This is an Open Letter to Michael Jackson, last liberal talk show host in LA. The station, KLAC570, switches from talk to adult standards tonight at midnight...and will be playing 24 hours of Sinatra tomorrow....
Don Barrett runs the site,
http://www.laradio.com
To: Michael Jackson
From: Don Barrett
Well, Michael, as you wind down with just a few days remaining before KLAC shifts from Geriatric Talk to Geriatric Adult Standards, you will be faced with another career decision. What will you do next?
You’ve had an exemplary career. Many regard you as the dean of Los Angeles talkers. You certainly have been doing it longer than anyone else in the market. You get high marks for survival. From your million dollar paydays to a fraction of that at KLAC, it IS time for you step down.
The culture has passed you by.
When KABC was at its zenith, the station could do no wrong. You were a fixture in that midday slot and even gave the ABC network a trial balloon for possible syndication. When your weekday slot was turned over to KGO’s Ronn Owens, in management’s hope to stop the fast meltdown of the once venerable king of talk stations, you elected to take a weekend shift. Your behavior and name calling at the time was boorish. When you should have been walking tall, you elected to wallow in the mud.
It was the beginning of the end. You should have stepped away gracefully. You should have worked out a place at ABC Radio like Walter Cronkite did at CBS News. Without the daily grind of a talk show to prepare and carry, you could have spent your time being the ABC ambassador in times of crisis. Your Rolodex of powerful people itself is a gold mine.
Desperate for a full-time shift, you returned to middays, this time at KRLA 1110 AM, but the signal was so abysmal, no one heard you. The station was eventually sold, ironically to ABC (now Sports KSPN). You then moved to Clear Channel’s KLAC when they abandoned Adult Standards for what I'm sure looked good on paper - the aging KFI listeners making a logical move to KLAC.
It didn’t work. You can blame it on the lack of promotion. You can blame management for not supporting you. You can blame ABC for not holding on to you. The fact of the matter is, it didn’t work.
You now find yourself unemployed with no local prospects in sight. KLSX is too raunchy for you. Salem’s KRLA and Orange County's KPLS are too conservative leaning for you. Even your sister station KFI has no place for you.
Many in the industry cry about the paucity of liberal talk show hosts. You are a liberal talk show host. Once upon a time, you were a fair-minded talk show host with liberal leanings. Today, you are an unabashed liberal, posing as a fair-minded talk show host. There are no successful liberal talk show hosts because there are no liberal causes. Look at the difficulty that the Democrats had in last month’s election. There is no cause they can embrace. The only other liberal in commercial L.A. radio, Gloria Allred, succumbed to disappointing ratings and left KABC in October.
Since 9/11, the mood of the nation has become anxious and patriotic. For the moment, the nation has embraced the President.
Perhaps it is time to retire gracefully. Chick Hearn stayed until the very end, but most don’t. And most don’t do it gracefully. All we have to do is look at our sports heroes who thought they had one more season in them. The public doesn’t want to see them age and lose that edge that made them great.
We would like to remember you as the dean of L.A. talk show hosts. This is not the time to whine and complain about your station in life. This is the time to celebrate your accomplishments.
Let LA Radio retire your jersey. Go out a winner and not a whiner. There are no more safe havens for a veteran like Michael Jackson. As the population aged and you took them with you, they began to die off as listeners. There is a new sheriff in town and it looks more like “Stimulating Radio” and sex-obsessed “FM Talk.” Even your alma mater struggles to find the beating heart in the midst of a faster-paced and hipper Southland.
Maybe it is time to shock those who know you the best. Show the community how to retire with dignity and class. When the new talk ruffians came out of the high school locker room to fart and shock, you continued to wear a coat and tie to work.
The culture has passed you by.