Radio AM to FM

Radio AM to FM: July 20, 2001

Mornings Are Good at the Arrow

I said I'd give it a month, but that Bob Rivers' morning show on Arrow (93.1 FM) was not looking too good.

You were more harsh: "Hideous." "Not Funny." "Boring Conversation." "When I realized it wasn't a joke, I changed the station," you wrote.

Apparently management at the station listened, and cut Rivers off after only two weeks. According to the Arrow web site, "Due to overwhelming response, Joe Benson and classic rock hits are back every morning Monday-Friday!"

Is this the work of new Arrow General Manager Bob Moore, who replaced Dave Van Dyke just this week? I'll have to ask ...

Reunion Countdown

Time is running out for ticket purchases to the KROQ Reunion on August 4th at the Pasadena Hilton Hotel. The deadline is Monday, July 23rd.

Open both to broadcasters and the general public, the reunion is a double reunion, featuring personalities from both the AM (1500) and FM (106.7) versions of KROQ, covering a thirty-year span of formats including top-40, "free form," progressive and alternative.

The brainchild of "The Insane" Darrell Wayne, the reunion is considered by some as the event of the Summer. Confirmed guests include Jed the Fish, Sluggo, Raymond Bannister, Mike Evans (remember the morning team of Bannister and Evans?), Denise Westwood, Shana, Nancy Plum, Jimmy Rabbit and many more, such as laradio.com's Don Barrett.

Tickets are $60 ($100 for couples), with proceeds benefiting the TJ Martell Foundation. For more information, check out the reunion web site at www.kroqreunion.com.

Live and Personal

KRLA's (870 AM) Chef Jamie Gwen of Cheftalk broadcast live from Pinks Famous Hotdogs in Hollywood last Sunday as a salute to -- you guessed it -- the hotdog. Or, as Chef Gwen puts it, the great American favorite. During the 5 - 6 pm broadcast, Pinks donated all proceeds to Meals on Wheels.

It's all part of National Hotdog Month.

Small Town

Heard on KFI (640 AM) last Monday: An ad for a special that expired two weeks ago (July 3rd) and two commercials run back to back for competing charities, both asking for automobile donations.

If this were Small Town USA, that might -- and I repeat, might -- be acceptable. But this is Los Angeles, the second-largest radio market in the country. Radio programmers here should know the basic rules of advertising, which include not running outdated commercials or running commercials for competing products in the same set.

Yet my guess is that you can expect more of these types of mistakes now that the corporate conglomerates (in this case the Evil Empire: Clear Channel) run everything on the cheap, having only one general manager for numerous stations, for example. Sure it looks great on paper, but one person can hardly pay attention to everything happening on up to seven different stations.

Funny

On the same day that I heard Clear Channel is expanding its Prophet System in Los Angeles, firing most of the weekend/part time personalities at KBIG (104.3 FM) and KOST (103.5 FM) later this month and replacing them with an automated voice tracking system, I read a story in Radio and Records which reported on a study showing radio listening is down for the second year in a row. Way down, in some demographics, but down in all.

Think the two stories are not related? I have a bridge to sell you.

Happy 100th

Music Spotlight, heard Sundays at 6 pm on Adelphia cable radio (99.3 cable FM) as well as the internet (www.kcla.com), celebrated 100 shows July 14th.

The program, which features new artists and new music also has old shows on archive at www.musicspotlight.com.

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