dave Ross Show a part of my regular listening habits for most of my present period of unemployment for several reasons. While Ross has a largely left-of-center viewpoint, and expresses it in the opening features (such as the "News Through Ross-Colored Glasses") of the show quite freely, he runs a fundamentally ideas-driven show. He interviews people from across the political spectrum and asks them probing questions. His constant refrain is "trying to figure out what actually works" regardless of who suggests it, and his tagline for years was "crusader for common sense." With the exception of much of the lineup of KGO in San Francisco, such talk shows are rare in the world today--even the other shows on the KIRO-FM lineup either come from an uncompromising right-wing perspective or are not ideas-based.
Such an intellectually-based show could be boring (local public radio shows across the United States offer examples), but Ross injects humor, from lines bordering on stand-up comedy to prepared musical parodies, that makes the news fundamentally entertaining. One not only learns what arguments might make sense (mostly from Ross' left-leaning perspective, but also from guests of all stripes), but one can actually look forward to being amused. On an average day, I have felt like it was worth my time to listen to his show, relative to other options available such as Rush Limbaugh, Ronn Owens, or Jim Richards on our local newstalk station here in Toronto.
That era is over. KIRO management has apparently decided that Ross needs to have a talkative co-host, emulating the competing KOMO radio show "The Commentators" or perhaps more accurately, the afternoon Ron and Don show on KIRO-FM. For four days last week, Ross was joined by Luke Burbank, best known for his lifestyle podcast, TBTL. While Burbank can be witty when discussing deeper subjects and his previously-weekly banter with Ross was often fun, three hours of it a day was terrible. There was no longer time to take calls on most days, which eliminated the ideas-from-the-masses aspect of talk radio--it's hard to imagine a Dave Ross show without his trademark "APB" for callers of an unusual background--who often do call in and offer valuable insight. Instead, we had considerably less intellectually-inclined discourse, the epitome of which was Burbank asking former United Nations ambassador John Bolton about his mustache.
With Burbank away on other duty this week, Seattle Times columnist Nicole Brodeur has been co-hosting with Ross. While one could understand that perhaps Burbank was intended to bring in a younger audience that listens to TBTL, it's hard to see what demographic Brodeur invites. With an even more liberal perspective than Ross, she certainly doesn't add political diversity to the show. She may have a future in talk radio--I think it would be interesting to hear her on a solo show--but I just don't see what she is adding more than distraction to Ross' show.
I suppose analysis of transcripts would reveal that Ross' opinions and argumentation are still making it to the air, but the co-hosts are so distracting that I feel like I have to listen more closely to dissect it from the inanities of the co-host, and I'm simply not willing to do that. I don't feel like I'm getting what I used to get from the show, so I'm not planning to listen anymore.
Of course, my preference would be for a return to the solo Ross show, but if a co-host is required, why not a right-wing ideas person--say, Kirby Wilbur--sitting with Ross? For all its billing, the supposed debate between John Carlson and Ken Schram on KOMO is not all that heated. KIRO-FM has the potential to out-Commentate the Commentators, but it won't happen with the Dave Ross co-hosts tried thus far.
I had made KIRO-FM's Dave Ross Show a part of my regular listening habits for most of my present period of unemployment for several reasons. While Ross has a largely left-of-center viewpoint, and expresses it in the opening features (such as the "News Through Ross-Colored Glasses") of the show quite freely, he runs a fundamentally ideas-driven show. He interviews people from across the political spectrum and asks them probing questions. His constant refrain is "trying to figure out what actually works" regardless of who suggests it, and his tagline for years was "crusader for common sense." With the exception of much of the lineup of KGO in San Francisco, such talk shows are rare in the world today--even the other shows on the KIRO-FM lineup either come from an uncompromising right-wing perspective or are not ideas-based.
Such an intellectually-based show could be boring (local public radio shows across the United States offer examples), but Ross injects humor, from lines bordering on stand-up comedy to prepared musical parodies, that makes the news fundamentally entertaining. One not only learns what arguments might make sense (mostly from Ross' left-leaning perspective, but also from guests of all stripes), but one can actually look forward to being amused. On an average day, I have felt like it was worth my time to listen to his show, relative to other options available such as Rush Limbaugh, Ronn Owens, or Jim Richards on our local newstalk station here in Toronto.
That era is over. KIRO management has apparently decided that Ross needs to have a talkative co-host, emulating the competing KOMO radio show "The Commentators" or perhaps more accurately, the afternoon Ron and Don show on KIRO-FM. For four days last week, Ross was joined by Luke Burbank, best known for his lifestyle podcast, TBTL. While Burbank can be witty when discussing deeper subjects and his previously-weekly banter with Ross was often fun, three hours of it a day was terrible. There was no longer time to take calls on most days, which eliminated the ideas-from-the-masses aspect of talk radio--it's hard to imagine a Dave Ross show without his trademark "APB" for callers of an unusual background--who often do call in and offer valuable insight. Instead, we had considerably less intellectually-inclined discourse, the epitome of which was Burbank asking former United Nations ambassador John Bolton about his mustache.
With Burbank away on other duty this week, Seattle Times columnist Nicole Brodeur has been co-hosting with Ross. While one could understand that perhaps Burbank was intended to bring in a younger audience that listens to TBTL, it's hard to see what demographic Brodeur invites. With an even more liberal perspective than Ross, she certainly doesn't add political diversity to the show. She may have a future in talk radio--I think it would be interesting to hear her on a solo show--but I just don't see what she is adding more than distraction to Ross' show.
I suppose analysis of transcripts would reveal that Ross' opinions and argumentation are still making it to the air, but the co-hosts are so distracting that I feel like I have to listen more closely to dissect it from the inanities of the co-host, and I'm simply not willing to do that. I don't feel like I'm getting what I used to get from the show, so I'm not planning to listen anymore.
Of course, my preference would be for a return to the solo Ross show, but if a co-host is required, why not a right-wing ideas person--say, Kirby Wilbur--sitting with Ross? For all its billing, the supposed debate between John Carlson and Ken Schram on KOMO is not all that heated. KIRO-FM has the potential to out-Commentate the Commentators, but it won't happen with the Dave Ross co-hosts tried thus far.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Media: Nice Summer Season, CBC
TORONTO, ONTARIO - While the summer, as defined by the CBC as the ten weeks leading up to Labour Day, is not quite over yet, the majority of the special CBC Radio One programming for the summer has already aired. At this point, I am willing to assess the summer as a good one.
