BlatherWatch

Talk radio: it's a post-election gloatation device ...but that's about it

We, like most progressives, have been bracing ourselves for the ass-kicking we were to take in the mid-terms.

(photo: Dino Rossi on the runway)

We steeled ourselves to be philosophical; to man-up and take it from talk radio, and our right-wing commenters, who have been pre-gloating for months.

Great Moments in Blather: the incredible shrinking seattle talk radio, or, why we don’t have much to write about any more

Since this was published last year, five of 13 the Seattle talkers profiled have been shuffled off the live & local coil. Phil the News Junkie passed on without anyone ever really knowing it (We just looked up one day and he was gone). Peter Weissbach pulled his dick out of KVI, after the pressure from his illegal hiring practices became too much for Fisher to bear. The Mouthing Off boyz (Dave Carson, Kevin Dodrill) shut their collective piehole one fine day in March; veteran broadcaster Mike Siegel’s show on business KKOL passed in February like a watermelon seed though the colon of radio.

~~

December 07, 2009

Conservative talk radio was invented in Seattle, now it’s as endangered as the wild Puget Sound salmon. and let’s face it, save Dave Ross, there ain’t no local liberal talk.

With the KVI’s elimination of Kirby Wilbur, another block of local airtime went to out-of-town, out-of-touch, syndicated blabbermeisters- sending a butt-load of ad $ somewhere else.

(Washington conservatives and Republicans suffered another depressing (for them) election defeat despite the talk radio dominance of right-wingers. With Kirby’s demise, right-wing activists are the real losers. Where now on the radio, go the flacks for Evergreen Freedom Foundation, and the Discovery Institute; the BIAW mafiosos; homo-hater Rev. Ken Hutcherson; initiative huckster Tim Eyman; skum-skimming skourge Floyd Brown; or State Auditor and fake Democrat Brian Sonntag). Here’s who’s left:

The Commentators (KOMO m-f, 10a-2p). Veteran conservative and man about Seattle media John Carlson (he was conservative before it was cool) battles each day with scratchy Channel 4 commentator Ken Schram. The show isn’t all that political- much of the time the two Catholic suburbanites debate pedestrian issues like pit bulls, and school dress codes- the disagreement is kinda pro forma. This hale-fellow-well-met debate was moved from KVI because the very presence of the free-wheeling libertarian Schram was unacceptable and the shriveled right-wing listener base couldn’t abide any impurity whatsoever on "their" station. Anymore, the once-mighty KVI community is but a wide spot in the road, and the cranky, codgerly listeners now have bupkis except a bunch of fresh and canned national talkers, and an hour of the damaged Peter Weissbach.

Dave Boze (KTTH m-f, 3-6p) 37, a Hillsdale College alum, a low-key, Reagan conservative who worked long as a KVI producer, and finally got his own show- the only local offering on KTTH. He married into a well-connected conservative family- his wife, Peggy O’Ban, 53, was spokeswoman for Washington Women for McCain, and a Bush-appointed AID official. Her brother Steve is a conservative attorney who successfully argued against gay marriage before the state Supreme Court,

(photo: Producer Jake  and Dave Boze)

and unsuccessfully toiled to save us last election from the broadening of gay rights. This all makes for conservative purity, but not, necessarily, for spellbinding radio. Dave’s show is rather ploddingly produced with a penchant for book reports, martial music, clucking like deacon about the moral decline of the Great Unwashed, and genteelly mocking of Seattle Communists and the Bolsheviks occupying the other Washington. He means well, and is congenial enough except when’s doing his sissy-slap act with Producer Jake.

Dave Ross is still the sanest, pithiest, and - though some of our readers argue this point- the most liberal live talker in town. He’s not pissed off, he has many talents, interests. One of these days, he’ll retire or do something else… and believe you us, there’s nobody waiting in the (left) wings to replace him… they’ll probably promote Frank Shiers, or Phil the Junkie.

