BlatherWatch

Cop-killing, live and local radio, mike huckabee, and why we can’t wait until the first snow storm

The cop murders in Lakewood, and the Maurice Clemmons manhunt was like bad weather: made for live and local news talk radio.

It’s what radio does best. It gave instantaneous coverage and breaking news talk about a story that really matters to Puget Sound locals.

(photo: Mike Huckabee, "killed in the fray.")

It was a radio community based on breaking news you can use.

Polishing the turds… can a big, gnarly LA producer save the ron & don show?

Another producer for the silly Ron & Don Show? Not news- they use up producers like nasal inhalers.

 But Jason Stein, of LA's KFI has been hired away from his enviable position at the #1 talker in the country, to make the smart radio consumers of Seattle listen to R & D (KIROFM m-f, 3-6p).

Will KPTK step up to radio reality?

Seattle liberal-interest money groups have long talked up the possibility of buying a radio station to counter the overwhelmingly conservative news talk stations in a market that's overwhelmingly liberal.

That's probably not a good idea, since it's been proven many times that radio should be left to radio professionals...Oh wait, that's right, a generation of professionals put radio where it is today: in the shit.

How much would YOU pay... to keep kirby wilbur on the air?

KVI, the KIROs and KTTH begging for money like NPR?

Radio-info's Sean Ross posed an interesting question to radio pros: "What commercial radio station would you pay to keep on the air?" 

So we're asking you the talk radio listeners- who would you actually pay for?

(photo: Kirby Wilbur how much would you pledge?)

KIROFM's troubles: are it the programming?

The PPM ratings, now the way of the world, were brutal to the established order in Seattle radio.

While we sit re-baiting our breaths waiting to hear if KVI and Fisher Radio have snatched Rush Limbaugh from Bonneville's KTTH, we ask the question: Will Bonneville significantly change the line-up in KIROFM to make it work in Seattle?

(photo: Dori Monson- "will dance for ratings")

Talk radio and the GOP: adrift on the same iceberg...

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.

KIRO to FM: "not a matter of if, but a matter of when."

It could be the biggest radio story of the year... or will it be next year?

When will KIRO news talk switch over to FM, leaving the historic AM band to... ESPN sports?

The scuttlebutt around KIRO gives it six months. But that it will happen, a staffer told us it's "not a matter of if, but a matter of when."

KIRO gets it... radio jocks live-blog the debates

We're impressed. The Daves: Boze (KTTH m-f, 3-6p) and Ross (KIRO m-f, 9a-12p) live-blogged the debate Wednesday night.

(photo: Dave Ross: blogger for common sense)

They're online brothers of different mothers on sister stations, and like many brothers, they were competing on the blogging,  according to Boze. Besides that, he and Ross are from opposing sides of the political fence. Hard right, and soft left, respectively.

Dunno if you know how hard live-blogging is, but at the very least, it's a heavy-duty piece of stenography --  especially the way these two did it: transcribing and making a separate post for each question posed by Tom

(photo: A new fur coat is a political statement for Dave Boze, a right-wing "hunter & blabberer").

Brokaw so readers could comment on each question. There were few comments, but these blogs aren't yet well visited.

BREAKING: carlson/schram to KOMO; ingraham to kvi

The Commentators, John Carlson and Ken Schram are being shuffled  fromKVI's drivetime and back to KOMO for an unusual 4 hour show from 10a to 2p. 

The syndicated Laura Ingraham, fresh from being dropped from Salem's KKOL will replace them, her morning show tape delayed for the afternoon drive. This will start Monday Sept. 29.

UPDATED: KIRO to all sports? Not in the 'foreseeable' future...

Bye-bye KBSG: From faithful blather reader, Rev:  I was awake at 4:00 this AM, so I heard the dying gasps of KBSG: They played about 20 minutes of "that's the end" songs with no announcements or commercial break, and then at about 4:20, there was a "This is KIRO-FM" ID, followed by the Rolling Stones' "Start Me Up." When that ended, they faded into the middle of a commercial and picked up the KIRO(AM) stream in progress, which was running the syndicated Wall Street Journal report. No announcement of the new signal or anything else -- just business as usual. So I went back to sleep.

KIRO suits left the door wide open today to what we've been told is the "inevitable switch" to all-sports programming for KIRO.

It even sounds like they've been talking to ESPN.

At 5a Tuesday morning, KIRO began simulcasting on 97.3 FM, shoving the oldies and the oldsters who loved them to Warmer climes in a move to serve the  "maggot-infested, long-haired FM-types," as Rush Limbaugh so poetically but inaccurately describes an audience who are actually the vast majority of radio listeners.