By the standard I often cite as a measure of my opinion, the number of programs that make my weekly radio pick, the summer of 2010 looks about average. The summer programs have made my list only three times (though this week may prove to be a fourth), compared with four in 2007 and 2008, and three in 2009, which I have cited as a poor year for summer programming. The difference this year is that a variety of programs of decent quality have been on the schedule, just not rising to the level of weekly pick--and that hasn't happened since 2007.
My favorite program of the bunch, making an appearance on the weekly picks, has been a new season of a show heard the past two summers--ReVision Quest, a show that manages to inject humour with insight about the native experience in Canada. I won't mind if this program comes back next summer, or even on the regular schedule.
The new show that has made the biggest impression on me has been Promised Land, which has been telling stories of immigration to Canada. As I stated when I chose an episode as a weekly pick, this series ought to be part of history education in this country, telling the stories of the very different ways that people have arrived here.
Another new show that has made it to my weekly pick has been Asunder, a show about divorce. While I have found its content to vary in educational value each week, in general it has been a worthwhile listen.
It's the shows that haven't quite made it to the pick that are remarkable this year. The Main Ingredient may not have actually affected my cooking or eating habits yet, but it has been fascinating to learn about what different cultures consider disgusting, or how cuisines come to be associated with certain countries.
When it was on during its first season in 2008, I wasn't that impressed with The Late Show. For whatever reason, this second season has seemed more compelling to me, and I found myself looking forward to the "extraordinary life stories of deceptively ordinary Canadians." Nobody can deny that Gordon Pinsent is a great radio story-teller.
Even the comedy show impressed me. It took about ten minutes of the first show to be convinced that This Is That was not serious, and in the past I have not bothered to listen to such shows in the summer. Yet, this show was a brilliant satire of radio, news, Canada, and just about anything else it could touch. There were many memorable skits on this show, from underground housing to where the alleged Lake Okanagan monster Ogopogo might be located to Kevin Nealon buying a town in Saskatchewan. The running gags from the grammatical nonsense of the name ("It's like Jeopardy--the show's name is really 'That'") to the voice mails from "Sue" were all well-done.
In fact, about the only summer shows that didn't do much for me were (surprisingly) The Bottom Line with David Suzuki, which I thought had potential but mostly bored me, and Being Jann with Jann Arden, which was intended as Saturday morning light fare and fit the bill.
So, the CBC Radio One summer 2010 schedule may not have had that many incredible must-hear moments, it had a depth of listenable shows. I would call it a successful season, and after the disastrous 2009 summer season, that was good to hear.
By the standard I often cite as a measure of my opinion, the number of programs that make my weekly radio pick, the summer of 2010 looks about average. The summer programs have made my list only three times (though this week may prove to be a fourth), compared with four in 2007 and 2008, and three in 2009, which I have cited as a poor year for summer programming. The difference this year is that a variety of programs of decent quality have been on the schedule, just not rising to the level of weekly pick--and that hasn't happened since 2007.
My favorite program of the bunch, making an appearance on the weekly picks, has been a new season of a show heard the past two summers--ReVision Quest, a show that manages to inject humour with insight about the native experience in Canada. I won't mind if this program comes back next summer, or even on the regular schedule.
The new show that has made the biggest impression on me has been Promised Land, which has been telling stories of immigration to Canada. As I stated when I chose an episode as a weekly pick, this series ought to be part of history education in this country, telling the stories of the very different ways that people have arrived here.
Another new show that has made it to my weekly pick has been Asunder, a show about divorce. While I have found its content to vary in educational value each week, in general it has been a worthwhile listen.
It's the shows that haven't quite made it to the pick that are remarkable this year. The Main Ingredient may not have actually affected my cooking or eating habits yet, but it has been fascinating to learn about what different cultures consider disgusting, or how cuisines come to be associated with certain countries.
When it was on during its first season in 2008, I wasn't that impressed with The Late Show. For whatever reason, this second season has seemed more compelling to me, and I found myself looking forward to the "extraordinary life stories of deceptively ordinary Canadians." Nobody can deny that Gordon Pinsent is a great radio story-teller.
Even the comedy show impressed me. It took about ten minutes of the first show to be convinced that This Is That was not serious, and in the past I have not bothered to listen to such shows in the summer. Yet, this show was a brilliant satire of radio, news, Canada, and just about anything else it could touch. There were many memorable skits on this show, from underground housing to where the alleged Lake Okanagan monster Ogopogo might be located to Kevin Nealon buying a town in Saskatchewan. The running gags from the grammatical nonsense of the name ("It's like Jeopardy--the show's name is really 'That'") to the voice mails from "Sue" were all well-done.
In fact, about the only summer shows that didn't do much for me were (surprisingly) The Bottom Line with David Suzuki, which I thought had potential but mostly bored me, and Being Jann with Jann Arden, which was intended as Saturday morning light fare and fit the bill.
So, the CBC Radio One summer 2010 schedule may not have had that many incredible must-hear moments, it had a depth of listenable shows. I would call it a successful season, and after the disastrous 2009 summer season, that was good to hear.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Media: Forward is Backward
TORONTO, ONTARIO - Today was the official hand-off of the host position on CBC Radio One Toronto's Metro Morning show from Andy Barrie to Matt Galloway. I have little to add to the accolades for Barrie except to say that I agree with virtually all of them. That a deserter from the United States military could go on to be one of Canada's foremost media figures makes for an inspiring story for any immigrant, but what this morning's hand-off show left me with more than the stories of Barrie's or Galloway's lives or how they conducted themselves off-air was the lesson of how the morning show in Toronto has changed in my lifetime.
I wasn't here to hear it, obviously, but the CBC morning show in Toronto in the early 1970's likely varied a lot less from its commercial competitors, at least on the AM dial, than it does now. For one thing, it ran commercials until 1975. I suppose I had read that somewhere, but I had completely forgotten that fact until it came up on the show. In the past 35 years, CBC radio has racked up such a record as a public, commercial-free broadcaster that it seems almost inconceivable that it once aired "spots."
Yet, it was one of the things that dropping commercials allowed the CBC to do that most surprised me. In the show this morning, former CBC manager and director Margaret Lyons pointed out that the time freed up by not airing commercials could be put to use playing music, which had not previously been done on the morning show. Previously, it had all been spoken word, or as we call it today, "Newstalk." The CBC had once sounded more like today's CFRB (er, Newstalk 1010) morning show, or any number of such news-driven talk shows around the continent, than today's Metro Morning.