Dori Monson (KIROFM m-f 12-3p) is madder, and louder than Dave Boze- but a more and experienced and gifted broadcaster. His testosteronic slagging, strutting, angry, wall-to-wall denunciations are directly proportionate to his short stature, his long sensitivity over having a girl’s name, and his fall from his erstwhile perch as the King of Seattle Talk Radio. He was once a national security libertarian more interested in round ball games and Las Vegas, but the longer he stays on the radio the farther right he goes. Dori calls the governor, legislators and the president liars, criminals and frauds every single day; then bitterly decries that they won’t come on his show. Voters, politicians and public servants don't respect what he says because they don't have to...because his ranting doesn’t matter in any politically measurable way.

  Ron & Don (KIRO m-f, 3-7p) are getting a new producer and a bonehead course in current events. It probably won’t save them. They specialize in raising funds for victims of news

(Photo: Ron Upshaw)  

events, and it doesn’t go much deeper than that. Our only hope for them is that they're not replaced by Mark Levin.

Frank Shiers (KIROFM m-f, 7-11p) is a nice man, who really wants to keep what he’s striven to get- a 4-hour evening slot on KIROFM, the Zippo that once was a blow torch. Although his politics are made-for-Bremerton from whence he proudly came, we’re glad he’s given up teaching where he could do harm to our children. He tries lots of things, like our patience, Monson riffs, Glenn Beck voices, and homemade audio production; often whippings through 2 or 3 topics an hour when his phone doesn’t ring. Evenings, like weekends, don’t count for much in radio, but he IS a new live & local in a market that’s shedding them like underwear.      

Phil The News Junkie  (KIRO Sundays, 4-7p) Lonesome Phil is arguably the best producer in town (the Dori Monson Show) However, the wry guy whose politics and verbal riffs, for some reason, mimic Dori’s, is charismatically challenged. He’s harmless enough, but unfortunately for him, his show is rarely heard- it’s really a KIROFM fill-in for when the Seahawks or Mariners aren’t being simulcast with KIRO’s AM sports station which exists, supposedly, so the talk would never be interrupted by sports. The paucity of total downtime between football and baseball leaves Phil with plenty of Sunday afternoons at home.

Although it's improved its numbers lately, KIRO's hurting and something needs to change, but it’s hard to know just what they would or should do. Dave and Dori ain’t going anywhere. Maybe the answer is to bulk up the Morning News to better the day, try to wrench it from Glenn Beck on KTTH. Problem is they’ve shrunk their news staff, and dumped their old news brand. (Apropos of nothing: Jason Brooks has left or soon will to become the money erg a stationing in San Francisco).  

Peter Weissbach’s weird little Pomposity Hour (KVI m-f, 5-6p) has few listeners, but he's all that's local on KVI during the week. The Seattle Times’ recent revelations about his skeezy and illegal hiring practices would have sank him in less desperate days when Fisher Broadcasting could afford to have a conscience. (Remember when they sacked John Carlson for a conflict of interest? Or dumped Mike Siegel when he gave conspiracy theorists whose smears of Mayor Rice he hoped were given free rein on his show? If the Fisher family were still selling flour and guided by their present-day moral compass, a 1-lb. sack of flour would only weigh 14 oz.) Weissbach is probably only around until the station decides which live, syndicated talker can be finagled onto the roster- Lars Larsson recently declined, we’re told. 

Mouthing Off (KVI 6-7p Sundays) bills itself as "The View with Balls" and has slipped through the cracks of Fisher Radio’s ineptitude. Although they don’t get much but an hour of Sunday airtime the station apparently couldn’t sell to penis-mercials, Dave Carson and Kevin Dodrill trade punches, bon mots, and masculine but witty takes on sex, politics, and the meaning of life. More of this on a different station could help turn around the talk radio business, but we're afraid if someone upstairs finds out there’s someone on the air on KVI under the age of 40, the Mouthers will be toast. Not that that will happen any day soon, the Fisher suits don’t really care what’s actually on the radie-yo, just what it costs them.
 
Mike Siegel, (KKOL m-f, 12-3p) probably doesn’t count: he's a Seattle veteran talker, long irrelevant who does business talk on KKOL, a Salem Communications station (home of LoueDobbs!)that shows up in no ratings lists- it's positioned somewhere below 41st in the market.

