KPCC Rebrands as LAist 89.3

[DavidEduardo]

"Community" still has a specific meaning, and it's not synonymous with "metro area" or "market." At some point, perhaps the FCC might be persuaded to license stations to a market instead of a specific community, but for now it still maintains a distinction, at least on paper, between "Los Angeles" and "Pasadena" or "Glendale" or "Santa Monica," even if it makes no real-world difference anymore.

I'm going back to the 80's when we were represented by Koteen & Burt for our stations in Puerto Rico and we got a "memo of interpretation" about both ascertainment and "community of license". The point was that for ascertainment just interviewing "leaders" in the city of license was not enough as the FCC had made the concept more vague by changing "city" to "community".

The recommendation was that "we serve our community from our particular city so that both are considered". That meant ascertainment in the stations primary coverage area, not just the city or community of license.

That was before the ID rules were relaxed to allow the addition of other cities after the city of license, which was, of course, a further relaxation on the concept of "city" of license and the inclusion, by interpretation, of the coverage area beyond the city licensed to.

As we now have no requirement to even have an office or studio in the licensed town, it's obvious that the FCC is more focused on coverage areas than specific towns.

I would guess that the next step will be to allow the needless Legal ID to be done with some type of data burst, perhaps similar to the PPM encoding technique. Most stations, save the most traditional and heritage ones, use names to brand themselves and not call letters... so it makes sense to eliminate the aural ID requirement.

 

[fybush]

I bet that's right. A lotta rules were relaxed or repealed during the Fowler years.

That sounds about right.

The main reason stations went through the hassle of getting a dual-city ID was to be able to put the main studio in either city, usually with a sister station.

It was also around that same time that the main studio rules began to be relaxed. Even before the main studio requirement was completely abolished, stations were allowed more leeway to put the studio anywhere in their primary signal contour and/or within 25 miles of the COL - so KDAY could have moved its studio to an LA location even without officially adding the dual COL.

(It wouldn't have been allowed LA as a dual COL because its signal doesn't come anywhere close to covering all of the city. It's true that 1230, for instance, also doesn't - but it was grandfathered in from the 1920s, and by the reality that no kilowatt graveyard signal can cover the huge sprawl of the city of LA)

 

[Daryl Lynn L.A.]

KRLA was at 1410 So. Oak Knoll in the Huntington Hotel.

I think you mean 1401 S. Oak Knoll, because KRLA shared that street address with the Huntington Hotel. - D.

 

[TomásEstefan]

I think you mean 1401 S. Oak Knoll, because KRLA shared that street address with the Huntington Hotel. - D.

You're right! For some reason 1410 stuck in my mind all these years...I remember looking at the address on a sign when I stopped by to pick up some free promo stuff from KRLA when I was about 15 !

 

[DavidEduardo]

That sounds about right.

The main reason stations went through the hassle of getting a dual-city ID was to be able to put the main studio in either city, usually with a sister station.

It was also around that same time that the main studio rules began to be relaxed. Even before the main studio requirement was completely abolished, stations were allowed more leeway to put the studio anywhere in their primary signal contour and/or within 25 miles of the COL - so KDAY could have moved its studio to an LA location even without officially adding the dual COL.

Here is an interesting aspect of all that: In 1975, I wanted to locate the studio of WQII-San Juan at the transmitter site of WSRA (FM) in the adjacent city of Guaynabo, Puerto Rico. To do so, we had to get certified documents showing that there were bus or other public transit routes nearby.

Of course, the FCC did not look at topographical maps, or the would have seen that the FM transmitter site was just under a mile from public transit, but a steep uphill walk with no sidewalks on a narrow road. It was fine for staff, listeners and record promoters who had cars, but it was a challenging walk.

 

[TomásEstefan]

That sounds about right.

The main reason stations went through the hassle of getting a dual-city ID was to be able to put the main studio in either city, usually with a sister station.

It was also around that same time that the main studio rules began to be relaxed. Even before the main studio requirement was completely abolished, stations were allowed more leeway to put the studio anywhere in their primary signal contour and/or within 25 miles of the COL - so KDAY could have moved its studio to an LA location even without officially adding the dual COL.

