Monthly Archives: October 2018

Geo’s Media Blog (Comments) 10/17/18

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Hollis W. Dunkan: So you are descended from a Scottish Engineer. Well, then, Laddie, maybe ye can explain why KVIL Engineering in 1978 was such a disaster.Ye are of Clan Johnstone, I see, and fought at the Battle of Sark in 1448. How did that one turn out?

Geo: Actually Hollis, both my Grandfathers were English. Vince on my Mom’s side and Johns (Welsh name meaning, son of King John) on my Dad’s. My Grandmothers were both Scottish, Hunter, and Sutherland.
I’m a programmer so don’t know from engineering but thanks for the read.

Hollis W. Dunkan: Ah, thanks for the clarification. KVIL still sticks out as having the worst politics of any place that I ever worked, and all of it was in Engineering, centered around fellows names Spence, Smart, and Crossno. Sadly, none of the politics was aimed at getting Ron and the guys the Engineering assistance that they needed – that always seemed to be a side-issue.

Geo: Sorry, you had a bad experience at KVIL Hollis. I heard my fair share of whining from the air staff but I don’t recall many of the complaints being about engineering. Know this though, Ron could have anything he wanted, he chose spending most of the money on promotion.

Hollis W. Dunkan: Most of my time at KVIL was good. You always remember people who were a whole lot nicer to you than they had to be, and Ron, Larry Dixon, Ken Barnett, Dan Bell, Len Mailloux, Andy McCollum, and Mike Selden were among the really great people that I worked with. However, the studio at the Park Cities Bank was poorly wired with absolutely no backup for the studio or to either transmitter. At that time, Ron didn’t have control of the Engineering Budget and everything that I did for Ron would blow back on me because Crossno would become jealous and go running to Smart. I believe that my leaving caused Jerry Kablunde to come aboard as CE and I hope that he didn’t face the same situation. As an aside, I was hired by Crossno with instructions to never talk to Chapman because he was crazy. He was not. I am greatly enjoying your blog.

Geo: All of them were always very nice to me Hollis. 🙂

Jack Schell: Hiya, George. It should come as no surprise to you that I have read almost all of your blog essays. Always interesting…even the ones that take us back to your times singing and playing guitar. Maybe the connection stems from my having also been in a band…singing and playing electric bass and guitar. How about THAT!
Today is different. Your “Radio’s Over” hit me like sticking my finger in an electric socket. Ever do that?
Anyway, like you, I can’t help but lament radio’s current era. I’m close enough to DFW to listen to any or all of the stations I “helped”…mostly K— well, YOU know the one. Break’s my heart. AND, I refuse to accept that I am “…out of touch with today’s modern media or whatever.” I do hear some exceptions which make it somewhat better to catch a few personalities who are connecting with their audience. That’s a good thing…but rare.
One thing that might make me ALMOST feel like “I DON’T GET IT” is to hear stations send people to the internet. If I were in charge I tend to think I’d let the internet send people to my radio broadcast. Kinda like the use of newspaper ads, direct mail, magazine ads, and billboards. The internet is compelling…made so by some VERY clever folks. So. why invite radio listeners to go to a place where they might not want to come back? (Could the sales department have anything to do with this process?) I do see plenty of web ads popping up when going to the radio websites…oh well, that’s just me. You have to know that I joined the air wars when you’d better have a good reason for a double-spot or triple-spot. I think I heard a niner recently.
I’ll soon be suggesting that some of my longtime radio pals get together over lunch in Big D to cuss, fuss, and discuss their opinions…might be therapeutic for us all. Might even get Bill G. to fly in. Are you ever down this way?

Art Vuola: Joey Reynolds has been preaching this exact same sermon for the past ten years, but (seemingly) nobody is paying attention.  Next week there will be a ton radio people descending on Orlando for the NAB/RAB Radio Show, the biggest convention for the radio industry.  Everyone will be patting each other on the back and proclaiming how great things are.  I love radio with a great deal of passion, but realistically I agree with this entire piece and about WLTW Lite FM (an appropriate name) and it’s relationship to WCBS-FM.  Did Bob know that BOTH are programmed by the same man…Jim Ryan?  It’s true.  As long that the profit column is longer than the loss column, expect nothing to change in the foreseeable future.  Truly a sad commentary. 
 

John Forsythe: I just retired this year after 50 years in radio. Hanging out in Hawaii right now where radio still sounds original and fun. (although KKCN in Honolulu is big and is programmed like stateside stations but with local music)
I agree that original and fun is always better but comparing kids in the 60’s to kids today, come on, get real. Kids today have so many media choices. A boss jock “posting” a 42-second intro would not interest them. They will respond to a true talent making them laugh and sharing a social media or website video that they can share with friends. There is talent out there but it is a multilayered challenge that most of didn’t have to face in the past.
While in Orlando, check out The News Junkie on Real Radio or evenings on XL 106.7. Some talent is still connecting.

