13th Annual State of San Diego Radio Address (Jan 1, 2010)

Good Gregorian New Years Day (a day early), ladies and gentlemen.

I've been reading a lot of stories in the wires about what the traditional TV and radio media outlets are going to have to be facing in the decade ahead.

Here's the big picture as I read it. The local television broadcasters, according to where you are reading this locally, are going to have to think about making a choice between serving the local public interest with news and public service programming, or maintain an expensive prescence on a broadcast TV channel.

The downside of continuing to pay for maintaining its broadcast TV channel is not only additional expenses especially after pouring in millions of dollars on just new transmitting equipment alone for its DTV operation, but its DTV signals are basically a hit or miss situation, not like it was with analog where it was a hit, near hit, somewhat a hit, mear miss, and miss situation. More viewers are getting the same signals on their cable companies' lineups than are watching them over the air, which is estimated by me to be an average of four cable to one non-cable.

In San Diego, problems with TV reception of DTV signals is coupled with bad terrain, four places for groups of local TV transmitters (Poway, La Jolla, Tijuana, and Rancho San Diego), and mostly the inability to take TV with you due to lack of dependable portable DTV sets.

There is a problem with many AM stations today. They're really struggling for survival. XEPE 1700 in Tijuana is basically on a shoe-string operation. XESPN 800 had to flip to Spanish language sports while moving ESPN Radio to its sister FM channel, XESUR 540 keeps flipping formats, and except for KOGO, KFMB, and XX Sports, all of the local stations on the AM band are hurting with low listener levels; even XTRA 1360 has been doing poorly for two years.

The solution? Why not let the major TV outlets shut down their broadcast TV transmitters, giving up their FCC licenses, and have them put the audio portion of their TV stations on the AM radio stations. Imagine tuning in 1700 to hear KGTV, maybe say 540 for KFMB-TV, perhaps KCBQ for KNSD, like KLSD for Fox 5, to hear the local news, network programming, syndicated fare, and even Saturday morning children's programs. We can already hear XETV's audio signal on 87.7 FM solely because channel 6 is licensed to broadcast in the range of 82-88 MHz, and it's a coincidence that many FM tuners extend the lower end of the limit of the FM band to 87.7 where the audio for channel 6 is heard. In case anyone cares, they can hear the audio portions of Gossip Girl and Smallville if they're out at night.

Since broadcast TV went from analog to digital, it's been a lot harder to get a TV signal in places where its signal was borderline in analog, but in digital, it's either clear or nothing. Most people cannot get the L.A. TV signals anymore except if they live in a direct line from Mount Wilson and high in altitude. Wish Cox would consider adding KCAL to its lineup so we can see the Laker road games again.

It's not just the AM stations that are suffering. FM stations are also suffering from revenue hits even though more people listen to the stations on the FM band than on the AM band, which is why many AM stations want to migrate to the FM band where they can. Earlier today, I read about Finest City Broadcasters being forced to sell its physical assets used to program three Mexican-owned radio stations due to a default on its loan, and is forced to sell its radio assets. Since FCB took over the three stations from Clear Channel in 2005 at a price that is considered overinflated, the company has been struggling to make ends meet.

I find it funny that I haven't read any news about the smaller local outlets having any financial problems. We have KPRI 102.1, the sole station of Compass Broadcasting, that seems to be doing well. No news about Midwest TV, owner of KFMB-TV, AM, and FM, about any financial problems at all was reported. Nothing about Lincoln Financial or CBS Radio having problems, though the latter is rumored to be willing to shed their two stations if their asking price is met and they're not in a hurry to sell.

What's been going on in the past decade is that cable TV, Internet, and portable music players have been seriously encroaching on the time spent with the tradional TV, AM, and FM stations, and the time for the traditional media has gotten so small that they're not able to command the high advertising revenue needed to sustain operations.

Radio is doing whatever it thinks the people want, but the real problem is the Internet. There's just too much diversity on the Internet that interests the general public. Radio just can't compete with that even if they reduce the commercial time per hour.

Watch TV on youtube, hulu, and other places? That's time taken away from the tradional broadcast outlets.

Listen to your mp3s and streaming Internet radio stations? That's time taken away from both local radio and TV.

So what is local radio doing to meet those challenges in terms of programming, rather than to cut salaries and staff, consolidate operations, deploy more voice-tracking jocks, and having people not interested in music select the songs that should get played on the air? I just don't see any excitement in terms of music happening on the radio, and haven't heard any wow music formats from the big corporate stations since they took over the once locally operated stations a deacade ago.

