We're still stinging from the near-elimination of live & local weekend radio on KIRO... and we weren't the only ones.
We got a note Saturday night from a name-recognizable manager in Seattle radio who says to describe him as "a former insider who is really perplexed by some of [KIRO's] recent moves."
"I was riding home with my wife this evening... we turned on the radio to get some evening reaction on the caucuses (the Obama win and the still-being-tallied numbers on the GOP side).
"I checked out KIRO and they were running Wednesday night's TBTL."
It was a perfect night for Goldstein to do what he does best...and Bonneville is basically telling listeners to go fuck themselves with 3-day old crap.
We couldn't have said it better.
Not than any of the other talk stations are any better: KVI with their infomercials and old Sean Hannity's; KTTH with Dr. Mixon's genteel quackery, and Kim Komando swooping in off the bird.
We have no doubt that Goldy, Frank Shiers, Carl Jeffers, and Bryan Styble were fired for "economic reasons," as Bonneville has claimed, but we still think it's false economy, and short-term thinking.
Sadly, the historic KIRO brand is being trashed in the process.
so when it comes to election night -local coverage- looks like it will be Carlson/Shram/Wilbur.
was a time you could flip the dials and get more than one local perspective.
we are poorer for it.
Posted by: PugetSound | February 10, 2008 at 07:12 PM
KIRO will give us Luke doing the schtick and Dori and Dave playing the straight man. I'll be listening to KUOW.
Posted by: sarge | February 10, 2008 at 07:34 PM
yeah, getting rid of Carl Jeffers (in an election season no less), who has forgotten more about politics than most of us will ever know, was a concept so above me that I guess I'll never get it...
Posted by: johnny | February 10, 2008 at 08:39 PM
If by some odd chance both Dori and Dave were to get crushed by 18 wheelers KIRO would have nothing left that brings in ratings.
Dear Mister Bin-Ladin;
If it is your desire to crash another jet air liner into an American city could you please consider this building on Eastlake. Preferably between 3 pm & 6 pm monday thru friday.
Sincerely
Posted by: Ryder | February 10, 2008 at 09:16 PM
Kim Komando helps me solve my computer problems and she is smoking hot. I love Komando.
Posted by: abob | February 10, 2008 at 10:22 PM
I've been having the radio DTs all weekend, chewing up pencils through The Swing Years and Beyond yesterday, and chain smoking through American Routes tonight.
Posted by: YellowPup | February 10, 2008 at 10:24 PM
I was amused about KIRO's crappy coverage of Hillary's visit... I turned on the 10:30 PM KIRO710 newscast by mistake (since I've already turned off KIRO from 7pm to 5am while driving) and they had 1 minute newscast break and said "hillary spoke tonite" and moved on... Yet I heard they covered Obama's speech the next day... I have not decided who I am voting for so just interested me how KIRO coverage was uneven.
Now we get TBTL on Saturday nites. Now I don't listen to KIRO on Saturdays. Sunday 10:30 pm and I'm listening to some new tech show and its' interesting. I would prefer local talk. But not Goldy, sorry. I get tired of listening to 3 or 4 hrs of nothing but politics.
I listen to Komando too and even learn something on that show.
KIRO has flushed their programming from 3 pm to 5 am down the toilet totally. Ron and Don can go back to New Orleans.
Posted by: Mike the Driver | February 10, 2008 at 10:29 PM
Oh yeah, I tried listening to KUOW but their signal isn't very good for some reason.... but did listen to it for awhile. My goal: to listen to KVI, KTPK and others to see what they offer at nite Mon thru Sat.... Hope I find something worthwhile
Posted by: Mike the Driver | February 10, 2008 at 10:31 PM
good going KIRO, you really managed to screw the pooch on weekend evenings. Ever occur to you that the middle age demographic is constantly replenishing?
