The Sound to be Born Again as a EMF-owned Station

johndavis said:

These are businesses. Not fantasy football.

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I'm taking a knee on this thread.

woofboom said:

I was and assume that you also were a person who loved to talk radio back in a time when there was nothing like this website.

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All of this is great, and I agree with what you say. However, what bothers me is the attention given to things like flipping formats and spinning stations. Those are things done by CEOs and made primarily for business reasons. Over the last 20 years, there's been more of a focus on the CEOs of these companies than on the on-air people or the programming people. It's been done mostly by the trade press, who have turned people like David Field and Bob Pittman into celebrities, rather than the real faces of the business. I see a lot of criticism of radio that it's become all about the bean counters and not about content. That may be the case if the focus is on the top people and what they do. But there's another completely different group of people who ARE focused on the content, who ARE thinking long term about multi-platform programming, and who ARE thinking about other things behind the latest format flip or spinning off stations. It's been my experience that there are more of them than there are the handful of corporate CEOs. I find it funny that no one even knows about all of the various seminars and conventions where radio people meet and brainstorm. There are a lot of other things to talk about besides what a lot of people consider the mundane business part. Of course I like the business part of it, but I know there's a lot more than that.

michael hagerty said:

I'm sorry...from months of your posts, I could have sworn you expected Entercom to swap KSWD with Cumulus for some out-of-market stations.

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I wasn’t the first person to theorize a potential swap of KSWD with KRBE. I read about the potential swap when Radio Insight revealed the overlapping markets of the CBS Radio-Entercom merger. Since then, I’ve been thinking about Entercom potentially swapping the station with Cumulus, which would’ve given KLOS an FM sister station. But when Entercom revealed their first three divestitures last week, it turned out that Entercom was divesting KSWD to EMF instead, and not to Cumulus as most of us hoped.

woofboom said:

Mr. Hagerty, - I can tell you from personal experience that "Miketheradioguy" is a young person (at least younger than you and I) who has zero experience in the industry. He's an enthusiast at best. Prior to my working in radio, I was and assume that you also were a person who loved to talk radio back in a time when there was nothing like this website. Not unlike "Mike" today. Had there been a site like this in the 1970s, I'd have been doing what "Mike" does here. And while we all can appreciate and want to encourage an enthusiasm that is sadly all too rare these days (unlike his being banned at another site), you are correct and not the first to suggest that "Mike" might want to cut out his "fantasy football" approach and instead simply listen and learn for a time. Thanks for again raising that point.

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Woofboom: I was 15 when I got in the business, and you're right---I had been fascinated since I first heard Gary Owens on the air when I was 8. But if a board like this had existed between 1964 and 1971, I would have followed my own advice...asked questions and listened. I want to know how something actually works, not pretend to know. Occasionally, there'll be threads here that engage in "what if"---a few years back, we got into a thing about putting together "dream teams" of great Top 40 jocks who were (then) still with us. That's fun and we know up front that we're playing a game. Big A's right. This isn't.

If Miketheradioguy is interested in pursuing a career in the business, the best thing he can do is stop creating an online record of not understanding how it works but throwing stuff out there in the form of a prediction rather than a question regardless.

michael hagerty said:

If Miketheradioguy is interested in pursuing a career in the business, the best thing he can do is stop creating an online record of not understanding how it works but throwing stuff out there in the form of a prediction rather than a question regardless.

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This is excellent advice, not just for radio, but for all careers, and sadly is heeded by way to few in this day and age.

Not to tangent into another topic but one thing that has always subtly concerned me about these boards is the speculation and the gossip. With time I'm certain we've come to better read what's true and what's speculation. But at times I've wondered what if any effect the speculation of these boards might have on a radio station's operation and bottom line. IE: are buys lost because someone might have read an enthusiasts thoughts about a possible format change? Perhaps even more when considering what occasionally is written about a specific talent. Has it effected careers?

I don't know. Just a thought.

