Current Mailbag - Mailbag Archive Index - DCRTV Front Page - Support DCRTV DCRTV Mailbag - October 20 to October 26, 2009 Latest messages listed first..... \/ October 26 Messages \/ "Did either Senators moves even make any of the 3 networks' nightly news at the time? I kind of doubt it, but somebody feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. I'd actually like to know." - I can't say, but considering the teams the Senators fielded their attendance was not the worst as their record warranted. Of course, that is not as outstanding as a city that could not sell out a playoff game against the Raiders with Snake Stabler, et. all and had the game blacked-out all the way to DC. No doubt you have the usual justification for that shameless episode. (10/26/09) Is channel 7 weathermun Doug Hill a vampire? (10/26/09) According to a story on the Post website: "Circulation at newspapers shrank at an accelerated pace in the past six months, driven in part by stiff price increases imposed by publishers scrambling to offset rapidly eroding advertising sales.Average daily circulation at 379 U.S. newspapers plunged 10.6 percent in the April-September period from the same six-month stretch last year, according to figures released Monday by the Audit Bureau of Circulations.” So which is dying off faster: Print advertising/readership or Radio advertising/listenership? www.washingtonpost.com (10/26/09) Ok, so today, 105.7 The Fan discussed the Steelers and took a call from a Steelers fan, had a former Skins player on talking about the Skins & Monday Night Football & Danny Snyder & Jim Zorn and took at least 1 Redskins call, and even took a call from a Cowboys fan that was exclusively about the Cowboys! Of course most of the Scott & Anita show was about The Ravens as you would expect, but they did virtually an entire segment on the Redskins. I bring this point up because someone said it would be ridiculous for 106.7 The Fan or ESPN 980 to discuss The Ravens or take Ravens calls at all. Well, no wonder Baltimore has 5 sports talk stations and sports talk has done so poorly in DC previously. The 2 DC stations are nothing but boring bad news whining complaining Skins talk! Who wants to listen to Debbie Downer 24/7? At least the Baltimore stations discuss a variety of teams in addition to The Ravens and even had a former Redskins player on today. What a novel idea. Of course, Dannyboy's ESPN 980 would never do such a thing, that would be heresy. But hey Snyder will cash that Angelos O's check in a heartbeat! I think this is a golden opportunity for 106.7 The Fan to follow in the 105.7 The Fan's footsteps and broaden its coverage and include some more Ravens talk. I'm certain I'll be ridiculed for suggesting this, but oh well. I'm used to DC people stating Baltimorons are provincial hicks with an inferiority complex. And I know people will say, oh, well WNST 1570 is just a "labor of love". Hell, I'm sure Nestor has a loan and operating expenses on that station still and payments to meet. There is no such thing in today's radio or TV as a "labor of love" unfortunately. Oh, and by the way, I do watch most every Skins game that is on Baltimore TV just for the enjoyment of watching them lose, so Mike in Fairfax is on to something about the ESPN 980 ratings possibly. Add that to the fact that they carry the O's and there's your answer probably. Finally, once again, another person commented on the Colts vs. Senators moving comparison without watching "The Band That Wouldn't Die." If someone can find me embarrassing drunken shouting obscenity videos of Bob Short or Mr. Griffith that were all over local Washington TV, I'll be happy to say uncle. Until then it's a big stretch to compare The Browns, The Colts, & The Raiders moves to The Senators leaving Washington. Oh, well not unless you meant the St. Louis Browns as the Senators leaving town both times were more a yawn than an outrage. I wonder if the 1498 people in attendance for the last game at Griffith is an MLB record in fact to this day. Did either Senators moves even make any of the 3 networks' nightly news at the time? I kind of doubt it, but somebody feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. I'd actually like to know. (10/26/09) My sources tell me that DirecTV's D.C. off-air receive/uplink site is off of either Rhode Island Ave or New York Ave in the N.E. part of D.C. What I find interesting is what a non-event resulted from WRC's signal on channel 48 going away. It shows that over-the-air TV without cable distribution is about as powerful a media force in this market as daytime-only AM radio. And, I bet the cable people are too clueless to remember this when the next round of re-transmission negotiations happen. After all, they willingly give away spectrum to governments in what would be call "extortion" in other business transactions, excepting of course, those where a "government" is involved. -Unsigned Corporate Suit (10/26/09) OK, I'm new here, so maybe somebody could explain this to me: what on earth do some guy's ("LMAO") misinformed rantings about the financing of FedEx Field have to do with radio and television? I don't see the connection, so I won't lengthen the thread by detailing how consistently wrong he is. (10/26/09) "The Baltimore inferiority complex must truly be in high gear now that it is known that 980 is second in the market for sports talk" Why would a Washington sports radio station get better ratings in Baltimore than three of the four sports talkers up there? - all I can think of is that perhaps listeners in Charm City find the nonstop handwringing and paralysis of analysis involving the Redskins entertaining. But it adds fuel to the argument that WTEM could only help itself by paying more attention to the Ravens than it does now - not saying they merit anything approaching equal time with the Skins on a DC media outlet (that would be crazy), but a few minutes of discussion on Fridays and Mondays wouldn't necessarily put Sports Fix, Sports Reporters or John Thompson's show out of business. I understand that it would be a tough sell for Andy Pollin and Steve Czaban, who've addressed this issue in the past by stating emphatically - "this is a Washington station and we talk about the Washington teams." The only problem with that argument is that they don't exactly give all the DC teams their just due (as any Capitals fan who's the least bit familiar with their show can attest). Speaking of Sports Reporters, that segment last week on Jim Nantz (the lead NFL, golf and college basketball announcer on CBS) getting