Posted on 05/07/2014 2:09:09 PM PDT by lee martell
If you listen to terrestrial radio, and live in the San Francisco Bay Area, north of San Jose, you most likely have heard of KSFO AM. Last weekend, the managers of that radio station decided to fire weekend talk host Barbara Simpson suddenly and for most listeners shocklingly. Barbara was affiliated with that station for over nineteen years, since it's inception as a conservative leaning radio station. This was a few years after Rush Limbaugh show everyone that conservatives could appeal to a large portion of the population.
Some local blogs, such as richlieberman 415media have been flooded with posters going through various stages of blame, grief and disbelief. No one has heard anything from her since last Saturday, although her facebook page remains up. Why do I bring this up to those who have never heard of either Barbara or KSFO? Because this type of brutal, inglorious ending to a steller career is what is very possible these days in talk radio. The management wants talkers to use a PPM system, a pinging type system that counts listeners. It has largely replaced the older methods which were simliar to the Nielsen practice.
Today's managers also expect their talkers to respond to tweets, texts, and facebook likes. All the while remaining in compatibility with commercial breaks or earpiece whisperings from the engineer. I hope this is temporary, and Barbara finds a new spot soon. The bigger issue though is there are a lot of us who are over the select demo, 55 years or older. I can only hope someone finds a way to cater to out needs in merchandise and services without throwing talented people over the side like an old apple core.
Barbara has not been seen or heard from since Saturday, when ‘the roof fell’ in figuratively speaking. I hope she’s okay, but I think all will have become clear by this time next week if not sooner.
The only things I can still tolerate on that station w/o wanting to throw the radio out of my window would include Red Eye Radio at 10pm. This has nothing to do with the host of Red Eye on Fox TV. I’m tired of seeing Greg Gutfeld eight times a day anyway. The radio show features two guys bantering back and forth about events of the day. They are conservative without rubberstamping everything that happens to be called republican. Very entertaining.
Agreed. I love Red Eye Radio! For anyone who’s not heard them, it’s well worth a try. Here’s the link, with a “listen live” and free podcast reruns:
http://www.redeyeradioshow.com/
LOL! If you are in the market for a self assured, female, Jewish voice over to read the part of Golda Meir out talking/ outsmarting Arafat, or perhaps what I imagine Netanyahu’s Mother would have sounded like, Hannah would be your best bet.
I liked the babes closing. “Be careful what you pray for you may get it”.
Believe me, growing up I had plenty of aunts who spoke in *almost* such grating tones who weren’t afraid to let you know what was what, but there’s something about hearing it on my cheesy little am radio that just seems to make it an irritation concentrator. My radio must have a kvetch-pass filter.
You mentioned Hannity, Levin, Savage, Beck, Tom Sullivan, and Rush on the Right, and Norm Goldman, Bill Press, Tom Hartman, Randi Rhoades, John Rothmann, Ray Talifaro, and the late great Gene Burns on the Left.
What I saw was the intent to disconnect the listener from the genre by shutting down the local shows and replacing them with time-delayed syndicated national shows. Of the list you provided, on the KGO hosts (Rothmann, Talifaro, Burns) were local. On the Right, only Savage was local for a time.
Going back into the archives, I recall when KSFO was mostly local: Rodgers, Goeff Metcalf, Jim Eason, Michael Savage, Brian Wilson (remote but live), David Gold (remote but live).
Throughout the years, we saw other local shows shut down: Quinn and Rose, Fred Grandy, etc.
As a final thought, did you read the Lieberman blog post on the passing of Lee Rodgers? Did you compare that to the post on the passing of Gene Burns?
-PJ
Re; Rich Lieb. Obituary on Lee Rodgers as compared to his Obit on Gene Burns; It’s been a while since both has passed. I completely enjoyed both men, as top drawer professionals and complex, sometimes tempermental human beings.
As much as I liked Lee, I was often taken aback by how rude he would be to Officer Vic. Lee would step on OV’s lines, spoil his punchlines with audible sighs and groans. Yet OV weathered the storm. Being your typical male, I personally could’nt have excised my own ego on a regular basis the way he did. The very best times were when the three All Stars; Lee Rodgers, Melanie Morgan and Officer Vic were working together. I guess Lee was the Dad, with Melanie
and OV being the ambitious scions serving as The Sourcerers Apprentice.
Part of it, I'm sure, is that Lee Rodgers was working remotely from his home in Arizona while the other two were in the studio in San Francisco.
Morgan was his protoge, and Tom Benner was the comedic sidekick - there to play guitar and make jokes. His name wasn't even on the title of the show. It was "The KSFO Morning Show with Lee Rodgers and Melanie Morgan."
It's tough to be the third wheel.
-PJ
I can understand your comments about Ms Simpson.
I liked Duane Garrett and his show was the only one I called. I even listened to Ward from time to time.
Mainly I am referring to the failed network that was highly touted by MSM employees as taking on conservative head-to-head.
I found that I was simply listening to a repeat of news content whether the news came from top-of-the-hour or NY Times, LA Times, Washington Post.
Conservative talk is like the newspapers of old when cities had multiple newspapers representing various points of view.
True that the MSM news did not go far enough personally denouncing Reagan, Bush, Cheney. et al to suit liberal talk but essentially there was very little new on liberal talk that I had not already got from the MSM employees.
I don’t listen to him because of the “Mr. Producer” business. I find it to be cloying and obnoxious.
I agree. I understand a host has to find something to stoke the fire in the belly, but Mark becomes tedious very quickly with his “I must be The Grim Reaper, cause their scared to death of me!”, Stop beating your chest so much Mark, you aint all that all of the time.
