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New Book Out On Clear Channel!

J

jaymarvin

Guest
There's a new book out on Clear Channel titled "Right Of The Dial." It got a notice from Amamzon.com that my copy just shipped. There was a review yesterday in the New York Times Book Section. Looks like it's going to be pretty good.
 
gr8oldies said:
No agenda I'm sure!
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The author says in the introduction that he did not set out to do a hatchet job on Clear Channel. It just turned out that most of the former employees he interviewed and the information he dug up suggested that Clear Channel is not one of the better corporations out there.
 
Yes, I work for a CC station. Let's see what the book says before we judge it and claim the guy has an agenda. There's also another book do out on CC. No release date yet.
 
almaniac27 said:
gr8oldies said:
No agenda I'm sure!
Click to expand...

The author says in the introduction that he did not set out to do a hatchet job on Clear Channel. It just turned out that most of the former employees he interviewed and the information he dug up suggested that Clear Channel is not one of the better corporations out there.
Click to expand...
Given the yearly "Christmas bonus" CC shoves down many of its employees' throats, I'm sure there are few former employees with anything good to say about a corporation that views anyone working behind a microphone in studio (as opposed to VT or satellite) as a draw on the company.

They likely also watch how many perks employees enjoy, such as free coffee. That, too, hurts the bottom line and takes away money that could go to the stockholders or the Mays' pockets.
 
So, don't work there! No one made anyone apply to work at CC. It doesnt matter what company, as long as there are more people that want radio gigs than there are radio gigs, wages are going to be low except for the extremely talented. No one owes anyone a job in radio. It was the same way in the good old days.
 
The problem with this type of thinking is... CC owns many of the signals, and in some markets, all of the strong AM signals.

Sarasota, for example, is a CC market, where the chain owns like 7 stations. The radio market is dead as a doornail. Nothing goes on there. Good talent is flushed.

You only have to listen to the product to figure out how much drek CC puts out today. Yuck. VT. No one "live" at night, So much for severe weather coverage.

Read the Tampa board and get a taste of what the great CC has done for radio.

You go work for them. Odds are, you'll be out of a job shortly because you're just a liability.
 
Look also at Denver, where CC owns the three leading talk signals: KOA, KHOW and 760 where Jay works.

One of the reasons the great Ken Hamblin - the Black Avenger - couldn't get work in Denver - and why he went syndicated - was because the suits at the radio chains held childlike grudges against him.

No way were they going to let him on their airwaves.
The big chains own the market. SO where does that leave talent?
 
Don, I had heard that Ken had retired from radio and is doing something else. His being right-wing has nothing to do with KOA. Why would it? The whole station is right-wing, and so is KHOW for the most part. The thing that sets our cluster apart from the rest of radio is the people in charge. I work for a great OD, Kris Olinger, and another great guy Lee Larson.
 
jaymarvin said:
Don, I had heard that Ken had retired from radio and is doing something else. His being right-wing has nothing to do with KOA. Why would it? The whole station is right-wing, and so is KHOW for the most part. The thing that sets our cluster apart from the rest of radio is the people in charge. I work for a great OD, Kris Olinger, and another great guy Lee Larson.
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Jay, I respect your work and used to listen to you frequently when you were on KOA and KHOW.

I wasn't referring to Ken's conservativeness.

Ken retired after a dispute with his syndicator. He certainly would have loved to have gone on Denver radio again, but had to go the syndicated route after his popular CSPAN appearance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Hamblin (Link provided for those not familiar with this compelling host).

Ken stated in an article I read years ago in a Denver mag. or other publication that I read online, that the consolidation trend was harmful to the industry and how it kept him off the airwaves.

Too many radio managers in Denver, apparently, held baseless and indefensible grudges against him, and wouldn't dare put his highly rated show back on the air.

This is kind of what happened to the great David Gold, one of Texas' talk pioneers that had a big following in Dallas on KLIF. He too got screwed by the radio chains that control that town.

