[UPDATE: As of 6:00pm PT, the KPOJ website has now flipped to “Fox Sports AM 620 Portland”.]
This is horrible. Tonight, without warning, Clear Channel Communications-owned 620 AM KPOJ in Portland, Oregon, one of the most progressive cities in one of the nation’s most progressive states, has flipped from its years-long progressive news and talk format over to Fox Sports as of 5:30pm local time.
KPOJ was the only commercial progressive talk radio station in Portland. The city will still have several other Rightwing talk radio stations, including one owned by Clear Channel, and they already have two sports stations, but the Bain Capital-owned media conglomerate is now killing yet another progressive voice from our publicly-owned airwaves.
An earlier piece today in The Oregonian had reported that the station would be flipping as of Monday. An UPDATE in the Willamette Weekly, however, reports that the station, which had long featured Ed Schultz, Randi Rhodes, Mike Malloy, Thom Hartmann (who had broadcast for years out of KPOJ until moving his show to Washington D.C.) and other progressive talkers, will change to its Fox Sports format as of this evening.
The BRAD BLOG can now confirm that KPOJ has flipped its programming format and website to Fox Sports as of 6:00pm PT tonight.
When one company owns “competing” talk radio stations in the same town, and gets to decide which one enjoys a stronger signal and which one receives promotional dollars (and which one doesn’t), “competition” in the market place is a mirage. It’s the equivalent of a Coca-Cola distributor owning the sole rights to distribute both Coke and Pepsi in the same town. Which one do you think is going to sell better there? That’s precisely what talk radio is like in almost every major market in the country now. One company, usually Clear Channel, generally owns both the “Right” and “Left” talk stations. (In Portland, Clear Channel owns Rightwing talk outlet KEX as well as KPOJ.) Promoting one station would likely decrease listeners and ratings — and, thus, ad dollars — for the other. Thus, there is no “free market” competition in talk radio.
This is hardly the first time that Clear Channel has done the same thing, in very progressive cities, underscoring yet again that there is no real, “free market” competition in talk radio over our publicly-owned airwaves. The market place is decidedly rigged…
Last last year, The BRAD BLOG detailed Clear Channel’s plan to dump their progressive talk radio station, Green 960 in San Francisco, and turn it over to Rightwing talkers, such as Glenn Beck, whose radio show is syndicated by Clear Channel-owned Premiere Radio.
Listener complaints, and upheavals just days later at competing San Francisco talk station KGO, led Clear Channel to reverse course, partially, and to keep some of the progressive talkers on the station after all — though they were scheduled to run delayed, instead of live, many hours later in the day and night. Beck, however, would still run live in place of the popular Stephanie Miller Show in the mornings.
Miller has told The BRAD BLOG that Beck’s ratings during what had previously been her live 6am-9am PT time slot have been a fraction of what she had previously garnered during that time slot.
Nonetheless, Beck remains there, as his live clearance in the large city media market is key to his national ad sales for the syndicated program.
There is no “free market” competition in talk radio. Period.
In 1987, enforcement of the FCC’s Fairness Doctrine — requiring equal time to made available for opposing political viewpoints — was done away with by President Ronald Reagan.
In the Telecommunications Act of 1996, President Bill Clinton did away with many of the limitations on the number of radio stations that could be owned by a single company in each market across the country. That would pave the way for mega-corporations like Clear Channel to take control of almost all of the bandwidth over our public airwaves, shutting out independent competing voices.
In the 1948 landmark anti-trust case, United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., the Supreme Court ruled that movie studios, which owned many of the nation’s theaters at the time, were in violation of anti-trust laws by controlling which movies would, and wouldn’t, be exhibited in those theaters. Prior to the case, they had owned both the means of production and the means of exhibition.
The movie studios were forced, thereafter, to sell off their theater chains, allowing other, smaller studios, to compete in the marketplace.
There is no longer any such “free market” competition in talk radio. In fact, as we noted when Green 960 was being flipped to its new call letters KNEW in San Francisco, when progressive shows are allowed to compete head-to-head in the market place, they often out-perform their Rightwing competition, even on lower-powered radio stations, which is usually the case when companies like Clear Channel own both the “conservative” and progressive stations in the same market.
