BlatherWatch

BREAKING: Bob Rivers out at KZOK!

Bob Rivers is out at KZOK, his morning daypart will no longer be a talk show. He will make the formal announcement Friday. This is big. He's big. The word iconic comes to mind (tho' we're loath to use it). There's a non-compete, but this starts all manner of speculation: where will he go, and will KIRO hire him?

Here's a leaked letter from a salesperson to a KZOK client:

Brace yourself: "seattle radio is about to be turned upside down... "

The sage of Eastlake, Don O'Neill, (the "Don" part of the Ron & Don Show) has just Facebooked that "Seattle radio is about to be turned upside down and no one saw it coming."

(photo: The Don of Eastlake)

(We have to mention the possibility that Don O'Neill's idea of upside down-turning at Eastlake might just be that he's having a bowel movement at work).

Billly Bob: COUGARS, ICEBERGS, PINOT NOIR & ALL-SNOOZE RADIO

(More Q&A trailer trash-talk from Billly Bob. He's a guy we talked into giving up his radio management career to write for BlatherWatch. He once lived in Laurelhurst, but he had to give that up for the Happy Camper Man-This-Is Really-Livin' Park &  Putt-Putt Golf Course near Monroe, WA. Billly has extinguished himself as the only radio critic in America with 3 consecutive consonants in his name. He tells us the middle L is silent).

by Billly Bob

I got my laptop back from Pawn-Fathers in Gold Bar, so I'm decked out in my cleanest dirty Seahawk t-shirt and ready to tackle more of your radio queries...

Dear Billy: I'm not a big fan of KPTK and their crazy left wing lineup with Stephanie Miller, Thom Hartman and Nore-man Gold-man, but I did like the fact that they always carried WSU football.  But this year they've dropped the Cougs. If you want to hear Cougar football you have to listen to 1380 in Everett or the business station on 1300 which I can only pick up on my radio when I'm driving in Tacoma.  What gives?  Signed Bube Zleeb

Dear Bube: I don't know from football, I'm more of a NASCAR guy...but speaking of Cougars, have you seen Stephanie Miller?

Dear Billy:  Bear with me Billy, I have a Titanic analogy regarding KOMO. Imagine you could go back in time and be Captain of the Titanic. With focus and perseverance you are incredibly able to avoid the icebergs and as you're about to pull into port in New York with all your passengers safe and sound. Would you then announce, "Hey, let's turn around and go see those icebergs!" For what seems like decades, KOMO radio was bouncing around with different lineups and formats and shows. Then they finally made a commitment to all-news and, (with the help of the Mariners, of course) lo and behold they had some stability and some ratings wins. KIRO, on the other hand, seems to have spent the last few years shooting themselves in the nuts. So now, what does KOMO do? Turns around and goes back to the icebergs. Changes formats again. What are the Fisher brass thinking?  Signed, Top Lop

Dear Top: They like to grab defeat from the jaws of victory.
 
Dear Billy: I like Dave Ross. And I actually like Luke Burbank. It's sort of how I feel about really good Pinot Noir and Dr. Pepper. Dave Ross is like a really good Pinot Noir. I could have a glass every night. Every once in a while I enjoy a Dr. Pepper. But you put Dr. Pepper in your glass of Pinot Noir and it tastes like shit. What are the Bonneville brass thinking?  Signed Remha Dyerffej

Dear Remha: Out here in Monroe we're partial to Bud Light and Nehi Orange..

Dear Billy: I'd like to add my two cents about Jim Moore, the sports guy on 710-ESPN and his over-the-top Husky bashing. But have you heard the latest? A week ago he was predicting his beloved Cougars would beat USC. Of course the Cougs got whipped like Larry Craig at an airport bathroom, 50-16. And now, Jim Moore is calling for the WSU coach to be fired. What's up with that?  Signed, Nuheh Talitta

Dear Nuheh: Maybe Larry Craig should be the next Cougar coach. I bet he knows his way around a locker room!. 

