Bertolucci Out at KFI

[michael hagerty]

Translating original name to English "I Look Up as I Walk". Bet he'd sing it different nowadays if he saw all the people staring at their cell phones while walking.

Some background:

[Songwriter Rokosuki] Ei wrote the lyrics while walking home from participating in protests against the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty extending the post-war agreement to allow U.S. military bases in Japan.

Rokusuke, 27 then, and 12 at the time the U.S. dropped A-bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, wrote the song in great sorrow at what he saw as continued militarization and danger, in partnership with the country that caused so much devastation on his native land (never mind Pearl Harbor).

You may think you know the lyrics in English from the 1979 Taste of Honey cover, but no---those were completely new lyrics. Here's what Ei wrote and Kyu Sakomoto sang:

I look up as I walk
So the tear won’t fall
Remembering those spring days
But I am all alone tonight


I look up as I walk
Counting the stars with tearful eyes
Remembering those summer days
But I am all alone tonight

Happiness lies up above the clouds
Happiness lies up in the sky


I look up as I walk
So that the tears won’t fall
Though the tears well up as I walk
For tonight I am all alone


Remembering those autumn days
But I am all alone tonight

Sadness lies in the shadow of the stars
Sadness lurks in the shadow of the moon


I look up as I walk
So that the tears won’t fall
Though the tears well up as I walk
But I am all alone tonight.
But I am all alone tonight

 

[michael hagerty]

Here's what killed me: Driving across mid to western Ohio a few years when Rush was still alive. Bored silly, looking at cows, cornfields and windmills, I started dialing around the radio. No less then EIGHT AM stations all in the same general area [meaning one wasn't fading out before I could pick up the next one] had Rush on. Tuned to FM, TWO had Rush on. Was thinking to myself, how can they be making any money, getting any ratings when they're cannibalizing each other? This was long before repeaters/translators/LPFMs were a big deal so I knew it wasn't just one station re-transmitting on another frequency.
Myself? If I was a station owner, I'd take a look around and say "This is insanity, there's gotta be something else I can put on to differentiate myself from the competition!" It's like the PD and some of the DJs at one station I worked at, only listened to OUR station [PD I could probably understand, someone screws up you'll be getting a call on the hot line.]. But the rest? My response was "I KNOW what we're doing, I want to hear what the competition is doing!"

Not knowing where exactly you were and how far apart those stations were, this is just a generalization, but...

Those stations likely didn't cannibalize each other at all.

Ratings have never counted people driving through towns, counties and states.

It's very likely that the people in the towns where Rush was airing were listening to him on their local radio station---not the one from the next town over. And the ads (depending on the size of those towns) were either local direct or agency business driven by that one station's ratings in the timeslot.

The folks in between those towns? They picked the station that came in most clearly.

 

[Yabadabado1]

Not knowing where exactly you were and how far apart those stations were, this is just a generalization, but...

Those stations likely didn't cannibalize each other at all.

Ratings have never counted people driving through towns, counties and states.

It's very likely that the people in the towns where Rush was airing were listening to him on their local radio station---not the one from the next town over. And the ads (depending on the size of those towns) were either local direct or agency business driven by that one station's ratings in the timeslot.

The folks in between those towns? They picked the station that came in most clearly.

It's been so many years ago, I can't even begin to remember what stations they were or their wattage. Since there weren't many big cities nearby, I'm assuming there were no 50,000 watt stations among the mix most may have been anywhere from 1,000 to maybe 10-15,000 watts. Local advertisers I heard mostly bear that out...."Howdy, everybody come on down to Billy Joe Sam's Roadkill BBQ/Pig Rodeo/Laundromat/proctologist emporium where we're having a two for one special all through the month of August." Not knocking them, I'm just glad locals were advertising on the radio. Since most of the drive was through agricultural areas, not surprising that most of the ads were for farm supply stores and other farm related industries, you know like cattle re-hoofing, dent removal for farm tractors from angry horses, etc.

 

[Yabadabado1]

Some background:

[Songwriter Rokosuki] Ei wrote the lyrics while walking home from participating in protests against the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty extending the post-war agreement to allow U.S. military bases in Japan.

Rokusuke, 27 then, and 12 at the time the U.S. dropped A-bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, wrote the song in great sorrow at what he saw as continued militarization and danger, in partnership with the country that caused so much devastation on his native land (never mind Pearl Harbor).