They also aggressively promote the corporate-friendly Rightwing shows, while failing to do the same with progressive shows. That is the case even with shows like Stephanie Miller’s whose morning program often outpaces Laura Ingraham’s, an extreme Rightwinger and regular Fox News Channel guest host, in the ratings in markets where they are broadcast live head-to-head. And yet, Miller’s show is carried by just some 36 affiliate stations, while Ingraham’s is carried by more than 300.
In 2012, major corporate conglomerates such as Clear Channel, and a just two or three others, control the licenses for almost all of our public airwaves, particularly in large markets, and are able to choke off all but the corporate-friendly voices from talk radio, while using those very same stations to promote radio shows over which they also have corporate ownership through their Premiere Syndication arm.
A documentary film, Save KLSD, has been screening around the country this year. The film documents the ultimately unsuccessful 2007 fight to keep Clear Channel-owned KLSD AM-1360, the only commercial progressive talk radio outlet in San Diego at the time, from flipping to a Fox Sports format. The film details the dangers of media consolidation and “how corporate influence corrupts government regulation, limits the free flow of information, and adversely affects American democracy.”
Shameful history repeats itself once again in Portland, Oregon tonight. Though, this time, Clear Channel did not make the mistake of letting the word get out until the very last minute, when the flip to the new format was already a done deal. Once word did get out, the reported plans to change the format on Monday were moved up to change the format immediately this evening.
That there is no major commercial outlet over our public airwaves for political voices other than those friendly to corporations like Clear Channel in most of the major media markets in the U.S., much less, as of tonight, in a progressive city like Portland, is simply another national disgrace. We can only hope that a newly re-elected President, without the need to run for election again, may be able to direct his FCC to restore the public interest obligations of broadcasters who enjoy the privilege of being granted licenses to broadcast over our public airwaves.
UPDATE 11/15/12: Looks like Seattle’s KPTK is about to be flipped to sports also. Details now here…
Not Progressive in any sense of the word, DemoRat Party Propaganda Radio would be more like it and it won’t be missed by me! Definitely has not served the true progressive community in the least and not since Neo-Liberalism took over for Neo-Conservatism in 2008!
This is very troubling to me as I live in the Portland area. I was tuning in to KPOJ right at 5:30 to listen to the last half hour of Randi and it went to a “special sports broadcast”, which I thought was odd, not knowing in advance about this very distressing event. I lived in the SF bay area when KGO flipped and now it’s happened here. Thank goodness I have TUNEIN radio on my smartphone!
They can try to kill the progressive message but they will never kill the progressive spirit!
As Mike Malloy will say, man I hate these people!
RD
Sounds like this is still in effect…
The Powell Memo (also known as the Powell Manifesto)
KPOJ was the only Progressive talk radio station left in Oregon able to reach most of our population, after Eugene’s was bought-out by Oregon Public Radio a while back. A few low-wattage stations carry some Progressive talk, but they can reach very few people. On the other hand, there is nowhere in Oregon that one can not tune in several stations carrying the same Rightie propagandist demagogues. Randy and Steph are based in Clear Channel stations, so we might see more of this soon.
Ernie or some other legal eagle out there, please correct me if I’m wrong. Wasn’t the basis for Citizens United the right of the listeners to hear corporate speech, not the right of the corporations to speak? If I am remembering this correctly, then what is to prevent the listeners of these formerly progressive talk stations from making a similar argument with respect to the stations’ broadcast licenses? After all, there are plenty of right-wing and sports stations already in these markets, so the public interest is not served by removing the only progressive voices in favor of duplicating what is already available.
I guess Internet-Based radio has become the only progressive option for Portland. Does Mitt Romney still have some ownership of Clear Channel?
How is it that when the far-right own all of the radio stations, news media, newspapers, radio stations, and exercise control over university curriculums, they still manage to lose an election?
About 2 months ago, I was fed-up with what I was hearing on the radio–knowing the structure of media today. I hope you are as fed up as I am. Read this petition, and sign it. We have a political environment likely to bring change in this arena. We need to take action now. Our work is only begining. Tell your friends too please. Thank you.