Bob Christy: I’m not an advocate of the “Way Radio Used to Be”. Our memories of the past are better than the reality. In the late 80’s, I bought a 68 Mustang GT. When it was restored, it looked and sounded great, the truth was it didn’t drive worth a damn, the brakes were lousy, it didn’t corner and there was no ventilation. The seats were terrible. I liked it but, it wasn’t a good ride. The reality is a V6 Camry is faster than any of the old muscle cars. Look it up.

What radio had then, what we did with it was terrific for the time and we pushed the business forward. We tossed out the old rules and wrote new ones. I don’t hear any of that energy or progress today. There are things from the past that are valid today. Attention to detail is one. Production quality and technique is another. There are many more, we can discuss later.
 Our California canyon house is almost a hundred years old, when it was built it had kerosene lighting and no central heat or AC. I wouldn’t want to live like that today. What our house does have is style and a certain “feel” to it To my mind those are the qualities that radio today is missing. It’s the same with the new Mustangs, Camaros, and Challengers, they have the style and look of their predecessors, but are much better cars in every respect. 
George and I have discussed this at length, so much so, it drives my lovely wife crazy at times. We’ve gotten beyond the “Old days were great” stage and we’ve moved on. It’s time to discuss the way forward from where the business is right now and where it needs to go.
 
Geo: Yes, we have discussed this into the ground Bobby, it’s time to, “Walk the talk!” Lets create a Blog where we listen to radio stations all over America and then critique them. We could call it “Writing Radio’s Wrongs.”
 
Bob Christy: Remember the old yellowed memo I found, the one that stated explicitly, “No trumpets before 8 AM!”, it was written in the big band days! Must have shortened the playlist up considerably. Plenty to talk about.
 
Ron Below: Sadly, all above posts are true… as BB would say – The Thrill is Gone.
 
Bob Christy: We’re going up to wine country this weekend, I have to decide between the NFL Channel on Sirius/XM or something over the air, there used to be a pretty damn good morning team in Santa Maria. I think when we hit San Francisco I’ll tune in the smoking wreckage of KGO. 
 

Geo: I don’t think they’re done hurting that once great station yet Bobby.

Tim Moore: What Mickey created, Cumulus wrecked in record time. A group that couldn’t take “yes” for an answer. I had the fun of moderating at R& R’s last News Talk Conference in LA. Mickey was on my panel–a fellow Michigan guy by origin. He put his life into KGO. “Smoking wreckage” might be too soft.

Moto: Radio is dead. I think you boys missed the story. It was a few years ago and it received little notice. Few cared and more laughed at its demise. It had become such an awful entertainment venue, more of a dead skunk in the middle of the road, a putrid roadkill carcass. Deregulation was listed as the cause of death, with boring musical formats and even more boring personalities listed as contributing factors. The fact of its timely demise is hardly worth writing about and yet here we are, commiserating over the beating yet another dead horse. It was ruled a suicide.

Geo: We’re looking for the folks that killed it Moto, and I don’t think that just ownership who is is responsible for its demise. I’ve heard some pretty lame breaks on the radio lately that had nothing to do with their bosses. The jock was lame and a way overpaid.

Tom Hoyt: George & Bob,
Youse guys are smart…..but history makes for dull reading if not livened up. In Houston, my home again now, traffic is a nightmare. Mel Karmazin and I once had a fun conversation about how much we both loved traffic jams….that is still true today for radio’s savvy programmers in most medium to large markets. Small market operators we know have it figgered out for their cities and towns. Perhaps seek out those folks who ARE doing good radio…there is still $$$ to be made…somebody, somewhere is doing a great job serving their community, entertaining and informing. Radio is still an adventure, as is life…..not too negative boys…that’s my take on it.

Geo: Nope, we won’t be writing about history Tom, although we may use an incident or two from the past to explain a specific situation. Each station will get an hour to shine and then we’ll talk about what we found. We may even get people such as yourself to choose a station and then participate as we break them down.

Tim Moore: Tom is right guys. The difference is today’s ownership profile is a jagged EKG. As long as there’s a Cox, Hubbard and in secondary markets Mid-West Family (or Duke Wright’s Midwest) a Delmarva and more, some are still doing it right. Not Fairbanks or Susquehanna mind you but in scale, very good.

Geo: Tim, we won’t be comparing any of them to the great companies that you mentioned. Those stations had three very important things going for them, “A Dreamer, A Businessman, and The Son Of A Bitch.” In today’s radio world I think the only one still standing is, “The Son Of A Bitch.”

Paul Cavenaugh: Since you brought it up, I did find a station I thought worth listening to in Islamorada FL of all places. I’m seldom up early enough to catch the morning show down here, but I thought their “Hobie in the Afternoon Experiment” on Sun 103.1 in Islamorada and the Whale in Key West is a pretty decent morning- style afternoon show on both stations. Even more shocking, they played music and featured a local news minute too! Almost like real radio and in a small market like the Keys.

