Seattle times black wednesday piece leaves out plenty

In a Times piece today, Florangela Davila mentions a racial aspect that may not be an aspect at all, but makes a point we've made many times before.

Talk radio is white male-dominated even in intensely multi-racial (and delightfully multi-gendered) Seattle. It serves a demographic that's always been mostly white males.

Gone are liberal talker/blogger David Goldstein; self-dubbed centrist [snort!] radio newstalker Bryan Styble; and Carl Jeffers, increasingly appearing on national airwaves as a political commentator and the only local radio broadcaster of color with his own show. Jeffers, 48, is African American.

Besides that Jeffers does his Seattle show from Los Angeles, there's a herd of pachyderms roamin' the gloamin' invisible to Seattle Times readers if all they read is Florangela's tidy who/what/where/when.

The new changes spell the end of the KIRO's tradition of fostering and training new radio talent. They always did it on weekends, letting outsiders try (Pam Roach, Tim Eyman, David Postman, Mark Sidron, f'rinstance) or giving the board ops and other station low-life a chance to step up.

KIRO is the last station in town to discontinue this on-the-job training. It's a big deal.

What happens when Dave Ross retires or goes to CBS to replace Charles Osgood? There's nobody in the chute. As we all know, bringing in someone from outside the market into the major dayparts has a bad history around here. (think Allan Prell, Lee Rodgers, Charles Jaco, Fred Ebert).

Then all we'll have left is Dori the Monsoon ("Dori" is a girl's name, btw) and eventually, it'll all end up syndicated. The mature talent came up through this old system, now the system's gone.

That's short term thinking by our lights, unless, of course, the idea is to kill off radio.

In the last year or so, they've cut it out live radio from 10p weeknights to 5a. Weekends are all syndicated or re-runs except for Phil the Junkie Show which was obviously saved for internal political reasons. He won't last either.

KIRO was the last bastion of live & local talk radio in Seattle -- and proudly so.

With this injection of syndicated programming, KIRO's killing their brand for short term money. AM radio has thrived on live & local; it's collective ass has been saved more than once over the decades by its ability to communicate locally.

But these aging bean counters with their media consolidation looks-good-for-this-quarter efficiencies haven't gotten the message: (new) media's going the other way: bottom upward, local.

Bonneville's been better than most about getting that, but these moves are in the opposite direction.

This stuff means the end of KIRO as we know it. (KVI, KTTH, too) It's a major step in the mall-ification of radio. Soon in this town will have to choose between the radio equivalents of Cheesecake Factory and Appleby's. It's short sighted.

For those listeners -- and we hear from  you-- who aren't into local issues and politics, and want to hear the national stuff you get from the syndicated hosts, we must say: local radio isn't necessarily local topics only. It does mean the presence of one or preferably more hosts who are accessible and accountable locally. (You should be able to rent him or her for parties, even.) We love the syndicated hosts like Rachel Maddow, Randi Rhodes and Thom Hartmann, but we believe our radio stations should keep at least one foot in our town.

KIRO's new changes are a significant move away from issues programming and a heavy investment in "talk lite." (TBTL, Ron & Don). They're driving off their traditional white male demographic in the process. It's baby/bathwater situation, here -- we Boomers ain't dead yet; we still listen to the radio have lots of money to spend.

It's all part of a larger media consolidation trend; KIRO's brand was different, that's changed; Seattle loses.

We're sad.

Comments

[alkipug]

OK, I hear what you guys say about local programming, but I like Handel On the Law so well I've been recording it on Saturdays from KFI's website. Now I can hear it on Sunday on KIRO. Life is good.

[Mike The Driver]

Well, KIRO is definitely not on my to listen list anymore... I've written station manager twice with no reply, so it shows they could give a shit what the listeners have to say.

Yes I agree with previous posts on here, people bitch on here about some of the talk show hosts (Shiers and Styble, etc) but as I said before at least we had local talk on Shiers show at NITE when I listen to radio the most and while I didn't always like all shows he did, I would check in to see what was being discussed, and switched if I didn't like it. Give KIRO/Frank credit for getting the story about the Steel/Electric Ferries out on the air. I would have not heard about it otherwise since I dont get the Everett paper.

But I agree, KIRO is not interested in my demographic group anymore at nite (50+) so I switched. KOMO or KHHO for the sports, I can't listen to A & I on KJR at nite, it reminds me of a TBTL Sports version.... no interaction with the listeners.

But, I will stay say this...KIRO put Phil Hendrie in place of local talk...and the first show I heard was the nite before the New Hampshire primary...PH was talking to a woman in NH (a phony interview I assume?) and the subject of Hillary's being emotional came up. To hear PH and the "lady" discuss a woman's menstrual flow and the amount of blood the "lady" passed and said she needed a towel....SHIT! KIRO wants that crap on the air! Well fine, but I'll be somewhere else. KIRO lost me as a listener and I told the Station Manager that in my emails. I wonder what the Mormons think of their station carrying programming about a womens menstrual flow?

So, its KOMO and KHHO for local and KGO and KNBR, and of course the FM Band

[Kahoneez]

If Carl Jeffers comes on, I either have to turn the volume down or change the channel , his voice is awful and he doesn't want to take a breath , while talking and why Obama "needs to talk about race 'during an election is absurd . He's just another echo chamber " analyst " that throws around the same bumper sticker slogans as everybody else .

[Kahoneez]

If Carl Jeffers comes on, I either have to turn the volume down or change the channel , his voice is awful and he doesn't want to take a breath , while talking and why Obama "needs to talk about race 'during an election is absurd . He's just another echo chamber " analyst " that throws around the same bumper sticker slogans as everybody else .