NA Death of Late-Night Radio NA

denverpilot

denverpilot

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The last late-night talk show with a local host is happening right now on Denver's 850 KOA Radio.

I grew up listening to Rick Barber as a night-owl myself.

http://bit.ly/zS9FlD - Article talking about the last hosts.

Rick Barber was a staple of late night AM Radio in the West for 30 years. a true professional. Entertaining. Funny. Smart.

History. End of an era. No local thoughts, voices, or opinions anymore for the night-owls.

The media has lost the way to "close the loop" when they suck.

No callers to the local TV News to say they're full of it that they'll take ON AIR.

It's no longer a relationship or discussion.

We'll see how much longer the late morning shows on the dial last inbetween the morning drive-time and the mid-day Syndicated stuff.

KOA was "King Of Agriculture" and as the MUF went down at night, being one of the original Clear Channel (where Clearchannel Cmunications -- the company -- got their name from) stations West of the Mississippi River. Network radio relayed through KOA to the West Coast.

They started with a giant dipole antenna and a shack that was placed in the riverbed for the additional ground coupling effect if there were any water around here on the high dry plains.

Today their broadcast tower is a common VFR reporting point for KAPA.

They claimed 38 State coverage at night, and also regularly had callers from Canada and Mexico late at night.

So long and thanks for sparking my interest in radio, the live broadcast, vocal clarity, civil discussions even when people disagree...Lots of things.

Thanks late-night talk show hosts.

Clearchannel Communications can suck it.

A caller said, "It feels just like when Johnny Carson was going off-air." Agreed.

Never thought I wouldn't be able to fall asleep listening to local talent on KOA. 30 more minutes and it's over.

RIP night-owl Denver radio. :(
 
I'm not a 'radio guy'. The deepest I got was a scheduled radio net on SSB on Pacific waters. We piggy backed on a Japanese AM station. So busted if that station ever went off the air.

What do you have to say about KFI? I picked up KFI while flying in Spokane.

There is a station located in, I think, Shiprock which I would regularly receive from San Francisco, Los Angeles, Needles, Phoenix, and up to Boise. 620 I think.
 
What is replacing the programming?
 
KVEC 920 was 'my' local home AM station. All local programming and some regional syndicatated on Sat and Sun mornings...until Clear Channel bulldogged in the door. The first thing they did was fire the most popular host. Then they canned the behind the scenes guy who made it all work. Then they offered the most popular host (who they fired) a menial position as tech support. It all went downhill from there. Now all that 920 is worth is an unathorized ADF beacon.

Oops, I misspoke. I don't mean that tech is menial. I meant that a former host being offered the position to babysit automated gear was degrading. Small wonder he turned down the offer.
 
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IMHO broadcast radio is dead. It is all networked programming and computer run station with national focus. The good old days (<=1990s) of local radio and local programs are basically gone. You just cannot find those stations much anymore. There are a few lower power am stations that are hanging on, but just by a thread.
 
I used to be a devotee of radio, had once thought of trying for radio as a career. Now, as noted, local radio is quite nearly dead.

There are some local stations still extant, mostly in rural areas where the personal touch still means something, but the old career path of starting in a small-market station and working your way up - that is dead.

I loved trying to drag in far-away stations on AM at night, for fun. KOA was one such easily-tuned station. Also, from time to time, WLS from Chicago, some station whose call I can no longer remember from Salt Lake City, WJR, Detroit. And of course, the blowtorch-strong stations from Mexico, like XERF from Ciudad Acuna, Coahuila.

When on the road, we could almost always get a taste of home by tuning in WBAP 820 from Ft. Worth, and listening to Old Bill Mack and his Open Road truckers show. Great nationwide weather and major road disruption reports and, of course, country music and truck stop ads ("Rip on it to Rip's, the place that can't be topped, rip on in to ol' Rip Griffin's, trucker's favorite stop, rip on in- rip into Rip's").
 
Damn, I used to listen to all that driving and flying cross country through the night and offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. Art Bell and Rick Barber were near daily staples for quite a few years. However the era of AM is over, the functionality of satellites broadcasting clear digital signals across entire continents has superseded it by a long margin.

