Evergreen Politics Northwest regional politics and issues thoughtfully and provokingly written
Talker's Magazine The quirky talk radio trade mag. Check the Talk Radio Research Project- it's not very scientific, but places on the top 15 talkers list (scroll down to Talk Radio Audiences By Size)) are as hotly contested as Emmys (and mean just about as much).
The Advocate No, not THAT Advocate... it's the Northwest Progressive Institute's Official Blog.
Media Matters David Brock tirelessly exposes right-wing obfuscation in media.
Pacific NW Portal An ambitious blog of blogs for the progressive Pacific Northwest plus news and weather.
Orcinus home of David Neiwert, freelance investigative journalist and author who writes extensively about far-right hate groups
Hominid Views "People, politics, science, and whatnot"
Darryl is a statistician who fights imperialism with empiricism, gives good links and wry commentary.
artistdogboy He's neither a dog nor a boy, but an artist he is and an island of iconclasm on an island of iconoclasts.
Jesus' General An 11 on the Manly Scale of Absolute Gender, a 12 on the Heavenly Scale of the 10 Commandments and a 6 on the earthly scale of the Immaculately Groomed.
Howie in Seattle Howie Martin is the Abe Linkin' of progressive Seattle.
LTR (Liberal Talk Radio) Invaluable national insider news and resources for devotees of our favorite medium.
Meet The Stress Chic chicanery by Mercifurious, relentless commentator on culture, politics, the Styblehead, and the end times. (Kitty Repellent Not Provided)
Streaming Radio Guide Hellishly long (5795!) list of radio streaming, steaming on the Internets.
The Rusted Eye Artful linking, artfully narrated by our artful friend and Detroit movie critic, Jeph Meyers. Hardly anything, ever, here about talk radio, yet this site is as oddly compelling as Mr. Meyers himself.
The Naked Loon News satire -- The Onion in the Seattle petunia patch.
Irrational Public Radio "informs, challenges, soothes and/or berates, and does so with a pleasing vocal cadence and unmatched enunciation. When you listen to IPR, integrity washes over you like lava, with the pleasing familiarity of a medium-roast coffee and a sensible muffin."
The Rachel Maddow Show Here's the hyper-interactive La Raych of MSNBC. videos, podcasts, transcripts, and classy graphics.
Northwest Broadcasters The AM, FM, TV and digital broadcasters of Northwest Washington, USA and Southwest British Columbia, Canada. From Kelso, WA to the northern tip of Vancouver Island, BC - call letters, formats, slogans, networks, technical data, and transmitter maps.
Plus "recent" news.
News Corpse The Internet's chronicle of media decay.
STEVE YOUNG ON POLITICS Steve Young covers our beat in the prone position and with one hand tied behind his back. We wish we were Steve Young.
The Moderate Voice The voice of reason in the age of Obama, and the politics of the far-middle.
News Hounds Dogged dogging of Fox News by a team who seems to watch every minute of the cable channel so you don't have to.
HistoryLink Fun to read and free encyclopedia of Washington State history. Founded by the late Walt Crowley, it's an indispensable tool and entertainment source for history wonks and surfers alike.
right-wing blogs we like
The Reagan Wing Hearin lies the real heart of Washington State Republicans. Doug Parris runs this red-meat social conservative group site which bars no holds when it comes to saying who they are and who they're not; what they believe and what they don't; who their friends are and where the rest of the Republicans can go. Well-written, and flaming.
Orbusmax inexhaustible Drudgery of NW conservative news
The Radio Equalizer prolific former Seattle KVI, KIRO talk host speaks authoritatively about radio.
We wrote to KKOL and begged them for a press release. They didn't respond.
We'd read on Radio-Info that our old pal Mike Siegel was starting up a new show on KKOL, the Salem news talker that flipped to business talk last year.
No one else got an announcement either -- there was nothing no where about this new show. We ransacked the Interwebs and finally found a line on a page on the KKOL website: "6 A.M. -- Sound Business with Mike Siegel," it read.
That's it!... helluva way to launch a new show, eh?
Unless, of course,Siegel bought (brokered) the on-air time for his real estate and consulting businesses. They sell a lot of time over at KKOL, so that's a distinct possibility.
Taking a moment from wall-to-wall coverage of the Octomom, Sean Hannity's website has a poll:
What kind of revolution appeals most to you? The Hannitized ditto-heads are voting, and so far, 22.22% favor a Military Coup; 35.56% are for a War for Secession; but 42.22% are for good ol' Armed Rebellion.
