If You Wanted to Kill Local Radio . . .
By Brian Lambert
So Clear Channel, once reviled as The Evil Empire by people like me—before and after I worked for it (while there, my term of endearment was, "big ugly company")—has fired Dan "The Geezer" Donovan and 589 others around the country in its latest spasm of carp-flop death throes. News for KTLK, the so-called "News Talk" station, will now come entirely from KOA in Denver, just as so much of the, uh, music pumped out to Clear Channel's provincial stations comes from tiny little one-man studios in places such as Minneapolis.
KOOL 108 will go totally robot—no quipping between blasts of nostalgia—and along with Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, Twin Cities listeners will almost certainly be hearing more of "high-quality national acts," such as Ryan Seacrest via the flopping empire's Premium Choice syndication package.
Do you like shamelessly lame corporate jargon? How about this Clear Channel home office description of what comes next as its stock price slides below a buck a pop—technically already a "penny stock"—" ... a multi-point plan to raise the bar for radio programming across all dayparts and platforms, including online and mobile.”
"To raise the bar . . . ." From what? Something a blind mole could get over?
The similarities to what has the Star Tribune and other big papers in bankruptcy are stark, to say the least. The big boys bet—preferably with someone else's money—that the valuation ratios would keep climbing . . . ten-times billing, fifteen-times billing, twenty-times billing. Now, having ignored the impact of digital technology (iPod) and the broadening appeal of taste fragmentation (news/info and music via the Internet), the tent has collapsed.
As the Bushies used to like to say, "Who could have anticipated . . . ?"
OK, it hasn't completely collapsed, like, say, The Hindenberg. Jason Lewis—a local act—rose to number one in the 25 to 54 afternoon Arbitron ratings just released, a clear indication that there is still at least one salary to be covered by tea bagging and Obama-bashing. But Clear Channel's bet—like newspapers—was that the public revered constancy, that is to say the same product looking and sounding pretty much as it always has, no matter how many million MP3 players and websites were being bought and created.
The enormous debt loads required—to deliver huge profits to the major players moving from private to public (and in Clear Channel's case) back to private—meant every traditional element of every traditional format had to stay precisely as it was, with the only variable being the number of people required to produce it.
If any Clear Channel executive wants to explain the cost/benefit logic of canning Dan Donovan, I'm all ears. My eyes glaze at the thought of listening to Golden Oldies. But if you do have an audience that laps up nostalgia, give it to me straight, are you seeing research somewhere that says that same nostalgia-loving audience is not as interested in the era-appropriate humor of a jock they remember from way back when . . . as they are in the musty old tunes? Or, put another way, how much is a mega-conglomerate really saving by whacking Donovan or any of these people?
I must also say a kind word about Dan Barreiro's producer/sidekick, Joe Anderson, AKA "Mr. Phun." Barreiro is a quality act. But he and everyone who thinks two seconds about radio knows how much Anderson meant to the sound of that show.
Anyway . . . it really is kind of hopeless. Mass media is an endangered species. (What? You want tele-type sound effects for news flashes like that?) But the irony is the inability of these mastodon-size debt beasts to serve any number of potentially valuable niche audiences, people looking for broadcast formats beyond . . . classic rock; pop country; golden oldies; tea bag talk; and half-assed, mailed-in news.
I only mention restoring The Fairness Doctrine these days to annoy my paranoid right-wing friends—you know, the ones hoarding guns and bottled water for when Obama sends them to FEMA camps and turns us into Sweden with baseball. But with Clear Channel, Citadel (KQRS's parent), and CBS Radio at low ebb, now might be a good time to put the squeeze on the industry—or at least the next generation of owners, as the barons who oversaw the collapse slink away with their winnings—for legitimate, verifiable "localism."
Empires such as Clear Channel and the bazillion "Christian" broadcasters are terrified of true "localism" because it impedes their one-stop profit-taking with syndicated acts such as Limbaugh, Hannity, and the vast chorus of wing-nut preachers.
I frankly don't get the appeal or need for music radio at all anymore. Seriously, who needs it? If it all vanished tomorrow, it'd take even the dimmest Luddite ten minutes to adapt.
But that's just me.
There is still life though in broadcast news/talk, assuming the sellers clean up and modernize their products, which means adjusting with the era and the culture and testing formats they haven't been able to play with under the weight of the casino debt that has now crushed them.
KOOL 108 will go totally robot—no quipping between blasts of nostalgia—and along with Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, Twin Cities listeners will almost certainly be hearing more of "high-quality national acts," such as Ryan Seacrest via the flopping empire's Premium Choice syndication package.
Do you like shamelessly lame corporate jargon? How about this Clear Channel home office description of what comes next as its stock price slides below a buck a pop—technically already a "penny stock"—" ... a multi-point plan to raise the bar for radio programming across all dayparts and platforms, including online and mobile.”
"To raise the bar . . . ." From what? Something a blind mole could get over?