Since this was published last year, five of 13 the Seattle talkers profiled have been shuffled off the live & local coil. Phil the News Junkie passed on without anyone ever really knowing it (We just looked up one day and he was gone). Peter Weissbach pulled his dick out of KVI, after the pressure from his illegal hiring practices became too much for Fisher to bear. The Mouthing Off boyz (Dave Carson, Kevin Dodrill) shut their collective piehole one fine day in March; veteran broadcaster Mike Siegel’s show on business KKOL passed in February like a watermelon seed though the colon of radio.

~~

December 07, 2009

Conservative talk radio was invented in Seattle, now it’s as endangered as the wild Puget Sound salmon. and let’s face it, save Dave Ross, there ain’t no local liberal talk.

With the KVI’s elimination of Kirby Wilbur, another block of local airtime went to out-of-town, out-of-touch, syndicated blabbermeisters- sending a butt-load of ad $ somewhere else.

(Washington conservatives and Republicans suffered another depressing (for them) election defeat despite the talk radio dominance of right-wingers. With Kirby’s demise, right-wing activists are the real losers. Where now on the radio, go the flacks for Evergreen Freedom Foundation, and the Discovery Institute; the BIAW mafiosos; homo-hater Rev. Ken Hutcherson; initiative huckster Tim Eyman; skum-skimming skourge Floyd Brown; or State Auditor and fake Democrat Brian Sonntag). Here’s who’s left:

The Commentators (KOMO m-f, 10a-2p). Veteran conservative and man about Seattle media John Carlson (he was conservative before it was cool) battles each day with scratchy Channel 4 commentator Ken Schram. The show isn’t all that political- much of the time the two Catholic suburbanites debate pedestrian issues like pit bulls, and school dress codes- the disagreement is kinda pro forma. This hale-fellow-well-met debate was moved from KVI because the very presence of the free-wheeling libertarian Schram was unacceptable and the shriveled right-wing listener base couldn’t abide any impurity whatsoever on "their" station. Anymore, the once-mighty KVI community is but a wide spot in the road, and the cranky, codgerly listeners now have bupkis except a bunch of fresh and canned national talkers, and an hour of the damaged Peter Weissbach.

Dave Boze (KTTH m-f, 3-6p) 37, a Hillsdale College alum, a low-key, Reagan conservative who worked long as a KVI producer, and finally got his own show- the only local offering on KTTH. He married into a well-connected conservative family- his wife, Peggy O’Ban, 53, was spokeswoman for Washington Women for McCain, and a Bush-appointed AID official. Her brother Steve is a conservative attorney who successfully argued against gay marriage before the state Supreme Court,

(photo: Producer Jake  and Dave Boze)

and unsuccessfully toiled to save us last election from the broadening of gay rights. This all makes for conservative purity, but not, necessarily, for spellbinding radio. Dave’s show is rather ploddingly produced with a penchant for book reports, martial music, clucking like deacon about the moral decline of the Great Unwashed, and genteelly mocking of Seattle Communists and the Bolsheviks occupying the other Washington. He means well, and is congenial enough except when’s doing his sissy-slap act with Producer Jake.

Dave Ross is still the sanest, pithiest, and - though some of our readers argue this point- the most liberal live talker in town. He’s not pissed off, he has many talents, interests. One of these days, he’ll retire or do something else… and believe you us, there’s nobody waiting in the (left) wings to replace him… they’ll probably promote Frank Shiers, or Phil the Junkie.

Dori Monson (KIROFM m-f 12-3p) is madder, and louder than Dave Boze- but a more and experienced and gifted broadcaster. His testosteronic slagging, strutting, angry, wall-to-wall denunciations are directly proportionate to his short stature, his long sensitivity over having a girl’s name, and his fall from his erstwhile perch as the King of Seattle Talk Radio. He was once a national security libertarian more interested in round ball games and Las Vegas, but the longer he stays on the radio the farther right he goes. Dori calls the governor, legislators and the president liars, criminals and frauds every single day; then bitterly decries that they won’t come on his show. Voters, politicians and public servants don't respect what he says because they don't have to...because his ranting doesn’t matter in any politically measurable way.