(It wouldn't have been allowed LA as a dual COL because its signal doesn't come anywhere close to covering all of the city. It's true that 1230, for instance, also doesn't - but it was grandfathered in from the 1920s, and by the reality that no kilowatt graveyard signal can cover the huge sprawl of the city of LA

Back in the day when 1580 KDAY was a daytimer, at the the beginning and the end of their broadcast day they announced that their studios were in both "Hollywood and Santa Monica, and serving Los Angeles and San Diego" as their 50 kW xmitter was then in Santa Monica with that deep western lobe running through the SM Mountains rather than through the middle of the SFV like it does today from their Echo Park facility. Their north lobe covered the SFV, and south went all the way down to SD listenable on any car radio and nearly local in Oceanside where I spent many summers back then.

 

[TheBigA]

Across the country, at WAMU Washington, the decision was made to shut down their version of LAist, DCist, and focus on the radio station:

NPR Washington Affiliate WAMU to Lay Off 15 Staffers, Shutter DCist Site

NPR's Washington, D.C., affiliate WAMU will lay off 15 staffers in a shift away from digital publishing, while adding back another 10 to refocus its effort on audio offerings.

www.thewrap.com

WAMU is typically either #1 or #2 in local ratings. I wonder if this decision will affect similar operations in LA.

 

[david]

Across the country, at WAMU Washington, the decision was made to shut down their version of LAist, DCist, and focus on the radio station: NPR Washington Affiliate WAMU to Shutter DCist

WAMU is typically either #1 or #2 in local ratings. I wonder if this decision will affect similar operations in LA.

Sadly echoes what is happening at Vice and BuzzFeed.... two prominent digital media newsrooms that are being shrunk substantially so that each operation can focus on what they feel is their core essence. WAMU seems to be determining that audio product, and not written product, is where its brand essence resides.

Backgrounder: Vice Media and BuzzFeed are in a frenetic retreat, surrendering much of their online empires as they try to protect what remains of their core assets. Having once threatened to upend the entire industry and usher in a new era of news distribution and monetization, the former digital media darlings are now merely attempting to survive in any form they can.

 

[ChannelFlipper]

Sadly echoes what is happening at Vice and BuzzFeed.... two prominent digital media newsrooms that are being shrunk substantially so that each operation can focus on what they feel is their core essence. WAMU seems to be determining that audio product, and not written product, is where its brand essence resides.

Backgrounder: Vice Media and BuzzFeed are in a frenetic retreat, surrendering much of their online empires as they try to protect what remains of their core assets. Having once threatened to upend the entire industry and usher in a new era of news distribution and monetization, the former digital media darlings are now merely attempting to survive in any form they can.

There is a very simple way for them to not only survive, but thrive. They just aren't interested in doing it.

Sooo..... Buh Bye!

 

[ChannelFlipper]

There is a very simple way for them to not only survive, but thrive. They just aren't interested in doing it.

Sooo..... Buh Bye!

And before the usual suspects start their indignant piling on, here is a sample of just some of the headlines that are on Vice:

• Inside the Christian Nationalist Church Where Proud Boys Go to be Baptized
• What We Know About the Death of Nonbinary Teen Nex Benedict
• How Do Oil Companies Get Away With, Well, Everything? An Expert Explains.
• How it Feels to Be a Queer Palestinian in Exile
• The Best Bedside Lamps (for Better Sleep, Sex, and Ambiance)
• Magic Mushroom Edibles: Everything to Know, from Chocolates to Drops
• Help! I’m Obsessed With These Pho-Filled Frozen Soup Dumplings
• How to Get Fee Coke

Note: I didn't compile this list, but did verify its (stunning) accuracy.

This is how you create a website that literally loses millions of dollars and is forced to (most likely) go dark and lay off everyone (that wasn't already laid off before).

 

[TheBigA]

And before the usual suspects start their indignant piling on, here is a sample of just some of the headlines that are on Vice:

You're not the only one who feels this way. Cue the proletariat:

Shitty Journalism Swirls the Drain Even Faster as Buzzfeed and Vice Announce Massive Layoffs. Let's Celebrate With Their Worst Articles Ever.