The similarities to what has the Star Tribune and other big papers in bankruptcy are stark, to say the least. The big boys bet—preferably with someone else's money—that the valuation ratios would keep climbing . . . ten-times billing, fifteen-times billing, twenty-times billing. Now, having ignored the impact of digital technology (iPod) and the broadening appeal of taste fragmentation (news/info and music via the Internet), the tent has collapsed.
As the Bushies used to like to say, "Who could have anticipated . . . ?"
OK, it hasn't completely collapsed, like, say, The Hindenberg. Jason Lewis—a local act—rose to number one in the 25 to 54 afternoon Arbitron ratings just released, a clear indication that there is still at least one salary to be covered by tea bagging and Obama-bashing. But Clear Channel's bet—like newspapers—was that the public revered constancy, that is to say the same product looking and sounding pretty much as it always has, no matter how many million MP3 players and websites were being bought and created.
The enormous debt loads required—to deliver huge profits to the major players moving from private to public (and in Clear Channel's case) back to private—meant every traditional element of every traditional format had to stay precisely as it was, with the only variable being the number of people required to produce it.
If any Clear Channel executive wants to explain the cost/benefit logic of canning Dan Donovan, I'm all ears. My eyes glaze at the thought of listening to Golden Oldies. But if you do have an audience that laps up nostalgia, give it to me straight, are you seeing research somewhere that says that same nostalgia-loving audience is not as interested in the era-appropriate humor of a jock they remember from way back when . . . as they are in the musty old tunes? Or, put another way, how much is a mega-conglomerate really saving by whacking Donovan or any of these people?
I must also say a kind word about Dan Barreiro's producer/sidekick, Joe Anderson, AKA "Mr. Phun." Barreiro is a quality act. But he and everyone who thinks two seconds about radio knows how much Anderson meant to the sound of that show.
Anyway . . . it really is kind of hopeless. Mass media is an endangered species. (What? You want tele-type sound effects for news flashes like that?) But the irony is the inability of these mastodon-size debt beasts to serve any number of potentially valuable niche audiences, people looking for broadcast formats beyond . . . classic rock; pop country; golden oldies; tea bag talk; and half-assed, mailed-in news.
I only mention restoring The Fairness Doctrine these days to annoy my paranoid right-wing friends—you know, the ones hoarding guns and bottled water for when Obama sends them to FEMA camps and turns us into Sweden with baseball. But with Clear Channel, Citadel (KQRS's parent), and CBS Radio at low ebb, now might be a good time to put the squeeze on the industry—or at least the next generation of owners, as the barons who oversaw the collapse slink away with their winnings—for legitimate, verifiable "localism."
Empires such as Clear Channel and the bazillion "Christian" broadcasters are terrified of true "localism" because it impedes their one-stop profit-taking with syndicated acts such as Limbaugh, Hannity, and the vast chorus of wing-nut preachers.
I frankly don't get the appeal or need for music radio at all anymore. Seriously, who needs it? If it all vanished tomorrow, it'd take even the dimmest Luddite ten minutes to adapt.
But that's just me.
There is still life though in broadcast news/talk, assuming the sellers clean up and modernize their products, which means adjusting with the era and the culture and testing formats they haven't been able to play with under the weight of the casino debt that has now crushed them.
© 2008 MSP Communications, Inc. All rights reserved
As noted previously, I am not a fan of the fairness doctrine. I do remain a bit puzzled that Air America didn't take off when Bush was in office like Limbaugh and Lewis are with Obama in office.
But -- I do think the FCC needs to wake up and make radio local again. We are close to everything being piped into this market. Clear Channel drove the price up on stations so that no one could afford to run them. It's not the talent costs that is killing radio, it's the debt. Even Lewis is no longer officially local since he is syndicated.
LAMBERT: Liberals don't seem as interested in the infallible demagogue personality shtick as conservatives. The "think this" stuff just doesn't play as well.
Posted by: Dave on April 30, 2009 at 6:22 AM
Barreiro is a quality act.
Define quality? I keep hoping one of you guys would take on this maniacal blow-hard. I'm a former fan who has pretty much stopped listening with any regularity.
Granted, he's no Soucheray, but his show has become dull, predictable, and he's as much a parody as those he likes to mock and ridicule down the dial. Maybe it's just me, but this whole "get off my lawn" radio is just way less interesting these days. I agree with you that "Phun" was adept at times of reigning him in just enough.
Maybe I imagined this, but my perception is the he used to come off more as a journalist who happened to have a radio show -- his patter was more thought out, deeper and well-reasoned and relied less on this angry-ranting d.b. shtick than your average blow-hard talker.
My opinion is this is a guy who now treats his listeners with contempt. I also hate the thin veneer of his act. For example, for years the guy relentless savaged Glen Mason, to the point where it seemed almost personal. Then suddenly when Mason is useful to him, he's a pussycat.
I think he could really benefit from a strong foil or at least some serious competition but I guess that's not likely to happen.