Is this another go at mainstreaming the far, far right with an uprising of the militia windbags, the exurban goons w/guns, those beer-gut revolutionaries with the mail-order long guns converted to fully-auto?
Don't laugh it's happened before, and not that long ago ... as the crow's feet fly.
Talk radio and the Republican Party are intertwined, and both are sinking, and their problems are mirror images of each other.
We've told you many times: neither has had much success enticing and hanging onto young, black, or Latino people nor any other than the fast-fading demographic than whites of a certain age, mostly male.
Talk radio hasn't even tried to win them, and the Republicans don't know how...
For one thing, with few exceptions talk radio's product hasn't changed even for those of us whom they've been targeting -- it's still the old "stir-'em-up & get-'em-to-call" routine based by definition on negativity, anger, cynicism -- or if the host is really good -- all three.
If you're Tim Eyman, you'll definitely love Paul Fraser's documentary.
If you're one of the battalion of state journalists, pols, talk hosts, bureaucrats, politicos, activists, or just random citizens walking around Greenlake who appear in it, you may really like this doc.
If you're just incredibly, troublingly wonky about state politics you could like this doc.
But we were suspicious when the
twitchy NW Republican blog wrote, "You just know this makes the moonbats seethe inside."
It was for us-- not so much seething... as dozing. (We love to seethe, as you know).
We're sure Fraser thinks his very long (110 mins) is fair and balanced; but we're guessing he fell under Eyman's spell, and though there are dissenting voices, the movie is framed by Eyman, and his minions, Mike and Jack Fagan.
Where do you go after you're fired from talk radio job in Seattle?
The answer, apparently, is Port Orchard if you want to stay anywhere near the Seattle market.
Those regularly scheduled Seattle newstalk spots are coveted
... seems you gotta leave town or get a gig selling cars.
It's the dilemma faced by the recently fired Bryan Suits, and Dan Sytman but also faced by such as Allan Prell, Mike Webb, Mike Siegel, New York Vinnie, Erin Hart, Lou Pate, Fred Ebert, Peter Weissbach, Brian Maloney, and Bryan Styble.
AllAccess, the radio trade site, reported all of these items Thursday. With ex-overnighter Lou Pate's fill-ins in Miami we reported yesterday, it looks like the numerous ghosts of KIRO past are ubiquitous across the dials of America. Missing is Mike Webb, who, incidentally is scheduled to appear in Superior Court Friday on his felony insurance fraud case. There will be no fill-ins allowed for Mike's appearance.
Siegel Back On Seattle Radio MIKE SIEGEL returns to the SEATTLE airwaves with a one hour daily talk show 6-7p ET on talk simulcast KITZ-A/SILVERDALE, WA and KGTK-A/OLYMPIA, WA, reports the SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER's BILL VIRGIN.
Maloney Equal To Fill-In Tasks At WRKO/Boston Listen for the RADIO EQUALIZER himself, BRIAN MALONEY, on ENTERCOM Talk WRKO-A/BOSTON throughout the holiday weeks. MALONEY filled in for middayer JOHN DEPETRO TUESDAY and WEDNESDAY and will handle mornings or the vacationing SCOTT ALLEN MILLER next MONDAY and TUESDAY.
Hart In For Marvin At AM 760/Denver Veteran talker ERIN HART is filling in for JAY MARVIN in mornings JUNE 30 and JULY 3-4 at CLEAR CHANNEL Talk KKZN-A (PROGRESSIVE TALK AM 760)/DENVER. The fill-ins return HART to the 760 frequency where she hosted when the station was called KTLK in the 90s; most recently at KIRO-A/SEATTLE, HART has also hosted at KOA-A and KNUS-A/DENVER and TALKSPOT.COM.
Several readers including our Kitsap correspondent, Al Hedstrom has alerted us to the answer to our question, "Where's Mike Siegel?"
Seems Mike, fired in December from conservative KTTH, is doing an hour weekdaily out at KITZ (Megatalk 1400 AM) in Silverdale, The Athens of the Kitsap Peninsula.
The station is one of a bunch owned by Bellevue's Alan Gottlieb, master fund raiser for national conservative causes and candidates; gun advocate, and direct mail and media mogul. He's also an old friend and supporter of Mike Siegel.