Warren Cosford: As George knows, I sing the praises’ of WMOM in Ludington Michigan. Small Town Radio, intensely Local, owned by a guy who has among The Best Ears for Music of any I know and a Passion which inspires The Kids he has working for him. They’re not ‘Slick’ and often sound ‘Hokey’ but there’s a real Charm to the station. They ‘cleaned up’ at the recent Michigan Broadcaster’s Convention yet there are 9 people working there.
http://www.wmom.fm/Yesterday Elizabeth and I spent the evening with Colin Kennedy, once an Op at The Big 8 CKLW when Paul Drew was PD. Colin claims to have invented The Layover. All I know for sure is…..the first time I heard one was when I arrived in Toronto from Winnipeg to work at CHUM and saw Colin working with Big Tom Rivers. From a Production standpoint, it was like nothing I had ever heard. The two of them were creating Radio to an Extreme. Was that Radio as An Art Form?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSbl2k0snUU Could anyone in Today’s Radio do that today? Would anyone listen?
On the Other Side of that was Progressive Radio. My Fav was WLIR New York. As with Pat Martin, PD Denis McNamara had ‘Great Ears’ for Music and inspired a Creative Quirkiness between the Records. Showtime just aired a Documentary about them. http://dtbdthemovie.com/But really….perhaps it was the role that Music played in Pop Culture at the time. It seems that Music simply isn’t as important in the lives of My Kids as it was to me…..and now that they’re Adults, the only Radio they listen to is in The Car and it’s mostly News/Talk. The music they get on The Web where The Playlist is a couple of thousand.

Geo’s Media Blog is published weekly. For a sneak peek at some new Blogs, or those you may have missed, go to GeorgeJohns.com. On Twitter @GeoOfTheRadio. You can also google, Writing Radio’s Wrongs to see a brand new Blog that Bob Christy and I are writing together about the state of radio today. Sharing and commenting is much appreciated.

 

 

Geo’s Media Blog. (Gordon Zlot HOF) 10/13/18

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My good friend Gordon Zlot was inducted into the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame last night, and it is my honor to post a special Blog about him, which will be followed by Gordon’s acceptance speech.

Mr. Businessman is well known for saying and doing a lot of distasteful things, but what I hate the most is hearing him say, “I’m going to have to let you go, but it’s not personal; it’s business.”
What the f*ck is not personal about being fired?

These guys must make this sh*t up, hoping we won’t hit them.
Thankfully, all businessmen are not created equal, and one of the better ones lives in beautiful Santa Rosa, California.

His name is Gordon Zlot, and last night he deservedly was inducted into the Bay Area Radio Hall Of Fame. (Gordon is pictured on top with his favorite dog, Molly, at his home in Palm Springs.)
Gordon, who was a young engineer at the time, built his very own FM radio station, which he launched in Sonoma County in April of 1971.

Not only did KZST become successful very quickly, but it’s still “The Big One” and since then has added four more stations to his roster before finally retiring.

I didn’t know Gordon back then because I was still in Canada working another Hall Of Famer, Ted Rogers. Ted once told me, “George, for someone to become even more successful than they already are, sometimes they have to leave behind the people who helped make them successful.” Gordon disagrees with Ted’s philosophy, and in fact, believes the exact opposite. He believes that you must stick with the ones that brung ya!
About 30 years ago, Gordon and his crew, GM Tom Skinner, and PD/ Morning Man Brent Farris visited me in Coronado where we came up with a way for us to all work together. So now whenever I visit Santa Rosa, it always feels like I’m going home.
I’ve worked for a lot of radio companies over the years, but I assure you, none are run the way Gordon runs his. He pays his people well, they have the finest equipment available, and they out of a super modern facility. Oh did I mention that they also have profit sharing, a great health plan, and a super pension plan that Gordon fully funds?
Over the years Gordon has had many offers for his group of stations but didn’t do it because he didn’t believe that they would take care of his staff if he was no longer involved.
Even though his stations run pretty fat, Gordon still manages to eek out enough to have two beautiful homes, one in Santa Rosa and the other in Palm Springs which he flies to in his own jet.
Knowing Gordon as I do, radio is not just a business, to him, it’s very personal. Here’s to the newest member of the Bay Area Broadcasters Hall Of Fame, Gordon Zlot.

 Gordon Zlot BARHOF 2018 Speech 10/13/18

My fascination with radio began when I was a kid…when I was about nine years old.

I had a low power AM radio station in my bedroom at 1090 on the dial.  The call sign was KEBC, which stood for El Patio Broadcasting Company …. Named after the street, I lived on.  I even got approval from the Engineer in Charge at the FCC in San Francisco, Ney Landry who many of you engineering types might remember.   I had one listener….the girl next store.

