My God, Flip, I did it twice in a day!
I mean, yeah, it was last month, but....
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1090 XEPRS Has Gone Back to Oldies Plus Wolfman - L.A. Daily News
- Thread starter Daryl Lynn L.A.
- Start date
I mean, yeah, it was last month, but....
Send him a note. Or don't. I think he's reading this.
Come to think of it, have any of us ever seen Richard Wagoner and ChannelFlipper together at the same time? 🤣
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While that is very funny and I can laugh at myself as readily as I do others, It is now time to use your very own time machine with the wavy lines and all and go all the way back to the beginning of this, uhh....very long thread (not using irritating descriptions here, per request) and note that in post #12 I took (another) snarky shot at him and in post #22 I said that while I wish things were the way they were back when radio was "good" as he does, it just can never be.
I will say with all of the unnecessary character assassination being done on the guy, I kinda hope he keeps on doing exactly what he is doing. He does not need to make scolds on radio boards happy, he needs to make himself happy and his bosses at the paper happy, which apparently is exactly what he is doing, because he has been writing this column for years. I find it quite ironic that many of the same people around here that hold Saul in such high esteem for doing what he wants (as do I) simply won't let Wagoner do the same thing.
I agree with your dog riding the bicycle analogy in post 193. It is amazing he can do it at all, and if he can, why not just let him?
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Who says he needs to "make scolds on radio boards happy?" That's not the point at all.
The difference is that Saul has been running stations and involved in radio continuously since the 1950's (possibly before Richard was born) and Richard puts forth unworkable ideas and speculation that doesn't do anything to educate or teach readers who aren't part of the business (which is probably the majority of his readership), what it's about. It's the same reaction I have when people who have never worked at an NPR station and have only listened to one, complain about "NPR taking a side" or staff of its stations doing so, because I've worked at what was at the time the most listened to NPR station in the country, KQED, and never saw even a hint of that.
In my opinion, his column would be a lot better if it were about news, not pie in the sky format ideas and guessing games about who's going to fill a slot on a station.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
He reached out himself about a week ago and we cleared the air about it not being personal and I did make that suggestion directly. He says he is considering doing some columns as interviews or profiles of past air personalities, which I think is also an excellent idea (and I encouraged him to do that as often as he can).
I get the impression that there is so little "news" about the industry locally that he will seize on anything he can make a column out of, and I don't fault him for that, but I did advise him of the "fallout" among the fanboys who take him a little too seriously.
I think the discussion here was helpful to him, because he got to read a lot of opinions from people who still love radio, both the pros and the laypeople.
It depends on what you're looking for. I hear all the time that there's so little industry news, and yet I see things all the time that get my attention, and get people talking.
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Can't blame him. Deadlines happen. He has to have a column in on a given day of the week like clockwork, even if nothing's going on, or he doesn't get paid.
And let's keep in mind that he's teaching school all week, not prowling the net looking for news of L.A. radio.
I mean, heck, let's just look at this board:
- XEPRS goes back to oldies and Wolfman---but that was three weeks ago.
- Saul pulled Oldies off HD4, but put them back on HD3.
- Kevin and Sluggo are gone from KLOS---that was five weeks ago.
We're barely interesting enough.
Now let's look at what he's put out there the last however many weeks this index shows:
Richard Wagoner
Richard Wagoner is a San Pedro freelance columnist covering radio in Southern California. Email [email protected].
www.ocregister.com
Frankly, I'm kinda surprised. I stopped looking years ago. This list of links shows a lot of initiative and no small amount of work.
If I clicked through, I might not agree with some, many, most or all of his conclusions, but so what?
And if he wants to write about a dream he had about KABC and his editors and readers don't say "so what?"---what's it to us?
I'm defending Richard Wagoner. I'm agreeing with Flip. Can world peace be far behind?
"And the lion shall lie down with the lamb.
But the lamb won't get much sleep."
---Woody Allen
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K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Okay, here is a scenario which could work, using those as an example:
Week #1: Kevin and Sluggo fired by KLOS. Even with his teaching responsibilities, Richard could reach out via e-mail to Meruelo, to the duo themselves, and anyone else who could offer their opinion (how about Freddy Snakeskin, since there's a KROQ connection?). There's a full column.
Week #2: Wagoner asks Saul (who is always willing to talk with the media) for a statement or two, maybe e-mails me or someone else with a long history in the market, and there's a column reporting the entire story, with relevant commentary. (I know that if he had either talked to me or Jhani Kaye, either of us would have pointed out that Oldies is not a mainstream format and still given Saul credit for putting them back on a KKGO stream.)
Week #3: The same column that set off this thread, but tempered by excerpts from the week #2 column and without the tongue-in-cheek comment about KHJ.
And maybe week #4 could be reader comments on the preceding column, giving him a bit of a break in the process.
While radio isn't "interesting enough" for most readers of the Daily News, et al, this approach might get a few more people to stop as they flip through the paper and read his column. That's a win-win for all concerned, IMHO.
But a lot has to do with the headline and the first paragraph. And, of course the content. He could do some columns on actual events, but also do others getting reader feedback on radio subjects.
