Radio Survivor

I’ve only lived in Chicago for two years, but I’ve been listening to WXRT in brief spurts for the last sixteen years when visiting the city. Living in the Central Illinois college towns of Champaign-Urbana, I’d often heard about WXRT from friends and acquaintances from the Chicago area. Inevitably it was the one station that ex-Chicagoans most commonly said they missed. While Chicago has a lot of great noncommercial college stations, all of them only cover a portion of the city and metro area. By comparison WXRT has great signal strength, covering the better part of Chicagoland.

Like a lot of FM rock stations, WXRT’s roots lie in that brief heyday of freeform radio in the late 60s and early 70s. The station’s rock programming began in 1972 as the nighttime portion of a programming schedule that primarily consisted of ethnic and foreign language programs during the day. It went all-rock in 1976 at the same time as most progressive rock stations started to be come more formatted and less freeform, birthing what would become known as the Album Oriented Rock (AOR) format.

XRT remained locally owned until 1995– a year before the Telecom Act triggered the onslaught of consolidation–when it was sold to Westinghouse, which would become Infinity broadcasting, now known as CBS Radio. Yet, somehow WXRT has managed to survive the era of consolidation and avoid becoming a homogenized, voice-tracked, syndication-saturated station. Instead, it remains a Chicago fixture and example of the Chicago approach to rock.
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I am a college and community radio loyalist and these days I never listen to commercial radio unless someone else has put it on and I have no way to control the radio (during cab rides, in doctor’s office waiting rooms, and perhaps via cheesy hold button music, etc.).

Since coming up with a list of my favorite commercial radio stations is VERY difficult for me, I’ve had to turn to the last commercial radio station that I can proudly declare myself to have been a fan of: KQAK-FM out of San Francisco in the 1980s.

I’ve heard that people are most passionate about the music of their youth and that many never get past that period musically, becoming permanently stuck in the sounds of their teen years. Well, for me, I was a teenager smack dab in the 1980s and my favorite commercial station helped me transition from the heavier rock sounds that I listened to in the late 1970s (on KSJO and KOME) to the emerging new wave sounds of the 1980s.

“The Quake” was on the air from 1982 to 1985 and is most known for its “Rock of the ’80s” format (which they launched in April 1983 after an initial stint as an album rock station). The station went off the air in June 1985, just a few months before I headed off to college. Many of us were saddened about its demise and tearfully sat by our stereos tape recording its final hours of programming. Somewhere in a shoebox is my tape of the last hours of The Quake and tidbits from recordings by others can be found online.

The station played a mix of new wave, punk, rock, reggae, ska, pop and goth sounds. On “The Quake” I heard bands like Depeche Mode, Book of Love, Strawberry Switchblade, X, The Cure, Elvis Costello, Talking Heads, and Siouxsie and the Banshees for the first time.

I also enjoyed Alex Bennett’s morning show (take a listen to his first show on The Quake here) and found him to be much more entertaining and intelligent than his counterparts on other stations. He also introduced me to the Bay Area comedy scene, with his multitude of guests.

Quake DJs in general were a lot of fun, from the comedic Tim Bedore (with his segments like “The Bible According to Tim”) to the approachable, music-loving Big Rick Stuart. On his website, Rick Stuart shares some memories about The Quake, including the program director’s philosophy about adding music to the station. Rick writes, “I would sit in with Oz sometimes at music meetings and he would add weekly current songs with a nice theory. One for the boys, one for the girls, one for the older rock fans, and sometimes a weird song.”

For me, one of the lasting influences of the Quake was that it brought me to college radio. It opened my ears to a wider range of sounds and when it ceased broadcasting in June 1985 I switched my listening to the left side of the dial, becoming a college radio fan. I discovered all of the amazing stations at colleges south of San Francisco and started listening to KFJC, KZSU, KSJS, and KSCU. A few months later I was off to college near Philadelphia and became a fan of the student stations at University of Pennsylvania (WXPN) and Drexel (WKDU) and started DJing at my campus station WHRC.

Another “modern rock” station, Live 105, appeared on the commercial radio scene in San Francisco in 1986. Attempting to replicate some of The Quake’s adventurous programming, Live 105 caught my attention periodically from about 1989 to 1995 (when I couldn’t get college radio reception in my San Francisco apartment). But, my heart still belonged to the long-departed Quake and increasingly to college radio.