I will say he must be a good writer, as his books often shoot up to #1, just ask him.I wish I could hear Laura Ingraham in the Bay Area, but I can’t right now. Laura can step in and out of the Avenging Warrior mode with ease. Her rage does not define her as much as with Levin.
I just heard/ read on Rich Lieberman, that Barbara is ok and is just taking a well deserved break. Barbara had been incommunicato for several days, since last Saturday, in fact, and her Peeps were starting to get very worried and very nosy.
I haven’t heard a word about Ms Simpson’s plans. I check several times a day. I’m watching this thread especially because I believe that if anyone hears something they’ll post it here.
I listened to a few minutes last Saturday as I tuned in Ms Simpson's show and was puzzled by how he kept referring to it as his show.
Even I figured out what had happened.
A few minutes was all I could take as he has an annoying habit of stretching out a sentence's last wor-r-r-r-r-rd. Others commented on this annoyance.
Plus I have other opinions about his manner of speech which I feel qualified to have after being a fan of radio since the early 1940s.
But the aforementioned irritant is so gross that even the radio voice of Michael Savage would lose the audience if Savage stretched out sentences' last wor-r-r-r-r-rd.
Industry may have to put KSFO on suicide watch if this keeps up.. make that Cumulus.
Probably won't happen soon but Savage may be next as well as Levin (nationwide Cumulus).
In Savage's own words prior to taking over the new slot he intended to become less partisan and more "diverse." I recall remarks from the Dickey brothers that that is what they want. Hannity was too political. But Savage has been more like the original Savage that made him popular.
I thought that Cumulus wanted a self-imposed Fairness Doctrine so Obama won't have to do it.
But it may be part of an all out destruction campaign against conservative talk. I've experienced it before when one hour a week of William F. Buckley's Firing Line on PBS was all the fairness conservative opinion deserves.
I’m hoping Barbara will resurface on another station before the midterms, but I don’t know. Cumulus has something of a monopoly on the local stations over here. Most stations are pressured into using the PPM approach to gauging ratings. This results in your ‘talent’ multitasking and focusing on the distractions of Twitter, Texting, Instagrams and Facebooking. That on top of ‘good old fashioned’ emails and actual phone calls. All of which must be screened, appraised, prioritized, in many cases responded to or redispensed on live air for dialog. I’m hoping this is a ten year fad that will prove not terribly profitable. Only future will tell, for now, most Program Managers are afraid not to use this method, presuming that they are losing revenue by not going with the flow.
On a side note, I’ll be ‘double happy’ when certain commercial spots finally stop. I’m speaking of the spot for TrueCar.com, a service that helps you to find and appraise an new car. The main announcer is a young female voice who sounds as though she comes from the lower income strata of society. She does not speak, she yells and pronounces the word CAR as CORE, that type of person. Someone who you’d hear arguing with the cashier at the 711. Is there no one else who could do those spots? My guess is she keeps her spots in rotation, ghetto dialect and all, because she fits their market demographic. Maybe she sounds like one of their typical customers.
It looks like the other side is thinking about using the FEC to implement a de facto ‘fairness doctrine’. And not just for talk radio.
FEC chair warns that conservative media like Drudge Report and Sean Hannity face regulation --- like PACs. This was a thread or two recently
During the first few minutes of "his" show last week the guy who replaced Simpson wanted comments about the contention that racist, hateful comments by anonymous people are wrong and should not be allowed. IIRC. I was bit rattled by that voice and his referring to it as his show. I exited and I do not know if he got any calls.
Maybe I am being unfair but he appears to be the direction Cumulus is taking.
So I can see the time when "they" will try to make FReepers ID'd to prevent us from "contributing" to "hate" and the election of conservatives.
The aged 1960s Marxist-Alinsky campus radical, psycho spoiled brats and their ideological issue certainly know about FR:
Here's how President Obama's (at the time) head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs and author of "Repulblic.com," Cass Sunstein, describes FreeRepublic.com as "group polarization," where people segregate themselves so effectively online with other like-minded thinkers that they create an echo chamber where the group's worst and most malevolent opinions get reinforced and strengthened. "We might want to consider," Sunstein startlingly told the Times recently, "the possibility of ways of requiring or encouraging sites to link to opposing viewpoints." He recently left the Administration to become an employee of Harvard I believe.
Cumulus is not done "decimating" either KSFO or KGO . . . There are changes to me made, yet. Remember, KSFO is for SALE at a decently high price in the millions. Without results soon -- very soon in fact -- [local talent on both stations days are numbered] . . . newer technologies competing . . . Too little $$$$ and so few listeners.
Don't know exactly what newer technologies mean I guess it is related to the social media crap issue.
Big fan of Barbara Simpson.
I read that same writer’s comments yesterday. This definitely sounds like someone now active in the industry, who truly knows what they’re talking about. I hope he’s right about the ksfo morning show. I long since gave up on them. I am not their target audience anymore, although somebody in the Bay Area must be liking it.
I was worried about The Barbara for a while last week. I even said the Rosary a few times, praying for her safety. I haven’t done that in years for anybody. About 7pm Saturday I turned to kgo, out of desperation. There was a good talker there. Somebody new, last name Bartholemew. He’s probably lib, but not stridently or incessantly that way. If I’m not listen to the Money Man on ksfo, I will turn to Bartholemew.
I hope Coast to Coast does welcome Barbara back.
C2C just let go of somebody else this Februrary. The guy was John something. John has a great voice, a very deep voice. Unfortunately, he had a tendancy to talk in a monotone. So I often could not understand what the heck he was saying. I would only hear a ‘dark purple rumble’. John liked to play obscure “B” side songs from the 60’s. A mixed blessing. Some of those tunes were better left unheard except as studies in quirkiness. One example was “Lather” from the Jefferson Airplane, a very strange song full of metaphors.
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