We can't pick up the megatalker from our Seattle command center, but Al writes, "I listened to his self-congratulations and queezy gushing about Kitsap County's Republicans (a sorry lot of whiners, IMHO). Then he started complaining about the court decision that whacked off Timmy's initiative at the knees. So I tuned him out. Same old Seigel."
Mike Siegel was a seminal talk radio voice in Seattle, coming to town as a muckraking liberal in the 1980's on the old KING AM 1090. In the early '90's, he grokked the Rush Limbaugh revolution and flipped politically to conservative, and helped start "hot talk" on KVI, following Rush at noon.
He was at the top of his game, including a syndicated show which no one listened to but after some local excesses (chronicled in our exhaustive, yet tedious KVI: An Irreverent Histoire) he began a descent that ended his Seattle career in a dreadful early morning screedfest on KTTH that ultimately failed and has now made him the toast of Silverdale, where he shares weekdays with talk losers like G. Gordon Liddy and Michael Reagan.
~~Gotta say it it, KIRO is working hard on the ol' PR. Lots of personality promos, with all the new talent- at least they now have someone to promote after months of uncertainty, fill-ins, and despair. We've never seen such ado about a Battle of the Talk Show Hosts on Wednesday June 14 at the Everett Events Center (doors open at 6p-- the BOTTSH goes on the air at 7p) Producer Phil Vandervort blogs about it on the KIRO site. On stage debating will be Dave Ross, Dori Monson, and also, as Vandervort describes him- "710 KIRO's ubiquitous New York Vinnie." Plus the 3 newcomers: Ron Reagan, Ron Upshaw, Don O'Neill. We expect Reagan to shine- he has his dad's ability of putting his sharpest barbs into bouquets of humor and affability.
~~Which reminds us: we were visiting KIRO/KTTH the other day and saw the gorgeous LARGE pics of Syman & Boze (KTTH m-f, 5-9a) front and center in the entry. They've not been totally forgotten in the dustbin of history and robot science that is KTTH. Why aren't they going to BOTTSH? It could use some real conservatives.
~~Last BOTTSH had Frank Shiers and Erin Hart holding down the studio and doing color commentary. They were pretty good together, (together they had one brain) but Hart was riffed in January in the KIRO bloodbath. Wonder if they'll let the new guy- David Goldstein (Sundays, 7-10p) help out? Goldstein could get under the thin skin of Smarmy Frank, and that would be fun to listen to...
~~Speaking of hairy backs, the great white Bryan Styble (the semi-permanent/permanent full-on fill-in on the KIRO overnight) will be ensconced in The Bat Cave biting heads off chihuahuas during the BOTTSH. He's not quite ready for prime time
~~Goldstein's show is kicking major ass in the blogosphere- he's liable to say just about anything; has a great Rolodex, political street cred and an ear for the politics that can bring listeners to the radie-yo. It's fun reading the comment strings on Sound Politics, Horsesass and Blatherwatch, and seeing what the conservative trolls, and the sorely blemished have to say. Besides the anti-semitic remarks, the puerile cracks about Goldy's looks; there's also some pretty insightful (and inciteful) stuff. We like Goldstein' show because it's getting bloggers interested in talk radio and vice versa. They've had a tendency to see the medium as "old technology," which it is, but has been put to incredible use by the right, even in this liberal town. Sure wish these brave trolls- so outspoken on-line- would get on the phone and pitch Goldy some of the shit they're always threatening him with in the comfy confines of their cozy cubicles.
~~Whatever happened to Mike Siegel? First we heard he was doing fill-in on Fargo's WDAY-AM, but that's not happening any more. Then it went around that the former KTTH morning man and veteran broadcaster was selling cars down at Korum's Puyallup Nissan, a company known for hiring washed-up talk hosts, but that proved apocryphal. Now we're reading that he'll be doing The History of Radio at the Kent Senior Center, 6p, June 15, 600 E Smith St, and introducing Karen Steele, Republican candidate for State Senate, 33rd district. Jesus, Siegel used to own talk radio in this town...
~~back to the radio doldrums. Yikes, this is the slow time- summer in the radio business. Summer vacations, bum listenership. Dave Ross in his new/old ayem spot, John Procaccino filling in for Ron Reagan both having a helluva time scaring up callers.
Wish somebody would get fired, arrested, light themselves on fire like a Buddhist from the old school. It sure would help if Rove would get indicted.