The station goes by the name KFOX-FM, but its real call signal is KUFX. It’s owned by the Aloha Station Trust, which runs a gaggle of divested Clear Channel signals (make your way through this FCC document for the tortured details). Anyway, the San Jose, CA based frequency plays a pretty decent assortment of “classic rock,” so here it is on a Radio Survivor top list.

I have to say from the outset that I am not a big fan of commercial radio stations, so don’t put too much weight in this endorsement. But the other night I was driving over the Bay Bridge and KFOX was playing one of my all time, out of sight, total rave fave blues covers: George Thorogood and the Destroyers’ version of Johnny Lee Hookers’ One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer. Suddenly I was happy the way only a radio station playing a really good song while you are on the road can make you happy. So I guess I’m writing this post out of gratitude.

In addition, I’ve listened to KFOX of late while driving around the San Jose area and heard some deejays actually back announce some of the songs the station plays, even say some interesting things about them. And the signal has some pretty high level on air talent, Greg Kihn most notably.

Here’s KFOX’s Last Ten Played list, as of a few minutes ago, my time:

1. Led Zeppelin – Bring It On Home
2. Boston – Peace Of Mind
3. Pretenders – My City Was Gone
4. Styx – Renegade
5. George Thorogood – I Drink Alone
6. Def Leppard – Photograph
7. Santana – Samba Pa Ti
8. Van Halen – Jamie’s Cryin’
9. Stevie Ray Vaughan – Pride And Joy
10. Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers – Even The Losers

Not bad, except for Jamie’s Cryin’, which is one of the worst rock songs there ever was (don’t get me started on this). For some reason or other the station’s web site has a babe page. Pretty cheesy, but this seems to be a trend with Clear Channel signals (and even former ones, I guess). On the other hand it has a green (“save money save energy save the planet”) page, so there’s that.

All-in-all, KFOX plays great music and mostly doesn’t suck, and that’s the best you can get from commercial radio these days.

Each month the Radio Survivors will count down our most (or least) favorite radio things. Last month we covered our favorite radio programs. This month we’re sharing our favorite commercial radio stations. As regular readers might expect, coming up with this list proved to be more of a challenge. All three of us tend to be big listeners to community, college and public radio…. commercial radio, not so much. Beyond the quality and variety offered by noncommercial radio these days, I think we’ve all been turned off by the homogenization and delocalization of commercial radio brought on by consolidation. Nevertheless, we put our heads together and came up with five stations we can safely call favorites, even if some of them are no longer around.

I’m starting off the rundown with a station that was my favorite as a high school and college student in Northern New Jersey in the late 80s and early 90s. Dover’s WDHA-FM bills itself as “The Rock of New Jersey,” and continues to stand out by refusing to give in to the trends that have ruined so many other rock stations. In an area dominated by New York City stations serving the nation’s largest radio market, WDHA survives by remaining steadfastly local in its outlook.

Where other stations would have brought in voice tracking and more syndicated programming, WDHA is staffed with live local DJs and produces its own specialty programs, like Friday night’s Metal Mania. The metal show has been in that time slot since I was in high school, only then it was hosted by Eddie Trunk who is now the host of VH1 Classic’s That Metal Show and has a show on Sirius/XM. Looking at WDHA’s current air staff I see names I still remember like Terrie Carr, who apparently left to do stints on Sirius and VH1 Classic before returning to DHA. You don’t see that too often in commercial radio anymore.
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Given the state of the economy, last week wasn’t so bad for radio/media company investors. And this week might improve depending on what Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke says, and what Sirius XM reports in its fourth quarter and full 2009 earnings press conference on Thursday.

Saga Communications, Cumulus Media, Entercom, and Citadel all reported slight trading gains on Friday. Emmis, Westwood One, and Sirius all reported slight declines (although Sirius is still on the dollar menu). The week’s mildly bright spot was terrestrial and Internet radio giant CBS, whose stock rose nearly a point. On Thursday CBS reported revenues for the fourth quarter of 2009 came to $3.50 billion, down just 1% from $3.53 billion for the same quarter in 2008.