You may think you know the lyrics in English from the 1979 Taste of Honey cover, but no---those were completely new lyrics. Here's what Ei wrote and Kyu Sakomoto sang:

I look up as I walk
So the tear won’t fall
Remembering those spring days
But I am all alone tonight


I look up as I walk
Counting the stars with tearful eyes
Remembering those summer days
But I am all alone tonight

Happiness lies up above the clouds
Happiness lies up in the sky


I look up as I walk
So that the tears won’t fall
Though the tears well up as I walk
For tonight I am all alone


Remembering those autumn days
But I am all alone tonight

Sadness lies in the shadow of the stars
Sadness lurks in the shadow of the moon


I look up as I walk
So that the tears won’t fall
Though the tears well up as I walk
But I am all alone tonight.
But I am all alone tonight

Yeah, knew all that. I just didn't have the strength to type it all at. At least when I was in radio, I was a music nerd and if a song caught my fancy I tried to learn as much background info on it and the artists that I could, rather hard to do in the pre-internet age. I was sorta like a low rent Casey Kasem, throw a little tid-bit in about the song before or after it had played. Wasn't so much as "reaching for the stars" but maybe a couple of nearby asteroids.

 

[michael hagerty]

It's been so many years ago, I can't even begin to remember what stations they were or their wattage. Since there weren't many big cities nearby, I'm assuming there were no 50,000 watt stations among the mix most may have been anywhere from 1,000 to maybe 10-15,000 watts. Local advertisers I heard mostly bear that out...."Howdy, everybody come on down to Billy Joe Sam's Roadkill BBQ/Pig Rodeo/Laundromat/proctologist emporium where we're having a two for one special all through the month of August." Not knocking them, I'm just glad locals were advertising on the radio. Since most of the drive was through agricultural areas, not surprising that most of the ads were for farm supply stores and other farm related industries, you know like cattle re-hoofing, dent removal from farm tractors from angry horses, etc.

Rush also, in the early days, benefitted from local advertisers who were themselves conservatives---who literally supported the broadcast because it was the only one where they heard someone saying what they believed or at least found believable. There were and are a lot of those small business owners in the heartland, and elsewhere. When KFYI in Phoenix started airing Rush, businesses that had never advertised on radio before were among the earliest and longest-running sponsors.

 

[TomásEstefan]

I really like that song!

(Honestly...so do I!)

 

[davideduardo]

Here's what killed me: Driving across mid to western Ohio a few years when Rush was still alive. Bored silly, looking at cows, cornfields and windmills, I started dialing around the radio. No less then EIGHT AM stations all in the same general area [meaning one wasn't fading out before I could pick up the next one] had Rush on. Tuned to FM, TWO had Rush on. Was thinking to myself, how can they be making any money, getting any ratings when they're cannibalizing each other? This was long before repeaters/translators/LPFMs were a big deal so I knew it wasn't just one station re-transmitting on another frequency.

But each station was in a different market and did not sell advertising in the others you could hear on a car radio on the open road. In most cases, within the actual towns and cities, there was only one station easily heard by locals in their home or workplace.

Myself? If I was a station owner, I'd take a look around and say "This is insanity, there's gotta be something else I can put on to differentiate myself from the competition!"

But those stations “one town over” were not competition for audience or sales. The station carrying Rush in Lake City, FL, did not care if other stations in Jacksonville and Gainesville and Valdosta also carried him as those signals were inferior in WDSR’s coverage area.

It's like the PD and some of the DJs at one station I worked at, only listened to OUR station [PD I could probably understand, someone screws up you'll be getting a call on the hot line.]. But the rest? My response was "I KNOW what we're doing, I want to hear what the competition is doing!"

You have no control over the competition. I’d rather strive for perfection at my own station than worry too often about a competitor.

 

[Yabadabado1]

But each station was in a different market and did not sell advertising in the others you could hear on a car radio on the open road. In most cases, within the actual towns and cities, there was only one station easily heard by locals in their home or workplace.

But those stations “one town over” were not competition for audience or sales. The station carrying Rush in Lake City, FL, did not care if other stations in Jacksonville and Gainesville and Valdosta also carried him as those signals were inferior in WDSR’s coverage area.

You have no control over the competition. I’d rather strive for perfection at my own station than worry too often about a competitor.