Like many of you growing up in the Bay Area I listened to Dave McElhatton on KCBS,  Doug Pledger on the then KNBC, Les Crane live at the Hungry Eye on KGO, Al Collins from the Purple Grotto, Russ “The Moose”Syracuse, Terry McGovern, and everyone’s favorite Disk Jockey, Don Sherwood.

In 1958 at the age of 13, I got my first job in radio, a 250 watt AM daytimer in Vallejo where I grew up.

The Call Sign was KNBA …the Mighty 1190.  I started by taking out the garbage, changing light bulbs, mowing the lawn, running the board, taking transmitter readings, setting up for remotes, and progressing to being on the air.

I loved the smell of a radio station.  It was a combination of cigarettes, burning tubes, the yellow teletype paper, and the smell of lacquer from the cutting lathe where the ET’s were CUT.  For those of you who don’t go back that far…ET is not a creature from a Spielberg movie but stands for Electrical Transcription which was those 16-inch lacquer disks that were cut at the station before tape was widely used.

We had no cart machines; all the spots were either read live or on ET’s.  

It was at that time I met Jerry Dean who would become my mentor.  He taught me everything about radio. Jerry eventually went on to found KJAZ along with Pat Henry.  It was the world’s first full-time jazz station.

While other kids were listening to the Beatles, Elvis, and the Stones, I was listening to Sinatra, Dizzy, and Miles.  That’s where I got my appreciation for jazz. Jerry was later inducted posthumously into the BARHOF class of 2007.

I worked at KNBA until 1966. Signing the station on Saturdays and Sundays and working a 6-hour DJ shift.

During my college years at San Jose State, I worked at KREP in Santa Clara, which later became KARA.  After graduating in 1969 with a degree in Electrical Engineering, I went to work for Bauer Broadcast Products in Palo Alto as an Engineer.

However, my real dream was to own a radio station, and being a believer in FM radio, I signed Sonoma Counties first FM stereo radio station on the air on April 18, 1971.  The call sign was KZST which stood for K-ZEST. The format was Beautiful Music.

In those days AM humorlessly stood, not from Amplitude Modulation, but Ample Money, and FM stood for Few Money.

With only two full-time employees, it required a lot of work.  I did everything from sales, engineering, programming, announcing, and traffic.  There were many burnt dinners in those days when I would return home at 8 p.m.

Eventually, we changed our format from Beautiful Music to Soft AC.  I called it “Easy Stereo.” Then in 1983, through the efforts of the acknowledged father of AC Radio, George Johns, we became a Full Service AC radio station with a full news department with our own traffic airplane we called Plane Jane, Kristine Hanson our meteorologist, our morning personality Brent Farris, General Manager Tom Skinner and Chief Engineer Eric Peter.  Within months KZST became the top station in the market, and it continues to do so. One of the secrets of our success is the long-term and dedicated staff we have. Many of whom have been with me for 30 plus years.

My second dream was to build my own world-class, state-of-the-art radio facility, and that became a reality when we began broadcasting from our new 10,000-square-foot building in Santa Rosa In 1989.

As an FCC licensee, I have always believed that the license holder was not the owner of the airwaves but was the steward of them and must always operate in the Public Interest, Convenience, and Necessity.  As a non-public company, I have not had to worry about balancing of the needs of stockholders against those of the listeners.

Some 47 years later, our company now has five radio stations with formats in AC, Soft AC, County, Oldies, and Smooth Jazz.  It has truly been a marvelous ride, and I must say that radio will always be in my blood. I still marvel at the technology that allows us to send words and music through the air, let alone pictures.

In closing, I am humbly honored for this recognition.  I didn’t get into the radio business to make money. My main goal was to produce a high-quality product while serving our listeners while having fun..
Like the Broadcast Legends masthead says: To celebrate with colleagues from the years when broadcasting was fun!”

Writing Radio’s Wrongs. A new Blog for Oct 09/18.

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Valentine in the Morning

MYfm, Los Angeles

Our thoughts on the MYfm morning show.

Bob Christy:

I listened like a listener this morning at 6:20. I poured my third cup of coffee, turned on the radio and the first thing I heard was Valentine having a long conversation with a woman trapped in an unhappy marriage. Valentine let her talk, she got into what a nice and good man her husband is, but she just isn’t in love with him. Valentine got too close to being an amateur psychologist, but he didn’t push it. He didn’t make fun of her predicament. Valentine ended it nicely, and I came away thinking “Wow, he isn’t an asshole!” Good start.

George Johns:

I agree, Bob, he’s warm, friendly, and very female-oriented. The problem I had with Valentine’s topics when I listened, was none of them had a killer close. Nothing he did stuck, so there was no way I could go to work and say, “Hey did you hear what Valentine said this morning?”

Bob Christy:

From that nice, first class start, MYfm went to a massive bunch of commercials. The third or 4th spot was very low. Almost, inaudible. Traffic was read at high speed, it sounded like one long sentence without punctuation. Brutal. If you’re going to do traffic, why throw it away? I’d bet even the most hardcore Valentine listeners tune in KNX or somewhere else for traffic, what they get from MYfm is useless.

