Airwaves: November 17, 2006
Personalities on Country 540 Announced
Country 540 (XSUR AM) has a new on air lineup to go along with the new
music they started playing last month. And a few of them are indeed former KZLA
(now KMVN, 93.9 FM) jocks.
Brian Douglas is the new morning man (6 to 10 AM), followed by Adrienne
Brooks (10 AM to 3 PM), Jack Boxer ( 3 to 5 PM), Melody Morgan (5
to 10 PM), and Don Bishop (late night and overnights).
Weekends include various programming including Lon Helton's Country
Countdown USA Saturdays at 10 AM. Additionally, the wonderful Whitney
Allen hosts Big Time Saturday Night at 7 PM. But the big weekend news
happens on Sundays when Paul Freeman takes to the air from 1 to 6 PM.
Douglas, Brooks, Allen and Freeman were associated with KZLA before that station
went urban.
Now if we can just do something about that awful signal ...
Ringing Endorsements
One of the most popular ways to advertise on radio is through personal endorsements
from popular personalities. Howard Stern (Sirius) and Rush Limbaugh (KFI)
are highly sought after, as just two examples, because whenever they speak, their
fans listen. And buy whatever they are advertising.
Yet my cynical side always asks: when the personality is giving personal testimony,
are they really just giving their opinion, or did they just happen to receive
free stuff in exchange for the endorsement?
I wrote about this topic in the past. Then as now, I said that I'm not always
cynical. I changed the windows in my house through a company endorsed by KFI's John
Kobylt. But now that Bill Handel (again from KFI, the current leader
in personality endorsements) has brought in his entire family to help with the
endorsements, the question remains:
Do you follow the "advice" of your favorite radio personalities when
they do their own ads?
Write in and let me know.
Play Thing
KCRW's The Plays The Thing presents Johnny on the Spot tomorrow
at 10 PM. Starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Brad Hall, the story is a 1940s political
satire about radio, cynical newsmen, rigged elections, corrupt politicians and
sex scandals.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Private Party
Clear Channel Communications, which for many years has complained that
its stock price does not reflect the assets and performance, is investigating
taking the company private.
To that mean, the company is taking bids from investors to do just that. Bids
so far have placed the value of the company at more than $17 Billion. Bids were
due this week, and a decision on what to do is expected shortly.
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Copyright © 2006 Richard Wagoner and The Copley Press.
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