Restore the Airwaves to the “Public”
http://signon.org/sign/restore-the-airwaves
Portlandians, r u up for a protest or petition or some kind of activism around the killing of KPOJ? Those of us in San Diego unsuccessfully rallied to save KLSD (Air America) radio and feel your pain. Maybe.we can join forces with Common Cause and call attention to the FCC’s lax enforcement of its mandate to ensure competition, localism and diverse content on our publicly owned airwaves. -jenmifer douglas, writer/co-proucer, Save KLSD documentary film (saveklsd.com)
We lost our Air America affiliate in San Diego several years ago for an all sports format. Stacy Taylor and Ed Schultz were both enjoyable, the rest of them (Rhodes, franken, malloy) were as nutty as El rushbo, just polar opposites. Big ed btw is much more angry since he got the TV show, he had an open mike concept back then and was respectful of everyones opinion (as long as they were respectful too). But it sucks for them to lose their forum
Fellow Portlanders: yes, we will miss KPOJ and what it brought to the local radio scene, but all the more reason to now support KBOO, 90.7 fm, YOUR listener-supported community station.
so why is the new KPOJ putting up pictures of half naked women on their website? also called the “Babe of the day” gallery. clear channel is pretty fucked up folks. just another corporate dictator.
I program one of those last 36 progressive talk station that Stephanie Miller is still on. We make money with the format. The listeners are loyal and don’t change the station much.
When I asked a guy at one of the sports networks who had called to push more sports on me why cities needed 3 and 4 sports stations and no progressive talk he said of sports talk, “its not controversial”. He didn’t say anything about the two or three right wing talk station in the same town staying on the air. I guess only left talk is controversial so that’s why it’s being targeted by big business.
Some time ago Mike Malloy warned us and suggested we subscribe to:
http://progressivevoices.com/ and as you can see here:
http://progressivevoices.com/talkers/ the line up is the same as what was found on KPOJ. Would love to see someone pick up Carl Wolfson – I will truly miss him. Corporate media killed KGO 810 am, various progressive stations around our nation and now KPOJ. Instead of silencing us as these greedy cruel b@stards hope to do, I believe they are inciting more interest and desire to find the progressive shows.
It’s a shock to see such a formative influence on my life disappear down the memory hole. Like having BradBlog just – gone.
This is payback/damage control. And a tribute to the impact of progressive commentary and information.
Discovered this tonight while driving to Bimart on the Oregon coast. I’m livid. Luckily, I have used Grace internet radios since well before Air America even started. Already changed all of them to the CBS-owned KPTK AM1090 Seattle’s Progressive Talk. Now I’ll have to swap out my car radios for mobile internet radios also. We won’t be listening to the bain capital owned-clear channel stations again. Bite me mitt, you fascist pig!
Boycott anyone who advertises on the new sports format.
How can we find out who advertises on the station without listening to the station?
Money is all that matters to these bastards, so we have to hit them where it hurts. The FCC won’t do anything – it’s time to vote with our wallets.
We need to start a campaign of calling any ‘Fox Sports 620’ advertisers and telling them we will not patronize their businesses if they advertise on the new format.
The revenge of Williard Bain.
CambridgeKnitter @5 asked:
Unfortunately, the answer is a resounding ‘no’!
As I laid out in Citizens United: A Case Which Will Live in Infamy, the radical right, five member Supreme Court majority expanded the corporate right of “free speech” at the expense of the core purpose of the first amendment’s protection of a “free press” — a provision that, per Justice Black’s opinion in the Pentagon Papers case, was intended to insure the public’s right to know.
I wrote:
Even before Citizens United, the scope of public discourse open to those who do not toe the corporate line was greatly constricted due to the fact that 95% of what Americans see, hear and read is controlled by a handful of giant corporate media conglomerates.
The classic example is the Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting study, cited by Amy Goodman in Exception to the Rulers, which was conducted “during the critical week before and after February 5, 2003 — the day Secretary of State Colin Powell made his case to the UN Security Council for invading Iraq.”
The study revealed that out of the 393 experts who appeared on the four major networks (CBS, NBC, ABC & PBS) only 3 were anti-war — this “at a time when 61 percent favored diplomacy and inspections over war.”
I know that the President uttered “we have to fix that” with respect to the manner in which we conduct elections, but there can be no meaningful election reform if it does not include significant media reform. That, in my humble opinion, requires not only overturning Citizens United, but divestment of private control of our public airwaves, and, short of that, at a minimum a roll back of media consolidation and restoration of the Fairness Doctrine.
Been listening to KPOJ for years, especially Carl wolfson and Mike Malloy. Carl’s voice on local/national politics will be greatly missed. Hopefully he will get another forum to provide professional broadcasting to the pacific northwest. What a shame, but not a surprise. Nice timing. 3 days after the election.
