BlatherWatch

KIRO Spreads the Pain Around; now made better with 3 First Mates!

Well kind of. Bonneville Seattle VP, Carl Gardner has made the announcements

 

In the aftermath of Larry Giffords departure, Bonneville has announced new deck chair assignments at the Seattle News Cluster.  Jason Antebi, rhymes with Raid on Entebbe has been named PD for KTTH and KIRO executive producer for "weekends" only. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

KIRO's News Director for 3 years, Pete Gammel is named "KIRO Radio Director of News and Programming". 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

News Director Gammel upon hearing the promotion

 

Okay, one more insider to steer the Raydee-o Barge around--Brian Long, KIRO 710 PD is also Senior Director of Programming and "tactics" for all of the above.  Who's in charge again?

 

 

Odds and Ends, Sytman stays in the Establishment WorkFirst! Job Club. Portland's Taft finds out how the Free Market works

You remember Dan Sytman, the former host of the ill-fated or just ill Sytman and Boze show on KTTH who later found a gubmint job with Rob Mc Kenna as Media Relations Manager at the Attorney General's office? Also one-time producer for the 2 Mike's,  Medved and Siegel.

Now that electing a gubernatorial candidate, who was more likely to call the cops on your loud party is out of favor (Ken Eikenberry was the other one) Dan needs a job.  He moves on to the Washington Policy Center as director of communications and marketing, joining other Dan's like Evans in the establishment WorkFirst! job placement center.

  Speaking of Boze, he has moved on to 4 freaking hours! starting at 5am, possibly preempting the last hour of the Washington Times sponsored "America's Morning Snooze".

Meanwhile down south, Portland's KPAM 860 has fired 8 year weekday host, Victoria Taft. 

 

scary lady alert!

 

 

 

Taft, whose show was the female version of another Portland Righty, Lars Larson,  claims she was given no reason for her departure other than a speculative claim that was tied to a blogpost.  The Invisible hand of Adam Smith would disagree. Taft's show goes online somewhere on the Intertubes.

KIRO radio PD quits

 

KIRO 97.3/KTTH 770  Program Director, Larry Gifford has given notice effective March 1. 

 His email explains the shipwreck that the Bonneville talk cluster in Seattle has become:  

“As I’ve considered where we are and the road ahead, it has become clear to me that the type of leadership needed to keep moving these stations forward requires someone with different strengths and passions than mine."  Gifford was hired by Kiro back in May, 2011.

Your weekend open thread

Old Seattle Radio Saturdays: KXA

Back when KXA was the home of "Old Gold 77", it wouldn't last much longer... from Wikipedia

Formerly, the station had the callsign KXA and had a classical music format. It was in a big battle with KING-FM 98.1 and KUOW-FM 94.9, which both on FM were doing the same format. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the station aired an oldies format and was known as "Old Gold 77 KXA". The station dumped oldies and flipped to a simulcast of country station KRPM-FM (now KBKS-FM) and changed call letters to KRPM. The station would change call letters to KULL in 1991, but maintained the country format. In a format swap in 1995 with AM 1090, the station received the call letters KNWX and the talk format. The station would acquire the current call letters KTTH in 2003.

The most out of touch man in America.

 

 

We usually reserve this for the likes of Dori Monson, but since Herr Dori has been on his best behavior promoting driver's ed videos on his show, we thought we'd scan around the dial and see what the other dullards were opining about.

It seems the poor and underfed according to Sean Hannity are doing just fine, thank you if they would only cut out "the soda and drink more water".  Never mind the fact that soda consumption among teens has been falling.   "Good wholesome" food is readily available too if the poor would just look at the myriad of choices. 

A report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture on food insecurity in America released in September 2011 found that "in 2010, 17.2 million households in America had difficulty providing enough food due to a lack of resources."

Food insecurity rates were substantially higher than the national average for households with incomes near or below the current federal poverty line ($22,350 for a family of four), households with children headed by single women or single men, and black and Hispanic households.  

 

 

Herr Hannity blames the fact that most of the poor he has dined with have too many of the things he has too like 2 color tv's (do they make any other TV besides a color tv?) and "other things" which obviously has led to their nutritional decline.

War of the (radio) worlds

Industry watchers are eagerly anticipating the pending showdown between Clear Channel and Cumulus as the latter is adding new voices and services to their line up. Maybe the most interesting face off starts next week when Mike Huckabee goes directly up against Rush Limbaugh (770 KTTH M-F 9a-12p).  Now that Rush has gotten himself in some hot water, however temporary, will listeners tune in to Huckabee as an alternative? Cumulus certainly hopes so, and also hopes that audience will give the other new voices, such as Ryan Seacrest, a chance as well.

