BlatherWatch

KOMO: news 19/7!

The severely puckered Seattle newshole shrank a little more last week.

KOMO radio has given up 24/hour live news and is playing re-runs of weekday talkers John Carlson and Ken Schram in the overnight.

(photo: former KIRO overnighter/dweeb, Bryan Styble)

But... says a commenter on the trade Radio-Info forum:

To be fair, KOMO does have on-air-ready producers, something many other news stations don't have. Still, it's bad enough that we have six hours of talk on a "news" station; now the bulk of the all-night shift is talk reruns, with some news being done by the producer/editors.

More austerity from Fisher for the radio sector which always sucks hind teat to teevee in corporate considerations.

KIRO gave up live & local overnight in 2008 when they fired the insufferable Bryan Styble. They nowovernight with the syndicated George Noory, while KTTH does a Laura Ingraham rehash (daily, 1-4a) and America's Morning News, (daily, 4-6a) a right-wing tilt on the previous day's headlines from the blarmy Washington Times.

Is KVI doomed?

(no listeners, either) 

One thing upon which everyone could agree: something will happen, today.

And it did: After more than four years, The Commentators, John Carlson and Ken Schram were split up and given back-to-back talk shows on KOMO radio (m-fs, 9a- 3p). That means Carlson will go up against Rush Limbaugh, and Dave Ross- word is Carlson will be putting more emphasis on "lifestyle." (This to the delight of Bonneville suits who believe by KOMO giving up on midday news blocks, KIRO can win it back).

Fisher, we hear, had little choice: the two have no-cut contracts.

The question roiling Radio Town on Friday is: after pulling the plug on KOMO's Nine2Noon and The 'Tators, will Fisher kill off heritage talker KVI as we know it? Staffers and outside insiders fear that it is so.

Rumblings are they'll flip to all-syndication or music.

While we seriously doubt that AM music will be back, what we know for sure is: Fisher has recovered a little on the teevee front, but radio, even with market leaders KOMOAM & Star 101 is still sucking.

That means KVI.

We thought they'd decided to give live & local a go... they re-hired Bryan Suits (m-f, 5-9a), and put John Carlson back on at noon.

(Whither Bryan Suits?)

In other ways, it's obvious the money-draining KVI has sucked company hind nipple for a long time... the website has been seriously neglected with no podcasting (except for Suits) nor means of interacting with listeners.

Stay tuned, more changes are supposed to be announced. A New Day dawns Monday.

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.

Dave Ross: will dino rossi ambush me... PLEASE?!

Last week Dori Monson was ambushed by Governor Gregoire that is, called him without prearrangement -- and he's been bragging/complaining ever since.

We loved the whole exchange, it was great radio, and wrote almost lovingly about Dori for once. (It showed that despite he has a girl's name, he is The King Of Seattle Talk Radio)

We realized that one of the things that bugs us about local talk radio now that it's been dry-cleaned, pressed and all the local weirdos removed, is the absence of the unexpected. With just Dori, Dave, The Commentators, Ron and "I would Be" Don, there's none (save maybe Kirby of KVI) of the pure, local, slightly strange, one-of-a-kind hosts that promote (not always intentionally) that tension of the unexpected and take you occasionally by surprise.

(That's some of why we're hooked on Too Beautiful to Live (KIRO m-f, 7-10p -- it's feeling that anything -- though perhaps trivial -- can happen at any time).

Friday oddems: returning to obscurity; hemorrhoidal FCC tool; wiki quickie with rachel marsden; sex out of the box; nancy-frigging-grace; humble-frigging-dori; a latvian, two filipinos, and a truckdriver

 ~~ "Returning to obscurity" is how David Goldstein framed his future after a good run filling-in for Dave Ross (KIRO m-f, 9a-12p). We asked in a post, last week: "How's Goldy doing? hoping to get some feedback on the local, novice, liberal blabbermouth's radio performance. Of course, we got an earful. But there's some good advice there, once you get by the Goldy-haters. Does up-and-comer David have a chance in a local talk market that's shrinking before our very eyes? Probably not, unless, of course, he's willing to do celebrity astrology, and forsake his trademark wonk for awesomeness.

~~Speaking of Too Beautiful to Live, (KIRO m-f, 7-10p) Gay Gary says he's finally loving the new show since the sexual tension has been ratcheted up, "like," he says, "A LOT!" He noticed it when Jen producer was out sick and Sean and Luke were left alone. "... Luke was going into the control room with Sean where he was planning on doing the show the rest of the night. 'It's boys night tonight!' he gleefully announced. (OMG!) He then had Sean inspect a skin rash he'd developed. (OMG - x2!!!) What will happen next?! I don't know but it's like a radio soap opera you guys! I'm just hoping the prudes at the FCC don't make them move the show to Sirius or XM now that things are heating up." Gay sexual tension on talk radio? Gotta agree with Gary: that's thinking out of the box... (photo: Sean)

Q: Where was live & local seattle talk radio on caucus weekend? A: home watching the teevee

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.

Friday oddems: make-out tests for kidz; pubescent kissy-face drunk-a-logs; laura ingraham topless; alan colmes says yes; dinesh d'souza's favorite pie; more KIRO bathroom atrocities; the gravy train is over, cowboy...