I fully agree with your assessment of Clearchannel, they ruined radio and the music business way more than file sharing, in fact, file sharing grew out of the need for new music to gain an audience. Gone are the days of visiting DJs at 01:00 and handing them a 12" 33 single to play and add to their list.

I'm glad that the radio station I grew up with is still alive and thriving as an independent. KSHE is one of the things I enjoy most about St Louis because it gives me the opportunity to hear some of the classic old rock besides the 250 songs of the era that CC has rights to and plays over and over again. It's like they just use an iPod on shuffle.
 
ScottM said:
IMHO broadcast radio is dead. It is all networked programming and computer run station with national focus. The good old days (<=1990s) of local radio and local programs are basically gone. You just cannot find those stations much anymore. There are a few lower power am stations that are hanging on, but just by a thread.
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KGY in Olympia is one of those OLD local stations. I wake up to their local DJ every morning.

SCCutler said:
I used to be a devotee of radio, had once thought of trying for radio as a career. Now, as noted, local radio is quite nearly dead.

There are some local stations still extant, mostly in rural areas where the personal touch still means something, but the old career path of starting in a small-market station and working your way up - that is dead.

I loved trying to drag in far-away stations on AM at night, for fun. KOA was one such easily-tuned station. Also, from time to time, WLS from Chicago, some station whose call I can no longer remember from Salt Lake City, WJR, Detroit. And of course, the blowtorch-strong stations from Mexico, like XERF from Ciudad Acuna, Coahuila.

When on the road, we could almost always get a taste of home by tuning in WBAP 820 from Ft. Worth, and listening to Old Bill Mack and his Open Road truckers show. Great nationwide weather and major road disruption reports and, of course, country music and truck stop ads ("Rip on it to Rip's, the place that can't be topped, rip on in to ol' Rip Griffin's, trucker's favorite stop, rip on in- rip into Rip's").
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KSL in Salt Lake City. KGO in San Francisco, although they run a 3 tower broadside array beaming their signal up and down the west coast. KFBK in Sacramento is another 50,000 Watt powerhouse that we pick up in the PNW.

I was listening to Coast-to-Coast AM on the way to the airport early this morning. Art Bell has retired, and somebody else was subbing for George Noory. Same old paranormal nonsense, however. :D
 
Henning said:
I'm glad that the radio station I grew up with is still alive and thriving as an independent. KSHE is one of the things I enjoy most about St Louis because it gives me the opportunity to hear some of the classic old rock besides the 250 songs of the era that CC has rights to and plays over and over again. It's like they just use an iPod on shuffle.
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Quoting Jim Bleikamp, NY/NJ broadcaster and owner of soon to go back on the air WCME, Brunswick, Maine.

"This will be of interest to many in St. Louis...and to the radio community...wherever you are. One of the nation's premier FM rock stations...which began its rockin' days in 1967 in a tiny cinderblock building next to a drive-in theater...in the St. Lous burb of Crestwood...says goodbye to its longtime affiliation with the "Bob and Tom" morning show...and returns to rock 'n roll in the morning.

Hosted locally by the U-Man. John Ulett...who first set foot in K-SHE in 1976. I'm lovin' it."

www.Kshe95.com

HR
 
Richard said:
What do you have to say about KFI? I picked up KFI while flying in Spokane.
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I grew up a mile from the KFI transmitter, just northwest of KFUL (yes, the tower that was hit by a C-182 a few years ago). That 50 kW clear channel blowtorch could be heard faintly over the dial tone when we picked up the telephone. My mother said she could hear it in the fillings in her teeth.

KFI was a Conelrad station (remember the little 'CD' symbols on the AM dial at 640 and 1240?). That had real significance to us in the late '50s and early '60s. KFI's local newsman was Pat Bishop, a no-nonsense, hard-news reporter of the Edward R. Murrow school. If Pat Bishop said it, it was news, and it was important. The station was also the local NBC Radio affiliate, so it carried the NBC news on the hour, and weekend "Monitor" programming. Most importantly to me, however, was that until 1974 it was the L.A. Dodgers flagship station, which meant I could hear Vin Scully calling the games no matter where I was.

Lawreston said:
Can be heard in 38 states:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WBZ_(AM)
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Ah, yes. If conditions were just right I could pick up WBZ Boston on my 10-transistor radio in Southern California. More often, however, the best I could do was KOB Albuquerque or KNBR San Francisco.


