America loves Sporks!

https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/02/netflix-pleads-with-people-to-stop-doing-the-bird-box-challenge/amp/

If it has not come up before, my father was completely blind from a disease called retinitis pigmentosa. This meant that by the early twenties, his vision started to fail as the retina could no longer sense light. By the time I was born, he had absolutely no vision left.

My older brother and sister were subjected to something similar to The Bird box challenge. For one day, they were unable to see and had to see how difficult it actually is to be blind.

A few examples to consider:

• Open your wallet and tell the denomination of each bill
• Identify the contents of the refrigerator
• Eat a plate of spaghetti
• Use a public restroom
• Cross a busy street at a crosswalk
• Order a meal in a restaurant
• Read the newspaper (or Drudge report)

Now imagine dealing with this for the rest of your life, not just a single day.

Unfortunately, my brother’s wife has no empathy and encouraged my mother to “stop being a slave”, which ultimately pushed my parents apart. You can’t make your spouse completely dependent on you and then suddenly announce you are “on your own”.

Air1, the Christian Rock companion to KLove has apparently realized you can’t trick teenagers into loving Jesus with fake rock music

The new playlist is described as Worship music, still targeting younger listeners but with songs where the lyrics matter

So the things I heard was BART glommed onto money to buy new rail cars, construction workers are being hired from minority communities and high paying jobs are being generated, even if no high speed rail train ever runs

 Radio industry commentator and newsgather Tom Taylor is decided it is time to spend time with his family, and is Ending the Tom Taylor newsletter 

Countess / Robyn will not know what to do.

Countess is in the hospital – she has had a serious cold or the flu the past few days.   This morning she indicated  she was having trouble breathing and needed an ambulance.   It was serious enough they admitted her.  It sounds like her condition is getting worse.   If you believe in the power of prayer, this would be the time to ask God for help.

I have the same malady, but not yet as serious – but it is a struggle even to go to the bathroom or fetch water.  I may wind up in trouble if I fall and nobody knows…

Of course, CNN hopes so.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/04/media/weekly-standard-future-uncertain/index.html

The publication is currently owned by reclusive Conservative Philip Anschutz, who also runs the Washington Examiner.    The Weekly Standard is most associated with neocon Bill Kristol.   The publication remains firmly #nevertrump and recently volunteered to be an official Facebook “fact-checker”.   Their only friends live in “the swamp”, feeding from the trough of Federal money borrowed from China.

We already have Laura Ingraham and Michael Medved going away this month and NBC Sports is ending most of its programming.

Fox News Radio, which used to carry Bill O’Reilly, Brian and the Judge, John Gibson and Tom Sullivan – never got traction on terrestrial radio, only on SiriusXM.   A large part of the reason was probably that Clear Channel’s Premiere (Beck/Limbaugh/Hannity) has been “repping” the Fox lineup to radio stations.  That is a pretty clear conflict of interest, but the industry has lived with it.  Talk Radio Network was frozen out in syndication partly because they were repped by Westwood One (later acquired by Cumulus Media) that had its own competing lineup, but Westwood One owned no radio stations.  Once merged into Cumulus, the same conflict of interest comes into play.

The current Fox News Talk lineup is very weak.  Todd Starnes used to be a fill-in and weekend host.  Brian Kilmeade is still going strong, but without Judge Napolitano.   The other hosts I know nothing about.

Fox News is moving their affiliate representation to Westwood One (Cumulus), but that won’t solve the issues.  News Corp owns no radio stations to form a critical mass of listeners.  The only substantial station that carries Kilmeade is the Cox Radio flagship WSB-AM in Atlanta, but they air the show from midnight to 3 AM as inexpensive filler programming.

In other news, Glenn Beck’s “the Blaze” and Mark Levin backed CRTV are merging their streaming operations.   Countess follows this more closely than me and says health problems and Levin’s father dying might be why CRTV is no longer as important.

Out West, Armstrong and Getty is a syndicated Conservative talk show, but not well known beyond California.  They are ramping up to try to capture some Laura Ingraham affiliates, but the rest of the country doesn’t much care about the lost cause of being a Conservative in California.  Liberals hate monocultures, unless it is their political beliefs system.

https://radioinsight.com/headlines/172390/nbc-sports-radio-to-cease-24-7-programming/

When Cumulus Media acquired Westwood One in 2013, they acquired the NBC Radio trademark.    NBC (operated by RCA) had dominated radio for the first two decades of network radio.  WNBC and the Talknet network were abandoned when GE acquired the TV network.    The NBC Radio intellectual property was sold to Westwood One, where the trademark was kept alive by pretending that Dirk Van’s First Light syndicated morning show was a production of NBC News.  Dirk retired in 2015

In 2012, Westwood One decided that there was not enough sports talk radio so they started NBC Sports radio, competing against ESPN, Fox Sports, Yahoo Sports and the brand new CBS Sports Radio, which was syndicated by Cumulus Media.

When Cumulus acquired Westwood One in 2013, it left them syndicating two competing sports talk networks.  CBS Radio was not happy that the sports talk shows they produced had a direct conflict within their syndicator.  Few affiliates adopted NBC Sports radio, and no major stations.

In 2018, with Cumulus through bankruptcy and CBS out of the radio business, it was logical for Cumulus to wind down NBC sports radio. Probably only to protect the trademark, Westwood One will continue to do a three hour show from 6-9 AM and refeed those recorded three hours to the West Coast.   Morning drive is the time of day radio stations are least likely to want syndicated programming.   

The new shortened lineup will appear January 1, 2019.   Most syndication contracts require 30 days notice if the syndicator plans to change programming, as stations have already sold advertising.   So several spork talk hosts will be having a sad holiday season.

Alex Jones has made the same accusations for years that convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein ran a pedophile sex ring that procured underage girls for leaders in the Democratic Party, including flying Bill Clinton on Epstein’s private plane to Epstein’s private sex island.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article221897990.html

However, it appears that their motivation for publication is they found a very indirect way to work Donald Trump into their headline.