The New York Times has this to say:

 "Cumulus, which is publicly traded, and Clear Channel, which is privately held, mostly by Thomas H. Lee Partners and Bain Capital, are highly profitable. But Cumulus and Clear Channel are also saddled with enormous amounts of debt — $20 billion in Clear Channel’s case and $2.8 billion in Cumulus’s. For years they have been squeezing costs out at stations by laying off employees and cutting local programming."

Cumulus hopes to offer alternative programming with other voices, such as Seacrest and Geraldo Rivera, as well as local traffic news, to advertisers looking to buy time on shows with less controversial hosts.

Our friend over at Daily Kos, Joan McCarter, says, "With Huckabee, it's all of the conservatism, none of the hate. Well, none of the explicit hate, implied maybe, given Huckabee's extreme conservatism shielded under the nice-guy image...Whether this can make a huge dent in Clear Channel's dominance in talk radio remains to be seen. They've got 900 stations to Cumulus' 580. Limbaugh's show runs on 600 of Clear Channel's stations. So far, 140 stations have contracted to air Huckabee's show, but significantly "only about 45 of those stations are owned and operated by Cumulus, meaning that the other stations that agreed to carry Huckabee's show have no affiliation with the company."

 Washington listeners can find Huckabee on the following stations:

                          KBKW AM 145  Aberdeen           

                          KEDO AM 1400 Longview

                          KBSN AM 1470 Moses Lake

                          KNCW FM 92.7 Omak

                          KOMW AM 680 Omak
 

                          KONA AM 610  Pasco

                          KONP AM 1450 Port Angeles

                          KCIS AM 630 Seattle

                          KVNI AM 1080 Spokane

                          KXLY AM 920 Spokane

                          KBBO AM 980 Yakima

MoveOn pile on, targets Rush in Seattle

[ed. note: While Rachelle is doing a great job on politically themed posts, she doesn't have a specific background in radio. So, to supplement the crack (addicted) BlatherWatch News Team, we've invited "Radiohead" to post on the business of radio, in Seattle and nationally. Radiohead has been on the air in Seattle for over a decade, but he or she is not saying which station he or she is now on. For totally understandable reasons.

If you're also in the radio biz, Radiohead wants your scoops and gossip! As always, anonymity is completely guaranteed. E-mail us at [email protected].]

The headlines have, you know, Moved On. Trayvon Martin is the cause du jour, and Sandra Fluke is so early March. But the online liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org is now on the case!

This week, Seattle area members of MoveOn.org received an e-mail, ostensibly from MoveOn.org member Reilly Anderson, specifically targeting Bonneville Broadcasting and Rush Limbaugh's 9a-12p weekdaily broadcast on KTTH-770. The letter urged recipients to sign a MoveOn petition demanding that KTTH pull Limbaugh's show:

...this time Limbaugh has gone too far, and it has sparked a nationwide backlash. At least 140 major advertisers have pulled their ads from the Limbaugh show, and some stations have canceled the show altogether.

Rush is still on the air in Seattle—but if enough local folks speak out together, that could change. We can't let up now. So we are calling on KTTH 770 in Seattle to take Limbaugh off the air for good.

As of Thursday evening, 5,016 people had signed the MoveOn petition. The chances that KTTH - a station which owes its very existence to the snatching away of Limbaugh's show from then-dominant conservative talker KVI - will dump Rush because of the ire of a few thousand people, likely mostly liberals who don't listen to the station in the first place, are less than zero. What's hurt Limbaugh's show, nationally and in local markets, is attempts to target advertisers - not appeals to stations for whom pissing off Libtards is all in a day's work.

However, the chances that MoveOn.org is circulating versions of this letter in every market where Limbaugh broadcasting, signed in each by a willing local MoveOn acolyte, are quite high. ("Seattle" and "KTTH 770" were the only words in either the petition or the e-mail that were specific to this market. Data merge, baby.)

And the chances are 100% that MoveOn.org now has more information on 5,016 (and counting) people from the Seattle area that it can use in future fundraising efforts. Multiply that by cost-free e-mails to MoveOn.org members in the coverage areas of each of Limbaugh's 600 or so stations, and you'd have to conclude that MoveOn.org's opportunistic concern won't much impact Limbaugh's show, and certainly won't help Fluke or any of the other people Limbaugh will surely slime in the future.

But it works great for MoveOn.org's bottom line.

Bonneville: drop rush limbaugh from KTTH now!

Rush Limbaugh is the exact opposite of any moral standard the LDS (Mormon) Church professes to uphold.