Anthony said:
What is replacing the programming?
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I have XM Radio at home, in the car and in the airplane. There are some syndicated shows, not on XM, that I listen to via internet from out-of-town stations. I have not listened to terrestrial radio in months.

Local radio here in Portland is garbage. How I long for the glory days of L.A. radio in the '60s, including Bob Crane (later of "Hogan's Heroes") and Rege Cordic on KNX before it went all-news; and Dick Whittinghill in the morning and Gary Owens (the hand-over-the-ear announcer on "Laugh-in") in the afternoon on KMPC. The traffic reporters, so essential in L.A., became like friends.

Now it's all canned, and what few voices that are on the air are low-paid rubes. KABC in L.A. just laid off Jorge Jarrin, its popular helicopter traffic reporter of the last thirty years.

:sigh:
 
Someone asked about KFI. Never ending traffic reports when I listened in the 90s. California loves her "SIGALERT"'s from CalTrans! Haha.

Wasn't their tower the one that was hit by a 182 a number of years ago?

Someone else asked what they're replacing the locals with...

They're putting Coast to Coast AM into the 10PM timeslot. Which is fine, but isn't local talk about local issues.

And George Norry (sp) is a weak replacement for Art Bell. Art was the master of asking questions of the nut bags while not cracking even a hint of a smile or sounding like he didn't believe them...

"So once the aliens inserted the anal probe, tell the audience what happened next..."

Art Bell called my house once, but that had more to do with a Ham Radio thing, than any of his usual topics. Someone was bootlegging my callsign and interfering with him "holding court" on 75 meters with his broadcast buddies. It was even more interesting when I talked to the FCC Field Office the following day... "May I record this conversation?" and it was obvious they were actively involved already. Art has friends in high places. The off the record stuff about who and where it was coming from after the recorder was turned off was interesting too. A much more interesting than normal week, that week.

Art cracked me up... answered the phone to that unmistakeable voice, "Nathan, this is Arthur W. Bell." I replied with a cheerful, "Hi Art! How's the show?" He used Nathan which was a sure sign he'd found me via official records and didn't know me from Adam.
 
Traffic report fun stories: one of the flight schools here in DEN leased out their 182 to the dying traffic reporter industry in the early 90s.

I did a checkout in it and knew what the giant wooden box, all the gear, and the extra antennas were for. There was an admonition from CFIs doing checkouts to just "leave that stuff alone". Also a mention to let someone know immediately if there was something wrong with the plane. They were very worried about renters using it and creating downtime for the reporters. Oil change and 100 Hr numbers were also critical to them.

I badly wanted to fire up the full-duplex wife band FM to the station and chat with the newsroom to say hi and freak them out, but I resisted the temptation.

I grew up thinking the flying traffic reporter job was the best job in town back in the days of Don Martin and Dick Dillon. Fly early and late, laugh at all the commuters silently while providing them up-to-the-minute updates on how their lives sucked. Special callsign to talk to TRACO. Heck, I'd still do that job for free if I were independently wealthy and didn't need a real job. ;)
 
denverpilot said:
Someone asked about KFI. [...] Wasn't their tower the one that was hit by a 182 a number of years ago?
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Yep.

KFI.jpg


When I learned to fly at Fullerton in the mid 1960s, the traffic pattern altitude was 800' MSL (now it's 1,000') -- and the nearby KFI tower was 820' MSL. Prevailing afternoon winds favored runway 24, looking into the setting sun and the haze, which often limited visibility to VFR minimum. And in those days they didn't have high-intensity strobes on the tower - just red flashing incandescents at night and nothing in the daytime. It kept one's attention in the traffic pattern, that's for sure.

Local pilots had been lobbying to force the radio station to upgrade the lighting on the tower, to no avail, before that 182 from El Monte hit it.
 
There used to be a guy in Boston who, when signing legal documents, would sign as Arthur J. McTague(true family name). However, 38 or more states(pending weather and mountains) were well-familiar with personality Kevin O'Keefe.