Here’s the radio excerpt of the report:

“Local Broadcasting revenues for the fourth quarter of 2009 decreased 8% to $680.0 million from $735.8 million for the same prior-year period reflecting lower radio and political advertising sales. Revenues for CBS Television Stations decreased 3% to $358.2 million from $369.3 million, and CBS Radio revenues decreased 12% to $322.2 million from $366.7 million for the same prior-year period, partially reflecting radio station divestitures. Non-political advertising sales increased 11% for CBS Television Stations and were flat for Local
Broadcasting.”

Perhaps this isn’t so bad, given the beating that radio took last year. Anyway, it’s not nearly as big as the drop CBS radio experienced in Q3: $318 million in revenue compared with the previous year’s same quarter: $392.5 million. And with the exception of troubled Citadel, most of these stocks are on the upswing after a period of decline.

The day before Sirius XM reports its earnings, Fed boss Bernanke will testify before the House Committee on Financial Services. And on that Thursday, he will speak to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. The big question of course is how is the economy doing, and how fast will it mend? Last week the Fed raised the Discount Rate by just a smidgeon (1/4% to the surprise of some analysts) “in light of continued improvement in financial market conditions.”

Anyway, a somewhat optimistic report from Bernanke and a nice report for Sirius could mean a good week for radio by Friday. As RS’s Paul Riismandel noted last week: “The prevailing opinion on Wall Street seems to be that investors think Sirius XM has finally gotten its financial affairs in order, along with adding a net of 257,000 listeners–more than expected–in the fourth quarter of 2009.” So hope springs eternal, but we’ll have to see.

The trend in broadcast radio of back- and front-announcing, naming the title and artist of a track before or after playing it on the airwaves, has historically been a source for controversy due to its heavy involvement with issues of sponsorship identification and racketeering.

Is it that record labels are lobbying radio stations to play their songs, and guarantee their back or front-announcement?  Or are radio stations shamelessly seeking payment from record labels for guaranteed back-announcing? Short answer: it’s both. And the result? The back-announcing of some songs and not of others.

In the mid 1990s the deregulation brought about by The Telecommunications Act of 1996 initiated several significant changes in broadcast radio, including the lifting station ownership restrictions. This led to the emergence of a few dominant multi-station broadcasting companies in lieu of more independent localized stations and fundamentally changed the way radio stations operated. Like most businesses bought out by big companies, these stations more often than not saw their business operations being outsourced, consolidated and homogenously reproduced with little localized personalization, frequently in the arena of playlist compilation. (more…)

There was once a time when a rare breed of radio DJ could scare up controversy and big ratings–not to mention FCC indecency fines–using just his voice, a few on-air cronies and whole lot of bravado, innuendo and hot air. Remember Howard Stern? Arguably the original “shock jock” he was one of the few American radio DJs able to make a nationwide name for himself, including late night talk show appearances and even producing an autobiographical feature film. He made big news in 2004 when he abandoned broadcast for Sirius satellite radio. But once Stern made the transition at the beginning of 2006 he pretty much faded from the mainstream limelight. CBS Radio made attempts to fill the void–such as tapping former Van Halen signer David Lee Roth, who lasted about four months. But no new jock has been found who can replicate Stern’s nationwide morning show dominance.

Chicago-based Mancow Muller was one potential candidate for the King of All Media’s throne. Just as Stern prepared to exit the broadcast airwaves Mancow was experiencing a boost in the number of station’s carrying his “Morning Madhouse” program, and was even beating Stern in the ratings in his home market. Yet only a half-year into Stern’s absence from terrestrial radio Mancow was booted from his home flagship station, Chicago’s Q101. Though the Madhouse continued to air in syndication, Mancow’s candidacy to replace Stern seemed to fade.
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So, I guess now it’s my turn. What is Radio Survivor (the blog)? It’s all about the idea that radio is a hardy, useful, practical and proven medium with a lot of life left in it. A Radio Survivor (the person) is someone who continues to believe in the medium. A Radio Survivor is not a luddite clinging to her transistor radio while eschewing iPhones and netbooks, nor is he a retro fetishist stuck in the past. Rather, a Radio Survivor recognizes the simple power inherent in broadcast audio, which can be done inexpensively and bring people together in a community.

