Clear Channel whacks a bunch of popular Cleveland radio personalities

Different times. This isn't 1965 any more. There haven't been regional hits, a la the Top 40/early AOR days, in 30 years. There hasn't been a premium placed on being first on a record in a long time. Classic quote from a PD that I saw in one of the trades: "You never get hurt by the record you're <b>not</b> playing." It's a different mindset. If the refinery down the street catches fire, no one is depending on Z-88 to provide information, because Z-88 hasn't had local news in 20 years. Different times.

 

I don't know what the current climate is like, but local news used to be a profit center for TV stations. That's why they have two and three-hour morning shows that contain 10 minutes worth of news and have gradually expanded the evening news to cover two or three hours.

Local radio news went away with deregulation. Most music-based FMs have someone reading headlines in the morning, otherwise nothing.

 

In a lot of small and mid-sized markets, it isn't uncommon for a Big 3 affiliate that hasn't had much ratings luck to chuck the news department altogether, or run a simulcast deal with another station in town. Jacksonville's the biggest one I can think of, but I'm sure there are plenty of others.

 

Paul and I went to HS together and were teammates on the wrestling team (him in the early matches, me toward the end, if not the end, if you get my drift ...)

I've run into him from time to time over the years and have always enjoyed shooting the breeze with him. Good guy. Better journalist. Like the way he writes.

He was really honest about the experience on his blog. Here's my favorite part:

"I'm 30 years into a writing career. Writing is a solitary act. It's sitting in front of a laptop in a home office, dog at your feet, trying in 700 words to make sense of the sports world. It is not yelling into a microphone about Dusty Baker's latest perceived screwup. Writing is rational. Radio, at least as defined locally, is biting the heads off live chickens."

Choke on those live chickens, and your own, you fucking cocksuckers at Clear Channel.

 

Or instead of a fire, a train derails and leaks anhydrous amonia putting people's lives in danger and no one is at the station.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minot_Train_Derailment

 

An apt summation.

 

Thanks Ben. Raise your glass, and kick their ass.

 

If someone is staffing those stations at 2:30 a.m. (which is pretty unlikely in places bigger than Minot), how exactly do they alert people who are sleeping? Do they call each citizen?

 

Hey Clear Channel, I have CDs in my car (c'mon, I have an old car). Next car, I'm going to have an iPod jack too. Suck on that!

 

I have a lot of respect for Paul Daugherty and his newspaper work, but is he saying he didn't know those truths about sports talk radio before he signed on to do a show?

 

Yeah. Another triumph of the Reaganauts.

Thanks to their mania for deregulation, you can now turn on your radio at pretty much any location in the contiguous 48 states, and hear the same three or four stations. Woo hoo.

 

All the Detroit clear channel stations have new DJs this week. Ones who work four hour shifts. You know what that means - 20 hour weeks. No insurance, or other benefits, less pay. Shitty.