My general impression with a debate over Syndication over Network Radio in regards to “liberal radio” is simply this: you needed a whole block of programming in order to get a basically new format on the air. Thus, at least at the start, you needed a network.

The syndicated Ed Schultz needs Air America at the moment for the simple fact that he needs programming to bump up against. (You could probably toss his show, and for that matter a number of “Air America programs” into a basic right-wing talk station here and there, but you probably can’t have it that way everywhere.)

Whether any of this succeeds or not, I can’t tell you. I imagine local programmers shortly being able to drop in these local home-brewed talk radio hosts from the “Democracy Radio” somewhere before Franken or after Randi Rhodes. Or at least that option would help that syndicate succeed.

……….

In other radio news, I get the feeling that Portland’s 970 AM is being transformed into a transported 910 AM:

Consider:

OK..Let’s get right to the radio news, since that’s what’s on the minds of many at the moment. Tom Leykis makes it official.

These are ALL the changes at the moment.

Note while you are at it that the Phil Hendrie sight no longer has the time of his re-appearance in Portland as being at 9:00 pm, suggesting that the block of Tom Leykis to Phil Hendrie from 3 pm to 10 pm remains in tack.

Notice this comment as well:

i just got an email from 970’s P.D here is his response:

Thanks for the input. I’m hoping to meet with Rick and discuss the possibilities with 970am.

The signs are there. All you need now is to throw Clyde Lewis in as a package deal, and we’re all set.

………………….

One last bit of curiosity. (And here’s the link to my odder blog.)

Tony Blair and the Labour Party: 100 fewer seats. Tony Blair gave a concillatory speech, more or less acknowledging his unpopularity amongst the British public.

The Conservative / Tory Party: Still considered a joke, nobody thought Howard and company had a chance in this election, looking ahead to post-Blair disappointment where they may not be able to compete against Blair’s successor — Gordon Brown.

The Liberal Democrat Party: Hoped to gain a number of seats from disaffected Labour voters, picked up a fairly minor and disappointing number.

That weird Scottish Party: I haven’t seen the results, but I imagine the C-SPAN coverage of the “Prime Minister Answers Questions” will still show this odd character or two lobbying Blair for the glory of Scotland… everyone else in the room rolling their eyes.

Congratulations to everyone! You all lost!

And that’s what Democratic Elections are all about: determining winners through attrition rates.

As per Max 910, I finally got around sent a fairly bitter email to Portland’s Entercom General Manager saying a bunch of things, but mainly that I have ceased to listen to all Entercom Radio stations, and that I hope Charlie FM proves to be a spectacular failure. I received a cordial enough response, thanking me for my passion and such. (More vigourous and more … um… hard-core acts by others who care just a whiff more than I can be found at blogs and message boards previously mentioned on this blog.)

Phil Hendrie will turn up on the air on Infinity owned 970 AM, which is where I had imagined it would turn up since it fits, and I imagine the station needs to rejuvenate itself from its 24/7 canned comedy, pumping out an LA based network “All Comedy Radio”.

UPDATE: A note of interest on the future of radio programming:

Thank you for your note. I read the article in the Oregonian and had the same thought as you. Those shows are too good not to be heard. We’ll talk about it internally.

Dennis Constantine
KINK Program Director
Infinity Broadcasting

Yes. Just move over the entire programming line-up of “Max 910”, and do you have anything? (Note of interest: Infinity destroyed Seattle radio, so Portland is free of their Seattle-based crimes.)

Unfortunately, Clyde Lewis… Explain him to the suits back East… may become the new Ace Hayes… which is to say… you’d probably have to look that name up to figure out the reference.

Back when the “Libertarian National Socialist Green Party” was all the rage (well… no, not really), I noticed that they were going to have a representative on the Alan Colmes show. Curious, I looked up to see where and when I might hear the Alan Colmes Show (who made an appearance at the Rose Garden — to a fan base of whom, I do not know — a year back… I know that only because I saw his name of the “Appearance board.) He’s on at 1 am. The appearance by the “Libertarian National Socialist Green Party” was pre-empted to fit a Blazers game, and so that they could still broadcast Michael Savage.

As per the Libertarian National Socialist Green Party member… the only question I wanted to have an answer to is: “Um… Huh? Can you please explain the seeming contradictions in the name of your outfit.”