Bonneville International, who owns KIRO and the Rush Limbaugh-bearing KTTH is owned outright by the LDS Church.

Rush Limbaugh is in big trouble. Mitt Romney (the country's most famous Mormon) is in big trouble for his tepid response to Rush's slut-shaming tirade against this young woman exercising her political rights in the nation's capitol.

Bonneville and the LDS Church would go a long way towards some community respect in this town, if they had the courage to drop Rush from KTTH. It should be simple-  they outlined some good reasons in 2009 in their Code of Deseret Media.

While we're not terribly optimistic they will live up to these stated principles (they've had many opportunities), we're hopeful that this latest porqueria from Big Pants will be the camel's straw.

The Code was supposed to force a “‘reawakening to righteousness,’ and be a ‘puritanical purge’ and series of ‘reorganizations’ at the Deseret News [their flagship paper] that replaced experienced reporters and editors with younger, more light-filled, devout [and cheaper] people.”

They made a big deal of removing Sean Hannity from their mother station, KSL in Salt Lake City in deference to their Code. But they didn't touch the delusional pig, Glenn Beck, or Hannity in markets like Seattle. They did cut the mic of vile reactionary scum, Michael Savage in Seattle, but for the most part, kept the wingers that pulled the ratings.

To Bonneville: there will be a backlash, we assure you. This is a progressive town which has a long history of honoring women in the public and private sectors.

Do the right thing and be rid of this man. 

He dishonors you, the women of Seattle, and his stinking up of the airwaves bodes ill not only for Romney's future (your dreams of mainstreaming your faith in this country rest heavily in his candidacy) but also for building respect for your faith in this community.

Have gun, will broadcast

By Geov Parrish. KEXP, Eat the State

Bonneville's KSL.com in Salt Lake City - the same fine, moral, LDS-owned folks who yanked Sean Hannity because he didn't meet the upstanding corporate code of the company (which also owns Seattle's KIRO-FM and KTTH) - is in trouble for, well, not being very moral. At least, not according to the New York Daily News.

The Mormon Church in Salt Lake City owns one of the most active and unregulated gun sale portals on the web, according to a new report.

An undercover investigation released in December by Mayor Bloomberg's office named KSL.com the third most active gun listings site on the Internet.
The online hub came under scrutiny Monday when the news website Buzzfeed revealed Deseret Media Companies, the for-profit arm of the Mormon Church, operates it.

The mayor's report said the site where 1,327 handguns and 1,003 rifles were listed for sale Monday allows buyers and sellers to complete a gun sale without identifying themselves.

What's the problem with this? Well, legally speaking, nothing: Internet gun sales, along with gun shows, are one of the many NRA-inspired loopholes through which drug dealers, felons, mental cases, and other ne'er-do-wells who couldn't pass a background check can get still their firearms - whether cheap handguns or semi-automatics - without needing to bother with one.

If a law enforcement agency wanted to try starting to trace the firearms sold through KSL.com, undoubtedly they'd find that some of those guns were bought by people not legally permitted to have them. Agents from Bloomberg's office showed how easy it would be: "Undercover agents performed integrity checks on [KSL.com], trying to buy guns while declaring openly that they could not pass a legit background check."

In eight of 12 attempts, the seller happily sold the gun to the shady buyer.

Of course, there are plenty of companies out there that make perfectly legal money doing morally dubious things. Most of the Fortune 500, for example. But Bonneville - the parent company of Deseret Media - has a couple of very particular questions to answer about this debacle:

1) What the hell is a TV/radio web site (the Bonneville equivalent in Seattle is mynorthwest.com) doing operating one of the nation's biggest, and apparently shadiest, online gun bazaars? (Though to be sure, if advertising guns directly on air were legal, the potential for personal testimonials by the air talent is nearly unlimited.)

2) What the hell happened to Deseret Media Company's mission- the one that got Hannity dumped - to "be trusted voices of light and knowledge reaching hundreds of millions of people worldwide"? Which of its corresponding "values" are being upheld by selling truckloads of guns to thugs?

Is it the part about promoting "integrity, civility, morality, and respect for all people"?

Or maybe it's seeking "to instill light and knowledge (or at least a muzzle flash, and powder burns) in my work"?

Ah! Found it! It's covered in Deseret's statement under "Improve Lives," the bit about "to lift, inspire, and help others find enduring happiness." Happiness, after all, is a warm gun.

Whoops. My bad. The real Bonneville value reflected by running guns - and, for that matter, broadcasting Glenn Beck and Dori Monson - is right at the top of its values statements: "I honor principles espoused by our owner in the products and services I provide."

Principles like, for example, "anything for a warm buck."