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laradio.com to continue

C

ChannelFlipper

Don just sent out an email discussing his difficult decision process and outlined plans for a new and improved laradio.com. The main change is that the regular daily features will be free to all and then there will be additional content that will be provided on a subscription-only basis. The site will have a new updated look and feel after the first of the year as well. Don hopes that going to a subscriber/subscription hybrid will enable him to maximize his revenue model.

I and many others are grateful for the work he puts into the site and are glad to see that he is continuing. I do hope this new model works for him.
 
The new site looks great.

The website has an modern look and feel.

Also discovered thus far there is an bit of coverage from San Diego radio.

The new model looks promising and here is to best wishes it works.
 
A bit of coverage... DSC is the headline story as I write this.

Don, if you're reading this, good on you. I hope the new site really flies.

-- Doc
 
LARadio.com comes to an end

It is sad to see that the ending of LARadio.com, which Don Barrett has long touted as impending, has now happened. On Thursday, November 8, 2012, Don posted a farewell on http://www.laradio.com saying "Final Curtain Comes Down on LARadio.com". I was a subscriber and will miss having him and his site around to help formulate the community of broadcasters and fans in LA, OC, and IE. Any speculation of who will pick up the baton? Note how SDRadio.net did find Joe Nelson, who stepped into the primary editor and writer role, while allowing Chris Carmichael to continue in a more limited capacity. Wonder if anyone is going to approach Don with a similar proposal. Perhaps Alan Oda?
 
Yours truly---that's a formal way to say "me"---wrote the daily Rewind feature (radio history, music trivia, chart data, birthday bios) for LARadio.com. I started in 2004 as a "temporary" replacement for the ailing Jim Hawthorne. Jim, of course, had worked at KXLA, KECA, KFWB and KIEV and wrote dozens of amusing stories about his early days in radio. My "temporary" stretched into a nine-year span. Hawthorne died in 2007. And, as we now know, LARadio.com is also dead.

I had suggested that Don open up the site so radio people could post their own news and others could respond, similar to the message boards of XMFan.com or RadioDiscussions.com. All he would need is a moderator to make sure everyone "keeps it clean." Don's reply was: "You already have those sites." Yeah, but when a station is sold or changes format, when a DJ gets fired or joins a new station or dies, when KROQ's Gene Baxter donates a kidney to save a life, will the news be posted here? Maybe eventually...but not immediately. Radio columnist Richard Wagoner told me he had some ideas for a new LARadio site; we'll have to see if anything happens.

Part of the problem that Don had with the website was that too many radio people were sharing their passwords. If everyone who went to the site had paid for the site, he might have been more willing to keep it going. Of course he also got married two months ago. I'm sure that was also a factor in his decision to end the site.
 
ah yes. The annual Don Barrett going out of business sale.

the end of the year would not be complete without it.

some of you will feel guilty, write very nice things about him, and then at the last minute he'll re up for another year.

it's getting rather old.
 
HerbNero said:
ah yes. The annual Don Barrett going out of business sale.

the end of the year would not be complete without it.

some of you will feel guilty, write very nice things about him, and then at the last minute he'll re up for another year.

it's getting rather old.
Click to expand...

FYI, this thread is almost three years old and most of the news in it is no longer current or accurate.
 
The news posted yesterday (November 12, 2012) is accurate and up to date! Well...up to yesterday's date, at least. I got a brief note from Don saying that he was taking a belated honeymoon and Christmas trip to New York City. After the first of the year, he would decide what to do next. He cryptically said that he had "three possibilities, none of them in radio."
 
HerbNero said:
ah yes. The annual Don Barrett going out of business sale.

the end of the year would not be complete without it.

some of you will feel guilty, write very nice things about him, and then at the last minute he'll re up for another year.

it's getting rather old.
Click to expand...

Well I think the new marriage is what will make the difference this time. Sometimes having the support of another is all you need to follow through on your new plans.

However for someone who has so many connections in the industry and so much knowledge I cannot imagine Don will totally walk away from this and will stay connected in one form or another.
 
Richard Wagoner is a freelance radio columnist whose writings appear each Friday in the Daily News and the Daily Breeze. He devoted all of this week's column to the demise of LARadio.com, ending with this paragraph: "Will another radio-devoted site rise from the ashes of LARadio.com? All signs point to 'yes.' Stay tuned."

So...I guess we'll have to "stay tuned."
 
The site still exists, although, as the expression goes, it's only a shell of its former self. Don continues to maintain the "Where Are They Now?" pages and he occasionally posts major stories such as the death of longtime KABC overnight host Ray Briem.
 
We all would love for LARadio.com to continue...but not this way. Just a few days after reporting on the death of Ray Briem, the site today has this headline:

KKLA Afternooner Frank Pastore Dies
 
Don Barrett just sent an e-mail to all former subscribers of LARadio.com. It read, in part:

"LARadio is about to launch a 10 eBook series of archival material from the 20-year history of Los Angeles Radio People (books and columns). Even though the daily columns ceased last fall, there has been an attempt to keep the Where Are They Now section current and up-to-date. While doing that, I have posted press releases and LARP updates at www.LARadio.com. If you will, you could call it LARadio Lite."

Then he included an "unsubscribe" link for those who don't want to receive updates. I'd like to think that nobody would want to unsubscribe.
 
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