George Johns:

The thing about the morning show that is also true of the rest of MYfm is that they’re not balanced. They clump all the talk together and then cluster the music too. If I was doing it, I would put the topic, the spots and a tune all together in a segment and then continue around the clock in the same manner.

Bob Christy:

After a few tunes, more calls on relationship problems. One woman sounded like she was making shit up. Valentine handled her well. I found myself thinking this guy is good. Valentine is the, always hard to find ” nice guy on the radio”. Too many morning guys sound like the kind of person, who if they sat next to you at a bar, you’d move.

Geo Johns:

“Nice guy sounding” is Valentine’s gift, he need not work on that, but what he does need to work on, is making me see what he says. Seeing, as 85% of communication is done with the eyes,  broadcasters and authors have to paint pictures. Valentine doesn’t do that at all, so no radio hall of fame for him.

Bob Christy:

Cakes came out on the porch just as one of the calls ended. Valentine’s sidekick Jill was doing the ever-present “woman/girl on the radio laugh”. Cakes said, “Why do they always do that stupid laugh?” I don’t know, Honey.

George Johns:

I think the giggle chick sidekick era is over, Bob. Valentine needs to use his staff as more than an in-studio audience. He should be interviewing things out of them, asking them the things he can’t say because of his image. He’s the one wearing the white hat the rest don’t have to.

Bob Christy:

Valentine’s show could be so much better. He needs to be in a better environment.   You don’t need to do music sweeps in AM drive. Let Valentine be Valentine. That’s on the PD or Brand Manager, not Valentine. Here’s another thing. The Dodgers won the NL West for the 6th straight year. Never mentioned! Rain in the forecast for the first time in months and months. Never mentioned! And sweet sleeping Jesus, slow the traffic woman down! Every big city has terrible traffic and every commuter knows that you should report the unusual, not the usual.


George Johns:

The only thing local on the morning show Bob is the traffic, but it goes by so fast that you don’t really hear it. The show is pleasant enough, but great morning shows are only understood by the listeners who live in that town. You could drop Valentine’s show into any town.

Bob Christy:

We were talking the other day about the great radio CEO and innovator George Wilson. When George went to rehab at Hazelden outside of Minneapolis, he said he was excited to be able to listen to WCCO. CCO had been dominate in the Twin Cities since the station signed on in 1921. Wilson said he turned it on one morning and he didn’t understand what Boone and Erickson were talking about. WCCO was all about Minneapolis and St. Paul. The only thing George recognized on the station was the sportscasts because he knew the names of the teams. When he got out of rehab he beat his Bartel GMS and PDS into making their stations local, local, local and then more local. Wilson got dry at Hazelden and got religion about being all about your market. HIs “Q” stations all had the same format, but they all sounded different because they were targeted right at their market.

George Johns:

Too bad Wilson had to learn how radio worked by going to rehab. You and I learned how radio worked from what caused George to go there. All that counts is being local. In fact, when I first moved to San Diego, I didn’t understand the jargon. They referred to areas as PB, TJ, the Strand, OB, the Murph, the Gaslamp District, Etc. You had to live there to understand what it meant. If you didn’t use those terms you were from out of town. Most of the LA stations got into San Diego loud and clear but nobody listened to them, they didn’t talk about San Diego.

Bob Christy:

George, we’ve both been around morning shows running as many as 21 units in an hour, we somehow figured how to make the show sound uncluttered. MYfm needs to decide whether they are going to be a personality-driven show from 6 to 9 or keep trying to split the baby. It’s schizophrenic.

Geo:

Yeah, it doesn’t really matter what the unit count is Bob, you have to figure out how to balance it. In fact, all you need is the formula that movies, TV sitcoms,  Broadway plays, and all the guys who are in the radio hall of fame use. Attention-getting opening, a little drama in the middle, and a killer close. All Valentine had was a little drama which is the least important part.

The way I’ve always taught it Bobby was doing it break by break like this;

1. What’s it like outside.?

2. What’s going on in the area?

3. What’s the station or one of its staff members were doing?

4. Your own topic?

5. Start over at #1.

Bob Christy:

I’d love to hear Valentine working on a show formatted for his strengths. You and I have discussed many times how you can you use the various elements to punctuate, bits, phone calls. He could set up a call from Jody in North Hollywood this way:

“I’ve got Jody on the phone, she lives in North Hollywood, Jody what’s going on?”

“My neighbor’s cat jumps across to my balcony to poop.”

“What?” Jill says (no laughing, btw)

“Have you talked to your neighbor about it?” Valentine asks.

“She doesn’t believe me.”

“Probably doesn’t want to. (Jill could say, “I wouldn’t want to know either.”) Have you got her number?”

“Sure do.”

“Give it to me while we check traffic, I’ll call her for you, Okay?”