I tried all last night here in Oregon to find a Progressive Talk radio station on my very good AM receiver with antenna booster, and found nothing. Oregon is mostly blacked-out of Progressive Talk Radio now, except for a few low power stations that do not reach very far. Internet or satellite broadcasts are nice, but if most people can’t get Progressive Talk on their AM car radios, it really just doesn’t have much influence at all. COME ON ALL YOU RICH LEFTIES, BUY SOME STATIONS ……… QUICKLY!!!
Mark my words. Los Angeles is next. I’ll bet you my dressage horse that Clear Channel will kill KTLK within the next year.
Looks like more of this is likely to occur since the FCC appears to be likely to once again ease ownership rules.
http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2019620322_fccmediaownershipxml.html
Progressive thinking and communicating will not stop regardless of what these fascists do. This is who they are and this is one reason their party did not get elected. The world has changed if they do not get wise to this then there will only be a lonley little “tea party” attended by little minded, power grabbing, angry white guys.
Write the management at KPOJ
http://www.620kpoj.com/cc-common/communities/contact.html
This is the phone numbers to contact FCC and talk to them and get help filing a complaint
Our Consumer & Mediation Specialists are available Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. ET to answer your questions and assist you in filing a complaint. Call toll-free at 1-888-CALL-FCC (1-888-225-5322) voice or 1-888-TELL- FCC (1-888-835-5322) TTY.
Well what are we going to do about it? The airwaves belong to all of us, not just Mitt Romney, regardless of how much Bain Capital thinks it paid for ’em. And it’s not about market share or profit anyway. It’s about the free exchange of ideas and information in a democracy. You can’t convince me, though, that KPOJ didn’t have a loyal audience who provided good return on their advertisers’ investment. Someone needs to start a petition, and probably a website or facebook page. I don’t know much about how to do it myself but if I don’t see one pop up pretty soon guess I’ll have to learn. Let’s get out there and raise some hell, get some boycotts going, etc.
Write to your Senators and Representatives, and ask them to reverse the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
This is the only way to break up right-wing owner/monopolies of the airwaves, and return them to the people. Our voices have been snuffed out by these media pricks. It’s 100-percent intentional.
It’s of ZERO interest to Bain-Capital/Clear-Channel how you feel about KPOJ. Don’t waste your time. They invested in KPOJ to kill the progressive voice in one of the most liberal cities in the USA.
Similarly, the online petitions are a complete waste of time. They are there to collect names and addresses, to sell to marketers.
Only Congress can break up the media monopolies.
I don’t agree at all. Nothing wrong with trying to get the telecommunications act repealed, but also no reason we should just go off quietly. We have been hurt and have a right to publicly express our feelings. Most people in Portland won’t even know this happened unless we find a way to get it out there. We need to let them know why it’s important. Let’s not give up before we’ve even begun.
Call the advertises on the “new” KPOJ and tell them you are going to boycott their products and services. This approach removed Glenn Beck from the general air waves and after losing advertisers on ALL the PDX Clear Channel advertisers they will be forced to reconsider.
I live in Seattle but KPOJ was the first place I heard Randi Rhodes when Air America started. I stumbled across it during a business trip. This station was very important in keeping Oregon and much of Washington informed. Please fight to save it or move the programming to another venue. KPOJ 620 would have influenced the Tri-Cities of WA if the Catholics had not chosen AM 630. What is it with Cathoiic radio securing stations so close to other progressive AM stations that they are providing interference?
Randi Rhodes, Mike Malloy, Ed Schultz, Bill Press – everyone of the talkers that I just listed spewed death-wish comments against conservatives. Every one of them. Malloy spews one every other week.
KPOJ’s ratings had collapsed. Since they were broadcasting pure sewage, nobody should be surprised. Good riddance.
Flashlight @31: If you are going to enter a conversation and lay down a “death wish comments” charge against those four individuals, the least you could do is provide links to support your accusation.
Otherwise, people will think, perhaps quite rightly, that you have simply posted a gratuitous slander — one that displays cowardice given that you posted it under a pseudonym.
I am so very over Portland/Oregon! So glad I am moving to Seattle!