The year 2009 has been a so-so year even in the land of comedy. I'm not kidding about this one. Watered-down comedy (just like watered down rock, rhythmic, and country has been the staple for corporate radio) seems to be the thing there, and the influence from the playlists of corporate radio stations has driven me to look deeper for edgy comedy on the Internet. We have morning radio jocks trying to be funny with jokes that fall flat. We have parodists ripping off top 40 hits selected by radio suits resulting in better words for poorly composed melodies. We have mainstream emo songs posing as comedy. Huh? We have demented songs about suicide and vandalism posing as mainstream. Yikes. This is screwed up!

Watered-down dance on Clear Channel radio drove me to listen to Internet radio stations like ipartyradio.com (which is having its year-end countdown tonight and tomorrow). Watered-down country drove me to find punk- and rock-flavored country on the Internet. Blues are alive on the Creative Commons licensed circuit. New traditional rock and roll music can be found on the Internet. New comedy that is traditional can be found as well.

Watered-down music is what's killing the broadcast radio stations. Homogenous right-wing talk is also to blame. Left-leaning right-bashing radio is a bore.

People want pure raw entertainment. They want real comedy, real rock, real alternative, real R&B, real funk, real dance, and real country. Watered-down suit-driven playlists are an insult to the collective intelligence of the public and they won't tolerate it at all.

This is why people want to hear oldies from the 50s-80s. The music back then was good. The music directors who made them famous had a passion for music in those days. People want to hear classic rock, funk, oldies, new wave, soul, retro dance, and more. The music that came out on the radio through the mid-90s were made famous mostly from the music directors of those times before radio consolidation and homogenization of playlists occurred later in the 90s.

So to make it a close for the address, we still need a pure dance station, a classic hit station that plays more than just classic and alternative rock all the time (when will Jack play the funk and dance hits of the past on a regular basis?), a retro late 80s and early 90s oldie station (it's about time for that one!), and a traditional rock station that features new rock, blues, and other guitar-based music without the headbanging noise.

Any takers?

And now, here is a station-by-station evaluation of all the formats for the year 2010:

AM 540 talk - flip back to standards. We need Bing and Celine for an alternative.

AM 600 news/talk - bring back the morning news drive.

AM 760 talk - too right wing. Lose Michael Savage!

AM 800 Spanish language sports - good enough.

AM 910 religion - no comments

AM 1000 talk/oldies - why not go all oldies? Drop the talk and go for it!

AM 1040 gospel - no comments.

AM 1090 sports - flip to 60s and 70s hit radio with sports broadcasts.

AM 1170 talk - simulcast some local TV station audio.

AM 1240 brokered - simulcast some local TV station audio.

AM 1360 sports - simulcast some local TV station audio.

AM 1700 talk - simulcast some local TV station audio.

FM 88.3 jazz - add in more genres.

FM 89.5 news/classical - no comment

FM 90.3 hip hop - needs to add dance R&B music.

FM 91.1 alternative rock - rehire Steve West.

FM 92.1 country - how well is this station doing simulcating KSON-FM?

FM 92.5 old school - mix in some modern dance music.

FM 93.3 top 40 chr - Seriously needs a competetor so it will be forced to improve.

FM 94.1 hot AC - lose Seacrest. Flip to adult pop.

FM 94.9 alternative rock - needs more indie rock.

FM 95.7 country - flip to blues.

FM 96.5 AC - no comment

FM 97.3 country - no comment

FM 98.1 smooth jazz - no comment

FM 98.9 sports - just do the games. Put on rock music otherwise.

FM 100.7 hot AC - be more unpredictable. Play everything that was a hit.

FM 101.5 classic rock - where's the new rock?

FM 102.1 AAA - play some harder rock.

FM 103.7 Hot AC/AAA - reformat to AMP radio.

FM 105.3 hard rock - take more chances on new rock music

FM 105.7 oldies - no comment.

The Top 5 Best Things in Radio in 2009

2. Mike Halloran on FM 94/9. He just won't quit radio and he still has a lot to say about upcoming music.

3. San Diego Charger Radio Broadcasts - Josh Lewin enjoying his fourth season as the play-by-play voice of the Chargers and former Bolts running back Hank Bauer providing color commentary sure beat the monotone Brent Musburger and somebody else calling the ESPN college games. Josh should replace Brent the first chance he gets!

4. All Comedy Radio - in 100 cities, none near San Diego. Any takers?

5. Casey Kasem's Retro Top 40 Countdown Shows - they air on XM channels 7 and 8, but no station locally that I know of.

The Top 5 Worst Things in Radio in 2009

2. AM 540. Make up your mind on a format that will interest listeners for a change.

3. AM 1360. Where's the ratings?

4. Those annoying Kars for Kids commercials. Ugh!

5. Unfunny morning radio jocks. Thanks to PPM, their days are over.

The Top 5 Worst Things in Radio in 2008

2. Sophie FM. What a waste of frequency!

3. AM 1240. Just program something that will get listeners!

4. 91X. No Steve West? No brains!

5. Blazin' 98.9. Dead air sounds better.