Gold remains the biggest talk host that market has ever seen, with nearly a decade of winning ratings, he helped build KLIF into a NT winner, yet no station will risk hiring him.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gold_(talk_radio_host)

Sure tells you something about this suck-o industry.

I think the CC book, from the reviews I have read elsewhere on Radio Info, illustrate how the monopolistic CC's business practices have hurt radio's creativity and industry.

BTW, I listened to Alan Berg in the day and Ken in the night during the mid-80s, so I wasn't ( and am not ) into only right-wing or left-wing radio.
 
I just swapped email's with David. He's out of radio now which is sad. Ken was right about too much in the hands of too few. I'll ask around about what the deal is/was with Ken. What's he up to these days do you know?
 
Here is the article I had read online:

http://www.westword.com/1999-11-18/news/man-without-a-city/full


"I'd put a thousand dollars on the table betting you that if I was on in Denver right now, I'd get a three share [rating] in the first [Arbitron] book, and it would build from there -- because this is my town." Yet with no such offers forthcoming, he falls back on philosophy. "What has happened to me as far as exclusion is pretty common when you consider how many men aren't stars in their own community. And I might have been one if I'd been willing to pucker up and kiss derrieres. But I wasn't interested in that. Just like Frank Sinatra, I did it my way."
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But when asked about critics who accuse him of being more shtick than substance and of playing into the white man's hands for commercial gain, he drops the civility he loves to tout like a hot rock. "If it's true that I'm just doing this for the money, then why aren't I on the Fox network or CNN? Because I've had my chances. But I turned them down because I'm doing things the way I want to do them, and I believe in what I'm doing. I work seven days a week, and if people think what I do is a cakewalk, I don't really give a shit about them. I really don't care."

But he does. Deep down, it frosts him that he's not on a Denver radio station and that the current merger mania will likely prevent that from changing: "With consolidation, you don't have competition, and you have only a couple of people calling the shots. And if they don't like you..." Nonetheless, he plans to stay in Denver, proud that the powers that be still haven't found a way to grind him out of existence.

"When people told me I wasn't talented, I proved them wrong," he says. "And when they told me a black guy couldn't do a syndicated show, I proved them wrong, too. The politics of Denver is what it is, but it has not been powerful enough to reach out and touch me across this land."
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Good stuff on Ken's part. He is good and should be on the air somewhere in this town. You know who ought to pick him up is KNUS and put him on mornings. The Salem stuff is awful.
 
jaymarvin said:
Good stuff on Ken's part. He is good and should be on the air somewhere in this town. You know who ought to pick him up is KNUS and put him on mornings. The Salem stuff is awful.
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Jay, not to be disagreeable, but why do you not like Salem's shows?
I know it's an agenda-driven network, but I do listen to hosts like Michael Medved and Dennis Praegar.

I find Praegar very intelligent. His show, while it does cover politics, is more general interest and heavy on interviews with his opinions, and covers relationships and other issues. It isn't always the "Liberals are always wrong" type of show. In this way, it's kind of like Larry King's old radio show. While Larry was certainly more of a liberal, his show wasn't agenda-driven.

And Medved, while he of course has conservative opinions, has many guests (usually politically the opposite of the host) and seems more balanced than monotonous shows such as Limbo and Hannity.

I listen to those because there isn't much else on the dial where I live, except syndicated shows. The p.m. drive host on the "heritage" station is non-stop right wing Schtick that gets old quickly, though he claims his show isn't all about politics. Right.
 
My feelings are based on the fact that if you have a live, local talent like Ken Hamblin he should be on the air. You don't have to agree with or like someone's politics to say their good. I happen to think he's good. I happen to think most of the talent on the Salem stations are just OK. Nothing great. I never liked Parger when he was on KABC. By the way I finished the book on CC. Much of what is said in there is true. But it's not anything any other company is doing.
 
Clear Channel employees started receiving their copy of a CC approved history: Clear Vision, by Reed Bunzel.

It's really good! Filled with fantastic photos of the Mays clan!
I also wish someone would create a font that indicates sarcasm.
 
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