The KPOJ change actually took about a year, with their gradual pre-empting of more and more Progressive Talk time with OSU sports broadcasts. They dropped the first hour of Norman Goldman, put paid programs on the weekend, and generally stopped promoting Progressive shows. Little wonder KPOJ’s ratings dropped a bit, but I suspect the true audience was much higher than reported due to many listeners far from the Portland area tuning-in, especially at night. We have less than 10% of talk radio airtime or stations at the moment, and it looks like that sorry amount will go down even more very soon. Watch out Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles, you might be next ……… TAG, YOU’RE IT!
I’m glad that somebody here recognizes that ratings can and have been manipulated.
KPOJ stopped responding to listener input over a year ago.
KPOJ stopped promoting progressive talk for over a year.
KPOJ force-fed “Beaver Nation” for months, and destroyed Norman Goldman’s ratings.
And so many think “ratings” is this magical, mystical thing that is pure and objective.
What. A. Joke.
The assault on Democratic candidates for 2014 is on. republicons know only how to destroy, not fix. they know only how to keep people stupid, not informed. they know only how to cheat using their billionaire psychopaths’ $$$.
Stanford Blue @ 33 said:
Um, got some possibly bad news for ya, Stanford. A source, in a very good position to know, tells me “the Seattle station is next.”
Can’t confirm that personally yet, but thought you’d want to know before you start packing.
My understanding is KPOJ was one of the most financially successful Progressive-formatted radio stations in the US. Apparently this isn’t the point with Bain controlled Clear Channel. I recall after they flipped KLSD in San Diego (which had a crap signal) from Progressive to become the 3rd sports-talker in town, the rating plummeted and they were lucky to even have enough audience to measure in the Arbitron ratings.
The idea that one company should be able to control the majority of the radio signals in a single market, resulting in control of most of the decent signals in the nation, is downright stupid. These stations broadcast on frequency spectrum which is owned by the public, that means you and me. If you live in the Portland radio market and you feel Clear Channel stepped on their dicks by making this move, then file a “Petition to Deny” with the FCC next time their license comes up for renewal. You can do this in any market you live in where Clear Channel owns stations. It doesn’t need to be letter-perfect and there are plenty of places where you can find correct formatting for it. Great thing is, they’ll at the very least need to spend a lot of their $500 an hour communication attorney time in addressing each petition filed.
It’s business and any attempts to bring back the Fairness Doctrine will fail (even Obama is against it) because of something called freedom of speech/the press. Should a newspaper’s editorial stance be dictated by the government? Neither should a radio station. Clear Channel tried prog talk and it wasn’t making money–sports talk (they syndicate Fox Sports) reaches more people, younger people, more desirable demos.
Believe it or not more people care about football than politics. Sports talk makes money. Clear Channel btw in Boston gave both liberal AND conservative talk a chance on 1200 and each failed. Rush and Hannity gave way to…all comedy.
Good luck finding another outlet but this is a business decision. There’s always NPR I guess.
I will add in Bos. a guy named Jeff Santos bought time on WWZN (now WUFC) 1510 and put on his own show, Stephanie, Thom, Ed etc. It did OK for awhile but he lost the rights to those shows and then the owners of the station decided to go all sports…Has conservative talk, which does OK in Boston, influenced the recent election? About 99 per cent of office holders in MA are Democrats incl. all 9 Reps and both Senators. So much for that.
As for ad boycotts, go right ahead but I don’t know how successful you’ll be. They want to sell beer, cars, whatever and sports is a lucrative
format. For people who care more about the Super Bowl than the election…are you ready for some football…?
The rumor is 1090 in Seattle could be home to the new CBS Sports Radio network in early 2013
RaccoonRadio @38 propagandized:
And, of course, the Fairness Doctrine had absolutely nothing to do with “dictating” the “editorial stance” of any radio station. But thanks for dropping by to help disinform folks about that.
But lower ratings is not a prob, I guess? Because that’s what the sports stations, the third one in the market, generally gets. CC didn’t advertise their progressive talk stations, they put it on a much weaker stick than their Rightwing station and, effectively, and some might argue purposely, killed it while keeping anybody else from being able to run the same popular hosts in those large towns.
All done over our public airwaves thanks to the government largese from we, the people.
Really? When they kill a Rightwing politics station for sports, please let me know.
On that, you’re right. But it’s not about ratings.
There’s already enough Rightwing propaganda on AM radio, thanks. Don’t need to turn to NPR for more.