Bennett Raglin. Getty Images.These are the worst of times for journos, both the capital-J and lower case j varieties. The business model of sharing information continues to seismically shift with an ...

www.barstoolsports.com

I'm not sure why, but I like David Portnoy. He's like a guy I went to school with.

 

[michael hagerty]

And before the usual suspects start their indignant piling on, here is a sample of just some of the headlines that are on Vice:

• Inside the Christian Nationalist Church Where Proud Boys Go to be Baptized
• What We Know About the Death of Nonbinary Teen Nex Benedict
• How Do Oil Companies Get Away With, Well, Everything? An Expert Explains.
• How it Feels to Be a Queer Palestinian in Exile
• The Best Bedside Lamps (for Better Sleep, Sex, and Ambiance)
• Magic Mushroom Edibles: Everything to Know, from Chocolates to Drops
• Help! I’m Obsessed With These Pho-Filled Frozen Soup Dumplings
• How to Get Fee Coke

Note: I didn't compile this list, but did verify its (stunning) accuracy.

This is how you create a website that literally loses millions of dollars and is forced to (most likely) go dark and lay off everyone (that wasn't already laid off before).

I’m gonna stun everyone and (largely) agree with Flip.

A lot of that list is content, not journalism, and disposable content at that.

Having checked the stories, though, the Proud Boys baptism piece is a solid story about the current wave of Christian Nationalism.

Nex Benedict died after a beating at school and it appears the school may have failed to render adequate aid before sending them home to die.

Five major oil companies are reporting record profits because of price hikes in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Solid story, click-bait headline.

I can’t imagine what it must be like to be a queer Palestinian in exile, but the story is again pretty solid.

Bedside lamps? Edibles? Soup dumplings? Those are product pieces, not journalism. And how to get a drug that’s not legal anywhere in America for free is just irresponsible journalism that could get your readers arrested for possession.

Vice was clearly aiming at readers younger than Flip and I (I’m thinking 35 and under). What they failed to understand is that the clickbait stuff would eventually brand them as lightweight and non-essential even among their target audience.

 

[Weiserguy]

Flip, the problem isn't that you don't like what you're seeing on these sites. It's that most of it isn't real journalism, it's advocacy for some fringe interest or fringe cause. If that's your reason for existing, okay fine, but be honest about it, because your market is going to be fairly tiny and it paints you into a tight, unprofitable corner. If, otoh, you want to do actual journalism that could have an impact, you need to be focusing on causes that a critical mass of potential readers either care about or might be open minded enough to care about, assuming you gather the facts and present them in a compelling narrative. And Buzzfeed, Vice, DCist, LAist, Gothamist, etc. just haven't been doing that, they've wasted time on fringe topics like the ones Flip listed.

As for the issues at WAMU and similar stations, they could be doing important work, but for a long time the pledge money and the underwriting money has been rolling in, so instead of using the breathing room to make themselves lean and mean, they used it to hire extra people, in a lot of cases recent J-school grads still wet behind the ears, to do special-interest advocacy journalism that alienated a bunch of the core listeners. And when the inevitable happened, the money train did start to slow down, they pushed harder for ever-bigger donations from the same core of listeners that they'd been ticking off by ignoring the actual news and leaning too much on NPR.

 

[michael hagerty]

Flip, the problem isn't that you don't like what you're seeing on these sites. It's that most of it isn't real journalism, it's advocacy for some fringe interest or fringe cause. If that's your reason for existing, okay fine, but be honest about it, because your market is going to be fairly tiny and it paints you into a tight, unprofitable corner. If, otoh, you want to do actual journalism that could have an impact, you need to be focusing on causes that a critical mass of potential readers either care about or might be open minded enough to care about, assuming you gather the facts and present them in a compelling narrative. And Buzzfeed, Vice, DCist, LAist, Gothamist, etc. just haven't been doing that, they've wasted time on fringe topics like the ones Flip listed.