I've lived through an opposite trend on commercial radio in my life. I distinctly remember the last time I heard an entire song played on KIRO in Seattle. Though I don't recall the date, it must have been about 1985. A guest had canceled on mid-day host Jim French, and to fill the time, he and his producer chose to play Harold Faltermeyer's instrumental song "Axel F" from the "Beverly Hills Cop" movie soundtrack, which was still relatively popular at the time. I never heard a complete song played for the sake of playing music on 710 AM in Seattle again, as it held assiduously to its "Newsradio" format. If I wanted music and news, I had to tune to KOMO AM 1000, which remained a "full-service" radio station until it went to a Talk format in 1995 after years of inching that direction. I lamented the loss of the full-service radio stations on this blog a year ago.
For some reason, I had assumed that CBC Radio One in Toronto, once CBL 740 AM and since 1999 CBLA-FM 99.1, had always been "full-service" in that sense and had never stopped playing music. Instead, music had been gone from morning drive, and was re-introduced to help "re-connect with culture of the city." In the small doses (usually two songs per hour) that do now air on Metro Morning, that's exactly what it does.
So, the CBC saw the power of going forward, better serving their community, by going backward in terms of format, re-introducing music. Maybe there's some hope for the return of full-service radio somewhere by following the same logic--successful in Toronto--elsewhere.
I wasn't here to hear it, obviously, but the CBC morning show in Toronto in the early 1970's likely varied a lot less from its commercial competitors, at least on the AM dial, than it does now. For one thing, it ran commercials until 1975. I suppose I had read that somewhere, but I had completely forgotten that fact until it came up on the show. In the past 35 years, CBC radio has racked up such a record as a public, commercial-free broadcaster that it seems almost inconceivable that it once aired "spots."
Yet, it was one of the things that dropping commercials allowed the CBC to do that most surprised me. In the show this morning, former CBC manager and director Margaret Lyons pointed out that the time freed up by not airing commercials could be put to use playing music, which had not previously been done on the morning show. Previously, it had all been spoken word, or as we call it today, "Newstalk." The CBC had once sounded more like today's CFRB (er, Newstalk 1010) morning show, or any number of such news-driven talk shows around the continent, than today's Metro Morning.
I've lived through an opposite trend on commercial radio in my life. I distinctly remember the last time I heard an entire song played on KIRO in Seattle. Though I don't recall the date, it must have been about 1985. A guest had canceled on mid-day host Jim French, and to fill the time, he and his producer chose to play Harold Faltermeyer's instrumental song "Axel F" from the "Beverly Hills Cop" movie soundtrack, which was still relatively popular at the time. I never heard a complete song played for the sake of playing music on 710 AM in Seattle again, as it held assiduously to its "Newsradio" format. If I wanted music and news, I had to tune to KOMO AM 1000, which remained a "full-service" radio station until it went to a Talk format in 1995 after years of inching that direction. I lamented the loss of the full-service radio stations on this blog a year ago.
For some reason, I had assumed that CBC Radio One in Toronto, once CBL 740 AM and since 1999 CBLA-FM 99.1, had always been "full-service" in that sense and had never stopped playing music. Instead, music had been gone from morning drive, and was re-introduced to help "re-connect with culture of the city." In the small doses (usually two songs per hour) that do now air on Metro Morning, that's exactly what it does.
So, the CBC saw the power of going forward, better serving their community, by going backward in terms of format, re-introducing music. Maybe there's some hope for the return of full-service radio somewhere by following the same logic--successful in Toronto--elsewhere.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Media: Ratings in Trouble?
TORONTO, ONTARIO - Long-time readers of this blog will be aware that it has tried to follow the implementation of the Arbitron Portable People Meter (PPM) as the new technology to measure radio listenership has been rolled out in the United States in Canada. In the last update, the concerns of an influential program director in San Francisco were explored.
Since then, the PPM has hardly seen clear sailing. Of the 33 markets in the United States where Arbitron has attempted to introduce the devices, only three have been certified by a Media Rating Council audit. It has been outright rejected in 18 markets, including New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Aribtron has successfully gone to court to force the Spanish Broadcasting System (SBS) to keep doing PPM encoding on its broadcasts, which the SBS had claimed it no longer needed to do because the PPM wasn't providing it with accurate data. In the middle of all this, Arbitron has changed Chief Executive Officers.
While the failed audits indicate a potential technical problem with the devices (or methodology), others have now opined that the PPM has simply highlighted deeper problems with the whole rating process. A well-known rating consultant, Mike Henry, has been particularly outspoken. As described in Michael Hood's BlatherWatch blog, Henry wants the US to go to the Canadian model, in which the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement is a non-profit organization controlled by the broadcasters. Rather than alienating its customers (both radio stations and advertisers), in Canada, they effectively control the process and thus have input at every stage of the ratings process.
For now, Henry's opinion seems to be in the minority. Unless Arbitron gets its act together, though, both technically and in terms of its relations with both radio stations and advertisers, his views may become mainstream, and there may be a lot of radio people visiting Ottawa to figure out how to structure a new system.
Since then, the PPM has hardly seen clear sailing. Of the 33 markets in the United States where Arbitron has attempted to introduce the devices, only three have been certified by a Media Rating Council audit. It has been outright rejected in 18 markets, including New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Aribtron has successfully gone to court to force the Spanish Broadcasting System (SBS) to keep doing PPM encoding on its broadcasts, which the SBS had claimed it no longer needed to do because the PPM wasn't providing it with accurate data. In the middle of all this, Arbitron has changed Chief Executive Officers.
While the failed audits indicate a potential technical problem with the devices (or methodology), others have now opined that the PPM has simply highlighted deeper problems with the whole rating process. A well-known rating consultant, Mike Henry, has been particularly outspoken. As described in Michael Hood's BlatherWatch blog, Henry wants the US to go to the Canadian model, in which the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement is a non-profit organization controlled by the broadcasters. Rather than alienating its customers (both radio stations and advertisers), in Canada, they effectively control the process and thus have input at every stage of the ratings process.
