Originally Posted By skinnerbox I have no idea what the heck the Clear Channel execs are thinking with this one: <a href="http://www.bradblog.com/?p=9001" target="_blank">http://www.bradblog.com/?p=9001</a> <> By Brad Friedman on 12/21/2011 2:23pm Clear Channel Allows Progressives to Stay on Air in San Francisco, but Adds Glenn Beck to Line-Up Green960, redubbed KNEW 960, to become 'home of misfit, or at least mismatched, toys', says one insider... You might call it splitting the baby. Sort of. Progressive radio will be allowed to remain on our public AM airwaves in San Francisco, though with major schedule shake-ups, the removal of its popular progressive branding and several bizarre additions to the line-up, including far Rightwing extremists such as former Fox "News" phenom Glenn Beck in the place of what had been one of Green960's most popular morning shows. The latest move in the strange back-and-forth saga follows on radio giant Clear Channel's announcement just over two weeks ago, that Green960 --- the only AM Progressive Talk Radio station on the dial in San Francisco, one of the nation's most progressive cities --- would be banished from the popular public airwaves and sent to the radio-ghetto of the little-known and even lesser-received HD2 band. Its progressive programming --- featuring the likes of popular lefty-ish talkers such as Stephanie Miller, Thom Hartmann, Randi Rhodes, Norman Goldman and Mike Malloy --- would be replaced (with the exception of Rhodes, who is syndicated by Clear Channel's Premiere Radio) by yet another so-called "conservative" talk station, featuring extremists such as Beck and other Fox "News" regulars. The move by the media conglomerate, now owned by leading GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney's Bain Capital, LLC, was to occur on January 3. The move would have left Rhodes as the only progressive voice on the entire AM dial in San Francisco, as of the first business day of the new Presidential Election year. But a funny thing happened on the way to 2012 on Bay Area talk radio... 'Uncanceled' As The BRAD BLOG reported in our follow-up last week, plans to move programming from Clear Channel's "Fox News Radio" KNEW 910 in San Francisco over to the 960 spot, where Green960 currently is, and to shuffle off the progressive 960 talkers into Radio Nowhere Land came to a quiet, if sudden pause last week. CC, we were able to confirm, had decided to rethink its plans in the wake of the sudden sea change of programming at KGO, a long-time staple talk station in the San Fran market, featuring a well-loved mix of conservative, libertarians and moderate talkers. That change was announced just days after CC's original announcement. Overnight, Cumulus-owned KGO released virtually all of its talk show hosts --- several of whom had been on the station for decades --- to flip the station to a more inexpensive all-news format. The move resulted in a lot of angry KGO listeners (to add to the already-angry Green960 listeners) and put a whole bunch of Bay Area talk radio ratings and talk show hosts up for grabs in the major broadcast market. The result led to reporting at industry outlet All Access that "several sources" had informed them that "several of the shows scheduled to be dropped" from 960 had suddenly been "uncanceled." Through our own reporting and information from insiders very familiar with Clear Channel's plans, we were able to confirm that their previously previous intentions had come to a full stop as the move was being reconsidered. Yesterday, CC finally announced its newest plan in a press release published by All Access. According to the statement, virtually all of Green960's current line-up will now be allowed to stay on the air in San Francisco, though the brand-name will still be changed and both Beck and Right-leaning financial talker Dave Ramsey will be added to the schedule in place of the current morning drive-time shows on Green960. Beck is also syndicated by Clear Channel's syndication arm Premiere, and Ramsey is, according to one insider (though we've not been able to confirm it with Clear Channel) is now paying to be on the air in that time slot. The new "KNEW 960" will use the tag line "Opinions. Finance. Advice." Beck is scheduled to replace Stephanie Miller's very popular morning program from 6a-9a PT, with her live show scheduled to be delayed for evening broadcast instead, from 7p-10p PT. Thom Hartmann, who currently airs live from 9a-Noon in San Francisco, will also be delayed, running late-night from 10p-1a, though he is not mentioned in the release at All Access. His live slot will be replaced with Ramsey. <> Brad's article is rather lengthy, so the rest can be found at the link, with quotes from the progressive on-air personalities like Stephanie Miller about the change. Personally, I think this is a bad move. Either Clear Channel should dump the progressive line up completely, or leave the current format alone. But mixing in extremely conservative pundits like Glenn Beck with extremely liberal pundits like Mike Malloy doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Very few progressive listeners will endure radio commercials for the conservative talkers featuring hate speech soundbites for very long. And I can guarantee that they will be played multiple times every day, just like the commercials for the progressive talkers are now being played multiple times daily. If Clear Channel didn't think the dismantling of KGO would affect the progressive radio market, they would have gone with the original plan of putting KKGN on the HD2 channel. But scrapping that plan clearly demonstrates their acknowledgment of the progressive talk radio market in the Bay Area. You'd think they would have kept the KKGN format and grabbed a few of the progressive talkers recently fired from KGO. But no... they're still pushing Stephanie Miller to an evening slot, and bringing in Beck for the coveted AM drive-time slot. That smacks of politics, pure and simple: * Beck supports Romney. * Romney still has ties to Bain Capital. * Bain Capital owns Clear Channel. It ain't rocket science.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan Strange, strange, strange. It looks like most of the former KGO hosts will now be competing with KGO's all-news format just up the dial at 910. I think KGO's all-news format will do terribly. KCBS is far more listenable, KGO's whole presentation of the news is loud and a bit "much" to me.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox Agreed, 2oony. This was a stupid move on KGO's part. In the short term, they might save some bucks by switching to a canned news format. But in the long run, I don't see this being profitable. Their ratings are bound to head south eventually. As for Clear Channel picking up two former KGO talking heads for the new 910 format... why didn't they simply put them on 960 with the progressives already in place? Pushing Stephanie Miller into the evening and moving Beck from 910 to 960 to take her AM time slot definitely feels political to me, given how popular her radio show is, how successful her tour has been this past year, and now with having the #1 comedy album in the country. (Steph's album also reached #19 across *all* album download categories on iTunes the first weekend it was released, earlier this month.) Beck's popularity has been winding down since Fox cancelled his TV show, and I don't see him picking up any new listeners by switching him from 910 to 960. So why would Clear Channel cancel a successful AM drive time show to be replaced with another AM drive time show that aired on another Clear Channel station nearby? From a business perspective, it doesn't make any sense. It only makes sense as political vindictive theater.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan I don't know if this happens all over the country, but it sure seems like there's a major shake-up in radio stations around here every 5 or 6 years. Longtime formats get dumped and replaced with middle of the road 80s music, that sort of thing. KGO was the dominant radio station in the bay area for decades, with a powerful signal reaching all over the west coast especially at night. I was surprised that they'd been knocked from that perch, but not half as surprised when they unceremoniously dumped all those well-known stalwarts. I'm sure that satellite radio has taken a toll on over-the-air stations, so desperate times are at hand.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox Apparently over at the newly branded KKSF 910, Armstrong & Getty will air between the 6-9 morning drive time (replacing Glenn Beck who will be airing the same time on KNEW 960), with Rush Limbaugh coming on from 9 to noon. Rush is currently on KSFO 560.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan It's going to take me weeks to figure out which stations I have to avoid at what times!
Originally Posted By skinnerbox Which is why I'm dusting off my XM receiver. I haven't used it since moving out of our downtown tall building canyon, back to the Upper Market area. (We've got great radio reception up here in the fog belt.) I typically only used the XM in the car during long drives, but not anymore. I'm ditching local AM radio completely, even while driving. To hell with these changes. I hope Clear Channel chokes on their negative balance sheets.