But each station was in a different market and did not sell advertising in the others you could hear on a car radio on the open road. In most cases, within the actual towns and cities, there was only one station easily heard by locals in their home or workplace.
I am not talking about stations hundreds of miles apart. My listening was probably within a 50 mile area of all the cities that had Rush, maybe 20 miles north or south of the highway I was on.
I heard local advertisers from one town advertising their wares/stores on stations in other towns. That's like saying "Well no one ever leaves their city limits so why should we bother advertising on that towns station?" I'm going to market to a specific geographical area to get customers from that area to come to my area to shop. If you advertise on one station only, don't be surprised if you get maybe 10 or so customers showing up a week. It's like a clueless business owner saying that I don't want to waste my money so make sure the signal doesn't go over the Turtle county border because they're not going to leave their county to come to Frog county even if we're only 5 miles from each other. The stupidest commercial I heard was for, I think, a Cleveland area one-shop garage door/glass replacement/floor company or something along that line advertising on a Cleveland station for customers in West Virginia. Unless they're selling their wares at pennies on the dollar, I think someone in WV is going to be calling someone nearby rather than a few hundred miles away.
And yes, I'm going to listen to the competition. I can only think of the time decades ago when G98 beat WMMS in one ratings book. It was after that happened that WMMS added Michael Jackson and other pop stars to their rotation a year or so after saying "You'll NEVER hear Michael Jackson on OUR station". If I remember correctly the talk was that 'MMS was so high and mighty that they thought no one would ever beat them. They had tremendous MARKETING skills and probably some of the best DJs ever but there were a lot of other damn good DJs at other stations. I'd rather know what they're doing that might sooner or later impact what our station is doing so we could adjust. To bring a political analogy into it, I can think of local democrats saying we've got this presidential election sewn up. I was thinking to myself "Are you blind? Have you driven around the area and taken a look at all the Trump signs in people's yards? Even in some of the areas that are pretty heavily democratic? I see one Harris/Waltz sign for every 25 Trump signs., the only thing you've got sewn up are your eyelids.!"

 

[TheBigA]

I heard local advertisers from one town advertising their wares/stores on stations in other towns. That's like saying "Well no one ever leaves their city limits so why should we bother advertising on that towns station?" I'm going to market to a specific geographical area to get customers from that area to come to my area to shop.

Some people shop only in their geographical area. That's the thinking behind having several Starbucks or McDonalds in the same town. I bought my car online, and one of the first questions it asks is how far am I willing to travel to pick up my car. Then again, if you buy with Carvana, they'll deliver the car to you. So that's a function of the buyer. Buying decisions are not always the same as traveling decisions. I might only shop within 50 miles, but I often travel hundreds of miles for work or other activities. As far as eating, I usually eat within 10 miles (usually 5 miles) of my house. If you live in a metro area, there's no need to travel.

 

[Yabadabado1]

I might only shop within 50 miles, but I often travel hundreds of miles for work or other activities.

I'm never going to shop 50 miles. Unless it's something I really need and cannot get it nearby. Hell, I get cranky just having to drive 20 miles or so to a Walmart [even though there's one only 5 miles from me but it closes early and since it serves lower income people mostly, it doesn't stock the pricier stuff I use/like] Target or malls. As I get older, I may get crankier if I have to even drive 10 miles. About went nuts when visiting my parental units in Tennessee. Except for grocery stores [and there were only two big name stores in town] and gas stations, EVERYTHING else was at least 45 minutes to an hour away from them---Home Depots, Lowe's, malls, etc. My car broke down while I was there and I had to drive 2 hours to another county to get a part for it because no other auto parts store in the area had it. It wasn't like I was driving a Bentley or some other exotic car, plain old American made auto that wasn't that old. I suppose if I had the 1921 Oldsmobile Model 46 from the Beverly Hillbillies, they'd probably would have just reached under the counter and pull out the part or any part I needed, for it.

 

[radiofan2023]

My car broke down while I was there and I had to drive 2 hours to another county to get a part for it because no other auto parts store in the area had it. It wasn't like I was driving a Bentley or some other exotic car, plain old American made auto that wasn't that old. I suppose if I had the 1921 Oldsmobile Model 46 from the Beverly Hillbillies, they'd probably would have just reached under the counter and pull out the part or any part I needed, for it.

I had to get towed to Colorado when my VW broke down in Cheyenne, because there's only one Wyoming VW dealership and the one in Greeley was closer. At first I towed it to a Cheyenne shop, but they said, "What kind of car is that?" because they'd never seen a VW before. It turned out the fuel pump had gone bad and VW's corporate office would only reimburse me $100 on the $700 repair, even though it failed just out of warranty and there's no reason a fuel pump should fail after 30,000 miles. I will never buy another VW again.

 

[TheBigA]

I'm never going to shop 50 miles. Unless it's something I really need and cannot get it nearby.

So now you've reversed what you said in the previous post. Which is it?

 

[davideduardo]

But each station was in a different market and did not sell advertising in the others you could hear on a car radio on the open road. In most cases, within the actual towns and cities, there was only one station easily heard by locals in their home or workplace.
I am not talking about stations hundreds of miles apart. My listening was probably within a 50 mile area of all the cities that had Rush, maybe 20 miles north or south of the highway I was on.

Yet signals from all of those markets were listenable in Lake City. But they were full of local ads, local news breaks and local weather. Nobody listened, per the Arbitron County Reports that I got.

So whatever those local stations did had no impact on my station in my market.

And yes, I'm going to listen to the competition. I can only think of the time decades ago when G98 beat WMMS in one ratings book. It was after that happened that WMMS added Michael Jackson and other pop stars to their rotation a year or so after saying "You'll NEVER hear Michael Jackson on OUR station". If I remember correctly the talk was that 'MMS was so high and mighty that they thought no one would ever beat them. They had tremendous MARKETING skills and probably some of the best DJs ever but there were a lot of other damn good DJs at other stations. I'd rather know what they're doing that might sooner or later impact what our station is doing so we could adjust.

