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Mickey Luckoff Resigns from KGO Radio

The initial SFGate post was brief, but an update from this afternoon fleshes out Luckoff's departure a little more vividly:

But in an interview with me just now, Luckoff made no bones about why, from his point of view, he gave the station owner, Citadel Broadcasting, two weeks notice.

"These aren't very good people," he said. "They don't treat people well. They undermine you at every turn."

Responding to an online rumor, Luckoff said he "absolutely, positively" was not forced out.

"This has been building up for some time," -- basically from when Citadel bought the station from Disney three years ago, said Luckoff. "I've had the resignation letter in my desk for nine months."
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End of an era, indeed. Let the AM (after Mickey) speculation begin.
 
It's only a matter of time until Citadel takes a blowtorch to KGO and turns it into syndication central, much like flagship WABC New York.

This would seem to be in Citadel's game plan, turning two 50 kW blasters, one on the East Coast, the other on the West Coast into anchors for their own talk programming.

Very sad indeed! :(
 
LA_Guy said:
I predict he's moving up the dial to 860, probably as an owner.
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With KGO hovering around 20th in 25-54, I think it is fairly obvious that anyone with the knowledge that Luckoff has accumulated over the years would conclude that investing in an AM with an inferior signal is a terrible idea.
 
DavidEduardo said:
LA_Guy said:
I predict he's moving up the dial to 860, probably as an owner.
Click to expand...

With KGO hovering around 20th in 25-54, I think it is fairly obvious that anyone with the knowledge that Luckoff has accumulated over the years would conclude that investing in an AM with an inferior signal is a terrible idea.
Click to expand...

It isn't an inferior signal at all. Daytime it's a BETTER signal then 810 and nighttime it's not that bad-and can be made better and/or run cheaper by moving it elsewhere. It also has baseball-and Mickey knows how to sell sports better then most.
 
LA_Guy said:
It isn't an inferior signal at all. Daytime it's a BETTER signal then 810 and nighttime it's not that bad-and can be made better and/or run cheaper by moving it elsewhere. It also has baseball-and Mickey knows how to sell sports better then most.
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The daytime 860 signal is non-directional, meaning much of it is wasted to the east and to the west, while the market runs from Santa Rosa to Campbell, and the KGO signal is almost tailor made for that area. 810 is vastly superior to 860 daytime (plus the footwet towers for KGO are a big plus).

The night signal could take years to improve, if ever. The original night site was met with every kind of permit problem imaginable, and other potential sites (like 1220) would also have NIMBY problems. In any case, the origanlly planned night signal would come across the center of the market and out over the ocean, missing much of the market to the north and south.

I really doubt the sports contract, given the now obvious signal issues, will last long enough for a decent night signal to be built... again, if it is even buildable. Also consider that KGO billings are off by a much higher percentage than the market as a whole in the last 7-8 years, so waiting for a night faciltity that might make the station moderately competitive would hardly be productive.
 
If you feel that KGO's golden age is now, then you'd better begin saving all those archive hours from the KGO website. KGO will quickly slide down into the toilet.

By this time next year the only listenable talkhost on KGO will be Dr. Dean Edell, syndicated from Clear Channel. The rest of the syndicated pickings available to KGO are garbage. CC has the best ones sewn up already on their stations.
 
Having Mr. Luckoff buy KTRB isn't going to suddenly turn the station into a winner. KGO is/was great because it has/had great people from top to bottom. You may not like all of them, but enough people do/did to make KGO a phenomenon over the last three decades.

If he buys KTRB (and odds are he won't) will he have the funds and investors to build a great station? Unless he partners with, say, Disney/ESPN and re-brands it as ESPN Bay Area, using solid local talent alongside established network programming, updates and game broadcasts, coupled with ESPN's web resources, there's little chance of building it from the ground up.
 
"These aren't very good people," he (Luckoff) said. "They don't treat people well. They undermine you at every turn." In one pithy sentence, he summarized Citadel's CEO and COO.
 
Element9 said:
"These aren't very good people," he (Luckoff) said. "They don't treat people well. They undermine you at every turn." In one pithy sentence, he summarized Citadel's CEO and COO.
Click to expand...

Mickey may have only said a little, but it's plenty. The listeners can only hope that Citadel will realize that it's KGO's live and local programming from highly intelligent and articulate hosts that has made it so consistently successful - and big blocks of syndicated programming by verbal bomb-throwers will only hurt the ratings. We don't need another KNEW.
 
Mickey Luckoff will be the guest on Ronn Owens' show during the 11 AM hour this morning.

Listen online at http://kgoam810.com/
 
FLASH!!! Ronn Owens just announced that Mickey Luckoff's appearance on KGO at 11 AM has "been cancelled by management, period."

Meanwhile, Ronn's topic this morning is ... "freedom of speech." ::)
 
Lkeller said:
Mickey may have only said a little, but it's plenty. The listeners can only hope that Citadel will realize that it's KGO's live and local programming from highly intelligent and articulate hosts that has made it so consistently successful - and big blocks of syndicated programming by verbal bomb-throwers will only hurt the ratings. We don't need another KNEW.
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I've listened to KGO for over thirty years for a lot of reasons, mainly because of the massive level of talent they've always had PLUS the fact that they do only local shows (with a few exceptions), not a bunch of worn-out non-local syndicated shows. If Citadel doesn't get that, they may as well set the building on fire, dismantle the three big towers by the Dumbarton bridge, and rename their company "Shortsighted corporate losers with no vision or business sense whatsoever". OK, the name isn't catchy, but at least it'll be true. Maybe S***adel is easier to say.

In listening to everything from the news last evening to Gene Burns and on to the morning news this morning, you can definitely hear the concern in everyone's voices...this is probably the saddest thing that has happened to radio in recent memory. If Citadel lets this diamond of a station break apart, it will be nothing short of an absolute disgrace.
 
EastBay said:
If Citadel lets this diamond of a station break apart, it will be nothing short of an absolute disgrace.
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But you know that is exactly what will happen -- the station's ratings will cave in as "live and local" disappears, Citadel will rearrange the deck chairs (perhaps several times) and then will abort/eject and dump the station before it loses its value entirely.

If AM radio here ain't dead yet, this is a sign that the pine box and a bag of nails are on the way...
 
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