Radio Station @ MindSay

Oh my!!

 A week or two ago I did an Atlanta-centric post about one of my fav dj's (Steve Craig) being back on the air in Atlanta on an hd version of the station he'd been fired from. Well, he's been "on vacation" from that hd station for almost the entire time since the post I made. It turns out that he and another Atlanta radio legend (from the same radio station) are going to be on a station in New York City. Leslie Fram of The Morning X fame, is hosting a morning show with Matt Pinfied (of MTV2 fame) on http://www.1019rxp.com/ . Steve Craig has also been hired for a different time slot and will start in August. Wow.

And now we can all listen online.

I always thought it was a bad thing to be awkward and uncomfortable, but this guy IMed me today that has me wondering. He says he knows me from the radio station at Bing, which is entirely possible because I don't pay any attention to the people that trail in and out of that place. I probably did meet him and just forgot; my memory was never good. In any event, we had an extremely awkward conversation earlier in the afternoon that led me to believe he was a total creeper. I'd forgotten all about that conversation (and him) until about 10 seconds ago, when he IMed me again. He apologized for making things awkward earlier, and I told him it was fine (honestly, I wasn't that bothered). I mentioned that I don't like being uncomfortable or awkward, and he replied, "You should learn to embrace being awkward. 70% of life is awkward."

No one has ever said that to me before. No one's ever shown me that take on things. It was an interesting moment of revelation that helped me deal not only with the conversation but also with stuff that's ensued with Matt.

Life's pretty fucked up right now. I just don't know how to really function. College is... not what I expected. It's inherently weirder, and more debilitating.

I was listening to the nationally syndicated Don and Mike show yesterday afternoon when news broke than Don Imus had been fired by CBS.

First a bit of background: Don and Mike have been in radio for about three decades now -- two of them together for a bit over 20 years. They had been top earners in the Washington, DC morning radio market for quite a while, and then signed a deal to move to "afternoon drive time" on the same station which, at the time, had Howard Stern in the morning. They are heard in about 30-40 markets nationwide, and have earned top ratings in quite a few of them.  Their format is now "talk radio" with a heavy emphasis on comedy. Some would call them "shock jocks." I particularly like their show because they often go "behind the curtain" and discuss the radio industry (nationwide and in Washington, DC) in great detail.

They're certainly not fans of Don Imus. They poke fun at him all the time for being old, irrelevant and simply not funny. But they, too, feel that his words were not fire-worthy.  (Disclosure: "Don and Mike" and Don Imus are both employed by CBS Radio.) It's an extremely subjective precedent to them.  What happens now if they mock Al Sharpton on the air? Could that be deemed as racist and a fire-able offense?  What specifically is the line drawn in the sand? That hasn't ever been clear, and crossing this invisible line could mean losing one's job.

They also acknowledge that they don't know -- and will never know -- all sides of the story.  About 90% of Don and Mike listeners (and listeners of that particular station) are white. There's an "urban contemporary" station also owned by CBS radio which also garners top ratings where about 90% of the listeners are black.  The morning drive personality there, Donnie Simpson, is also pretty well known in the radio community and happens to be friends with Don and Mike.  Why not create some kind of radio summit where the listeners can have some kind of forum to talk about this once and for all?

Apparently it's in the works.  I'm interested in seeing how it turns out.

But this morning after listening to a morning show on my predominantly white station and hearing the endless calls from one particular point of view, I decided I would switch over to Donnie Simpson to see what he had to say.  I happened to catch the tail end of the news -- which was chiefly about the Imus firing. I found it interesting that the same woman who did traffic on my regular station was doing it here --- but it was a different traffic report focusing on the approaches to DC from Prince Georges County, an area which is more predominantly black.

And then I listened to music. A lot of music. You know how morning shows either have no music or a lot of banter interrupted by one or two songs at a time? This happened to be a mix of about sixteen minutes of music -- five different songs in total -- played consecutively. I got to work before I could even hear a bit of what Donnie had to say.

You know what's going to happen to Don Imus? He'll eventually get back on radio after all of this dies down.  Maybe it will be satellite radio first, but he'll be back on terrestrial radio eventually once the advertisers realize that he still has a market of folks who will listen to him and listen to their ads. That's really all it's about.

Either that or he'll die first. Lordy that man is old!

I'm back and I have stories.  I'm the IT Director for a group of radio stations (mainly rock).  I got to do a little work in one of the studios today which was cool.  It's pretty interesting how you can switch from pc to cd and back again when working on those systems.  If it goes well then you can shift from one feed to another seemlessly and the listeners not know.  Luckily things went well today. 

 

You can listen to our hard rock station KBBM "The Buzz" at http://www.buzz.fm/

 

We are a Cumulus Broadcast station which is a national chain.  It's pretty exciting working in radio and hope to have alot of stories to share.

We are currently working on our site and will have more content soon.  I'll post more on the other stations and where to listen via net for those of you not in our market.  The Buzz is a good station.  If I didn't think it was I wouldn't bother to mention it. You need to listen for DJ Shaggs...he's pretty funny but he's on vacation this week. We also have ManCow in the mornings which is pretty entertaining.  He was hacking on David Hasselholf a few days ago that had me crying.  The Holf-meister makes me laugh even though he's really not a comedian on purpose. 

 

I know now why so many tv shows have been based on radio stations as they really can be as crazy as they you'd think. 

 

-Peace Out

Yes, Q107 FM in Toronto is a "classic rock" radio station. Well guess what? I'm sick and tired of listening to the same old classic rock over and over by groups and singers that are dead or who haven't recored in 30 or 40 years. Give me a break! This radio station used to be cool. I used to listen to Q107 regularly, when I was a kid. They used to play current hard rock and heavy metal music, along with classic rock. Now, all they play is the same groups and songs like the Rolling Stones, Zeppelin, Deep Purple, the Who, and on. They should also play some new hard rock and heavy metal too. I'm sure there are some great bands and singers out there that would love some exposure. Enough of my rant.

 

Here is their website:  www.Q107.com

 

If you really want to hear a great website with cool music (rock and pop plus), check out:  http://www.webmasterradio.fm/