As per Alan Colmes, I heard some of his show a week or so ago. He had on… a leader of an Aaryan Nations unit (one which . For what reason, I do not really know. During this last summer, he had on a great number of porn stars (who were releasing books from one Rupert Murdoch imprint or another.)

There was a telling moment with the Aaryan Nations guy. His overblown suggestion of the power he yields, and the supposed number of “sleeper cells” he can unleash if he wants to, and a loose organization with Islamic Extremists, had a caller chime in with “This works in with what I’ve believed all along: Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda were involved in the Oklahoma City Bombing.” (something that goes along with various newsmax conspiracy theories that cannot let go of the early reporting of Arab-looking suspects.)

Anyway… I could point out that Alan Colme’s show being available for 1 to 2 in the morning and the expanded KPOJ line-up (shuffle Thom Hartmann in) means that you now have 24 hours of straight liberal talk — if you blur the lines with Alan Colmes enough. But it’s mostly a Jim BoHannon, with a habit of bringing on Militia types and porn stars, working with Fox News precepts of what is the news of the day, with a calling-list of Sean Hannity listener-types. The effect is strange.

Jim Douglas has announced that he is not running for the Senate seat vacated by the retiring Jim Jeffords, Independant. With that, I hereby project Bernie Sanders, Socialist, the next Senator from the state of Vermont.

Actually, you can project something something interesting from this into the future. When Patrick Leahy gets around to retiring, and after Howard Dean’s stint as head of the DNC concludes, a Senate race between Howard Dean and Jim Douglas, his successor as Vermont governor. I don’t know what that means, or if it’s terribly dramatic in any way shape or form, but there you go.

The Nebraska Senate race brings us a curious side-story where Republican Senator — Chuck Hagel (R) has not endorsed the Republican challenger to Democratic Senator Ben Nelson. I suspect the same sort of chubby relationship that plagues Oregon’s set of Senators, where they’re not going to campaign against the other candidate and more or less want to work with the other candidate in perpetuality. (Beyond which, the state-level politics of Nebraska are devoid of ‘d’s and ‘r’s…)

I want Alan Keyes to be the Republican Senate candidate for the vacant seat in Maryland. Why not?

Some thoughts: The landscape looked terrible for the Democratic party going into the 2004 election. A whole mass of Southern Democrats were retiring, and all the tough Senate races were in red states. By election day, you got the feeling that even if Kerry won, he’s be having to deal with a Senate that was more Republican than it was before the election… which, I guess, is a nice little by-product of the Bush “Campaign to the Base” strategy.

2006 looks better for the Donkey than 2004 did. Looking on the list: I don’t expect Maria Cantwell to be facing any real danger, and the impetus of Nebraskans to demand a Republican instead of their most conservative Democrat is faded away due to the current configuration of the Senate. (I also point out that Harry Reid’s recent attempted “compromise”, rejected by Bill Frist, was aimed more or less specifically at Ben Nelson. Muse over this, and Frist looks even more obstinate.)

…..
BTW: I started a new blog on a completely different topic, not really sure how long I’d continue it or how often I’ll tend to it (very easily tended to, as it is low-maintenance). If you want to find it, you’ll have to look for it yourownself, or ask me for the coordinates.

Probably in 1995, though I could be a year off in either direction, I saw Rush Limbaugh on his television program showing in a state of dismay some material found at the DNC website. A computer screen blown up onto a projection to the studio audience, Limbaugh got out his pointer, and yep! There it was! Some somewhat sophomoric humour: “And Remember: Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot, and a Newt is a slimy Lizard.”

I don’t really know what Limbaugh’s point was. Was the RNC website devoid of such arrows against Democrats? If it was, that probably only really shows that the DNC website was further ahead in the ways of Internet culture than the RNC website. (And of course, there’s the fairly obvious statement: this is Rush Limabaugh speaking.)

I’m not a fan of the Randi Rhodes Show, and don’t make it a practice to listen to her. I understand she recently had some troubles after a comedy bit featuring a president and shooting and whatnot. Drudge let the gossip fly: Secret Service meet with Randi Rhodes. The cable news cabal picked up on it and ran with it from there. For her part, Randi said her greatest regret was that the bit was simply stupid. (It tends to work out that way.)

Fly over to the (ahem) flagship program of Fox News, “Fox and Friends”, and an online poll is thrown out. “Air America Apology. Is it Enough, or is it Time To Get Tough?” The answer to that question has to be “Time to get tough” for no other reason than to learn what that is supposed to even mean.