- Is rock radio dying in LA? Or is the heritage station just lost in space?
- What is what two LA stations call "Alternative Rock"? If you don't listen to them and their music, tell me why you don't!
- Oldies: Are there still fans of Buddy Holly, Little Richard and Elvis or is that era's music as dead as they are?
- What's the last interesting thing that you heard on the radio?
- Ask readers to email with the name of their favorite radio personality and why. Could do "ever" and "just today" for two different columns.
- When you turn on the radio in the car, what do you want to hear first?
Just how slow are things? Look at all the pages of posts in the thread regarding the end of Bloomberg 960 in San Francisco. An AM station with almost zero listeners flipping to a format with almost zero listeners. You would think it's the end of the world from all the reaction.Can't blame him. Deadlines happen. He has to have a column in on a given day of the week like clockwork, even if nothing's going on, or he doesn't get paid.
And let's keep in mind that he's teaching school all week, not prowling the net looking for news of L.A. radio.
I mean, heck, let's just look at this board:
- XEPRS goes back to oldies and Wolfman---but that was three weeks ago.
- Saul pulled Oldies off HD4, but put them back on HD3.
- Kevin and Sluggo are gone from KLOS---that was five weeks ago.
We're barely interesting enough.
Now let's look at what he's put out there the last however many weeks this index shows:
Richard Wagoner
Richard Wagoner is a San Pedro freelance columnist covering radio in Southern California. Email [email protected].
Frankly, I'm kinda surprised. I stopped looking years ago. This list of links shows a lot of initiative and no small amount of work.
If I clicked through, I might not agree with some, many, most or all of his conclusions, but so what?
And if he wants to write about a dream he had about KABC and his editors and readers don't say "so what?"---what's it to us?
I'm defending Richard Wagoner. I'm agreeing with Flip. Can world peace be far behind?
"And the lion shall lie down with the lamb.
But the lamb won't get much sleep."
---Woody Allen
Anything can happen these days. I watched a full total eclipse this year from my front yard!
Be glad I haven't mentioned KMKY.
Conversely (or inversely), Wagoner is writing for a general audience; he and his editors can't get into too much inside baseball.
It's the radiodiscussions.com law of physics. Radio stations with the lowest number of listeners create threads with the largest number of posts. Go figure...
Right now, KMKY has no listeners. By definition, if you know what I mean. By that law, a thread on KMKY should be undefined because you can't divide by zero.
Exactly. These are suburban newspapers, not the trades.
But that's the problem. Songs from the 1980-1982 period are being ignored because of "supposed" unfamiliarity. I find that VERY hard to believe. I suspect you do play a "handful" of them on your 80's channel, but by downright eliminating the majority of tunes from those three years, you are contributing to such unfamilarity by not even playing them to begin with. There are lots of nice 80-82 songs that should be played, especially if you are running an 80's channel. The 80's decade is just that...the ENTIRE decade, not just 1983-88, which on many stations today, are being played to the degree like it's the only thing musically that ever existed.
I realize there are many slower, contemporary songs and some late 70's style songs that were popular in the 80-82 period and some of those can be partially eliminated on regular rotation, but to totally ignore them is not correct also. Nothing wrong with spinning Dupree's "Steal Away" (80), or "Upside Down" (80) or even "Real Love" (80) by the Doobies, especially on a flashback weekend show. There are many upon many, nice tunes from those three years combined.
Yeah, the new wave, British movement of the 83-86 period is very appealing and many great songs were popular, but I think representing the entire decade from it's contemporary, disco-ish beginnings to the onset of some old school rap by 1989 and everything in between is the way to go and a wonderful representation of that decade, known as the eighties.
And please, substituting 1980-1982 American Top 40 reruns with 86-88 shows is plain ridiculous and denying your audience a true representation of the decade. The memorable hits were in the first half of the decade, not the 2nd. Anyways, Sundays there's low listenership, so what's the difference.
Demographics, target ages and familiarity.
The early 80's songs are "too old" even to have been gold cuts for 35-44 year olds today. So they were not heard, and are not familiar. Period.
If listeners are not familiar with them they will not like them. Those songs are too old for the 35-54 target of an 80's station which depends on people who heard some of the earlier (but not earliest) 80's songs as gold on a CHR station. Those of the kind you mention are just not familiar at all and would be terrible, extreme negaves
How do you know that there is "nothing wrong"? Did you research the songs in ABQ yourself?
Again, those who are in the younger target demos did not hear those songs. They are certifiably unfamiliar.
There is no law requiring all the 80's be played. Just as, for example, a "Seafood Restaurant" does not have to have swordfish; in this example the restaurant knows that fish has high iodine and they prefer not to promote it. Same with the music: high unfamiliarity is present and that kills AQH.
So much for my fishy analogy. I will now swim away.
Do you know how radio works? Let me explain: You turn it on, and listen. If you like what you hear, you continue listening. If you don't, you change the station. That's the extent of your obligation.
Radio is not in the history business. Radio isn't there to educate people or give them a "true representation of the decade." That's not their job. OK?
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