For now, Henry's opinion seems to be in the minority. Unless Arbitron gets its act together, though, both technically and in terms of its relations with both radio stations and advertisers, his views may become mainstream, and there may be a lot of radio people visiting Ottawa to figure out how to structure a new system.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Media: Changing Branding in Toronto Radio
TORONTO, ONTARIO - The big media story this week in Toronto has been that what was once the city's premier radio station, CFRB, will be called that no longer. In conjunction with a schedule shake-up that amongst other things places possible mayoral candidate John Tory on afternoon drive, what has been "Newstalk 1010 CFRB" will now become simply "Newstalk 1010," not using its heritage call letters.
Calls letters are not nearly the big deal in Canada that they are in the United States. Whereas the Federal Communications Commission requires US stations to give an identification strictly formatted with the call letters and city of license (e.g. "WCBS, New York") once an hour, Industry Canada does not enforce similar rules here (though apparently they do exist). As long as the station is clearly identifying itself in a way that it can be identified, they look the other way on the format and frequency of the identification. On what has been CFRB, "Newstalk 1010 in Toronto" will likely draw no sanction.
The change in branding is no more than that--a change in branding. To Canadian Radio-television Commission and Industry Canada, the station will still be CFRB (at least until it applies for a change in legal call letters, which seems unlikely). However, owner Astral Media has decided that brand of "CFRB," once the strongest in Toronto, no longer matches what they want to do with the station.
The change has attracted so much attention because the "FRB" does stand for something. Once owned by the Rogers media empire, the call letters derived from "First Rogers Batteryless" for the new outlet-based radio that the Rogers Vacuum Tube Company was selling at the time the station went on the air in 1927. (The "F" was not really a choice but a convenient coincidence, as "CF" was one of the codes assigned to Canadian stations.)
Ironically, the station named after Rogers was sold after Edward Rogers Sr.'s death in 1941. It had been owned by Standard Broadcasting until that company became part of Astral Media in late 2007. Ted Rogers, of the current Rogers media empire, had always wanted CFRB to once again become part of the family's holdings, but he died in 2008 without having achieved that goal--but also without hearing the call letters dropped from the station branding.
In the large scheme of things, a change in branding without a change of legal call letters is not all that uncommon. Any multitude of examples could be given; one of my favorites was KPLZ in Seattle. Branded for most of my youth as "K-PLUS" (KPLS was already taken), it became "Z 101.5" in the mid-1980's, and then "STAR-FM" in the mid-1990's, still retaining the KPLZ calls to this day.
For those that remember the Rogers founding of CFRB, though, the current branding change seems like a big deal for Toronto radio.
Calls letters are not nearly the big deal in Canada that they are in the United States. Whereas the Federal Communications Commission requires US stations to give an identification strictly formatted with the call letters and city of license (e.g. "WCBS, New York") once an hour, Industry Canada does not enforce similar rules here (though apparently they do exist). As long as the station is clearly identifying itself in a way that it can be identified, they look the other way on the format and frequency of the identification. On what has been CFRB, "Newstalk 1010 in Toronto" will likely draw no sanction.
The change in branding is no more than that--a change in branding. To Canadian Radio-television Commission and Industry Canada, the station will still be CFRB (at least until it applies for a change in legal call letters, which seems unlikely). However, owner Astral Media has decided that brand of "CFRB," once the strongest in Toronto, no longer matches what they want to do with the station.
The change has attracted so much attention because the "FRB" does stand for something. Once owned by the Rogers media empire, the call letters derived from "First Rogers Batteryless" for the new outlet-based radio that the Rogers Vacuum Tube Company was selling at the time the station went on the air in 1927. (The "F" was not really a choice but a convenient coincidence, as "CF" was one of the codes assigned to Canadian stations.)
Ironically, the station named after Rogers was sold after Edward Rogers Sr.'s death in 1941. It had been owned by Standard Broadcasting until that company became part of Astral Media in late 2007. Ted Rogers, of the current Rogers media empire, had always wanted CFRB to once again become part of the family's holdings, but he died in 2008 without having achieved that goal--but also without hearing the call letters dropped from the station branding.
In the large scheme of things, a change in branding without a change of legal call letters is not all that uncommon. Any multitude of examples could be given; one of my favorites was KPLZ in Seattle. Branded for most of my youth as "K-PLUS" (KPLS was already taken), it became "Z 101.5" in the mid-1980's, and then "STAR-FM" in the mid-1990's, still retaining the KPLZ calls to this day.
For those that remember the Rogers founding of CFRB, though, the current branding change seems like a big deal for Toronto radio.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Media: The Evening Newscast
FLINT, MICHIGAN - As late as 1990, KOMO radio in Seattle, Washington still ran "The News at Ten" each weeknight at 22:00 (10 pm) which functioned in the same way as late-night television news continues to function to this day--a way to find out what was happening in the world before going to sleep. Dennis Shannon, now with KONA-AM out of the Tri-Cities, Washington, was the last regular host of the program before it was replaced with the syndicated Tom Snyder talk show. The program had been a regular part of my day, and I would go to sleep after listening to the nearly half-hour program.
While I thought this kind of program was quite useful, it didn't just disappear off KOMO. Other than 24-hour news stations, news after dinner didn't draw listeners, and it has disappeared off the North American radio landscape.
At least, that's what I had thought. News/Talk 760 WJR out of Detroit still has a program airing along the same lines. The Big Story airs at 19:00 (not quite as late as the tradition, but after rush hour) and seems to be mis-named. Rather than focusing on a single big story for an hour, it actually runs material on all the big stories of the day in depth. It seems to be a true hour-long newscast.
WJR is not some fringe station. Besides being a clear-channel station, it has local personalities like Paul W. Smith and Mitch Albom who have a national profile in the United States. If WJR can run a news hour, then other radio stations of record can do it as well. I wish a few more of them would give it a try.
While I thought this kind of program was quite useful, it didn't just disappear off KOMO. Other than 24-hour news stations, news after dinner didn't draw listeners, and it has disappeared off the North American radio landscape.
At least, that's what I had thought. News/Talk 760 WJR out of Detroit still has a program airing along the same lines. The Big Story airs at 19:00 (not quite as late as the tradition, but after rush hour) and seems to be mis-named. Rather than focusing on a single big story for an hour, it actually runs material on all the big stories of the day in depth. It seems to be a true hour-long newscast.