We had many signitures on our petition to break up media monoolies. We need to keep to going.
Restore the Airwaves to the “Public”
http://signon.org/sign/restore-the-airwaves
It is very troubling that in a city open to all sides of the issues of the day now only get one side of the story. We all ready BRING BACK PROGRESSIVE TALK to our public airwaves.
This morning, Stephanie Miller announced that Seattle’s progressive radio will transition to sports on January 1.
This is not “business”, it’s political terrorism, which is the only thing the right does well.
Time to put money where are mouth is. Contact Michael Moore, Bill Maher, George Soros, George Clooney and other wealthy liberals and urge them to put their money behind progressive talk radio. As Thom Hartmann says, this is a battle for “truth, justice and the American way”. As previous posters have said, this is about silencing the voice that tells the truth about corporate America. We cannot let this stand.
I want to thank you Clear Channel for my decision to purchase a podcast from http://www.mikemalloy.com/ , forcing me off am radio and discovering the beauty of internet and wireless PROGRESSIVE talk. I briefly tuned into KEX – the sister Portland republCON station to KPOJ and those freaks were extra cheerful – I’m sure due to the demise of KPOJ… all am/fm radios now removed and internet stations found:
* can listen live but Randi Rhodes and Mike Malloy are not listed:
http://chicagosprogressivetalk.com/programs/
* this one includes Randi Rhodes and Mike Malloy(Malloy is not live) – is clear channel and you have to look at the disgusting iheart logo:
http://www.abqtalk.com/main.html
* Mike Malloy has warned us of the coming take over of am/fm stations ( I understand Seattle is next) and brought this new app to our attention:
http://progressivevoices.com/ Bookmark it as I am sure it will be very useful soon.
This is a sad situation not just for Portland, but for the rest of the nation as well. I live in New Mexico, and I streamed KPOJ every day. I especially loved to listen to Carl Wolfson, who, in my opinion, was one of the best progressive talk-show hosts in the U.S. I sure hope he lands somewhere else because his voice will be sorely missed otherwise.
SIGN PETITION:
http://www.savekpoj.com/
I can not express how upset I am about the change of format for KPOJ in Portland, Or. I have been a loyal listener to AM 620, Portland’s liberal talk radio, since it’s inseption (remember Air America?) and to have them turn my beloved station into a Sports Talk station is unconscionable. I know in my heart that this action is political in nature and has nothing to with business. Closing down the only liberal talk radio station in my city is an attempt to further silence the voice of the people.
I will never listen to a Clear Channel affiliate or knowingly support any of their other business activities as long as I live. In addition, I am contacting my Congressman and calling for a congressional hearing regarding the right wing media monopoly in the United States.
They have woken the sleeping giant.
I LOVED KPOJ!!! But I found all my favorite radio shows on the TuneIn radio app for iPhone!!! (I listened to iHeart Radio on my iPhone). Also, you can listen to all your progressive favorites on:
I live in Portland and have been listening to KPOJ since the progressive format was introduced there. I am so discouraged by this cynical movement by C;ear Channel to silence progressive voices on the mass media. It is defintely not a commercially motivated decision by them. Our city is already “served” by 2 all-sports channels. In any case discussion of civic issues should, in a better world, ALWAYS trump celebrity talk, sports talk, or other such brain dead entertainment on the commons.
How does one fight such a goliath as Clear Channel, especially now that it has been taken private by Bain Capital?
The time has come for Progressives like me to stop just listening and nodding and maybe calling in or talking back to our radios. We need to SHOW UP to meetings of the left and take over the Democratic Party or show up to the Green or another party. The next election will likely be another big fight and we need to be with each other to stop the rePublicans. It was a lot more comfortable to just listen. I will miss KPOJ a LOT!
Mining for minds. If this move on the part of Clear Channel tells Progressive Talk Radio anything, it’s that it did work.… that’s why they want to silence it. The neo-conservative republicons will stop at nothing to brainwash the masses with hate speech, distortions, and lies. Own the mass media, own the airwaves, own the minds. What are we going to do? Go underground?
If there’s a petition, I’ll certainly sign it!!! Thankfully, I still have my MSNBC. Guess I’ll have to go to the internet or i-heart radio. Thank goodness it’s only sports (for now).