Dear Billy: I thought news people were supposed to be unbiased?  I'm listening to the new John Carlson show on KOMO this week and Carlson starts talking about Seattle's new plan to raise parking rates and extend the hours when you need to feed the meters. So John says let's get more from our newsroom and he brings on Carleen Johnson. Now, I don't want to pay more for parking than anyone else, but she proceeds to explain the story with all these clear statements about how it's a bad idea and she made it pretty clear she feels the rates shouldn't go up. I guess I might expect that from Carlson, he's supposed to be the opinionated talk host. But the city has budget troubles, so why are the news people offering their uneducated opinions?  Signed, Nosna Mselrahc

Dear Nosna: Come on out to Monroe. My neighbor has had two pickups parked in front of his double-wide for 12 years.

Dear Billy: Answer me this Billy Bob: how come I'm seeing stories about radio stations in other cities switching to more news because of how well all-news is doing with Arbitron's new People Meter Technology. KRLD in Dallas just announced that they are switching from talk to all-news. The Talk Radio Network just announced that they are going to launch a national all-news network to help stations convert to more news. So how come at the very time this trend is developing, the people running KOMO decide to give up on all-news? Signed,  Reltih Hploda

Dear Reltih: All that news over and over is boring.
.
Dear Billy:  Do people really write you with questions, or do you just make shit up? Signed, Yen Gnatmot

Dear Yen: You can't make this shit up.

Kelsey grammer goes commando, then starts right-wing network

The term "conservative actor" is oxymoronic. And usually the moronic part of that is embarrassing to conservatives who bloviate daily about Hollywood immorality.

Breaking news in the tabloid world is that Kelsey Grammer moronically wore no drawers on the set of his hit sitcom, Frasier (!).

The dish is his fellow actors had to prevail upon his then-wife Camille Donatacci, who got him to put his junk in its proper container while working. (Grammer, 60, conservative role model that he is, has since dumped her for a younger baby-mama of a bouncing baby expected to bounce any month now). Donatucci will tell all next month in The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

Talk is no. 2 at Fisher

No doubt about it: it's hard to be a radio talker at the Fisher "group." (KOMO, KVI). Even if you were spared in the recent beheadings and furniture re-arrangement at KOMO and KVI, you don't seem to get much institutional help.

Poor KVI. Bryan Suits (m-f, 5-9a) leads into Laura Ingraham on tape, followed by Sean Hannity, (never a ratings winner in Seattle) then Laura Ingraham is repeated at drivetime!!

This could be because Fisher doesn't have their shit together enough to grab another syndicated show (not inconceivable) OR, as many believe: they'll pull the plug on the whole station as soon as they get that shit together. (Sell? reformat? ...depends on which rumor mill you choose to abide by).

They still have the same shitty KVI website with really nothing going on except the non-interactive Bryan Suits show page and ... crickets. (Unbelievably, You can still click on and get to the long-gone John Carlson Show and the late Weissbach Show, which was defuncted after the eponymous host was caught in a scandal over hiring illegal workers in his cleaning business).

The "new" talkers on KOMO are even more neglected. They finally got names for their new daypart shows: NewsPlus with John Carlson and Schram On The Story. They went without that basic need for a week or so: Schram repeatedly bemoaned it on-air, calling his the Show With No Name until they finally came up with some names.

There are no logos or ad promotion for either show on the lame KOMO radio web page. Never mind show pages, blogs or podcasts. It's quite amazing. Reading the KOMO home page, or the news page, you wouldn't know Carlson and Schram exist.

KIRO, their ace-boom competition, has a dynamo of a site, which is being used to great advantage by their talkers and producers; so why does Fisher choose to lag so far behind in on-line presence? (Even their on-line presence is mostly warmed-over, with very little web-only content and interactivity with listeners. Frinstance: Schram's commentary is there, but it's really the one he did for both teevee and radio).