Posted by: mark | February 10, 2008 at 11:36 PM
I'm terribly concerned that KIRO is Washington and Oregon's primary entry point station for the EAS system ... what if a nuclear attack happened between the hours of 7PM to 10PM Monday through Friday? I can just imagine Luke Burbank's voice simulcast on every station in the northwest -- "Nuclear holocaust - awesome or not awesome? Sean, can you load the not awesome sound effect - I can't get it to play? OK, let's just move on. So it's funny because when I was at NPR working in LA we would - Oh My God Jenn, this one time I was at The Ivar and -OK, so Jenn, The Ivar is like a really awesome club in LA, let me explain to you what a club is - so in LA they have these places ... they're like communal places of gathering where they play music - they have these in New York too ... oops, we have to go to Hilary Clinton addressing the nation - Sean can you cue the karate chop sound effect?"
Posted by: Gay Gary | February 10, 2008 at 11:43 PM
Wake up, whiners! Haven't you realized radio is a business? No advertiser is specifically buying KIRO for nights or weekends other than their morning news blocks. They're bonused or packaged up to make their CPM's more attractive. M-F 5a-7p is what's paying the bills so doesn't it make sense that's where they're putting their emphasis and talent dollars? Say what you want about Jeffers or Goldy or Styble or Shiers but they are totally interchangeable with syndicated fare when it comes to *producing revenue*. Eliminating those live and local shows won't matter one whit when the stockholders meeting is in session.
Posted by: Dangerous Dan | February 11, 2008 at 01:17 AM
Great post, gary! Still laughing.
Dan, so true. It used to be that money wasn't the be all and end all of everything. What happened?
Or is this the product of deregulation? Or the product of "greed is good?"
At least on KPTK I'm getting reruns of Tom who I don't hear in the morning and Randi who I do hear but can always listen to twice.
Posted by: joanie | February 11, 2008 at 02:01 AM
Ray Taliaferro is spouting away with his typical dishonest demogogic blather about how Obama is running away with everything because he had a good Saturday. He completely ignores the fact that on Tuesday he lost big in big states where he had challenged Clinton, such as Mass., California, and New Jersey. All the experts said he was expected to do well in the states that caucused or voted on Saturday, with the possible exception of Maine. Next, Hillary has other states coming up where SHE is expected to do well. Also she was supposed to be finished in New Hampshire. We shall see.
Posted by: Tommy008 | February 11, 2008 at 02:20 AM
Fans of Jeffers, Goldy, Styble and Shiers who decry the commercial aspects of talk radio. Those four guys are free to broadcast their shows over internet radio. Their shows are available to anyone who wants to hear them and they never ever have to worry about getting fired because of a lack of ratings.
Posted by: abob | February 11, 2008 at 02:29 AM
This opens the even more frightening possibility that, if Seattle was attacked with atomics, only Luke and Jenn – thanks to KIRO’s pulse shielding, backup generators and other fancy PEP station protection from Homeland Security – would survive, leaving them to repopulate the talent pool at every station. For we survivors, post-apocalyptic Seattle radio would make us yearn for the sweet bliss of having our skin burned off in the first strike or being cannibalized by a mutant army of poorly groomed KEXP volunteers. (Though, frankly, the latter is something that concerns me on a daily basis anyway, regardless of the prospects of nuclear war.)
Posted by: Gay Gary | February 11, 2008 at 02:44 AM
did you notice that, with the exception of home state Illinois, Obama has yet to win a big state, only small to middling "populist states like Idaho , Washington and Colorado. A candidate needs to win the big ones. We'll see if he can land any. I doubt it.
Posted by: Tmmy008 | February 11, 2008 at 04:10 AM
Gay Gary: a great post at 11:43 last nite...I too am still laughing - too funny! :) They could use some of your talent on the show. I'm still listening tho, because of it's 'lightness' and easy listening. One certainly doesn't have to 'think' when listening...ha.
T008, I believe (& hope) you are correct. States like Ohio, Texas and Penn are going to be critical and I think Mrs Clinton will win those.
Isn't it interesting that the 'big mouths' of the Republican party who were so accusing of King Co and vote counting are now caught with their proverbial pants down in the eyes of the Nation because of the Huckabee charge. I know it's a totally different situation but in the eyes of the Country - it's not looking good. :)
Posted by: Duffman | February 11, 2008 at 05:25 AM
Gay Gary, dittos to those who enjoyed your TBTL parody. That was the funniest thing I've read in a month of Sundays.