WJR is not some fringe station. Besides being a clear-channel station, it has local personalities like Paul W. Smith and Mitch Albom who have a national profile in the United States. If WJR can run a news hour, then other radio stations of record can do it as well. I wish a few more of them would give it a try.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Margin Notes: Upsetting Scenes, CBC, KNX
The garbage collection site at Étienne Brûlé Park in Toronto, Ontario was quiet--and not particularly smelly--on 28 June 2009
TORONTO, ONTARIO - The largest city in Canada is now entering the second week of a strike by city workers. In rather extensive tours of the city the past few days with my visiting aunt and uncle, there were a few places where the lack of garbage collection was apparent, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I might have guessed. One reason may be that the city has opened nineteen locations to collect garbage across the city. I was surprised to find that one of those locations was my local Étienne Brûlé Park near the Humber River. However, when I walked by the location for the first time on Sunday since it opened, I found that that despite a reasonable amount of collected material, it didn't have a bad smell nor did it really disrupt the use of the park much for locals, as it mostly took up a parking area. Of course, the bad smells may be coming if the strike goes on for too long.
* * * * * *
One thing that has a bad smell to me is the CBC's summer schedule. Most years, the programming on CBC Radio One during the ten weeks of summer features a variety of innovative new shows or old summer favorites, some of which go on to become permanent additions to the schedule. That's not likely this year. If I am reading the web page correctly (and that should be clear in the coming week), then only six summer shows are producing new content this year, and only one of those (Socket) is a new series never heard before. Other shows are things we've heard in previous years, and in some cases, it appears that the old series are being rebroadcast (including the excellent "Hidden City" and "White Coat, Black Art"). I know the CBC is in budget trouble, but at the rate things are going we're going to be listening to "As It Happens" repeated continuously before long.
* * * * * *
More non-news out of the radio industry came out of Los Angeles. I thought I was going to be reporting that another major AM station had started a FM simulcast. However, it turns out that the only change at KNX 1070 AM is a simulcast on a digital subchannel of smooth jazz KTWV 94.7 FM. That's nice, but considering that almost nobody has a digital radio, that's about as consequential as if I decided to re-broadcast KNX to my neighborhood--just about nobody will hear it.
* * * * * *
A crew cleaned the Monument to the War of 1812 on the Toronto Waterfront on 27 June 2009
Fortunately, just about nobody will see the vandalism that apparently occurred on Douglas Coupland's controversial Monument to the War of 1812 located near Fort York in Toronto. By chance, I caught the cleaning crew already well into their mission on Saturday, so I don't know if it was American hooligans upset by the message of the sculpture or what.
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The Frankenstein Museum and Burger King were engaged in a bit of co-marketing at Niagara Falls, Ontario on 26 June 2009
Some might consider the scene above upsetting, but I found a certain appropriateness to the Frankenstein Museum and Burger King mixing their signs in the tourist-crazy zone of Clifton Hill in Niagara Falls, Ontario. Somehow I can just see Frankenstein saying "Sometimes you've gotta break the rules."
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Margin Notes: Scooby, Pledge Drives, Transport
A "Spirit Zone" sign at the University of Albany featured the Great Dane mascot as seen on 1 June 2009
TORONTO, ONTARIO - I had no idea that Scooby Doo was going to become a theme of my latest trip. However, the generation-old cartoon has had quite an influence on regional universities. In the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts, each school in the "Five Colleges" consortium is commonly associated with a Scooby Doo character in folklore. Smith College is Velma, Mount Holyoke is Daphne, Amherst is Fred, Hampshire is Shaggy, and of course the University of Massachusetts at Amherst is Scooby himself. Yet, it's the University of Albany (part of the State University of New York system) that actually has a Great Dane that looks much like Scooby Doo as its mascot, as seen above.
* * * * * *
While they may not air cartoons, one of the joys of traveling in United States for me is usually getting to hear local public radio stations. There was little joy in this latest trip, as the public radio stations serving the areas where I spent the most time--WFCR 88.5 FM Amherst (and affiliated WNNZ 640 AM) and WAMC 90.3 FM Albany--were both in fund-raising mode. WFCR's pledge breaks were bad enough, but WAMC's were prolonged and borderline disturbing. WAMC president and CEO Alan Chartock hosts many of the pledge breaks himself, and had no problems making comments like "we've been doing that for the past eight years, not just the past year," and "we criticize Democrats too; you just heard that in the last report." It's statements like that which allow right-wingers to paint public radio as a left-wing atrocity and discredit the balanced programs that do appear on public radio stations such as the major NPR news magazines.
* * * * * *
I ended up listening to a lot of WAMC yesterday when I was in stopped traffic on the Berkshire Extension of the New York Thruway after an accident shut down the westbound lanes near the Canaan, New York tolls for nearly an hour. After about twenty minutes without moving, just about everyone had shut down their engines and I was treated to the surreal experience of listening to birds chirp on an Interstate highway (the eastbound lanes were behind a grove of trees and almost inaudible).
* * * * * *
The incident on the Thruway underscored the misguided nature of a statement I had made to a friend in Albany after the derailment experience on Friday. I claimed that since I would be driving a rental car on Monday, I would be in more control of my schedule. Driving presents only an illusion of control--in reality, one is just as much at the mercy of those around them in a car as in any other form of transportation. Real freedom comes from having choices, instead of having little choice except to drive as is the case in most of North America, and surprisingly even in much of the urban Albany area.
* * * * * *
Bicyclists enjoyed the trails along the Erie Canal near Fairport, New York on 2 June 2009
Farther west, there are locations in which a true multi-modal scene could be seen in New York. The New York Thruway toll road (I-90), the Erie Canal, the bike path along the Erie Canal, and the former New York Central railroad (now CSX) could conceivably be placed in the same frame at many locations between Amsterdam and Syracuse, New York.
* * * * * *
The platforms at Buffalo, New York's Central Terminal, effectively abandoned since 1979, were viewed on 2 June 2009 from Amtrak's detouring Maple Leaf on the Loop Lead
Amtrak's Maple Leaf traverses the old New York Central between New York City and Buffalo, and an unexpected pleasant surprise occurred as the train approached Buffalo today. It turned out that the train was detouring over the CSX Belt Subdivision around Buffalo because of track work. While the detour meant skipping the Exchange Street station and views of the Peace Bridge, it meant rare miles for me and a different view of the derelict Buffalo Central Terminal train station as the train traversed the Loop Lead to enter the Belt Subdivision.