Ah well.

Curious to note how the “flagship” Jack Station (for America at least) is doing in the Arbitrons:

A big shout out to Jack in Denver…. which managed to tie for 20th with a 1.8!!

Winter 2005 = 1.8
Fall 2004 = 2.4
Summer 2004 = 2.4
Spring 2004 = 1.2

But the same thread at “pdxradio” informs me that it’s a “rimshot frequency”, which apparently means you must measure the ratings on a curve… or something like that.

…………..

The moniker “South Park Republicans / Conservatives” re-emerges as an essay from 2002 is expanded or replayed into a book. (That they mocked the Terri Schiavo situation tells you how full of poppycock the phrase really is.)

The author of the book in question helped answer a question I had been pondering. As per the study showing Fox News viewers having just plain wrong impressions on the war in Iraq… perhaps there are mistakes that the survey left out for, say, the highly-praised NPR listeners.

Apparently not.

The “wrong impressions” Brian Anderson believes should be included that would show NPR listeners’s liberal bias include:

That the US invaded Iraq unilaterally. Yes. No. Fine.

Bush used the phrase “Imminenet Threat”. Well, his legions of suppliers sure did.

Bush said that Saddam tried to purchase uranium from Niger. Fine. He said that the British said that Saddam tried to purchase uranium from Niger. What is your definition of the word “is”?

Fox News loses. NPR wins. Take it from there.

Well, congratulations to Tony Blair on his impending victory for a third term as prime minister of Great Britian. He achieved this re-election through a platform promising better school lunches (I guess re-playing how he won his first election as ASB president for some damned Prep school), throwing red-meat to Labour Partisans by hinting that he might retire before his third term ends, and playing a game of “Ha ha. You have nowhere to go” with the unpopular War in Iraq.

The Liberal Democrats’ attack-ad showing Tony Blair standing proudly with George W Bush was blunted with an ad showing Bill Clinton praising Tony Blair. Thus, the sick and demented track of American political duopoly is tossed in. (Watch as in the next post I praise Bill Clinton and knock George W Bush back down. I’m a little inconsistent on where and how I apply this crash cynicism, and gray zones float aplenty.)

But here it is: Here:

When Mr Blair warned Miss Haigh that if she voted Liberal Democrat it could let the Conservatives back into power, she replied: “I know, that’s the scary thing.”

The current character of that whole weird scene is Zell Miller — who, after aiding Bill Clinton’s election, re-election, and George W Bush’s re-election, looks like he’s trying to turn himself into an odd gate-keeper of a Skull-and-Bones-esque Political Controller… recently hinting support toward Hillary Clinton (if she tir-angulates a bit), cooling on any Republicans who might run in 2008, and praising Virginia governor — who looks to be running for president — Mark Warner.

The head hurts. Is it too early to consider the 2008 list of candidates?

I’ve been meaning to stick a “Russ Feingold for President” item on the side-bar, probably taken straight from the ad purchased and featured at politics1.com. My sense is that it doesn’t matter: we’re getting Hillary whether we like it or not. Wesley Clark will be the token competitor last person standing.

Or if 2008 is too far across the corner, there’s 2006. As always, it becomes a stupid spectator sport. Your Senators and Representatives are all safe. Democrats salivate at Rhode Island and Pennsylvania, and wonder about Montana. Republicans place their bets on Minnesota, Florida, and Michigan.

In the not too distant future…

There was something of a running joke on the Rick Emerson Show, but its message was pretty well established in truth. One Friday, Rick Emerson noted that the staff of the show had just been scheduled for a meeting after the show, at which point a whispered conversation ensured of “Uh Oh” variety. Next episode, Monday, Tim Riley started the hour reading the news, and then ended with “Now stay tuned for… Lifestyles Radio 910.” Cue an informercial on the healing powers of Oregano (disguised as a real radio program). A minute or so in, Rick chimes in with “Okay. Stop it.” And “That’s pretty much how it’s going to be whenever the company fires me. No warning. You just tune in, and hear something completely different.” Tim Riley then chimes in with his experience: “Go to work one day, tune on the radio, and you find that in the middle of the night they’ve switched over to Radio Disney!”