Mike, we don't know who is buying what. We know what properties are potentially in play, and for the people who work there and worry about whether or not they'll have a job this time next year, it's a scary time. All you do by making up deals that you think sounds cool freaks them out. Because what happens is someone reads what you've written and calls their friend at one of those stations and says "I hear you're getting bought by X" and they go nuts, thinking it's real and not something that you dreamed up.

If you want to try out your deal analysis skills, wait until they actually happen before you go posting crap on the internet.

Radio stations on the block can be miserable places. The people whose mortgage payments depend upon having that job don't need you speculating on 10 different boards about their future.

I can give you a lot of reasons why Meruelo buying Sacramento and San Francisco makes little sense. But it's more important to point out that the people working in those stations are better served by people not pulling things out of thei @$$es online. This is not fantasy football. These are real businesses with real employees with real feelings and real bills to pay.

Because what happens when you post speculation is a friend of someone who works at that station calls them and tells them "Hey, I hear you're getting sold" and they FREAK the eff OUT and nobody has a good day. That's not fun. Trust me on that.

johndavis said:

Mike, we don't know who is buying what. We know what properties are potentially in play, and for the people who work there and worry about whether or not they'll have a job this time next year, it's a scary time. All you do by making up deals that you think sounds cool freaks them out. Because what happens is someone reads what you've written and calls their friend at one of those stations and says "I hear you're getting bought by X" and they go nuts, thinking it's real and not something that you dreamed up.

If you want to try out your deal analysis skills, wait until they actually happen before you go posting crap on the internet.

Radio stations on the block can be miserable places. The people whose mortgage payments depend upon having that job don't need you speculating on 10 different boards about their future.

I can give you a lot of reasons why Meruelo buying Sacramento and San Francisco makes little sense. But it's more important to point out that the people working in those stations are better served by people not pulling things out of thei @$$es online. This is not fantasy football. These are real businesses with real employees with real feelings and real bills to pay.

Because what happens when you post speculation is a friend of someone who works at that station calls them and tells them "Hey, I hear you're getting sold" and they FREAK the eff OUT and nobody has a good day. That's not fun. Trust me on that.

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Come on, these boards are not libraries of fact, everything written about the future by vast majority of people on this board, myself included, is pure speculation by those who know nothing or the closest thing to it. All readers should be discounting everything they read here appropriately.

And, not to be insensitive about people whose jobs and mortgages are at stake, but when you sign up for a career that is highly visible to the public at large, the public at large is going to speculate with the same number of facts they usually have, which of course is zero. When you decided to go into radio, you signed up for that aspect of the job whether you like it or not. Most radio professionals are smart enough to stay away from these forums just for that reason (although we have some very smart radio pros on this board regardless and I am glad for their participation).

As to Woof's point, any ad buyer that makes decisions based on what is posted on this or any other industry trade site will not be in the business for very long. You can safely assume they do not exist.

ChannelFlipper said:

Come on, these boards are not libraries of fact, everything written about the future by vast majority of people on this board, myself included, is pure speculation by those who know nothing or the closest thing to it. All readers should be discounting everything they read here appropriately.

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Might be true about your posts, Flip. I know it's not true about David Eduardo's posts, I suspect it's not true about Big A's posts and I take great pains to make clear which of my posts are knowledge, which are research and which are conjecture (those are rare).

michael hagerty said:

Might be true about your posts, Flip. I know it's not true about David Eduardo's posts, I suspect it's not true about Big A's posts and I take great pains to make clear which of my posts are knowledge, which are research and which are conjecture (those are rare).

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Even the pros on this board, as knowledgeable as you all are, have made predictions that have not come true, otherwise known as erroneous speculation. Let's resist the urge to make the underhanded insults personal and admit that as Yogi Berra said, "predictions are hard, especially about the future".

woofboom said:

Mr. Hagerty, - I can tell you from personal experience that "Miketheradioguy" is a young person (at least younger than you and I) who has zero experience in the industry. He's an enthusiast at best. Prior to my working in radio, I was and assume that you also were a person who loved to talk radio back in a time when there was nothing like this website. Not unlike "Mike" today. Had there been a site like this in the 1970s, I'd have been doing what "Mike" does here. And while we all can appreciate and want to encourage an enthusiasm that is sadly all too rare these days (unlike his being banned at another site), you are correct and not the first to suggest that "Mike" might want to cut out his "fantasy football" approach and instead simply listen and learn for a time. Thanks for again raising that point.