~~Too darn many ripe tidbits come in over the Blathertransom that we can't go with because we've only got a he said; or- despite an item's intrinsic beauty and corroboration, we judge it nobody's business. Or if the truth could not only set us free, but get us killed, what with the talk Mafia out there busting kneecaps. We heard a juicy one we'd love to think is true about the right-wing talk host with an alleged illegal working as a houseman- he said. There's another about a conservative talk host who now has a wife and kids, but supposedly, he said, had a boyfriend in college. A producer's perfectly lasered private parts seem to be very public parts- at least the bare facts seem to be well-known around the KIRO newsroom- at least that's what she said. A very married local rightie has a girl in every port- even in the landlocked city of Cleveland. There's the talker who's schtupping his producer, the newsie who was allegedly once a stripper, another off-air exec, he said, turned tricks before she was radio- that's one we'd love to verify. Down in Category C.2: there's KOMO guy who looks at porno while on the air; an intern schtupping a board op, an Entercom intern schtupping an Entercom intern; a board op smoking joints in a stairwell; a PD who looks lustfully at saleswomen; an off-air personality who haunts the Lusty Lady; another with a jones for Fritos. Yawn. Will the doldrums ever end?
~~It's been a year since Lou Pate, the former KIRO overnighter, Mike Webb, the former liberal, and Mike Siegel, the former KTTH morning guy pushed decertification of their union to a vote and got AFTRA thrown out. It passed by one vote. Note the single adjective these three talk hosts share- former. With the legal the interim between the votes now passed, certification can be reconsidered. And it will, we're assured by someone who's working hard toward that end. Hard to say how a new vote would come out, but with the 3 perpetrators now all gone, it's entirely possible the employees could bring back basic union standards to the Entercom workplace. Ironically, John Sandifer, the union guy told us that the union would have "gone to the mat" for Webb if he'd asked for representation after his firing from KIRO which he bitterly decries, today. Both he and Siegel were fired after the decertification. These corporations just ain't grateful to those who do their dirty work.
~~Fox Radio's Billo Reilly threatened a boycott of Mexico if the country's foreign secretary, Luis Ernesto Derbez makes good on a promise to sue if evidence emerges that the National Guard is directly helping to detain Mexican citizens trying to illegally enter the United States. This according to Media Matters. O'Reilly warned Derbez, "If the Mexican government files one lawsuit in the U.S.A., one, pertaining to the National Guard, I will call for a total boycott of Mexican goods and no travel to your country. O'Reilly claims he "bought down the French economy," with his bogus 2003 boycott of goods and travel after France's opposition to the Iraqi War. In reality, O'Reilly's battle against France, won him only victories in the ratings war on cable TV and the radio. Brie and chablis sales were unwavering.
We've been told that the conventional wisdom around KIRO is that BlatherWatch is paid for by Fisher Broadcasting (KOMO, KVI).
The myth is that the owner of this blog is related to someone who works for Fisher and that's why we're so nice to KVI, and so mean to KIRO.
While it's true, Blathering Man has a relative at KOMO TV; and we can't deny that KOMO radio execs love every minute of our chronicling of the missteps and peccadilloes of the Entercom stations; we have to sadly say, no one has even offered us a mug or a tote bag, much less a check.
As a matter of fact, KOMO execs have ignored our annoying e-mails like anyone at KIRO.
The truth of the matter is, this blog is news-driven, and no one can deny how much news the former top-dog talker, KIRO and its little sister KTTH has generated in the scant year or so we've been posting- such as:
KIROFM 97.3 Multi-format: news and nearly all local talk. This is where classic KIRO AM news talk radio went... hopefully, not to die. The home of Dave Ross, Dori Monson, Ron & Don, Luke Burbank, Tony Miner, and Tom Douglas.
KUOW FM 94.9 Seattle's foremost public radio news and talk.
KVI am 570 KHz Conservative talk: Except for Kirby Wilbur in the morning, this is syndicated right-wing such as Dennis Miller, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, George Noory.
KTTH am 770 KHz Right wing home of local talker David Boze: and a whole bunch of syndicated righties such as Glennn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Medved, Michael Savage, Lars Larsony.
KPTK am 1090 KHz Syndicated liberal talk. Stephanie Miller, Thom Hartmann, Ed Schultz, Randi Rhodes, Lionel and more fill in the large hole to the left on Northwest radio dial.
KGNW am 820 kHz Christian talk with occasional politics. Dr. James Dobson.
KOMOAM News, traffic, and and John Carlson & Ken Schram's "The Commentators."
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