“Great. It’s a nice cat named Fritzie and I love cats, but….”

“We’ll make that call for you Jody, it’s 7:18, sunny with a high of 78 today in the valleys, cooler on the beaches. Air quality is supposed to be good. It’s Valentine in the Morning on MYfm, we’ll be back to solve Jody’s kitty troubles after a check on traffic.”

It would be really nice if the traffic person could mention Jody’s cat problem, too.

The perfect way to get rid of a few spots and the traffic and get the listener to hang on.

How would you handle it, George?

Geo Johns:

The above works for me Bobby. All the morning folks I ever worked with, use the spots as a rim shot for a good punch line. It can even save some corny ones.

Bob Christy:

The PD or Brand Manager or whoever needs to sit down with Valentine every day and go through, at least one thing, good or bad. I remember when you got your hands on a script from the Letterman Show, all of the seemingly ad-libbed material was scripted word for word.

George Johns:

Great morning shows can’t just wing it 20 hours a week. Valentine is good but with some proper direction, he could be great.  

 

Geo’s Media Blog. (News To Me) Oct 08/18

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I’ve had the pleasure and good fortune all through my career in radio to work with some incredible talent and am also proud to say that a bunch of them are deservedly in a Radio Hall of Fame or two. Of course, if you’re Ron Chapman, then you’d have to make that three. I’m not just talking about the record rollers; I’m also talking about great newscasters like Greg Tantum in San Diego, John Erickson in Portland, Bill Trebilcoe in Winnipeg, and Bob Durant in Ottawa to mention a few.
However, one of the more creative ones I ever worked with was John Evans at K101 in San Francisco. (pictured on top) John currently anchors the news at KCBS, but back in our day, he not only did the news in the morning he was also the News Director.
I always enjoyed John’s newscasts because they were mostly full of surprises. One morning I remember hearing construction noises start creeping into the end of a news story. As the sounds got louder and wondered what the hell was happening, John finally said, “What you’re listening to is what’s going on right now at (street address) where they are tearing down one of San Francisco’s more historic buildings to make way for the future.” Or sometimes you would hear the sound of pouring rain and John with his conversational style, saying, “This is exactly what you’re going to experience during your drive this morning.” Or it would be kids playing in a playground or maybe the sound of seagulls because the story concerned Fisherman’s Wharf. K101 at that time was always full of surprises and John was one of the better ones. In fact, whenever I heard John do the news, he made me see what he was saying.
Speaking of Hall of Fame radio guys, we had a couple of them in the news department of WIBC/WNAP named Fred Heckman and Tom Cochran. They made the winning easy in Indy. (pictured above) However, the one I loved to watch doing the news was the great Lou Palmer (pictured right above) who was Chuck Riley’s afternoon newsman. Lou would prepare his newscast every day by going through the reams of news copy and then make some crib notes on some 4×6 index cards about stuff that he found of interest. When the news intro fired, Lou would adlib his way through the entire newscast using his staccato type delivery while barely glancing at his notes. His booming voice sounded like he was angry at us as he made frantic stabbing motions in the air. He made you deathly afraid of not listening. Incredible!
The person though who took the word adlibbing to new heights was Andy McCollum of KVIL in Dallas. We teamed Andy up with Bob Morrison on Chapman’s show in the morning where they sounded fantastic. Bob like Lou Palmer had the voice of God, so his main job was to announce the beginning of World War III should it come to pass. Andy, on the other hand, had that warm, folksy sound that could convince you that everything was gonna be ok, so not to worry.
I loved the way Andy crafted his words and the way he also paused so that you could think about what he was saying. In fact, he sounded so good that when RKO started a younger hipper news network out of New York, they hired Andy to anchor it. However, New York was where Andy ran into a little trouble because he had to deal with the network lawyers. The lawyers’ job was to check all the news copy for legalities before it could be cleared to air. Unbeknownst to the rest of us, Andy had a reading problem which the network lawyers quickly discovered when Andy started adding words to the newscast that they hadn’t approved. It turned out that all those little sidebars that were filled with pauses and phrases that I loved so much were just stuff Andy made up. He used them as a stall so he could find his place again.
RIP Andy, screw the lawyers! The listeners I’m sure, loved your version of the news more Andy, I know I did. 🙂

GEO’S LIFE-LINERS

POLITICAL & POLITICALLY INCORRECT.
I love how politicians refer to voters as the Hispanic vote, the Black vote, the Asian vote, the Jewish vote, the Youth vote, etc. This would insinuate that they think that these folks will always vote the same, surely that’s not true?

I wonder who it was that came up with the concept that lawyer can lie about their client’s guilt? Had we killed them all as Shakespeare suggested, maybe it really would be the “Wonderful World” that Louis Armstrong wonderfully sang about.

How come the black officials who claim to represent their brothers and sisters, live in white neighborhoods?

Asia doesn’t seem to have an immigration problem; maybe we should do whatever they’re doing?