Arthur Mctague
WMEX [Boston MA] 1960 - Dan Donovan (II)
WBZ [Boston] 1961 - Kevin O'Keefe
WCOP [Boston] 1964 - Bob Allen
WHDH [Boston] 1960 - Kevin O'Keefe: traffic reporter
WEEI [Boston] 1960-1992 - Kevin O'Keefe: traffic
Now: Arthur (Kevin) says, "I retired from broadcasting, aviation and WEEI, Boston in 1992. I had one hell of a run in the business I still love. I also miss being the pilot of jet helicopters for traffic reporting. I am now retired in Venice, FL ... and am enjoying life on the golf course."
skyway3@msn.com


HR
 
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I Deejayed my way through college, on a local FM station back when FM was still fairly fresh. This was before the "Top 40" invasion of FM, where there was room for the eclectic and the DJs did their own programming. One night, I followed Emerson, Lake, and Palmer's "Welcome back my Friends" with Judy Garland, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." Good times.

This thread instantly reminded me of one of my fellow DJ's, who ended each 10PM to 2AM shift with Bill and Taffy Danoff's "Late Night Radio"....

There's lonely hearts in Arkansas
There's truckers in Des Moines
All there to keep me company in the early morn
A world unknown to daytime
Is forever going on
The airwaves of the nation
Between midnight and the dawn

Late night radio
Take it everywhere I go
My best friend when I'm lonely
Is my late night radio

Ron Wanttaja
 
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Lawreston said:
Quoting Jim Bleikamp, NY/NJ broadcaster and owner of soon to go back on the air WCME, Brunswick, Maine.

"This will be of interest to many in St. Louis...and to the radio community...wherever you are. One of the nation's premier FM rock stations...which began its rockin' days in 1967 in a tiny cinderblock building next to a drive-in theater...in the St. Lous burb of Crestwood...says goodbye to its longtime affiliation with the "Bob and Tom" morning show...and returns to rock 'n roll in the morning.

Hosted locally by the U-Man. John Ulett...who first set foot in K-SHE in 1976. I'm lovin' it."

www.Kshe95.com

HR
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Yay, they ruined KSHE in the morning. Luckily I was out of school befor that crap started. Ulett should love it, he had the morning show before Bob & Tom.
 
KGO just changed. New owners fired almost all of the talk hosts and switched to an all-news format.
 
It's been deteriorating for some time. The "best of" radio was before the mid-70's. Even back then there was automation and national network programming (anyone else remember NBC's Monitor on weekends?)...

Not to defend Clear Channel Communications - all they did was take computer and networking technology and replace the older automation & network programming to make things more efficient (and from the standpoint of a small station, less prone to error). In 1978-ish one of my college jobs was babysitting automation at a couple of small stations in SW Virginia. A four tape deck machine (and two cartridge carousels for commercials) with cueing tones to start the next machine. I dare say that computer automation was better. Century21 Z-format. Blech.

Computer technology, social media, cable TV talking heads, more precise audience research, iPods & streaming media, and partisan national politics have all conspired to eliminate some of the things that made the big-station, big-personality radio great. Some of us remember "Big Ron O'Brien", Larry Lujack, The Voice of Labor, the battles between WABC and WNBC in New York (WNBC outlasted WABC by a couple of years), Wolfman Jack on KB Radio, The Joy Boys on WRC in Washington, and so forth. All replaced by new forms of media & fewer personalities. Where Cousin Brucie was your friend, you see Rush as your enemy. And you now take your iPod everywhere.

I know the KOA facility - The old GE BT-25 transmitter replaced by the Harris MW-50 replaced by the solid-state transmitter (that's a big D-to-A converter). Too bad the GE was full of PCB-laden Pyranol capacitors & transformers.

Radio has looked at national coverage for years... going back to the day that Crosby tried to do it with 500 KW on WLW.
 
Yeah... As an aside, Harris really ramped up and hit the price and timing sweet spot for the HDTV conversions too. And played smart on a lot of deals.

All the HDTV transmitters at the brand new facility on Lookout Mountain are Harris. Nice units. Have had the five cent your from the CBS transmitter supervisor. (Paul's a great guy.)

Big money deal with "discounts" for all if Harris got the entire site. Makes sense.

7 and 9 screwed up staying on their VHF channels IMHO, though. Far weaker signals here than the folks who converted (even at lower power) to UHF.

KDVR (Fox) went full tilt boogie on their power levels at UHF...

