This is a sticky post to list changes in radio
Recent Comments
- Fred Stiening said I am now level 67
- TheJerseyDevil said Thanks for checking in, hope you are well
- RebelSansClue said Still working for me!
- Fred Stiening said A programmers work is never done
- Fred Stiening said A 22-year-old man from Utah was turned in by his f...
- Fred Stiening said Dennis Praegar fell in his bathroom in 2014 and is...
- Fred Stiening said Testing
- Fred Stiening said Audacy declared bankruptcy in January 2024
Search
Previous Blogs
-
Recent Posts
Recent comments
- Fred Stiening said I am now level 67
- TheJerseyDevil said Thanks for checking in, hope you are well
- RebelSansClue said Still working for me!
- Fred Stiening said A programmers work is never done
- Fred Stiening said A 22-year-old man from Utah was turned in by his father, and has admitted to shooting and killing Charlie Kirk.
- Fred Stiening said Dennis Praegar fell in his bathroom in 2014 and is now paralyzed, and not likely to ever return to full time broadcastin...
- Fred Stiening said Testing
- Fred Stiening said Audacy declared bankruptcy in January 2024
Archives
Login
Meta
One of the strangest late night shows in syndicated radio, Ground Zero by Clyde Lewis used to be produced by KXL-FM in Portland Oregon, but one day he walked in and was told to pack his bags, although the station would continue to be an affiliate. KXL is owned by Alpha media, the radio owner that just declared bankruptcy recently.
https://groundzeromedia.org/stations/
While Clyde lists KXL as an affiliate, that appears to not be true. His time slot is now been filled by John B Wells
Moody Bible realizes there is no future in AM radio
https://www.dailyherald.com/amp-article/20210402/business/210409886/
WMBI-AM was the flagship of the Moody Bible Institute’s Radio Network based in Chicago. Because Moody did not have access to the AT&T early coax network used by the commercial radio networks, they distributed their programming on records to their stations around the country. It’s not like there is a lot of breaking news regarding the Bible.
A few years ago, I noticed that Moody had shifted all of their AM stations to Spanish language programming. They have now sold off their flagship AM station to a Spanish language religious entity, and expect to sell off the rest soon.
There has been a large growth of protestant churches that appeal to the Spanish language speaking people who have left the Catholic Church. Radio and TV play a large role in this.
Urban family Radio seems to have gone away. EMF, the company behind K-Love decided they needed to target non-white audiences a few years ago. It appears to have not worked out. The last update on their website was around Christmas time.
Chasing after Hispanic audiences also tends not to work out. When your listeners are sending most of their money “back home”, they are not an interesting demographic for businesses who would want to advertise.
TV information is being phased out. It was never really part of the mission of the website, although it was interesting during the digital TV transition.
Well, it is streaming RADIO guide after all.
Unlike the frequently quoted talkers.com, I am not dependent on advertising revenue from the radio biz and have no interest in schmoozing with people in radio management.
The first major affiliate to drop Rush Limbaugh has happened. It was not unexpected. Cox Radio has their own noon-3 guy (Erick Ericskon) they are syndicating, so they dropped “Rush lives on” from WSB-AM and WSBB-FM in Atlanta.
Cox Radio was created by James Cox, the man who ran for president on the Democratic ticket in 1920 with his vice president candidate Franklin Delano Roosevelt. They lost.
My memory is that WSB only reluctantly signed on with Rush. They had been the flagship station for libertarian Neil Bortz, and aspiring presidential candidate Herman Cain. That was not because they wanted Herman Cain to become president.
Cox Radio announced a few years ago that they wanted out of the radio business. They donated 2 AM stations in Connecticut to a religious organization, but apparently did not find any buyers for the other AM stations. The Cox family is one of the richest family of billionaires in the country.
Rush has moved to a former sports talk station WFOM. It is owned by the Dickey family, the folks that flew Cumulus into bankruptcy. They owned several stations in the Atlanta area separate from their management of Cumulus Media.
If you don’t know who Erick Erickson is, he operates redstate.com. here are a couple profiles of him
https://www.ajc.com/blog/radiotvtalk/erick-erickson-adding-three-hour-radio-show-from-noon-about-georgia-politics-starting-wgau-athens/q6W7EZpbqUAeAujFFMo67K/
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/is-the-most-powerful-conservative-in-america-losing-his-edge/383503/
Obviously, his involvement in keeping Georgia “red” was unsuccessful
WFOM-AM and its FM translator cannot even be heard in most of Atlanta. Dickey also own WCNN-AM, a station comparable to WSB in terms of signal. This tells me the Dickey family deliberately wants Rush to go away. The only other good AM candidate is WGKA-AM, a station owned by Salem, but Salem pretty much only carries their own syndicated hosts.
The reality is that Atlanta has turned into a shithole. There probably is not much of an audience for Rush archives in Atlanta anyhow.
You’re absolutely right about Atlanta. The city that years ago adopted the motto “the city too busy to hate” has decided to make hate its #1 activity.
I was reminded that Cumulus sold the iconic WPLJ-FM in New York City to K-Love, the cash cow of Radio.
The breaking up of big radio is a good thing. While deregulation in 1996 was a necessity, the radio business would be healthier with slower consolidation and less debt.
Scooter McGee, one of the more interesting conspiracy hosts has “retired” from KFKA in Greeley Colorado and hangs out on facebook
https://www.facebook.com/scooter.mcgee.9
His last archive show was November 30, 2019
Of the 4,512 licensed AM stations, at least 2,500 now have an FM translator
Mike Huckabee’s investment in radio did not do well
https://radioinsight.com/headlines/177606/educational-radio-foundation-of-east-texas-acquires-tyler-longview-cluster/
He and a partner bought 4 stations inTexas for $1.2 million in 2017, and unloaded the stations to a non-profit for $800,000 in 2019