For that little bit, Emerson said that he tried to dredge up something from Marconi, the morning drive idiot who was canned from KNRK after making fun of the decapitated hostages in Afghanistan. He’s evidentally resurfaced down the dial, but the horror of his addition to “Max 910″‘s line-up would have been darkly sensical. Which is to say, he’s easily pigeon-holed into the “Talk Radio for Guys” concept that the corporate masters at Entercom had formatted for the radio station, alongside Don and Mike and Tom Leykis (and for that matter, though I like the program, Phil Hendrie.). At the same time, reading last month’s Atlantic Monthly article about talk radio including a man who was fired on one Clear Channel station and moved to another Clear Channel station (in a bigger market), the idea of shuffling Marconi from one Entercom station to another holds a sort of sick appeal.

I saw the addition of the first verse from Tre Parker’s “Man Song” as theme-song (lyrics not easily available online) as a mocking of the situation. But, he lost his footing at first, moved to the 9:00 time-slot.

As for Clyde Lewis… I remember my weird sense of panic when the stations switched over a year ago. If it’s difficult to explain Rick Emerson’s niche onto a very specific market segmentation, it’s harder to see from the vantage point of corporate suits back East what the heck to do with the Voice of the Toxic Avenger spouting out conspiracies (well simulcasted on the Internet, and “low power fm stations nation-wide”), never mind that anything else you might program won’t likely bring in any ratings.

“The difference between my show and all those other shows is that they have crystal strokers on who claim that the Aliens are going to save us. Well I say that the Aliens are Here and they’ve come to EAT US!”

As for the replacement: (1) That must be some work-environment the two remaining deejays at the oldies station are working under… they just watched an entire sister station get canned with no fanfare; they just watched one station completely disappear; they just watched most of their co-workers at their station get canned. (2) I’ve turned into “Charlie FM” for 15 or 30 minute chunks, feeling like I’m witness to a train-wreck of sorts and gripped by said train-wreck. Basically you have 30 years of Top 40 radio boiled down to a long random playlist. I don’t even know if this is true variety. While I guess you’re not likely going to hear a song repeated within jaunces in and out of the radio station, it’s hard to particularly care. I did hear a song for the second time in listening: Vanilla Ice’s “Ice, Ice, Baby”. I assume if you listen to it more often than I that the replays of other songs might drown out that absuridty, but I for one can’t help slanting my head.

UPDATE: If you think my use of the phrase “train wreck” was inappropriate, consider that I’m not the only one using it. Instead of the 300 to 400 songs available on a typical station, CharlieFM will mix and match from more than 1,000 songs for what programmers call “train wrecks.”

I Do not like the new Pope.

Item: Church Doctrine has changed. Harry Potter no longer “help children to see the difference between good and evil.”, as per the words of Pope John Paul II, with JK Rowling lived her life like a Christian, and that her way of writing reflected that”, but instead…

Pope Benedict XVI sayseth that Harry Potter is “undermining the soul of Christianity”. And, to the author of Harry Potter: Good Or Bad: “It is good that you explain the facts of Harry Potter, because this is a subtle seduction, which has deeply unnoticed and direct effects in undermining the soul of Christianity before it can really grow properly.”

Item: In November of 1997, then Cardinal Ratzinger blasted heavy metal music as “diabolical and satanic messages”. (Had anyone listened to heavy metal since the late 1980s?) … the worst offenders: worst
offenders” as Alice Cooper, Black Sabbath and AC/DC. (AC/DC: “Anti-Christ, Death to Christ.”) Just as alarming, the “subliminal” and subtle Satanic influence found in the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Queen, Led Zeppelin and the Eagles.

Reminding me of the song from the Eagles, “Take it Easy”:

Well, I’m a standin’ on a corner in Winslow, Arizona
Channeling the Dark Lord Satan to Destroy the Soul of Christianity.

Item: Neil Bush, the president’s controversial younger brother, six years ago joined the cardinal who this week became Pope Benedict XVI as a founding board member of a little known Swiss ecumenical foundation.

The charter members of the board were all well-known international religious figures, except for Bush and his close friend and business partner, Jamal Daniel, whose family has extensive holdings in the United States and Switzerland, public records show.

The Foundation for Interreligious and Intercultural Research and Dialogue was founded in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1999 to promote ecumenical understanding and publish original religious texts, said a foundation official.