* * * * * *
The ridiculous immigration inspection of the Amtrak Maple Leaf at Syracuse, New York that was taking place last year has apparently ceased. An immigration agent was boarding the train to make sure no illegal aliens were on board the train bound for Canada. (The agent was also supposed to ensure US residents had correct paperwork to enter Canada and re-enter the United States, but never checked my identification and spent a lot of time talking to Hispanic-looking people on the train both in my experience and in other reports.) Exactly why the United States cared was a bit beyond me, and why the inspection occurred in Syracuse and not closer to the border (say, in Buffalo) was really beyond me. The only inspection on the train today was the Canadian inspection upon entry to Canada at Niagara Falls, Ontario.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Media: The Plight of Travel Radio
KLAMATH FALLS, OREGON - While approaching this 20,000-person Oregon town near the California border this evening, a radio program ended and it was time to scan the radio dial to find something else. Starting on AM, I found a strong local signal at 960 AM, running the top of the hour news from ABC. Staying tuned in to see what would come on next, the result was silence. Yes, at five minutes after the hour, KLAD 960 AM had an entire minute of "dead air" before Kenny Rogers' "The Gambler" started to play.
We can speculate what was supposed to be on during that minute. Perhaps a local commercial was supposed to air, perhaps a weather forecast was supposed to be played off a tape, perhaps the song was supposed to start immediately after the news. In any event, the "Country Legends" station provided neither local information for a resident of or traveler to Klamath Falls nor its formatted entertainment.
This kind of failure is all too common in radio today. I remember listening to KONA-AM out of the Tri-Cities, Washington on Thanksgiving day once and hearing an entire half-hour of the network feed, including dead air (silence), sports and feature feeds, and actuality (quote) feeds without narration. The lack of production values are not limited to AM; the same thing can happen on FM, and silence isn't any better in stereo.
There was once a time that traveling afforded the opportunity to hear local information and styles not found in big-city radio. I fondly remember hearing a combination of Navajo and English near Tuba City, Arizona in 1991, songs I hadn't heard before on a music station (then KFMJ-FM) in Grants Pass, Oregon in 1984, and surprisingly in-depth farming news on KREW-AM out of Sunnyside, Washington in 1989.
Those times are gone. If a somewhat rural station happens to have good production values, it is likely voice-tracked out of a larger market and has no local character. If it isn't listenable, then it's likely as pathetic as KLAD was tonight. There are likely exceptions out there, but I can't remember the last time I found one. Now, when traveling, if I can't receive a quality big-market signal (say, KCBS and KGO out of San Francisco or WBZ out of Boston), then I often don't even bother scanning the dial, or if I do, I only do it once. Regardless, I almost always end up deciding to listen to a podcast instead.
So, what was the chosen program today at 19:05? There were only two other local and strong stations on the AM dial in Klamath Falls, both conservative talk stations. With Sirius satellite radio available, I chose the BBC's World Today on channel 141. There's a reason why satellite radio sells in vehicles.
We can speculate what was supposed to be on during that minute. Perhaps a local commercial was supposed to air, perhaps a weather forecast was supposed to be played off a tape, perhaps the song was supposed to start immediately after the news. In any event, the "Country Legends" station provided neither local information for a resident of or traveler to Klamath Falls nor its formatted entertainment.
This kind of failure is all too common in radio today. I remember listening to KONA-AM out of the Tri-Cities, Washington on Thanksgiving day once and hearing an entire half-hour of the network feed, including dead air (silence), sports and feature feeds, and actuality (quote) feeds without narration. The lack of production values are not limited to AM; the same thing can happen on FM, and silence isn't any better in stereo.
There was once a time that traveling afforded the opportunity to hear local information and styles not found in big-city radio. I fondly remember hearing a combination of Navajo and English near Tuba City, Arizona in 1991, songs I hadn't heard before on a music station (then KFMJ-FM) in Grants Pass, Oregon in 1984, and surprisingly in-depth farming news on KREW-AM out of Sunnyside, Washington in 1989.
Those times are gone. If a somewhat rural station happens to have good production values, it is likely voice-tracked out of a larger market and has no local character. If it isn't listenable, then it's likely as pathetic as KLAD was tonight. There are likely exceptions out there, but I can't remember the last time I found one. Now, when traveling, if I can't receive a quality big-market signal (say, KCBS and KGO out of San Francisco or WBZ out of Boston), then I often don't even bother scanning the dial, or if I do, I only do it once. Regardless, I almost always end up deciding to listen to a podcast instead.
So, what was the chosen program today at 19:05? There were only two other local and strong stations on the AM dial in Klamath Falls, both conservative talk stations. With Sirius satellite radio available, I chose the BBC's World Today on channel 141. There's a reason why satellite radio sells in vehicles.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Media: Not Even CBS Now...
PLACERVILLE, CALIFORNIA - During my undergraduate years in California, I had a number of peculiar radio listening habits. One was that at the top of the hour, I would almost invariably tune in KCBS All News 740 (which then wasn't also at 106.9 FM) to listen to the top of the hour news from the CBS radio network. While CBS did feel like my "home" network because of my many years of favoring CBS affiliate KIRO in Seattle, that wasn't why I tended to hit that button for the top of the hour.
The station I was most likely to be listening to was KGO, the Bay Area's perennial ratings leader as a talk station. KGO was (and remains) an ABC radio network affiliate. In that era (the early 1990's), ABC had started the practice of including "person on the street" comments, usually toward the end of their newscasts. Supposedly, this practice was to make the newscasts more engaging to the listener, but I have always found this practice repugnant. First, it takes away time from actual reporting during what is already a short (three and a half minutes in the case of ABC, four minutes in the case of CBS) top-of-the-hour newscast. More importantly, it was fundamentally an injection of opinion into what I wanted to be an objective newscast. ABC was doing this often enough that I decided I didn't want to hear ABC news anymore, so I got in the habit of switching over to CBS at the top of hour, and it became such a habit that even if I was listening to a station other than KGO I would often punch the KCBS button at the top of the hour.
The "infection" of the common person's opinion may have started in my listening experience with ABC, but it hardly stopped there. Earlier this decade, no less than the British Broadcasting Company, the venerable BBC, started to read e-mail and text messages that came into their news shows during those very shows. I found this practice to be even more disturbing than the edited "person on the street" comments, as clearly these comments had undergone even lesser editorial evaluation because of the obvious time constraints, and thus they became especially vulnerable to corporate public relations departments and special interest groups sending in comments to get their viewpoint on the air during a news program. To this day, I wince whenever I hear any sort of "instant feedback" on a program that purports to be a hard news program, which means that the BBC can bother me just as much as the US commercial networks.