Only America craves world approval.

I’m not a big fan of Trump, but I am a fan of his strategy. He distracts the liberals with outrageous statements and then does what he planned on doing which goes unnoticed.

I wonder why my fellow Canadians don’t bash Trudeau much more? (He appears to be pretty lame) Hell, when Harper was in power, they bashed him as they do Trump now. Is that just a liberal thing?

REALITY.
Nobody is smart enough to be able to convince a stupid person that they’re dumb. 

People seldom quit their job; it’s really their bosses they’re leaving.
 
Men just want money, women lust after it. 

Unfortunately, if you took the rich people’s money and gave it to the poor, they would still be poor, but now so would the rich. The middle class has had most of the money for a long time, but we’re tired of giving it away to the rich & poor.

With 1.5 million charities registered in the US, how can there possibly be any poor people?

Imagining something without action makes it just another idea.

I learned a long time ago that women aren’t as innocent as they appear just as Trump ain’t as stupid. However, they both fake it well.

Have you ever noticed that the only phones that get answered today are the ones in a TV series?

Who decided that globalization is a good thing, big business, and politicians? We trust them; they won’t put the price of medication, gas, and interest rates up right?

So the Yankees and Sox are at it again huh as the Sox take the opener.

LOVE & MARRIAGE.
How can you not tear up watching videos of military parents reuniting with their kids as a surprise?

#GeosMediaBlog above tells the tale of #HOFnewsmen. #GeosLifeLiners then shine a light on #Trump, #Charities, #Money #Trudeau and #Lawyers. Much much more @ GeorgeJohns.com. On Twitter@GeoOfTheRadio. If you wish to subscribe to Geo’s Media Blog, just put your email address in the comment section below. Sharing and commenting is appreciated.

 

Writing Radio’s Wrongs. 10/01/18

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We are under construction, wearing hard hats, Carharts, carrying tools and equipment. Sweating in the hot sun. Listening to the radio is a tough job, so tough we’re driving Ram 3500 dualies to work. We bring our lunch too.

As we build this thing, we invite your comments, suggestions, your ideas-good and bad. We’ll read them all and reserve the right to edit.

From time to time we’ll have guest commenters, essayists and all around smart asses join us.

We already have top-flight engineers, news guys, jocks, salespeople, manager types, corporate types and owners standing by to throw gas on fires or put them out.

George and I have no interest in rehashing the past, neither us believe that yesterday’s radio was as good as it seemed to be at the time. However, history does have its lessons good and bad. Those lessons are worth your time and worthy of discussion.

Radio is in a new era, there is more competition than ever before and it’s coming from every direction. All of you are going to have to get better in every way because if you don’t, radio will die. George and I have spent our lives in the business, we believe that would be a damned shame. We want to help and move radio into the future.

We’ve been owners, managers, corporate guys, PD’s and jocks. We’ve been involved in every format, including religion if you can believe it. (Do I have some stories about that experience!) We’ve worked with great people, great companies and for a few genuine dirtbags in our careers.

We know we can help.

Thanks for listening,

George Johns & Bob Christy (pictured on top discussing the future with our friend and Consultant, Ray Fulcher from Jet Propulsion Labs and Parson’s Engineering)

 

myFM

Bob:

I turned on KBIG or MYfm 104.3 this morning just before 10. I missed the ID because I needed to talk to my yard guy. When I finished with him and got back to the radio, I couldn’t believe my ears, I heard a clean, smooth segue from Rihanna to Maroon 5 with Kendrick Lamar, excuse me, “featuring Kendrick Lamar”.

The levels even matched, how refreshing!

Of course, the sweeper they played into Pink’s song was electronic, compressed beyond anything that makes any technical sense and it buried the soft intro of the song. At least it was tight!

I’m almost 20 minutes into this and NO DEAD AIR. I’m holding my breath though. So far MYfm is head and shoulders above WLTW and KKGO. Somebody in the house is paying attention to dubbing and has a working knowledge of where to put a cue tone. Good on them. IHeart should send whoever does the dubbing at MYfm to New York and have him or her teach a class at WLTW.

Question, how many women on the air use the last name Foxx? Are they sisters, cousins, daughters or what. See if you can find me a Lisa Johnson out there, somewhere, anywhere.

I’m up against the stop set, so tell me what did you hear? When you listened?

Geo:

Bob, I started off with the top of the hour ID which garbled KBIG and Los Angeles (on purpose I think) I have no idea why they hide from Los Angeles, but so be it. I found the music very listenable even though like you say, the same sounding.

MYfm sounded very slick until they went into a stop set. It blended well, very tight and the levels were good. However in the commercial break which included promos for their contest called “Easy Money,” everything started and stopped. It was like they were proud of all the units they were carrying and wanted us to count them. (I resisted)

They even had a traffic report buried in the middle but the guy was talking so fast I had no idea what he was talking about. The levels on each spot were different making the whole experience stick out even more.