As for the issues at WAMU and similar stations, they could be doing important work, but for a long time the pledge money and the underwriting money has been rolling in, so instead of using the breathing room to make themselves lean and mean, they used it to hire extra people, in a lot of cases recent J-school grads still wet behind the ears, to do special-interest advocacy journalism that alienated a bunch of the core listeners. And when the inevitable happened, the money train did start to slow down, they pushed harder for ever-bigger donations from the same core of listeners that they'd been ticking off by ignoring the actual news and leaning too much on NPR.

I understand what you’re saying (and that you were talking to Flip), but I wonder where each of us draws the line on “fringe”.

If the majority aren’t trans or queer, but those people are suffering, should those stories be excluded from mainstream media?

Every trans kid I know has two heterosexual parents who care very much about them and how society treats them. There are groups today that are considered mainstream that are only there because mass society learned instead of continuing to ignore or fear them.

 

[Mark Roberts]

You're not the only one who feels this way. Cue the proletariat:

Shitty Journalism Swirls the Drain Even Faster as Buzzfeed and Vice Announce Massive Layoffs. Let's Celebrate With Their Worst Articles Ever.

Bennett Raglin. Getty Images.These are the worst of times for journos, both the capital-J and lower case j varieties. The business model of sharing information continues to seismically shift with an ...

www.barstoolsports.com

I'm not sure why, but I like David Portnoy. He's like a guy I went to school with.

I can't decide whether the ads that accompanied the piece supported his case or undercut it. Which kind of tells you the problem right there.

 

[TheBigA]

And when the inevitable happened, the money train did start to slow down, they pushed harder for ever-bigger donations from the same core of listeners that they'd been ticking off by ignoring the actual news and leaning too much on NPR.

So maybe give WAMU credit for recognizing the problem, while KPCC and WNYC have not.

My sense is that 5 years ago, they saw the radio demos aging, and thought they could attract a new audience with digital. But they were still using the NPR stylebook at DCist, and that style didn't attract the younger demos. So why spend the money if it doesn't get you anything.

 

[michael hagerty]

So maybe give WAMU credit for recognizing the problem, while KPCC and WNYC have not.

My sense is that 5 years ago, they saw the radio demos aging, and thought they could attract a new audience with digital. But they were still using the NPR stylebook at DCist, and that style didn't attract the younger demos. So why spend the money if it doesn't get you anything.

I won’t be surprised to see L.A. and New York follow suit.

 

[Weiserguy]

I understand what you’re saying (and that you were talking to Flip), but I wonder where each of us draws the line on “fringe”.

If the majority aren’t trans or queer, but those people are suffering, should those stories be excluded from mainstream media?

Every trans kid I know has two heterosexual parents who care very much about them and how society treats them. There are groups today that are considered mainstream that are only there because mass society learned instead of ignored or feared.

It's a question of proportion, Mike. Using your example, there are trans kids, but they are not, by any means, the majority of kids in the current (or any) cohort. But if I am to go by the number of stories I see or hear, the coverage verses the true size of the problem, "trans" has become a major problem in this country. The treatment of trans kids (or trans adults) is real, but coverage of it needs to be in some rough proportion to the actual size of the actual problem, and I think a lot of the pushback comes from the feeling that this is not anywhere as big as problem as some media attempts to make it seem, and that it's being shoved down everyone else's throat.

 

[Weiserguy]

I won’t be surprised to see L.A. and New York follow suit.

And San Francisco won't be far behind. I've been listening to pledge breaks for the last two-plus weeks, and I'm ready to scream. (There's a volcanic eruption in me on this very topic that's about to come barreling out in the very near future.)

 

[Mark Roberts]

If the majority aren’t trans or queer, but those people are suffering, should those stories be excluded from mainstream media?

In my opinion, the journalistically sound goal should be to leave the reader, or listener, or viewer with the reaction: "hey, I didn't know that before!" This is also why representation matters. Reporters from previously or presently marginalized groups know, and can sniff out, the stories that are new and fresh to a broader audience.

This was true in cybersecurity as well, and probably other fields. If all you have is groupthink from a single perspective, the thing that's going to knock your playhouse down will come at you from left field (not a political metaphor).