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I have nothing much to say on this tread anymore.

Sorry, Flipper. Of course, you're right. Something in Michael's -- or was it BigA's -- post inspired me to express a few old and up until now private thoughts and questions. Certainly didn't intend to upset. Just a bit of reflection and thinking out loud.

Moving on.

I'm 42 (will be 43 in a few months), and we had these boards when I was in high school. I dialed into my local BBS and posted to the broadcasting board on FIDONet. I needed less sleep then than I do today and was frequently posting at 6 AM on school days. I'm still friends with some of the people I met on that board, and I'm sure some of those people found me annoying and would be glad they've forgotten about me.

So what? I may not be the biggest success from FIDONet or these later boards, but I got to work in radio. I might not have had a long or stellar career in the business and might have gotten into it late after the get a job out of college and start a family routine failed, but I got to do something a lot of people wanted to do for about 10 years. I'd like to think I was a good contributor during the time I was on-air, and I'd like to think my experience is still valuable to people today.

Personally, I'm glad for the Mikes on these boards. Mike may not be the most media savvy guy, but, if he wants to learn, that’s a good thing. We need young and enthusiastic people in the radio business. Everybody keeps saying younger people are losing interest in the medium. The future of it probably isn’t somebody like me. If we can keep him interested, maybe he can do what I couldn’t.

Don’t get me wrong. I still have a passion for radio. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here. I am, however, happy working in IT for a major university today. I'm not sure how I'd find the time to do it today. When the Great Recession pushed me out of radio for what seems to be the last time, my girlfriend at the time was happy she no longer had to share me with the station. I'm with somebody else today, and I don’t think my wife would want to share me with the radio station either.

ChannelFlipper said:

Even the pros on this board, as knowledgeable as you all are, have made predictions that have not come true, otherwise known as erroneous speculation. Let's resist the urge to make the underhanded insults personal and admit that as Yogi Berra said, "predictions are hard, especially about the future".

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No insults intended or implied, Flip. Let's look at your post again (screen goes all wavy, harp music plays):

everything written about the future by vast majority of people on this board, myself included, is pure speculation by those who know nothing or the closest thing to it. All readers should be discounting everything they read here appropriately.

You said everything you write is pure speculation by those who know nothing or the closest thing to it. All my post did (more waves, more harp music):

Might be true about your posts, Flip. I know it's not true about David Eduardo's posts, I suspect it's not true about Big A's posts and I take great pains to make clear which of my posts are knowledge, which are research and which are conjecture (those are rare).

...was to say that I know David's posts aren't (and I'll throw in John Davis', too) to say that I don't believe Big A's posts are (pure speculation), and I described how I approach the issue.

pjc1961 said:

Link to LAIST article posted by The Sound to their own Facebook page: http://laist.com/2017/09/28/1003_the_sound.php

Sound Program Director Dave Beasing says that since they'll have at least 30 days (and up to 45 days maximum) to say goodbye (as David E posted earlier),
special programming could be in the offing, such as A to Z, Roll The Dice, guest DJ appearances (such as Mark Thompson, for example).

Since the transaction's announcement was made on Tue. Sept. 26, that would make for
The Sound's sign-off date being somewhere between Thu. Oct. 26 and Fri. Nov. 10, 2017.

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Some more information and detail is included in this InsideRadio article where PD Dave Beasing lays out the calendar of events
lined up for The Sound's swan song over the next few weeks:

http://www.insideradio.com/free/l-a...cle_782b8ea8-a8d9-11e7-ba43-ab90399975cf.html