Local (and other) radio news

[RGMike]

Gaz will be pleased to hear that Barry Scott's "Lost 45s" has a Boston station again (WOCD has switched formats a few months back, leaving the show chomeless).  It will now be heard on 105.7 WROR.

http://www.wror.com/

(jeez, how far outside of the city is this station? "Loren and Wally"? they make Cliff and Norm from Cheers look like Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.)

[RGMike]

A trend? 2 stations switched to all-comedy formats last week. Boston's WXKS-AM 1200 (formerly right-wing talk):

http://www.mattyscomedy1200.com/main.html

and a Canadian station, Funny 820 (had been country):

http://www.funny820.com/

ETA: turns out both stations are running the same syndicated service. Lots of clips of comedians. Some very funny stuff, but in an attempt to cover all bases, you segue from Louis Black (great) to Larry the Cable Guy (feh). Or from Ron White to Lisa Lampanelli. A mixed bag to say the least.

[urth]

A trend? 2 stations switched to all-comedy formats last week. Boston's WXKS-AM 1200 (formerly right-wing talk):

http://www.mattyscomedy1200.com/main.html

and a Canadian station, Funny 820:

http://www.funny820.com/

ETA: turns out both stations are running the same syndicated service. Lots of clips of comedians. Some very funny stuff, but in an attempt to cover all bases, you segue from Louis Black (great) to Larry the Cable Guy (feh). Or from Ron White to Lisa Lampanelli. A mixed bag to say the least.

I can't imagine it will last. And how long before they land in hot water because an F-bomb slips through?

[RGMike]

Gaz will be pleased to hear that Barry Scott's "Lost 45s" has a Boston station again (WOCD has switched formats a few months back, leaving the show chomeless).  It will now be heard on 105.7 WROR.

http://www.wror.com/

(jeez, how far outside of the city is this station? "Loren and Wally"? they make Cliff and Norm from Cheers look like Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.)

The only bad thing about listening to "Lost 45s" is hearing Scott Brown's re-election ads. Feh.

However... BONUS! WROR follows "Lost 45s" with Little Steven!  "I Can Only Give You Everything" indeed.

[RGMike]

sCumulus strikes again: remember a few months back when KFOG dedicated a day to World Concern, that Xtian ministry raising $$ to fight parasites that kill undernourished third-world kids (or something)? Well, KGO did the same thing last week and Rich Lieberman says it wasn't as charitable as it may have seemed:

KGO's all-day, (Wednesday), on-air charity to World Concern, a Christian outreach ministry; a day in which commercial spots were not played, was, in fact, a client of the station. Furthermore, according to two independent sources close to KGO, the "charity" paid for the commercial time and made it appear as if it were a charity event.

Both sources provided information on the condition that they were not named due to the nature of the story.

Added one source: "this was a far cry from the leukemia foundation work where KGO really did give up all its time and all the money went to the search for a cure."

Added the other source: "I'd be willing to bet the reason KGO dropped all their ads for a day to fight parasites....is that they were either being paid by Christa or getting a cut of the donations."

It would be great to know. Repeated calls to KGO were not returned.

Curiously, the all-day event was not promoted much and appeared out of nowhere. In addition, most on-air staffers seemed indifferent, at best, to the goings-on. Even Ronn Owens seemed to pooh-pooh the proceedings.

"It's even uglier than you thought.", offered one of the sources.

This sort of reeks of distortion, if it's true, and I stand by my source's information. Nobody faults any non-profit providing aid and contributions to people and kids who need it. Only it would have been nice if KGO sought to inform its listeners where exactly the donations were going and, more importantly, if this was really a true no-commercial affair or that the organization paid for the time.

[RGMike]

and here's "Maybe I'm Amazed" -- once a KFOG staple that disappeared for a while. It's back.

[RGMike]

Greg Kihn leaving K-FOX:

http://richliebermanreport.blogspot.com/2012/09/breaking-greg-kihn-parts-ways-at-kfox.html

[RGMike]

So, I'm looking at this mornings music log for "the new sound of KFOX" and sorry, but I'm not feelin' it.

Everlast -- feh. 4 Non-Blondes -- uber-feh. Pearl jam and RHCPs too -- mixed together with (and sometimes segued to/from) the '70s wimp-pop likes of "Margaritaville" and "Sister Golden Hair". It may be "expanded" but it's also all-over-the-place and designed to confuse as many as it entertains. Do America fans want to hear Everlast? or vice-versa?  Color me skeptical.

[Here'sToYa!]

Is KISS FM's old school R&B plus (synth-pop) Eighties format part of a national trend or unique to that station? It sounds like a Puff Daddy song deconstructed.

[RGMike]

Is KISS FM's old school R&B plus (synth-pop) Eighties format part of a national trend or unique to that station? It sounds like a Puff Daddy song deconstructed.

They seem to be one of the first stations to do that. Happened because Clear Channel owns both KISS and Oldies 103.7 and so the idea was to have 2 formats that didn't overlap/cannibalize each other. It was risky -- would their core demo of black people in their 40s freak out about hearing Human League? -- but it seems to be working.

[RGMike]

Our own Tinka Cat was the first person to win tix (Joe Walsh) from Annalisa this morning. Congrats!

It's nice to hear AL's voice but the show's pretty bare-bones -- she needs a newsperson and some traffic reports, ASAP. And I dunno if I can handle Whitesnake at 6am.

[Big Fingers McGee]

Our own Tinka Cat was the first person to win tix (Joe Walsh) from Annalisa this morning. Congrats!

It's nice to hear AL's voice but the show's pretty bare-bones -- she needs a newsperson and some traffic reports, ASAP. And I dunno if I can handle Whitesnake at 6am.

Congrats Tinka!

Yeah, as much as I like AL, from what I'm hearing r/ KFOX, I'll stick w/ KFOG.

[Here'sToYa!]

It's nice to hear AL's voice but the show's pretty bare-bones.

Yeah, it's a pretty small sample size so far, but she seemed to talk more between songs on KFOG. I thought morning drive time was all about gabbing.

[RGMike]

It's nice to hear AL's voice but the show's pretty bare-bones.

Yeah, it's a pretty small sample size so far, but she seemed to talk more between songs on KFOG. I thought morning drive time was all about gabbing.

I guess that -- for the moment -- they want everyone to be amazed by their, like, totally awesome expanded playlist! But except for a brief mention of which teams won over the weekend, I didn't hear much in the way of current events between 6 and 7 am. Which (just as with KFOG) is the only time I'll probably listen.

[Here'sToYa!]

I guess that -- for the moment -- they want everyone to be amazed by their, like, totally awesome expanded playlist!

Their playlist was pretty minuscule before, but their "new" 80s and 90s songs sound just as tired as their 70s standards.