Local competition is a totally different thing. It has existed for 100 years in radio and will as radio moves to new media distribution.

And, remember, agencies buy rating, not share. IIRC (calling Huff!) the rating for G98 never beat WMMS. Tie, yes. But not beaten.

 

[davideduardo]

Rush also, in the early days, benefitted from local advertisers who were themselves conservatives---who literally supported the broadcast because it was the only one where they heard someone saying what they believed or at least found believable. There were and are a lot of those small business owners in the heartland, and elsewhere. When KFYI in Phoenix started airing Rush, businesses that had never advertised on radio before were among the earliest and longest-running sponsors.

In Lake City, FL, we had two restaurants that had a Rush Lunch at least once a week. Locals who liked Rush would go and sit at group tables with others like them and listen and chat.

Most were our clients, as well as local professionals (accountants, doctors, lawyers, etc) and they were obviously friends as well. Some that were not advertisers "converted" and bought campaigns. One of us went to those lunches regularly.

 

[michael hagerty]

In Lake City, FL, we had two restaurants that had a Rush Lunch at least once a week. Locals who liked Rush would go and sit at group tables with others like them and listen and chat.

"Rush Lunch" was so popular at La Perla in Glendale, AZ that they fairly quickly moved it out of the private dining room, and announced that from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. (Rush aired 10-1 because of AZ's lack of Daylight Savings Time), the ENTIRE restaurant was "Rush Lunch", and played the show over the in-house audio system.

Just went to look up La Perla, which opened in 1946...they closed in 2016.

La Perla Cafe, iconic Glendale Mexican restaurant, closes

La Perla Cafe, which has been a family-owned Mexican restaurant in Glendale since 1946, closed Jan. 28.

www.azcentral.com

 

[ChannelFlipper]

"Rush Lunch" was so popular at La Perla in Glendale, AZ that they fairly quickly moved it out of the private dining room, and announced that from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. (Rush aired 10-1 because of AZ's lack of Daylight Savings Time), the ENTIRE restaurant was "Rush Lunch", and played the show over the in-house audio system.

Just went to look up La Perla, which opened in 1946...they closed in 2016.

La Perla Cafe, iconic Glendale Mexican restaurant, closes

La Perla Cafe, which has been a family-owned Mexican restaurant in Glendale since 1946, closed Jan. 28.

www.azcentral.com

Proof of what I have maintained for years. Rush just had a way of bringing people together!

 

[michael hagerty]

I am not talking about stations hundreds of miles apart. My listening was probably within a 50 mile area of all the cities that had Rush, maybe 20 miles north or south of the highway I was on.

Okay, so, if you were in Bakersfield in the years Rush was on KFI, with a decent car radio, you would have been able to hear him on:

580 KMJ, Fresno
600 KOGO, San Diego
640 KFI, Los Angeles
1140 KVLI, Lake Isabella
1560 KNZR, Bakersfield
99.7 KSMJ, Shafter

Again, it really doesn't matter. People tune in the station they can hear the most clearly. In those days KFI and KMJ came into Bakersfield like locals, and KOGO wasn't half-bad, either...but nobody who lived there was listening to them.

 

[michael hagerty]

Proof of what I have maintained for years. Rush just had a way of bringing people together!

Well, these were most likely like-minded folks, but yeah.

It didn't last forever...I think La Perla got a year out of it (lunch out every day gets expensive, there weren't as many people in Glendale, not everybody likes Mexican food all the time) before going back to just doing normal lunch service.

Rush Lunch and Rush Rooms, as they were called in some markets, were usually sponsorship deals with the station---and if you tried to do one without buying time, you'd get a stern letter from EFM/Premiere about using their intellectual property to promote your business without permission.

But it was big enough for several months to not be a separate room.

 

[RayydioLA]

You're right. They should get somebody with no familiarity to the audience to host morning drive in Los Angeles.

Would you hire someone inferior to do a job for you on purpose, or would you get the best guy?

Morning drive? He was already DOING it. The announcement was all the markets he would be voicetracking. Tons of localized jocks in their cities and states got canned while he got extra millions. Make it make sense. It doesn't. The station still makes ad dollars, iHR and Seacrest get paid more than what they were even paying the local underpaid jocks in the first place.

 

[RayydioLA]

In much of the world, national or large regional programming is predominant. The idea of local radio is a rather American construct..

Yes. Don't look now, but...we are in America. And the "live and local" concept that began in the Golden Age of Radio, and through the 1950's, 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's made Radio the success that it once was. IN AMERICA. The industry has been ruining what made it great by cannibalizing itself for years. Not sure why you're defending the downfall.