  Ron & Don (KIRO m-f, 3-7p) are getting a new producer and a bonehead course in current events. It probably won’t save them. They specialize in raising funds for victims of news

(Photo: Ron Upshaw)  

events, and it doesn’t go much deeper than that. Our only hope for them is that they're not replaced by Mark Levin.

Frank Shiers (KIROFM m-f, 7-11p) is a nice man, who really wants to keep what he’s striven to get- a 4-hour evening slot on KIROFM, the Zippo that once was a blow torch. Although his politics are made-for-Bremerton from whence he proudly came, we’re glad he’s given up teaching where he could do harm to our children. He tries lots of things, like our patience, Monson riffs, Glenn Beck voices, and homemade audio production; often whippings through 2 or 3 topics an hour when his phone doesn’t ring. Evenings, like weekends, don’t count for much in radio, but he IS a new live & local in a market that’s shedding them like underwear.      

Phil The News Junkie  (KIRO Sundays, 4-7p) Lonesome Phil is arguably the best producer in town (the Dori Monson Show) However, the wry guy whose politics and verbal riffs, for some reason, mimic Dori’s, is charismatically challenged. He’s harmless enough, but unfortunately for him, his show is rarely heard- it’s really a KIROFM fill-in for when the Seahawks or Mariners aren’t being simulcast with KIRO’s AM sports station which exists, supposedly, so the talk would never be interrupted by sports. The paucity of total downtime between football and baseball leaves Phil with plenty of Sunday afternoons at home.

Although it's improved its numbers lately, KIRO's hurting and something needs to change, but it’s hard to know just what they would or should do. Dave and Dori ain’t going anywhere. Maybe the answer is to bulk up the Morning News to better the day, try to wrench it from Glenn Beck on KTTH. Problem is they’ve shrunk their news staff, and dumped their old news brand. (Apropos of nothing: Jason Brooks has left or soon will to become the money erg a stationing in San Francisco).  

Peter Weissbach’s weird little Pomposity Hour (KVI m-f, 5-6p) has few listeners, but he's all that's local on KVI during the week. The Seattle Times’ recent revelations about his skeezy and illegal hiring practices would have sank him in less desperate days when Fisher Broadcasting could afford to have a conscience. (Remember when they sacked John Carlson for a conflict of interest? Or dumped Mike Siegel when he gave conspiracy theorists whose smears of Mayor Rice he hoped were given free rein on his show? If the Fisher family were still selling flour and guided by their present-day moral compass, a 1-lb. sack of flour would only weigh 14 oz.) Weissbach is probably only around until the station decides which live, syndicated talker can be finagled onto the roster- Lars Larsson recently declined, we’re told. 

Mouthing Off (KVI 6-7p Sundays) bills itself as "The View with Balls" and has slipped through the cracks of Fisher Radio’s ineptitude. Although they don’t get much but an hour of Sunday airtime the station apparently couldn’t sell to penis-mercials, Dave Carson and Kevin Dodrill trade punches, bon mots, and masculine but witty takes on sex, politics, and the meaning of life. More of this on a different station could help turn around the talk radio business, but we're afraid if someone upstairs finds out there’s someone on the air on KVI under the age of 40, the Mouthers will be toast. Not that that will happen any day soon, the Fisher suits don’t really care what’s actually on the radie-yo, just what it costs them.
 
Mike Siegel, (KKOL m-f, 12-3p) probably doesn’t count: he's a Seattle veteran talker, long irrelevant who does business talk on KKOL, a Salem Communications station (home of LoueDobbs!)that shows up in no ratings lists- it's positioned somewhere below 41st in the market.

Since this was published last year, five of 13 the Seattle talkers profiled have been shuffled off the live & local coil. Phil the News Junkie passed on without anyone ever really knowing it (We just looked up one day and he was gone). Peter Weissbach pulled his dick out of KVI, after the pressure from his illegal hiring practices became too much for Fisher to bear. The Mouthing Off boyz (Dave Carson, Kevin Dodrill) shut their collective piehole one fine day in March; veteran broadcaster Mike Siegel’s show on business KKOL passed in February like a watermelon seed though the colon of radio.

