San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Radio in 2018: The good, the bad, the weird
For radio, it wasn’t a very good year, what with corporate bankruptcies and attendant budget cuts (meaning people and programs). More stations were rendered unrecognizable to faithful listeners, and many of those listeners went to other media platforms.
But listening levels remained stable — millions are trapped in cars and offices and have yet to move to adfree online stations, to streaming services or to satellite radio. AM and FM radio, combined, remains the top medium for reaching people 18 and older.
Entercom’s CEO, David Field, noted problems at digital media (including advertising fraud) and said, “The opportunity for a … radio renaissance is a real possibility.” Network radio is equally chipper. Gary Schonfeld of AdLarge, a sales and content company, said, “Between radio, podcasts, smart speakers and streaming, audio listening has been growing … and where the audience goes, the advertisers follow.”
As for local radio, Gary Fiset, veteran advertising and promotion exec and head of San Francisco’s Promotion Marketing, emailed his thoughts. “2018 was a retooling year with mergers and debt service impacting sales and staff. Advertisers are getting good results from radio, so optimism is rising on many fronts. Yet with all the ownership and staff changes, all but a few Bay Area station groups report 2018 year-todate revenue underperforming 2017’s. Constant pressure will remain on management until station strategies find their groove in audience and revenue growth. It’s pressure that has been the same song in radio forever.”
Among this year’s many ch-ch-ch-changes:
Radio Hall of Famer Ronn Owens lost his full-time show on KGO, getting reduced to a 10-minute spot on weekdays, while Brian Copeland lost his show, getting reduced to nothing.
P-Con (Patrick Connor) was canned from KNBR for something he said on another station. On Sirius/XM’s sports show “Dialed-In With Dallas Braden,” Connor remarked on Chloe Kim, the 17-year-old snowboarder who’d just won Olympic gold, calling her “a little hot piece of ass.”
Live 105 became “Alt 105.3,” while KFOG kinda became Live 105, with the installation of “The Woody Show,” which once resided at 105.3, and a move into alt-rock. KFOG dropped the much-loved “Acoustic Sunrise” and host Rosalie Howarth.
IHeart Media returned progressive talk radio to the Bay at KKSF (910 AM), which had been airing ESPN’s Spanishlanguage programming. In June, it switched to “Real Talk 910,” with Stephanie Miller on mornings. Longtime KMEL morning DJ Chuy Gomez came back to San Francisco radio after several years in the South Bay, taking over mornings on KRBQ (“Q 102”) from Joey V (Vlazny) and Mia Amor .… Vlazny bounced over to KUFX (“K-Fox”), pushing Chris Jackson to afternoons.
KUSF returned. Well, not quite, but in September, KXSF, a low-power FM signal (at 102.5) brought back members of San Francisco Community Radio, made up of former staffers at the iconic college station.
KQED said hello to “The Bay,” a smart daily podcast focused on local news and issues, and farewell to longtime VP and GM Jo Anne Wallace, and to CEO and President John Boland.
At KALW, Tina Pamintuan replaced Matt Martin as GM.
Good sports: Awful Announcing, a site that covers and critiques sports media, conducts a fan poll of baseball play-by-play teams. This year, No. 1 was the Giants’ Mike Krukow and Duane Kuiper (“Kruk and Kuip”), plus Jon Miller and Dave Flemming. The A’s TV team of Glen Kuiper and Ray Fosse ranked a respectable 11th. On the radio side, the news was all bad. Despite the A’s surprise season, getting into the playoffs, the team broke up with KGMZ (“The Game”), due to low ratings and perceived indifference from the station. See Susan Slusser’s excellent report published Dec. 8.
Silent mikes: “Boy, a lot of dead people, huh?” said one broadcaster in response to the announcement of the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame’s class of 2018. Half of the 10 inductees were deceased: DJs Chris Edwards and M. Dung (Mike Slavko), announcer Scott Beach, talk show host Gene Burns, and pioneer broadcaster B. Floyd Farr. The grateful living are newscaster Jon Bristow, marketing wizard Jude Heller, sportscaster Greg Papa, engineer Fred Krock, and station owner Gordon Zlot. And KSFO’s Brian Sussman was voted the most popular radio personality in the Bay Area.
Oh, yes: The Hall of Fame honored the R&B station KDIA as the Legendary Station of the Year, with DJ Johnny Morris set to accept the award. But he died on Sept. 1, just a month before the ceremonies.
R.I.P.: Ted Wygant … John Mack Flanagan … Emmit Powell ... Gilbert Klein … Art Bell … Helen Lipson … Ed Schultz … Bill Wattenburg … Alice Potter … Bobbie “Spider” Webb … Ron Wolfe … Nicole Sawaya … Hank Greenwald … Dave Kelliher, a.k.a. Dave Roberts.
And on Dec. 2, the body of Ray Taliaferro, 79, former KGO talk show host, was found in Paducah, Ky., where he’d gone missing Nov. 10. More on this radio pioneer and civil rights and community activist in the next Radio Waves.