I’ve been a radio broadcaster working in college, community and public radio since 1989, with just one year off from May 1993 to May 1994. And while I’ve had some sporadic work in radio, most recently as a college station adviser, as Matthew emphasizes, my approach is more as a listener and enthusiast rather than an industry insider. Much of what is written about radio is for the industry insider, and is therefore concerned more with profits, ratings and staffing changes than with the place of the medium in our society and everyday lives. Also often missing from insider coverage is critical analysis that challenges the business orthodoxy.

I write for Radio Survivor because I wish to challenge myself and others to consider what radio can be, not just be content or discontented with how it is. We can recognize the damage wrought by consolidation without giving in and leaving the medium for dead. We can highlight the stations and places where innovation is happening and 21st century is in the making. We can encourage new or lost listeners to give radio a new chance.

Radio, as a medium, has a great chance to survive because of the internet, iPods and mobile phones, not in spite of them. Just because Clear Channel and its mostly bankrupt consolidating brethren were too busy buying up stations, firing staff and elminating local service to notice the internet revolution doesn’t mean that the internet has to kill radio. I believe that there is still an audience that pines for local news, information and culture that is still hard to find on the internet, that doesn’t require a monthly broadband bill or data package and is there in the car, in the home or a hundred miles away from the nearest wi-fi hotspot. And as internet access becomes more ubiquitous and less costly radio can still be a complementary part of our information environment.

That’s Radio Surviving.

The Parents Television Council has a message for Sirius radio shock jock Howard Stern’s reported plans to join American Idol: No pasará—he shall not pass.

“WHEREAS Howard Stern is one of the most profane, sexually-explicit and anti-family performers in the history of the broadcast medium;” declares the PTC’s latest resolution and petition (which the group would like you to sign), “and in discussing the possibility of becoming a judge on American Idol on his radio program gave audiences a preview of what he would bring to the table as a judge, talking about getting ‘little boys hard’.”

And, if the reports about this prove true . . .

“We [you, if you sign the petition] will no longer watch the program; we will share our concern with our friends, family and others in our social circle; and we will contact every sponsor and urge them to consider whether they should associate their corporate image with a man who talks about ‘getting little boys hard.’  And if Stern says anything that we feel is in violation of broadcast decency laws, we will take immediate action by filing complaints with the Federal Communications Commission against our local Fox affiliate.  We ask you to immediately repudiate these rumors and commit publicly to keeping American Idol safe for family viewing.” (more…)

A radio station that staged a prank call to a New York woman claiming that her husband had been badly hurt in a motorcycle accident, then died in a hospital, has received a proposed fine of $16,000 from the Federal Communications Commission.

Here’s an excerpt from the August 2007 exchange:

“Mr. Ithier: Juliana, oh, oh I’m so sorry he just died right now.
Call Recipient: (crying)
Mr. Ithier: I will, Juliana I want to ask you something. Just two or three questions
please. I can’t hear you.
Call Recipient: What?
Mr. Ithier: So this is for when you come here you don’t have to ask too many
questions when you identify him.
Call Recipient: No, no, I’m going over there right now.”

“Although we exercise discretion in this instance in not imposing a higher forfeiture, we warn the Licensee that future violations of this nature may result in harsher enforcement action, including license revocation proceedings,” the FCC told station WSKQ-FM in New York City (“La Mega 97.9″) on Friday.

As far as I’m concerned, the FCC should revoke WSKQ’s license now.  People have heart attacks on hearing news like this. What if she  had been on a mobile phone and had a car accident?

But WSKQ got dinged on a technicality, allegedly violating “the telephone broadcast rule.”  Section 73.1206 of the agency’s rules stipulate that, “before broadcasting or recording a telephone conversation for later broadcast, a licensee must inform any party to the call of its intention to broadcast the conversation.”

It gets even weirder:  the third party vendor (“Rubin Ithier”) who pulled this stunt in August of 2007 for the Spanish Broadcasting System owned station apparently did this at the husband’s request. No comment on that aspect of the story. The prank was broadcast on WSKQ twice, according to the FCC. Here’s a full transcript of the exchange.

Mr. Ithier: Can I speak with Ms. Juliana please?
Call Recipient: Who is this?
Mr. Ithier: The Doctor Raymond Martinez, I’m just calling from [bleeped out]
Hospital
Call Recipient: Aha? Yes Juliana
Mr. Ithier: Do you know anybody with the name Luis, Luis Miguel?
Call Recipient: Yes
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