LAMBERT: i know what you're saying, and I've heard enough sneers about Barreiro's "you can't make it up" tic to assume plenty of others have reached the point where familiarity as bred ... well, boredom. But as you may have noticed with my periodic defense of MPR, I operate on a comparison scale, and Barreiro -- filling at least an hour a day more than any human should -- is still better stuff than almost all of his competition. I am of course waiung for the photos of Vince Flynn and him in a tacky tryst at a cheap motel.
Posted by: Mike on April 30, 2009 at 9:32 AM
Since MPR has pioneered the art of putting right end of dial music on the left end of the dial, maybe these Clear Channel stations could be given to community organizations after the big bankruptcy.
Once upon a time radio used to be wonderful. Then the suits took it over and it's sucked ever since. What Clear Channel did to radio was criminal.
LAMBERT: But as you say, the upside is that having presided over such a stunning devaluation of properties, Clear Channel's empire should be reachable by much less well endowed entrepreneurs.
Posted by: Mark Gisleson on April 30, 2009 at 1:27 PM
Perhaps it is time for KFAI to add a news/talk station to the mix. Coporate funding might be a problem, but..........
LAMBERT: Well, a metro-wide signal is always nice, and KFAI could use a series of humor injections ...
Posted by: John McCormick on April 30, 2009 at 2:34 PM
Going against the grain here, maybe, but I recommend David Cummings' "Rockin' in Rhythm" show, 6 to 9 a.m. Wednesdays on KFAI-FM (90.3 and 106.7 FM). To tell the truth, I usually catch it online at http://www.kfai.org/node/69?page=0%2C1 . I can't bring in KFAI on any of my radios in the house and have to get in the car to hear it live. Cummings plays a lot of 1950s and '60s rock 'n' roll, but also an eclectic mix of other stuff -- Bob & Ray skits, a two-part interview with Minneapolis native Noel Neill, who played Lois Lane on TV's "The Adventures of Superman" in the 1950s. His show is the antithesis of antiseptic, robo-programmed, doomed format radio. He reminds me of the great Art Hellyer on WCFL Chicago when I was in grade school in the mid-'50s. A nostalgia fix, for sure, but a unique local product. Too bad he's on so early, on a station powered by flashlight batteries.
LAMBERT: My affinity for nostalgia is pretty low, but you can do it well ... and badly. Who remembers The Firesign Theater? There are all sorts of great stand up comedy bits that I'd much rather listen to for 20 minutes than a "rock block" of Heart, Foreigner, BTO and The Who.
Posted by: Dick Parker on May 2, 2009 at 12:29 AM
radio geek fact check:
Dan Donovan is not Dan "Donuts" Donovan.
You're thinking Michael J. "Doughnuts" Douglas. He was half of Knapp & Doughnuts on KS95 for years. Was previously on U100, and did work for KOOL-108's morning show at some point relatively more recently.
Prior to KOOL-108, Donovan was also on KS95 for quite a few years.
LAMBERT: D'oh! Brain flatulence. I should have said, "The Geezer".
Posted by: Chuck T on May 5, 2009 at 1:35 AM
Brian,
Erich Boehlert has a new column in Media Matters on Clear Channel and Limbaugh you might find interesting.
LAMBERT: Which one is that?
Posted by: john sherman on May 5, 2009 at 9:17 PM
May 5, "Limbaugh's Living Large while Radio Boss Clear Channel Implodes."
Boehlert does some of the math, including some figures I had thought previously reserved for gnp's.
Posted by: john sherman on May 6, 2009 at 11:10 AM
I don't have experience with the mechanics of running a radio station. But it seems to me that the "product" is the music and the person who introduces the tunes and the ads. Then it stands to reason that the "customer" is they who LISTEN. I listened to The Geezer every day on my way home from work and every Sunday. I didn't even mind if it was a repeat. I have been saddened by the loss of The Geez without so much as a By Your Leave. He deserved better. And so did THE CUSTOMERS. No one asked ME how I felt about it. Now I don't CARE. I shut off all my clear channel buttons in my car and put the clock radios over to buzzer. Boycott boycott boycott. When clear channel goes belly up they will have no one to blame but themselves. I hope its workin for em. I wish Dan Donovan and Lois Mae the very very best. They didn't deserve this and neither did I. We. And I'm spouting this message at every board I can. I hope The Geezer hears and maybe even Clear Channel. But I doubt the latter. Not sure they can read. They lost me. For good. ah well... Thanks for the opportunity. Pinkie
Posted by: Pinkie on May 19, 2009 at 12:07 AM
Brian, you wrote long ago about Clear Channel's role in attacking "Beat Radio," the local (and then-unlicensed) dance music station. The guy behind the station warned us back then about the snakes at Clear Channel.
Karma's a beeyotch, isn't it?
LAMBERT: I should track the "Beat Radio" guy down. His nemesis was an owner in Rochester, as I remember, but the new Clear Channel is in no position anymore to restrict anyone who wants to "broadcast".
Posted by: Two Left Feet on May 27, 2009 at 2:51 AM