However, I read that the 'emergency broadcast' system was not used even during the 9/11 attacks. It appears it is just a pork program, along the lines of the National Helium Reserve. (The NHR was established in 1925 to supply airships, a strategic asset at the time. It was phased out in 2005, many years after airships had become a curiosity.) So it really doesn't matter if emergency broadcasting is routed thru TBTL.
Posted by: wutitiz | February 11, 2008 at 07:27 AM
Personally, I don't really care if there are live and local news/political hosts on the weekends at KIRO, and I think BM's real beef with all of this is that his friend Goldstein was fired, while Phil, the friend of host he detests most on KIRO, kept his weekend gig.
Listenership drops way off on the weekends. It probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense to have a full staff of local hosts manning the station throughout the weekend. KIRO is still a great station. If it weren't, all of you people who complain about how much it sucks wouldn't still be listening to it.
Posted by: DT | February 11, 2008 at 09:15 AM
" M-F 5a-7p is what's paying the bills so doesn't it make sense that's where they're putting their emphasis and talent dollars? "
True. There was a time when Seattle had half the stations they do now, the medium was far more attractive to a mainstream audience and much less focus had to be paid to fractions of a rating point.
Those days are gone. Every format has been fractured into several narrowly-defined niches, attractive to far fewer listeners... except maybe for KRWM and their Christmas Muzak program. Listeners have traveled to all the alternatives; FM, Satellite, Dish Network, leaving only the noisy few to squawk over what's left.
God help KIRO, if they were to take a poll here and actually format their station by the results!
Posted by: FM | February 11, 2008 at 09:46 AM
"However, I read that the 'emergency broadcast' system was not used even during the 9/11 attacks. It appears it is just a pork program, along the lines of the National Helium Reserve."
On a serious, note the EAS (which replaced the EBS, which in turn replaced CONELRAD) was not activated on 9/11 as there was adequate reporting on the normal network news channels on the nature of the emergency.
Activiation of the EAS for a "national level event" is reserved for instances when commercial news is inadequate to inform the public of said event, primarily a Nuclear Attack Warning, Civil Nuclear Emergency, Astronomical Impact Event, Mass Psychogenic Illness Warning, Undetected Tsunamai Warning or Undetected Lahar Warning.
That said, the EAS is in fact activated many dozens of times annually for sub-national level events, primarily in the rectangular shaped states in the center of the country for sudden incidences of weather emergencies, ref: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8j4gAQaCNk
That is probably more than you really cared to read.
Posted by: Gay Gary | February 11, 2008 at 10:44 AM
Blatherwatch essentially was the match that lit the inferno of death for Styble, Shiers and Goldy.
Can we see a similar assault on Dori Monson and Ron and Don?
Posted by: Catlin Capital | February 11, 2008 at 02:28 PM
Not at all, GG, that's good info. On a related note, I recently read somewhere that the Dept of Homeland Security had to crack down on several communities that were using the fed-funded Amber Alert system to advertise fish fries, spaghetti feeds, etc.
Say, 'mass psychogenic illness'--does that include BDS? The whole mass-hysteria thing is fascinating. I heard Dr. Dean Edell talking about it once on KTTH.
Posted by: wutitiz | February 11, 2008 at 08:44 PM
Who cares about apathy ?
Posted by: KS | February 11, 2008 at 09:07 PM
LOL! I don't believe that includes BDS ...
There was a recent case of Mass Psychogenic Illness in the Sudan about 4 years ago.
http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP59303
Similar MPI events have occurred in Singapore, Japan, Italy and Poland over the years. With the rise of internet-borne consumer generate media, one could imagine the conditions are now ripe for an event of disasterous proportion, especially if intentionally provoked by an organized non-state actor with advanced training in psychology and new media modes and methods.
Posted by: Gay Gary | February 12, 2008 at 01:39 AM