One thing everyone can agree with in the brave new media world, is that web platforms are key to broadcasting's future. Fisher knows this (they have enough consultants, for god's sake) so why do they choose to ignore it?

Is it benign neglect? Makes you wonder.

Great Moments in Blather: will gay sex save talk radio?

(From June 17, 2009)

Yea! Furious gays! special rights! The Gay's agenda crammed down the throats of children! Penis black markets for marriage-crazed lesbians! The "tranny loophole???"

Talk producers licked their collective lips, today. Why?

Old Seattle Radio Saturday: happy 76th, pat o'day!

Pat O'Day, legendary Seattle music radio and concert maestro celebrated his 76th birthday Friday.

If you're not a Pepsi Generation graybeard, you might know him only as the guy on the teevee machine pumping Schick-Schadel Hospital, the drug and alcohol recovery spa. 

But Pat is way more than a spokeshole. Besides owning a significant chunk of the establishment, (having sobered up there in 1986) he was, as historian Peter Blecha describes him at HistoryLink, the Pacific Northwest entertainment's "... Chairman of the Board, the Grand Poobah, the Top Dog, the Big Kahuna."

New York City had Alan Freed, Boston had Arnie Ginsberg, Los Angeles had Hunter Hancock, and Seattle had O’Day. As Seattle’s highest-profile DJ of the 1960s and the region’s dominant dance promoter, Pat O’Day ran KJR AM and Northwest rock ‘n’ roll for nearly a decade.

Known for his soft-spoken humility and bashfulness, Pat lives today at Friday Harbor in the San Juan Islands where he sells real estate to rich Californians.

He's an author (It Was All Just Rock 'n' Roll), and a huge piece of the rock 'n' roll nostalgia of a generation. He pioneered many things in Top 40's radio, and one of the first DJs in the nation to experiment with an “Oldies” format.

He's a damn Republican, yet a friend of this blog who infrequently posts here about radio business, and radio history. Read his bouquets to Glenn Beck here, his advice to Seattle programmers, here, and here.

Thom hartmann heading to DC

Thom Hartmann (KTPK, m-f, 9-noon) is moving his show and his own self from Portland, Oregon to Washington DC.

Hartmann, 60, said in a press release: "This is a great opportunity for us, broadcasting from the belly of the beast."

As with Dave Ross, BlatherWatch hasn't covered Thom Hartmann much. But we most always agree with him, and dig how his measured, educated, reasonability has made him a big talk star.  According to his syndicator Dial-Global, more people listen to Hartmann's show on more stations than any other progressive talk show in America.

He's a screamin' liberal who doesn't shout.

A favorite story about Hartmann was when the robots got mixed up and beamed him down for hours - not to lib-talker KPTK - but to conservative KTTH as the bloaty, old cigar-butt, Billo Reilly was supposed to be pontifying. Hilarity ensued when we called KIRO demanding an explanation.

Nasty politics cause talk radio profits, says clear channel

Jon Stewart might say: "You're ruining America." Maybe so, says media megamonster Clear Channel but poisonous politics are sure working out for us!

David B. Wilkerson quotes Len Klatt, senior vice president at Premiere Radio Networks in a lengthy, MarketWatch piece that didn't much challenge the industry crowing:

Dave ross stroked by women

KIRO's Dave Ross, (m-f, 9a-12p) has been chosen as "Communicator of the Year," by the Association Women in Communications.

“Our winner was selected not only for his continued dedication to honest, open communication in his primary job as a radio host, but also for the incredible impact his communications activities have had on the entire community, and the lasting legacy his vision and energy has created for multiple events.” Ross is credited with heading the successful grassroots campaign to save the Lake Union Fourth of July fireworks display this past July.

The timing is portune, if not exquisite, for Dave. A professional hat-feather at a moment when Bonneville programmers are trying to figure out what to do with him.