I was reminded of all this deterioration when listening to the CBS network news on KCBS All-News 740 as I drove around California's central valley today. While it had been many years since I had been able to hold up CBS as a model network, it was dramatic just how far its standards had declined. In a newscast earlier today, one report sounded like it was a press release from a certain well-known motorcycle company that doesn't deserve any additional publicity, talking about how sales to female customers had risen from 4% to 12% over the past decade and describing how they wanted to further target women. Exactly how was this news, and exactly how was this not free publicity for the company was beyond me. I just couldn't imagine how the greats of CBS past and present, from Murrow to Schieffer, must have been cringing, wherever they might be at.
So far, the one network that I can say I have not heard stray from providing editorially uncompromised hard news on their news program is one that my tax dollars go to support, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. (National Public Radio's transgressions in this regard have been few and far between as well.) Here's hoping that the CBC will not change its practices, and there will be at least one place to turn for untainted news.
The station I was most likely to be listening to was KGO, the Bay Area's perennial ratings leader as a talk station. KGO was (and remains) an ABC radio network affiliate. In that era (the early 1990's), ABC had started the practice of including "person on the street" comments, usually toward the end of their newscasts. Supposedly, this practice was to make the newscasts more engaging to the listener, but I have always found this practice repugnant. First, it takes away time from actual reporting during what is already a short (three and a half minutes in the case of ABC, four minutes in the case of CBS) top-of-the-hour newscast. More importantly, it was fundamentally an injection of opinion into what I wanted to be an objective newscast. ABC was doing this often enough that I decided I didn't want to hear ABC news anymore, so I got in the habit of switching over to CBS at the top of hour, and it became such a habit that even if I was listening to a station other than KGO I would often punch the KCBS button at the top of the hour.
The "infection" of the common person's opinion may have started in my listening experience with ABC, but it hardly stopped there. Earlier this decade, no less than the British Broadcasting Company, the venerable BBC, started to read e-mail and text messages that came into their news shows during those very shows. I found this practice to be even more disturbing than the edited "person on the street" comments, as clearly these comments had undergone even lesser editorial evaluation because of the obvious time constraints, and thus they became especially vulnerable to corporate public relations departments and special interest groups sending in comments to get their viewpoint on the air during a news program. To this day, I wince whenever I hear any sort of "instant feedback" on a program that purports to be a hard news program, which means that the BBC can bother me just as much as the US commercial networks.
I was reminded of all this deterioration when listening to the CBS network news on KCBS All-News 740 as I drove around California's central valley today. While it had been many years since I had been able to hold up CBS as a model network, it was dramatic just how far its standards had declined. In a newscast earlier today, one report sounded like it was a press release from a certain well-known motorcycle company that doesn't deserve any additional publicity, talking about how sales to female customers had risen from 4% to 12% over the past decade and describing how they wanted to further target women. Exactly how was this news, and exactly how was this not free publicity for the company was beyond me. I just couldn't imagine how the greats of CBS past and present, from Murrow to Schieffer, must have been cringing, wherever they might be at.
So far, the one network that I can say I have not heard stray from providing editorially uncompromised hard news on their news program is one that my tax dollars go to support, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. (National Public Radio's transgressions in this regard have been few and far between as well.) Here's hoping that the CBC will not change its practices, and there will be at least one place to turn for untainted news.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Margin Notes: Travel Transitions, Static Media
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA - Traveling by airplane can be jolting. I will never forget being amazed that all the license plates changed states after taking a two-hour flight for the first time as a child. In recent years, the transformations that I have been more likely to notice have been those in atmosphere. The change in pace between the airport in Toronto and the airport in Chicago can be dramatic (and Chicago is hardly the fastest-paced US city); people just move faster and more deliberately on the United States side of the border. The pacing difference is not as pronounced between Toronto and Denver, but what I really noticed today upon landing in Denver was that people in the US airport were physically larger on average... and Colorado is actually one of the states with the lowest obesity rates!
* * * * * *
As I have written about before, there's a dramatic difference in atmosphere when making a transition between Air Canada and United. I far from idolize Air Canada, but in many ways it is reflective of its home country--quite likely to get one to the destination, perhaps a bit late but rarely egregiously so, no exceptional customer service but rarely any memorable substandard moments either, and general bilingual calm on board the aircraft as both crew and passengers follow rules in a civilized manner so the common goal of reaching the destination in some degree of comfort is achieved. United, in contrast, seems to be most reflective of the worst of the United States--smiles from employees are the exception rather than the rule, there's an assumption by the crew that passengers are always trying to get away with something against the rules (and indeed some are), and there's a general feeling that each person just wants everyone else to get out of their way. This time, though, there's no lost baggage or egregious lateness to complain about, so they actually exceeded expectations. Any way one looks at it, though, it's jarring to go from bilingual, sedate Air Canada to unilingual, stressed United.
* * * * * *
An aerial view departing Denver showed the proximity of Boulder, Colorado to the mountains on 29-April-2009; the snow-capped Front Range was to the left, and the town of Boulder to the right in the same frame.
Dramatic transitions could be found outside the aircraft as well. The flight path out of Denver to Sacramento provided a nice view of Boulder, Colorado. The home of the University of Colorado is well-known for its proximity to the mountains, and the aerial view above makes the point--the snow-capped mountains of the Front Range and the city of Boulder could be placed in the same frame. Even that distorts the situation, as there are plenty of mountains without snow closer to the town.
* * * * * *
When I last visited Boulder in 1998, I rather enjoyed the radio dial there, which is effectively the same radio market as Denver, with true community radio stations and an interesting mix on the commercial portion of the dial. I was surprised to find all of the stations I spot-checked during my brief layover at the airport still having basically the same format, from talk station KOA (though the "50,000 watt blowtorch of the Rocky Mountain west" is long gone) to adult contemporary station Alice 105.9 (which then called itself "Alice 106"). In a volatile industry, this was a surprising observation.