~~

December 07, 2009

Conservative talk radio was invented in Seattle, now it’s as endangered as the wild Puget Sound salmon. and let’s face it, save Dave Ross, there ain’t no local liberal talk.

With the KVI’s elimination of Kirby Wilbur, another block of local airtime went to out-of-town, out-of-touch, syndicated blabbermeisters- sending a butt-load of ad $ somewhere else.

(Washington conservatives and Republicans suffered another depressing (for them) election defeat despite the talk radio dominance of right-wingers. With Kirby’s demise, right-wing activists are the real losers. Where now on the radio, go the flacks for Evergreen Freedom Foundation, and the Discovery Institute; the BIAW mafiosos; homo-hater Rev. Ken Hutcherson; initiative huckster Tim Eyman; skum-skimming skourge Floyd Brown; or State Auditor and fake Democrat Brian Sonntag). Here’s who’s left:

The Commentators (KOMO m-f, 10a-2p). Veteran conservative and man about Seattle media John Carlson (he was conservative before it was cool) battles each day with scratchy Channel 4 commentator Ken Schram. The show isn’t all that political- much of the time the two Catholic suburbanites debate pedestrian issues like pit bulls, and school dress codes- the disagreement is kinda pro forma. This hale-fellow-well-met debate was moved from KVI because the very presence of the free-wheeling libertarian Schram was unacceptable and the shriveled right-wing listener base couldn’t abide any impurity whatsoever on "their" station. Anymore, the once-mighty KVI community is but a wide spot in the road, and the cranky, codgerly listeners now have bupkis except a bunch of fresh and canned national talkers, and an hour of the damaged Peter Weissbach.

Dave Boze (KTTH m-f, 3-6p) 37, a Hillsdale College alum, a low-key, Reagan conservative who worked long as a KVI producer, and finally got his own show- the only local offering on KTTH. He married into a well-connected conservative family- his wife, Peggy O’Ban, 53, was spokeswoman for Washington Women for McCain, and a Bush-appointed AID official. Her brother Steve is a conservative attorney who successfully argued against gay marriage before the state Supreme Court,

(photo: Producer Jake  and Dave Boze)

and unsuccessfully toiled to save us last election from the broadening of gay rights. This all makes for conservative purity, but not, necessarily, for spellbinding radio. Dave’s show is rather ploddingly produced with a penchant for book reports, martial music, clucking like deacon about the moral decline of the Great Unwashed, and genteelly mocking of Seattle Communists and the Bolsheviks occupying the other Washington. He means well, and is congenial enough except when’s doing his sissy-slap act with Producer Jake.

Dave Ross is still the sanest, pithiest, and - though some of our readers argue this point- the most liberal live talker in town. He’s not pissed off, he has many talents, interests. One of these days, he’ll retire or do something else… and believe you us, there’s nobody waiting in the (left) wings to replace him… they’ll probably promote Frank Shiers, or Phil the Junkie.

Dori Monson (KIROFM m-f 12-3p) is madder, and louder than Dave Boze- but a more and experienced and gifted broadcaster. His testosteronic slagging, strutting, angry, wall-to-wall denunciations are directly proportionate to his short stature, his long sensitivity over having a girl’s name, and his fall from his erstwhile perch as the King of Seattle Talk Radio. He was once a national security libertarian more interested in round ball games and Las Vegas, but the longer he stays on the radio the farther right he goes. Dori calls the governor, legislators and the president liars, criminals and frauds every single day; then bitterly decries that they won’t come on his show. Voters, politicians and public servants don't respect what he says because they don't have to...because his ranting doesn’t matter in any politically measurable way.

  Ron & Don (KIRO m-f, 3-7p) are getting a new producer and a bonehead course in current events. It probably won’t save them. They specialize in raising funds for victims of news

(Photo: Ron Upshaw)  

events, and it doesn’t go much deeper than that. Our only hope for them is that they're not replaced by Mark Levin.