It seems to me the big telecom companies have finally succeeded in making us PAY them for content that used to be FREE over the air. “I Heart Radio” IS Clear Channel feeding audio to the equivalent of an 800 number to your “Smart _P_H_O_N_E_”! While their “APP” is free, using your “Smart Phone” certainly is not. Just try skipping your phone bill a few months and see how well “I Heart Radio” works. I bet you will listen to nothing but silence until you pay up.
The same goes for “Internet Radio” which requires monthly payments to an “ISP”. Some ISPs are better than others, but Comcast and AT&T are right up there in terms of wanting to reach into your wallet to make sure you pay for your “Internet Radio”.
So much for letting the Marketplace decide! We know the “Market” had nothing to do with either KPOJ or KPTK (or KKGN for that matter) being “flipped”. This smells like political payback to those of us living on the “Left Coast” from some well heeled sore loosers.
the only thing they can’t buy is US congratulations my friends we rule!!!lets keep our voices strong thank’s for the forum Brad
Good on ya Bruce. We absolutely need someone inthe Senate (Warren?)to start an outcry on broadcasting monoplies.
But sign this if you have not done so.
http://signon.org/sign/restore-the-airwaves
Now tagg, you’re it!
Several people have mentioned boycotting the new KPOJ’s clients, but that’s going to be useless… they won’t care. However, there is something useful we can do instead. I work for Tom Dwyer Automotive Services, and if you listened to KPOJ you know who we are. To the local businesses that USED to advertise on KPOJ, the loss of the station means a loss in business. If you ever considered using the services of the old advertisers, don’t wait… now is the time. And word-of-mouth is the best way to send your friends to local companies that will appreciate you. Buy an anniversary gift from Katy at Trade Roots, or get your Christmas cards printed at Morel Ink, or update your frames at Eyes on Broadway. We’ll still be glad to get your car ready for winter, Better World Mortgage can still refi your house, and Stephen Hendricks can still handle your legal work. There’s so many more companies out there, but you get the idea. It’s almost impossible to punish the big companies that don’t care what kind of content they support, but it won’t take much to matter to the companies that put their necks on the block to support rational information sources. Progressive Radio will return to Portland in some form, but we don’t have to wait… our support NOW for these companies means they’ll still be there to support Progressive Radio when it DOES come back.
KPTK 1090 Seattle now known as KFNQ as in the Fan
is next; it will probably switch to the CBS Sports Network after the new year. Can’t blame Romney-Bain-Clear Channel for this, as they’re owned by CBS who also own WBCN 1660 in Charlotte NC–a _conservative_ talk station that will also flip to CBS Sports. Clear Channel’s WXKS Boston, another conservative outlet, recently switched to comedy due to low ratings and billing. Any politics involved there? As it is about 99.99 officeholders in MA are Democrats so the cons. talk format didn’t do much to change that.
I agree with the comment by the poster named, “Lincoln”. KPOJ has become a DNC station. While I support its being on the air, mostly because I liked Mike Pappantonio, Mike Malloy and a few others, most of the hosts were merely pimping for Obama. That is not what progressive radio should be about. Obama is not a progressive. He represents the status quo and he only looks good because he followed Bush and ran against Romney. That’s a low bar.
I find another format ludicrous and Clear Channel horrible. However, I agree with the poster named Lincoln that KPOJ has become a mouthpiece for the Democratic Party. It has a few true progressives, but between Rhodes, Miller, and even Wolfson, it has all been about Obama, day in and day out. I’m sorry, but what is so interesting about a station doing commercials for a political candidate. Only Pappantonio, Malloy, Klugman and a few others were critical of Obama. Liberals now support detentions, spying on Americans, Guantanamo, drone attacks, kill lists and so much more Republican agenda under Obama. The news sucked and the commercials more than annoying. Bring it back yes, but get some real progressives.
All the moaning and vindictive comments regarding the demise of progressive radio at KPOJ just illustrates that libs don’t get it. Clear Channel made a business decision, and that is there right. If Clear Channel wanted to sabotage the liberal agenda, they would have made the change well before the election. If libs want a station to focus on the “progressive agenda”, then put your money where your mouth is. KPOJ had a 1.0 share fo listeners. KEX had a 3.5 and Public Broadcasting had a 5.5 share in the Portland market. KPOJ was not competing. While it had profits, I gaurantee you that the new sports format will have higher profits. I know that the progressive doctrine is that profits are evil, but without them, there is no tax revenue. How do you fund a welfare state without continually escalating tax revenues? Do you want the government to take over all the airwaves? The Soviet Union and Cuba have proved that this will fail. Why don’t the libs approach George Soros aboout funding a progressive network? Soros won’t do it, because he knows that is a losing proposition. At least you have MSNBC.