  ~~ "If I believe the country will suffer with either Hillary, Obama or McCain, I would just as soon the Democrats take the hit," comedian Rush Limbaugh told Washington Post columnist Howard Kurtz. Would a McCain presidency be a setback for Big Pants? "My success is not defined by who wins elections," he intoned. "Elected officials come and go. I am here for as long as I wish to stay."

~ Alan Colmes hearts BlatherWatch, and now we heart Alan Colmes. Hannity's eager piñata dropped us a line this week: "I really enjoy your site," he wrote. And linked us to his blog Liberalland, which we now really enjoy. Now that we're close, we wish his radio show were in our market, so we could suck up to him even more... maybe get a meat-up with Sean Hannity.

~ We know that Too Beautiful To Live (KIRO m-f, 7-10p) isn't for us. And we're used to being the oldest one in the room. And we're usually impressed with the Next Gens we know. But the long, long segment on TBTL Thursday with the silly little coeds with their Make-out Test, and ditzy, kissy-face drunk-a-logs were turnoffable for any listener with a watt in their head. Damnit, we dial-up the show to hear about Luke's skin problems, and black-out drunks -- not the skin problems and black-out drunks of pseudonymous sorority girls. TBTL is some booze-obsessed radio!

~~ Why, God, oh, why?.. when you Google, what to eat so you do not get hemorroidal? you get directly to BlatherWatch???

Bryan Styble R.I.P. 2006-2008

The Bryan Styble wrote this on his blog this morning:

It's my solemn duty to inform the radioactive audience and, in fact, all Pugent Sound newstalk radio listeners, that KIRO's new ownership regime has cancelled The Bryan Styble Program, replacing it with an as-yet-unannounced syndicated show to be pulled down off a satellite.

The reason cited is "purely budgetary", and inasmuch as syndicated fare always comes to local-affiliating stations free-of-charge (a fact many newstalk radio fans are surprised to learn), this change will certainly save KIRO and Bonneville the quite-generous salary they've been expending for my professional efforts.

Another roadside oddems: hemorrhoid watch 2008; internecine KIRO; women masturbating horses; allan prell on the threes; bRyAn StYbLe is not racist, never has been racist; more billified hip-hopcracy; jen andrews exposed; one charming son of a bitch.

~ Like calling the aid car for a hemorrhoid? (or maybe vice-versa, in this case) did anyone besides us find KIRO's Monday night calling in the late Frank Shiers and going into full-on Storm Watch 2008 mode a little silly? While it was really nice to hear our close friend, Frank fill in for the syndicated Phil Hendrie who replaced him, (Frank's weather-talking mastery has earned him the nickname,"Shiver,") having all talk off the table except weather sent us to scurrying for Mike Malloy (KPTK m-f,7-10p). Besides, the weather wasn't all that daunting. Apparently, it was snowing on the Issaquah plateau, the mountain passes,north of the Snoho line, and in the wilds of Queen Anne Hill. The commute promised to be daunting, but WTF? Couldn't that have been well-handled on KIRO's many news breaks? Maybe it was to assuage KIRO's guilt for bringing in their first syndication in the weekdayparts and to assure us that they're still here to serve us live & locally. If the latter is true, it was gross overcompensation.

~ The new KIRO website will be all about "community" and shit; and will be up soon, according to everyone. They're lucky to have David Goldstein (Sat., Sun., 7-10p) already on their payroll. Goldy must have been a great resource since his claim to fame is that he's a NW blogger with national renown whose platform, Horsesass.org is one of the biggest online communities in the region. Nobody will talk to us yet, but with that kind of live and local experience on tap, maybe the site will go from the B- we gave it to an A. (Even KIRO's B- beat all the other talk stations' sites by a mile).

New Hampster oddems: the baby buddha; hemorroidal rage; winnebagel sage; the rancid sacklunch; judy canova lives; phil hendry dies; goldwater/miller in '08

~ A Romney man. (hat tip to Jesus' General)

~ An invitation to a stalker... It was just strange, said a reader: KIRO fill-in talk host cRaZy! BrYaN sTyBLe! asked listeners to invite him to their New Year's parties if they wanted to add a "radioactive guy" to their celebration. Wouldn't he be a fun addition to any festivity? Sadly, for the pathetic peripatetic, no one thought so. So Bryan on that night of nights emulated the Baby Buddha: "I cry, I sit alone, I sleep."

~ Hemorrhoidal rage: Glenn Beck took some time off from his daily radio and TV talk shows, (KTTH m-f, 6-9a) released a confessional video with an unshaven and bedridden Beck telling a vague but horrible tale about a near fatal hospital stay, a hemorrhoid operation that went "horribly awry;" blood coming out of places blood shouldn’t come out of; and drug effects to the former addict that produced suicidal thoughts. Many were surprised that the snarly little brabbler actually can bleed but the experience as shown on the video seems real. We're hoping all of it will change his heart and he'll become a compassionate liberal and give up the mean schtick that's made him so popular in places like dogfights and Minutemen rallies.