* * * * * *
Leni Schwendigger's "Deep Time/Deep Space, a Subterranean Journey" was viewed from the train concourse at Denver International Airport's Terminal A on 29-April-2009
A surprising observation in Terminal A of Denver International Airport was this railroad-themed sculpture by Leni Schwendigger entitled "Deep Time/Deep Space, a Subterranean Journey." For a trip that will feature some significant railroad activities, this was an appropriate piece of art to encounter, even if it was at an airport. Of course, the piece was a play on the trains that run between the terminals at the airport, which I must add have amusing organ-style sound effects of trains as they arrive and depart at their stations.
* * * * * *
The inter-terminal trains are one element of what makes Denver a quite functional airport for connecting between aircraft; were it not for the winter weather and the major airline with a hub there, I would try to connect there more often.
* * * * * *
As I have written about before, there's a dramatic difference in atmosphere when making a transition between Air Canada and United. I far from idolize Air Canada, but in many ways it is reflective of its home country--quite likely to get one to the destination, perhaps a bit late but rarely egregiously so, no exceptional customer service but rarely any memorable substandard moments either, and general bilingual calm on board the aircraft as both crew and passengers follow rules in a civilized manner so the common goal of reaching the destination in some degree of comfort is achieved. United, in contrast, seems to be most reflective of the worst of the United States--smiles from employees are the exception rather than the rule, there's an assumption by the crew that passengers are always trying to get away with something against the rules (and indeed some are), and there's a general feeling that each person just wants everyone else to get out of their way. This time, though, there's no lost baggage or egregious lateness to complain about, so they actually exceeded expectations. Any way one looks at it, though, it's jarring to go from bilingual, sedate Air Canada to unilingual, stressed United.
* * * * * *
An aerial view departing Denver showed the proximity of Boulder, Colorado to the mountains on 29-April-2009; the snow-capped Front Range was to the left, and the town of Boulder to the right in the same frame.
Dramatic transitions could be found outside the aircraft as well. The flight path out of Denver to Sacramento provided a nice view of Boulder, Colorado. The home of the University of Colorado is well-known for its proximity to the mountains, and the aerial view above makes the point--the snow-capped mountains of the Front Range and the city of Boulder could be placed in the same frame. Even that distorts the situation, as there are plenty of mountains without snow closer to the town.
* * * * * *
When I last visited Boulder in 1998, I rather enjoyed the radio dial there, which is effectively the same radio market as Denver, with true community radio stations and an interesting mix on the commercial portion of the dial. I was surprised to find all of the stations I spot-checked during my brief layover at the airport still having basically the same format, from talk station KOA (though the "50,000 watt blowtorch of the Rocky Mountain west" is long gone) to adult contemporary station Alice 105.9 (which then called itself "Alice 106"). In a volatile industry, this was a surprising observation.
* * * * * *
Leni Schwendigger's "Deep Time/Deep Space, a Subterranean Journey" was viewed from the train concourse at Denver International Airport's Terminal A on 29-April-2009
A surprising observation in Terminal A of Denver International Airport was this railroad-themed sculpture by Leni Schwendigger entitled "Deep Time/Deep Space, a Subterranean Journey." For a trip that will feature some significant railroad activities, this was an appropriate piece of art to encounter, even if it was at an airport. Of course, the piece was a play on the trains that run between the terminals at the airport, which I must add have amusing organ-style sound effects of trains as they arrive and depart at their stations.
* * * * * *
The inter-terminal trains are one element of what makes Denver a quite functional airport for connecting between aircraft; were it not for the winter weather and the major airline with a hub there, I would try to connect there more often.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Margin Notes: Obama, Hats, Radio, Ice
It sure looked like Barack Obama was visiting Toronto on 15-March-2009, but it was really just the Republic of Cork's entry in the St. Patrick's Day Parade
TORONTO, ONTARIO - President Barack Obama's popularity may be fading slightly in the United States, but he's still as popular as ever in Canada--and apparently in the Irish city of Cork. The "Republic of Cork"'s entry in the St. Patrick's Day Parade in Toronto held yesterday was an attempt to simulate what Obama's participation in the annual parade would look like. As the vehicle passed, the chant "Yes We Can!" could be heard with a bit of a brogue.
* * * * * *
An enthusiastic attendee of the St. Patrick's Day Parade in Toronto, Ontario on 15-March-2009 modeled the "pint" hat
The new fashion for St. Patrick's Day this year seems to be a dark, nearly black top hat that upon closer inspection looks more like an oversize pint of Guinness with a layer of foam on top. A limited number of these hats were seen around the parade route in Toronto yesterday. Many more photos from the parade will be appearing on my photo site soon.
* * * * * *
Coverage of the parade was almost non-existent on CBC radio; coverage of cultural events beyond "Big City, Small World" on Saturdays is almost non-existent on the CBC on the weekend. Has anyone else noticed that CBC's "Nightly Review" of earlier programming that airs at 8 pm local time on weekdays has been playing material strictly from "The Current" of late? Once, the "Review" replayed segments from both the "The Current" and the now-canceled "Sounds Like Canada." After the new show "The Point" debuted, the "Review" was airing some segments from "The Point," but not lately. Is my original opinion of "The Point" proving widespread? Will that show--or for that matter, "The Current," survive what seems to be inevitable cutbacks at the CBC?
* * * * * *
Elsewhere in the radio world, some follow-up is due on KALW's attempt to get public input on its noon time slot. It auditioned four different shows as a potential replacement for a canceled national show, and General Manager Matt Martin asked for listener feedback on a blog. However, with no clear winner and not much passion for any of those alternatives, Martin took a suggestion and decided to introduce different weekly programs on each day. I applaud both Martin's methodology and the ultimate decision, which is in line with the KALW tradition of presenting diverse programming. I will continue to look to KALW as an example of a station that actually understands what it means to be a public radio station.
* * * * * *
In a final note from the audio realm, I knew I must be in the target demographic for the CNET News Daily Podcast because of their two advertisers--Amtrak's Acela Express high speed trains between Boston and Washington, and CBS Radio's newsradio stations (like WCBS in New York, KCBS in San Francisco and WBBM in Chicago). Those are products that I tend to use whenever I'm in a position to do so--though neither is accessible to me here in Toronto.
* * * * * *
A strange ice formation was noted above the Humber River in Toronto, Ontario on 13-March-2009
Easily accessible to me in Toronto is the Humber River. When walking along the urban refuge on Friday, I noted a number of these unusual ice formations pictured above. They seemed to have formed from a combination of flooding conditions and near-freezing temperatures, but they certainly struck me as unusual--and they were a reminder of the fact that while spring may start officially on Friday, winter is not over yet!
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