“While it had profits, I gaurantee you that the new sports format will have higher profits.”
Buddy you will believe that nonsense,IF you listen to Glenn Beck and Rush LIE LIE LIE.
Many examples exist in which the replacement sports talk has ratings BELOW 0.1%. No profit in that, unless Stephanie Miller and Ed Schultz wre demanding mega dollars per station. They wish.
Truth is that the distributor subsidizes slime like Glenn Beck. It PAYS the station to run this trash!
That should be DISCLOSED at the start of every show – “This drivel and lies is sponsored by Right Wing Asshats with money to burn.”
Irwin, you really sound like a sad, bitter individual. I am no fan of Limbaugh, but he does draw 3 to 5 times the audience compared to Shultz, Goldman or Rhodes. Audiences translate into revenues. What is it that you don’t get? If the progressive format of KPOJ was drawing audiences even half the size of Limbaugh’s, there is no way the format would have been changed. The fact is, the majority of listeners in Portland chase not to listen to Shultz, Goldman or Rhodes. The audience spoke, so bye bye lib radio and hello sports.
Landslide @ 63 said:
Actually, I’m pretty sure you are. But that aside…
Put me on a transmitter with with 10 times the power of any that Schultz, Goldman or Rhodes are on, and I bet I’d draw at least 3 to 5 times their audience too!
So do big signals and advertising.
Actually, if you bothered to listen to the conversation I had with Peter B. Collins (posted along with this followup article), you’d learn what happened to KPOJ and why it’s previously huge numbers dried up when Clear Channel station management stopped giving a damn about them.
Has nothing to do with the audience, and everything to do with leveraging Clear Channel owned Premiere Radio’s Fox Sports product. They’ll gladly take much smaller ratings in exchange for having one more major city they can use to raise the price of national advertising on all of the stations that carry it.
It has nothing to do with serving the public interest on the airwaves in Portland — which is why Clear Channel has been granted the license, by we the people, in the first place — and everything to do with maximizing national corporate profits. That, of course, has nothing to do with their responsibilities as broadcasters over our public airwaves.
Gosh, I wish I could use the federal government as a free cash machine too!
Limbaugh is on the stronger transmitter because the advertising revenues he generates warrant the increased exposure. You seem to imply that Clear Channel’s desire to maximize national corporate profits is evil, and that their responsibility as broadcaasters is to toe the progressive line. What a load of crap. Do you believe that MSNBC must abandon their liberal bias, and integrate conservative thinking into their format? Not a chance. Clear Channel has an obligation to their shareholders to maximize profitability. They have violated no laws and comply with all requirements of their broadcasting license. Progressive radio in Portland was a grand experiment that failed. Such is life. Lastly, why would I bother to listen to your conversation with Peter B. Collins? It would be the same drivel you are espousing here.
Landslide said @ 65:
I “imply” no such thing. Or, to quote you, “what a load of crap”.
Clear Channel may do whatever it wishes. But when it does so by taking advantage of very rare, public resources, such as our public airwaves, it is allowed to do so only in exchange for serving the public interest in the locality where it is given free broadcast licenses by we, the people.
So how does getting lower ratings in a progressive city in order to maximize national profits serve the public interests of the communities where their broadcast licenses have been granted to use our public airwaves?
You mean like the three full hours it gives to a former Republican Congressman each morning?
In any case, MSNBC does not broadcast over our public airwaves, so there are no such similar public interest obligations that need to be met. You seem to not understand how the public airwaves work. Or, you simply don’t care, and are in favor of Big Government giveaways to corporate cronies?
True. They also have an obligation to serve in the public interest in exchange for the free government license to use the limited public airwaves. You really should go out and learn something about all of this, rather than continuing to embarrass yourself here. But it’s up to you.
Really? Your evidence for that is what?
Like I said, you really should go and learn something rather than embarrass yourself further here. But when you’re cowardly enough to use a pseudonym while making such claims, rather than put your name behind your public comments as I do, I guess you making an ass out of yourself doesn’t much matter. So keep up the good work!