Besides then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, founding board members included Rene-Samuel Sirat, the former chief rabbi of France; Jordan’s Prince Hassan, a Muslim dedicated to religious dialogue; the late Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, another prominent Muslim; Olivier Fatio, director of the Institute of the History of the Reformation; and foundation president Metropolitan Damaskinos, a Greek Orthodox leader…

The foundation, based at the Orthodox Center of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Geneva, is listed by Dun & Bradstreet business credit reports as a management trust for purposes other than education, religion, charity or research.

Item: Pope Benedict Ratzingler as Cardinal was the man who sent to the US Catholic bishops the letter declaring that open supporters of abortion rights should be denied the Catholic sacrament for being guilty of a “grave sin”, and on to “the case of a Catholic politician consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws” as one who should explicitly be denied communion by a priest… ie: Good Catholics should vote for Bush and not Kerry.

Item: Pope Ratzingler was a member of the Nazi Youth.

And so on and so on.

I turned in and out of this new-fangled thing called “Charlie FM” over this weekend, attempting to figure out what the hell the corporate masters over at Entercom replaced Rick Emerson, Tim Riley, Clyde Lewis (and nationally Phil Hendrie) with.

I did jot down the songs I heard, but I don’t have this log with me. I guess it’s full of surprises. No, I never imagined that I would hear Vanilla Ice on the radio ever again. Alongside Jethro Tull’s ode to animalistic sex. Alongside some vaguely memorable late 80s top 40 pop meledy.

Well… for the curious: The Tim Riley News Hour Memorial Website. The Rick Emerson Show Memorial Website. The Ground Zero Memorial Website. And, Aaron, Geek in the City.

Mesh those all as thou must.

The Charlie aesthetic is spreading. As it turns out, it’s not Entercom as I suggested over here that operates “Jack”, but it is Infinity. Why these corporation don’t just merge and be done with it, I do not know.

I’ve sort of wandered across the AM and FM dials, fixating on the two Entercom stations that have been affected by the dropping of “Max 910” (a terrible station in the sense that the marketing to “Talk Radio for Guys” was heavy-handed and obnoxious):

94.7 is a good station. How did it become a good station, when it used to be an awful station? They started spotlighting local bands a bit (and I imagine that this should be a feature of all “alt rock” format stations), they have radio personalities (djs) that are human and relatable, and focus their energies on the music, they don’t just focus on what the recording industry is pushing for play…

Why is 97.1 Charlie FM (the station that ultimately replaced Rick Emerson and Clyde Lewis… and Phil Hendrie and Imus… and, if you must, Tom Leykis) a godawful station? It is literally a randomized computer play list, a medley of playlists off of soft rock, classic rock (with the hardest stuff thrown out), and various Top 40 stations circa 1980s-early 1990s.

Question: If I wanted to call in to request a song, where would I call in? How about if I want tickets to the latest great new band’s show, or some old band’s reunion show? (Incidentally, I had not heard a single commercial. I did hear inane jibberish of “Our record collection is taller than Mt. Hood” — said by somebody back East. Fill in the blanks for whatever other locales they stick “Charlie” into — “Our record collection is wider than the Grand Canyon”, for example.)

The same thing thing goes for KSSN-910. I hear a rumour that they used to have deejays at those call-letters.

Rick Emerson and Clyde Lewis were replaced by computer autotracks. And Entercom appears to be banking serious money on the “innovative” concept of “Charlie” (Portland being honored as one of the first markets for “Charlie”):

http://www.kisnfm.com/

Dear Loyal KISN Listener,
We wanted to let you know about a transition that’s going to take place today with KISN Radio. We’re moving KISN back to its original home dial position on the AM band to the 910 frequency. In its place at 97.1 FM will be a brand new radio station debuting in Portland called 97-1 Charlie FM. We actually think Charlie may very well become one of your favorite stations right along with KISN. Charlie will play thousands of songs (not hundreds like most stations) that were top 40 hits in their day from the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s.

At the same time, KISN is a very special station with a lot of heritage in our market, and we didn’t want to lose that. We feel like we have the best of both worlds…the ability to launch an exciting new station with nothing like it in Portland, while keeping a great Oldies station on the air that we know you love. We’ll also begin streaming KISN on the internet very soon, so you’ll be able to listen anywhere when you’re on the web as well.

All good and well. But where would one go to learn about the Great Consiracy or hear stupid dialouges on Buffy the Vampire Slayer (or soliquays to Kennewick, Washington?)?