Frank Shiers (KIROFM m-f, 7-11p) is a nice man, who really wants to keep what he’s striven to get- a 4-hour evening slot on KIROFM, the Zippo that once was a blow torch. Although his politics are made-for-Bremerton from whence he proudly came, we’re glad he’s given up teaching where he could do harm to our children. He tries lots of things, like our patience, Monson riffs, Glenn Beck voices, and homemade audio production; often whippings through 2 or 3 topics an hour when his phone doesn’t ring. Evenings, like weekends, don’t count for much in radio, but he IS a new live & local in a market that’s shedding them like underwear.      

Phil The News Junkie  (KIRO Sundays, 4-7p) Lonesome Phil is arguably the best producer in town (the Dori Monson Show) However, the wry guy whose politics and verbal riffs, for some reason, mimic Dori’s, is charismatically challenged. He’s harmless enough, but unfortunately for him, his show is rarely heard- it’s really a KIROFM fill-in for when the Seahawks or Mariners aren’t being simulcast with KIRO’s AM sports station which exists, supposedly, so the talk would never be interrupted by sports. The paucity of total downtime between football and baseball leaves Phil with plenty of Sunday afternoons at home.

Although it's improved its numbers lately, KIRO's hurting and something needs to change, but it’s hard to know just what they would or should do. Dave and Dori ain’t going anywhere. Maybe the answer is to bulk up the Morning News to better the day, try to wrench it from Glenn Beck on KTTH. Problem is they’ve shrunk their news staff, and dumped their old news brand. (Apropos of nothing: Jason Brooks has left or soon will to become the money erg a stationing in San Francisco).  

Peter Weissbach’s weird little Pomposity Hour (KVI m-f, 5-6p) has few listeners, but he's all that's local on KVI during the week. The Seattle Times’ recent revelations about his skeezy and illegal hiring practices would have sank him in less desperate days when Fisher Broadcasting could afford to have a conscience. (Remember when they sacked John Carlson for a conflict of interest? Or dumped Mike Siegel when he gave conspiracy theorists whose smears of Mayor Rice he hoped were given free rein on his show? If the Fisher family were still selling flour and guided by their present-day moral compass, a 1-lb. sack of flour would only weigh 14 oz.) Weissbach is probably only around until the station decides which live, syndicated talker can be finagled onto the roster- Lars Larsson recently declined, we’re told. 

Mouthing Off (KVI 6-7p Sundays) bills itself as "The View with Balls" and has slipped through the cracks of Fisher Radio’s ineptitude. Although they don’t get much but an hour of Sunday airtime the station apparently couldn’t sell to penis-mercials, Dave Carson and Kevin Dodrill trade punches, bon mots, and masculine but witty takes on sex, politics, and the meaning of life. More of this on a different station could help turn around the talk radio business, but we're afraid if someone upstairs finds out there’s someone on the air on KVI under the age of 40, the Mouthers will be toast. Not that that will happen any day soon, the Fisher suits don’t really care what’s actually on the radie-yo, just what it costs them.
 
Mike Siegel, (KKOL m-f, 12-3p) probably doesn’t count: he's a Seattle veteran talker, long irrelevant who does business talk on KKOL, a Salem Communications station (home of LoueDobbs!)that shows up in no ratings lists- it's positioned somewhere below 41st in the market.

Kirby wilbur busted in militia weapons raid

In an early morning raid, federal agents swooped down on the Duvall residence of former KVI talk show host Kirby Wilbur and seized a sizable arsenal which, according to the Associated Press, included firearms as well as air and water-powered weapons.

“It looked like Fort Lewis,” a source told The Seattle Times.
 
The ATF coordinated the raid, and were assisted by agents from the FBI, DEA, and the NIH.

“We found many rifles and pistols on the property in the low-20 caliber range,” said ATF spokeswoman Emily Weissbaum. “There were crates of SuperSoakers converted to fully automatic.” 

(Photo: Supersoaker AA300)

An agent told reporters: “I’d hate to be a rabbit or coyote in this neighborhood!”

Wilbur claims to “a gun collector” and “a citizen who wants to protect my family.”