Bob:

George, why is this so hard?

Geo:

Their contest called “Easy Money” has an easy name to remember but I couldn’t figure out how to play it. Every promo and liner had too much copy jammed into it so it was hard to figure out what they were saying. They were also giving away tickets to a theme park but that was also rushed sounding and hard to understand.

The weird thing Bob about MYfm is the station is, what I would say, medium in tempo until somebody says something. Then it’s too fast which doesn’t fit the overall sound of the station. The other strange thing was that they had some sort of electronic liners in between each tune. It would have been nice to hear a cold segue now and then seeing as the PPM device already knows the name of the station.

Bob:

I heard one cold segue. It was nicely done.

Geo:

Lisa Foxx, I wonder if she’s related to Linda Foxx? The only time she spoke was to sell me their contests. She and the station are not very proud of LA because they never mention it. I guess she was professional but wasn’t very interesting or entertaining unless all you cared about was contests. She talked so fast that it was hard to hear any emotion in her voice. In fact, because she talked at the same level and speed it was fairly easy to mentally tune her out.

At some point in the middle of a stop set, they popped in some news which turned out to be just a promo for another IHeart station, KFI. Speaking of IHeart, it was promoted more than anything else and other than bankers, I don’t know who would care and I rather doubt that they listen to MYfm.

Even though my report is rather negative, I actually enjoyed my listening experience.

Bob:

George, We used to have conversations about how to make a successful station better. MyFM is successful, there are some things they could do to improve it, improve it a lot.

Stop writing copy that is too long for the allocated time or just let the talent slow down, who the hell is in a hurry to listen to 8 spots in a row? When the mic opens, listeners know the dreaded and interminable commercial set is coming. When you see the PPM graphs you can see the listeners leave. usually by the 2nd or 3rd unit. The drop off is huge and they come back when the set is over. They are obviously well trained. The cue for them is the jock talking.

Maybe the talent could do the occasional live sweeper or liner and not drop the cue that a long commercial break is coming up. TV has learned this, they go into spots cold from time to time.

As far as the contesting, you are on the money, win a grand, how? Kinda Easy Money?

I heard a Kings-Ducks ticket giveaway, Lisa read it so fast, it was a waste of time. Slow her down, please! The delivery is so much faster than the overall pace of MYfm it makes for a strange sound, the same with the produced liners and sweepers, too hot for the rest of the product.

I heard two songs in an hour that weren’t cotton candy pop, Meagan Traynor and the Kings of Leon and sure enough, they were played back to back. Then MYfm was back to the Justin Bieber sound again. This has always been a problem for radio stations playing pop music, but there are ways around it.

The only dead air I heard was going into, get this, the stop set, about 4 seconds of silence and the spot came banging in. Like I said the other day, I’ve heard more dead air in the last week than I’ve heard in 10 years, what the hell is going on?

Geo:

Amen to that Bobby. It was hard for me to figure out if Lisa had any talent besides being able to talk fast which didn’t fit the texture of the station. As I’ve always said to the talent, you don’t want the folks to look at their radio when you’re on but if you get them to do it once in a while, you’ll soon be a star. Lisa didn’t make me look once.

As I said Bob, they were pleasant enough to listen to, but the surprise is that they are actually # 1 in LA, they sound more like a mid-charter to me.

Bob:

As far as content, the IHeart features are okay, TV, new movies, etc, it’s all good stuff to put on the radio, but it’s not local. It would be easy to localize it, make a part of the station. I suppose somewhere in the massive chain of command, there is someone who counts all the times the features are played, runs down the hall screaming “We ran 9222 features this week across our platforms!” That’s fine I guess, but it does nothing for the stations. An old dog I talked to about this a few days ago, said, “You know when ABC was in the radio business, they had 14 of the most successful stations in the country and the only time you ever heard ABC was if they ran the network news.” I guess they do it to make the banker’s happy. Fixing it would be easy, right?

Geo:

Very easy.

Bob:

Man, it’s hard to get around the “rushed” presentation. MYfm, especially in middays, is, for most of the audience, a background experience. If you’re going to stop the station to do a giveaway, don’t throw away it away!

Not to beat up poor Lisa, but the one time I heard her do something that wasn’t written on a card or on a computer screen, she said, “I wish I was at a spa” or something like that. Lisa, you have a dream job compared to virtually all of the listeners to MYfm. You sit in a nice, clean, air-conditioned room for 5 hours a day and play music on the radio. Your listeners sit in cubes and do grunt work, they’re stuck in traffic, they’re trying to balance raising kids, their job and they’re probably are married to a jerk. Don’t bitch to them about your job. Lisa, some of your listeners have more than one job, both of them really suck and going to a spa for them is as likely as going to the moon. Think before you open the mic.

We’re going to do the MyFM morning show next. I can’t wait, it will be fun, I hope.

Geo:

I’m ready if you are