You can receive them anywhere. Basements, bad antennas, doesn't matter.

7 and 9 are fussy everywhere in the Metro except Western suburbs.

Paul was the odd-man out who went up to UHF. Works well. Less power more antenna gain, he's second strongest here at the house.

That Harris is cool. Quite an upgrade from the monster Paul used to take care of in the old KCNC transmitter building that was demolished for the new mega-tower multiple-tenant site. 1000W solid state modules. Pop one out, replace it, no downtime. Nice.

The combiner system up there at the new site is massive. And the waveguide down the tunnel buried in the face of the mountain to the base of the tower is cool too. Looks more like the city water system of pipes than it does an RF transmission system.
 
denverpilot said:
Yeah... As an aside, Harris really ramped up and hit the price and timing sweet spot for the HDTV conversions too. And played smart on a lot of deals.

All the HDTV transmitters at the brand new facility on Lookout Mountain are Harris. Nice units. Have had the five cent your from the CBS transmitter supervisor. (Paul's a great guy.)

Big money deal with "discounts" for all if Harris got the entire site. Makes sense.
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I've probably met Paul in an earlier life. I know the rad-haz issues on Lookout quite well - the move to lower power, digital TV should have eliminated many of the hot spots up there.

My old college roomate works for Harris designing & building TV stuff.
 
wsuffa said:
I've probably met Paul in an earlier life. I know the rad-haz issues on Lookout quite well - the move to lower power, digital TV should have eliminated many of the hot spots up there.

My old college roomate works for Harris designing & building TV stuff.
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Yah, well, the move to lower power, digital TV also eliminated my ability to receive broadcast TV without a big, honkin' rooftop antenna.
 
SCCutler said:
Yah, well, the move to lower power, digital TV also eliminated my ability to receive broadcast TV without a big, honkin' rooftop antenna.
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In FtL I get 1 English speaking digital channel that comes in horribly and about 13 Spanish channels on broadcast.
 
wsuffa said:
I've probably met Paul in an earlier life. I know the rad-haz issues on Lookout quite well - the move to lower power, digital TV should have eliminated many of the hot spots up there.
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Yeah, it did. Same down at Cheyenne Mtn... No more roped off 30 minute exposure areas at ground level down there anymore.
 
SCCutler said:
Yah, well, the move to lower power, digital TV also eliminated my ability to receive broadcast TV without a big, honkin' rooftop antenna.
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Is this where I'm supposed to say "A big, rich lawyer like you can afford cable TV"? :D:D:D:D
 
And back to the original post & first comments. For anyone who thinks this is a new phenomenon, I suggest you use your preferred search engine to look up the name "Howard Beale". Then note when his name first surfaced.
 
I remember as a kid in Saskatchewan, in the fall while we were combining, my uncle and I would be in the truck while my dad was running the combine. Running until 2-3am, whenever the dew made it too wet to continue, we'd listen to stuff like KOA and KSL.
 
wsuffa said:
Is this where I'm supposed to say "A big, rich lawyer like you can afford cable TV"? :D:D:D:D
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And I have uVerse, but it'd be nice for my wife to be able to watch portable TV (about the size of a paperback book) at her makeup mirror without having to use a freakin' cable / IPTV box. I mean, for goodness' sake, I live in the city, fairly close in. Analog TV worked great from internal antennas.

wsuffa said:
And back to the original post & first comments. For anyone who thinks this is a new phenomenon, I suggest you use your preferred search engine to look up the name "Howard Beale". Then note when his name first surfaced.
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I'm mad as Hell...
 
SCCutler said:
And I have uVerse, but it'd be nice for my wife to be able to watch portable TV (about the size of a paperback book) at her makeup mirror without having to use a freakin' cable / IPTV box. I mean, for goodness' sake, I live in the city, fairly close in. Analog TV worked great from internal antennas.



I'm mad as Hell...
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Well those towers are placed to cover both cities.

via Tapatalk
 
ateamer said:
KGO just changed. New owners fired almost all of the talk hosts and switched to an all-news format.
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Well, so much for their left wing talk show hosts being good for keeping me awake on all night drives. Not that we've done any of those in quite a few years. KGO's talk shows were always entertaining, even if you didn't agree with the host.
 
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