Most disturbing to the agents, a source says, were Chinese explosives found on the property known to terrorists and international arms sellers as “candela romana." An FBI arms expert, Special Agent "Choch" Mañana explained, “They’re simple but deadly.” Made with bentonite, a lifting charge, pyrotechnic stars, and black powder, the hand-held device is perfect for suicide bombers, and teenage boys acting out from sexual repression. Homeland security experts have long feared that these devices might get into the hands of domestic terrorists. 
 
As he has repeatedly for many years, Wilbur was not arrested, charged or jailed.

2010 'heavy hundred' ain't so heavy

As always, it’s mystifying as well as snoringly predictable.

What could be so paradoxical? It’s the “Heavy Hundred,” the rankings of national talk hosts that editors of Talkers magazine make each year by reading chicken guts, scoping ad sales possibilities, and making sure no toes are stepped on.

Will seattle talk radio re-take the state?

Can Seattle talk radio once again make a difference in state and local politics? It certainly did in the past, but lately, it has been neutered, with Democrats winning most everything in sight for many election cycles.

(Dori Monson spewing in the hustings)

No matter how KIRO’s Dori Monson, KTTH’s David Boze, or KOMO/KVI’s John Carlson spew against Governor Gregoire, or any star in the State Democratic solar system, few Republicans have squeaked by.

No matter talk radio railed for various Eymanian, fag-baiting, gubmint-busting referendums, initiatives; against tax propositions, school bonds, and light rail, they have overwhelmingly lost, lost, lost.

KVI, KOMO step back and step up to live & local radio

It’s Sunday night, and except for a little scrap of html in the corner on KVI’s pathetic website, you’d never know that Monday, (which is almost today!) will be the biggest local programming roll-out since Tony Ventrella's 2005 takeover of radio as we knew it.

(Jesus, on KVI's website, the fired, disgraced Peter Weissbach is still being welcomed!)

Supreme court decision is big win for local smutzer floyd brown

Thursday’s radical, precedent-overturning, Supreme Court decision from the same old men who gave us George W. Bush will open elections to uncontrolled floods of corporate money, and is being crowed over all over right-wing media.

It was a huge victory for former KVI talk host Floyd Brown, the evangelical Tacoman (University Place, actually) notorious for smutz campaigns against Democrats, famously at his apex with the Willie Horton ads that helped beat Dukakis in 1988.

Seattle talk radio limps out of the old decade with a whimper

Music is king, news is queen, and news-talk is dragging along like a zombie with a hammertoe.

KOMO is flourishing but liberal talker KPTK is beating konservative KVI in the recently released rankings. KIROFM, sadly, is putting-along tied for 14th (!) (Dori Monson is said to be developing a new facial tic, and it’s plain to hear that he has a hard time getting callers in the middle of the day).

Blathering 2009, Part 2- in other news...

(photo: fan greets Glenn Beck in Mount Vernon)

DR. LAURA CHEATS AT THE YACHT RACES: America’s nutcracking yenta and moral compass was found to be off-course when officials caught her cheating in the arcane, fat cat world of yacht racing. See Dr. Laura naked here.

Blathering 2009, part 1: portable people monsters; shoe-droppings, ratings-bustings, belt-cinchings, and fierce firings

 Seattle talk radio took it in the shorts in 2009. As we fall helplessly into 2010, we can’t say that 2010 looks better, or more certain. When will the black come back?

THE BIG STORIES

THE PEE-PEE-EMS: Amidst the fast-shrinking revenues of a tight recession, Arbitron’s electronic, personal metering system (PPMs) were dropped into the Seattle market in March/April and turned it upside down. As the new technology found out what folks were REALLY listening to, the top became the bottom. After a near 20-year hiatus, music radio once again became ratings leading format.

KIRO TAKES A SELF-INFLICTED BLOW: After much fanfare and nearly simultaneous with Arbitron’s installation of the PPM’s, Bonneville flipped their legendary AM blowtorch to sports talk, then tucked their high-paid help (Dave, Dori, Ron & Don) into their oldies FM station (the late, not too great KBSG)