We've lost KPOJ and Carl Wolfson
Last edited Fri Nov 9, 2012, 11:28 PM - Edit history (1)
http://www.wweek.com/portland/blog-29441-kpoj_cancelling_political_talk_radio_on_monday.htmlI'm so upset that our progressive talk station and local morning show with Carl Wolfson is no longer. Now it's another sports station. Ugh.
Edited because the switch happened at 5:30pm tonight instead of this Monday.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Un-flippin-believable! Love these comments, by the way. Larson has been such a waste of time and space for far too many years, hard to accept he's still spewing his garbage on the airwaves. And yet...he spews and KPOJ is gonna be a sports station. Go figure.
... for all of the other AM stations listed here. It's not comparing apples and oranges. The same thing happened when Clear Channel took down KLSD (progressive talk radio) in San Diego and replaced it with sports talk as well. It was also significantly lower powered than the competitors that were getting higher ratings with this added power that Clear Channel rationalized as the reason to switch to a sports format.
Clear Channel tried to get the antenna switched to 50,000 watts after the switch, but didn't get that to go through. If you look here on wikipedia note that when KLSD was progressive format, it had 1.6 rating. When it switched to sports it DROPPED down to 0.3. The business reasons are complete CRAP, and is what Clear Channel's game has been to get rid of progressive talk radio around the country. Read more at wikipedia at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KLSD
Also, check out the documentary "Save KLSD". I was down in San Diego then, and was part of a number of the protests there that were filmed in it. Have kept in touch with those who made the film, who had a showing of it here in Portland some months ago. I just sent an email to one of them perhaps to see if they could come out to have another showing with it being a lot more relevant to us now.
If you go to "Save KLSD"'s web site, it might give us some ideas on how to fight this, as they've gone through a lot of what we're just starting to go through now.
http://www.saveklsd.com/
A few things in our favor that KLSD didn't have going for it:
1) Thom Hartmann's ties to KPOJ ought to give it that much more attention. I remember actually trying to get Thom Hartmann to help bring attention to KLSD's problems then, but I think he was trying to be careful not to rock the boat too heavily with Clear Channel then. Now he has a lot less to lose, and probably more to be PO'd about too with what happened here. I have a feeling Clear Channel intentionally waited until right after the election, figuring that Thom Hartmann would have a drop in people watching then on his national television show on FSTV that would keep it from getting as much attention. It's up to us to make sure that they don't get away with "hiding" their actions.
2) Portland is a more liberal area than San Diego was, which was one reason I moved up here. San Diego definitely had its local controversies that got many of us riled up, like Duke Cunningham and many related scandals here, Blackwater, Carol Lamm getting fired, but I think the core listener base is probably a bigger part of the community here than it is down there.
3) Now we have more power in the state and local government here to help us in court as well as perhaps other efforts to get proper regulation and authorization for formats, etc. here locally perhaps in our favor.
Now here are some alternatives for you if you still need your talk radio fix.
1) FSTV has Thom Hartmann on every day if you get satellite TV. Current TV has Stephanie Miller, the Young Turks, Bill Press and others too that can help, but that doesn't help you when you're out and about.
2) I still kept (thankfully) my satellite radio subscription in my car for Sirius/XM. Sirius Left is good and carries a number of talkers like Thom Hartmann, Mike Malloy, Mark Thompson, etc. I'm a little concerned about Sirius and XM having merged, and now Liberty Communications has been making moves to acquire it, which might be a more "stealth" Newscorp like media company, who shares some ownership with it. We should be that much more adamant about keeping them from doing so, to help avoid the media consolidation which has given us monsters like Bain's Clear Channel.
3) I see that KBBR (1340) in Coos Bay also has progressive talk and isn't owned by Clear Channel. I wonder if some kind of deal could be made to get them to get a repeater up here in Portland to take the place of KPOJ? Perhaps if they get more ratings that way, they might enjoy the prospect of being able to have a local talk show host like Carl Wolfson if he could be persuaded to go down there from time to time too.
Caught the tag-end of a call to Thom yesterday that gave me my first clue something was terribly amiss re KPOJ. Tried to call them, of course no answer, wrote a frantic e-mail to Carl, then saw the WW report about his Facebook post. Quickly realized it was a Clear Channel station (which I knew but hadn't thought of) and thus the format change. Carl has had callers who are regular listeners from all across the nation, he scored many sponsors for the station, and they're throwing him under the bus, plus of course all the other progressive programs. Guess if they couldn't buy the election, they'll control the airwaves. For a sports format? Will be interesting to see how that works for 'em, but it won't be because I'm listening.
I am sorry to hear this. 
Bain seems to be the bane of free thinkers everywhere.
Down with Clear Bull$hit(channel). 
Liars Larson went down to defeat. 
Count me perfectly proud to be from Havanna on the Willamette. 