a divorce from his wife was totally uncalled for - I doubt very much that Pollin and Czaban would be perfectly okay with someone else on the radio airing their dirty laundry for the public amusement and seeming to relish doing so. As far as the Senators' departure for Texas back in '71 supposedly not being nearly as big a blow to Washington as the Colts' move to Indy in '84 was for Baltimore, I wasn't living in this area back then but have heard it said that Bob Short (the Senators owner who relocated the team) became as much Public Enemy No. 1 in DC as Bob Irsay would in Baltimore 13 years later. The big difference is that Washington's a much more transient town, so it's probably a lot easier to find a drinking establishment up there where a bunch of older guys are reminiscing about Johnny U. tossing game winning touchdown passes to Raymond Berry than one down here where they're recalling Frank Howard's prodigious home run clouts. In all likelihood, the lack of a hometown baseball team from '72 onward played no small role in the rise of the Redskins to their current undisputed position at the top of the local sports pecking order (although of course it couldn't have happened without all the success on the field throughout the 70s and 80s). Mike, Fairfax (10/26/09) Actually, Mr. unsigned expert (who I suspect is a broadcast time salesperson) that person in the car at the Giant or Target parking lot probably has a Sunday 12-page color insert with them that they pulled out of the paper. Some of the items they want to buy are circled with a ballpoint pen. ACH (10/26/09) And finally, let me add on the broadcast vs print advertising question Mr. Unsigned. I gave you documented research (books, magazines, newspapers) with dates and you come back with a personal supposition on what you believe shoppers do in parking lots before shopping. Sheesh! ACH (10/26/09) "But to make the final buying decision, they do go to a medium that requires reading. ACH" Radio is the LAST thing a consumer hears (in the car) before getting to the POP (Point of Purchase). Nobody sits in the car in the parking lot at Giant or Target reading a newspaper. (10/26/09) hfs?....did you say...HFS?!? NOTHING is hfs until WE DECIDE IT IS!!!!! We've had HFS on Live1057,we've had 105.7 HD2 HFS2, we have 94.7 WTGB HD2 and the Big Talker 1580 AM WHFS. Oh don't forget WHFS on AOL Radio. WE SAID WE WANTED HFS BACK AND THEY HEARD US.....and gave us FREE FM......and every other sort of nonsense half time, 2nd channel, weekends, between games and a back corner in what sounds like a feminine hygiene factory. We SAID we wanted WHFS back are you DEAF? ENGLISH MOTHERF*CKER DO YOU SPEAK IT?!?!???? Give us WHFS on a MAIN signal with the COVERAGE area of 99.1 or DAMN you all to HELL!!!!! As for Radio ONE: What can be considered more race based than singling out Modern/Alternative Rock stations to flip to Urban? Radio One first flipped 103.9 WDRE Jenkintown/Philly which sent half the staff to 100.3 WPLY Y100 Media/Philly for a few years before they FLIPPED IT TOO!!! STOP using the fucking Race Card! Even us NON-Klan crackers are tired of it.And one more thing......evolve....... Donnie from outside of WTGB's signal range goddamnit (10/26/09) Cool news about Robb Spewak. . .thanks for sharing it with us. I've listened to his show on two occassions, it's a fun show, mainly Robb talking over records. As you might imagine he has quite a wide, esoteric range of musical tastes. So it's a fun show, fun to hear a cool mix of tunes, spun by an old radio friend. Great to hear his voice on the air again. I do miss Robb and Buzz and Mike. . .an Oscar for that matter! (10/26/09) Regarding: "That is totally different from the many millions and millions of tax dollars used to build playgrounds for the O's, Ravens" Nope, DC idiots! Around $100 million of tax payer dollars went to FedEx Field and it's not any different, it's just separating the cost into 2 separate categories. Look it up, geez how idiotic. And if you're still crying about the Senators, get your own fucking Barry Levinson movie! See if that deal flies. Who the hell would finance that boring movie? Geez, Skins TV ratings are down, they obviously are having trouble selling tickets, who cares what kind, Nats are last place in MLB TV and radio ratings and someone is actually making a case that people were crushed when the damn Senators left? Jesus Christ and Mary and Joseph! I thought for a minute of pulling the Senators final attendance at RFK, but God stepped in and suggested I'd rather have a root canal, I think it's a good Vegas bet that it sucked. And who gives a rat's ass but this one guy? What a laughfest DCRTV's mailbag is today. Also WJZ FM105.7 does not have a great signal all over Baltimore, it never has. So in many places, WTEM might be a better catch, especially AA and Howard. Why else you think The Orioles demanded such a large network of stations from CBS? Oh, and there is an arena and a soccer stadium being studied/planned in Bmore, possibly to steal your DC United, but I have no idea what that has to do with sophistication. There definitely ain't a lot of sophistication or fact checking in this mailbag today, that's for damn sure. The irony is someone used the word "hyperbole" and then sorta did exactly that. LMAO (10/26/09) "ACH, what's your source?" Ready--here's a few. Journal of Advertising, 9-22-97 (last line of article: "Advertising in the broadcast media is more likely to be avoided than print advertisers."; Also Boston Globe article 1-9-2005; Also Attention, Attitude and Affect in response to Advertising, by Marla Stafford (2005) also Advertising Promotion and the New Media a book by several authors, beginning with Eddie M. Clark. The point that all these books and articles make is that people retain advertising that they read and not so much what they hear. This has been known by professionals in the advertising business for decades. This is not to say that radio and television are not effective. Repetition of a radio spot can create awareness of the product, certainly. But think for a second. If you want to buy, say a Ford Focus or a Chevy Malibu, you indeed might become aware of the cars via radio or television. But when it comes to buying the vehicle, most people begin looking through the dealer ads in the classified to see who has the best price, who's the closest, etc. These days people also go to the internet for the reasons they used to go to newspapers which is what's killing them. But to make the final buying decision, they do go to a medium that requires reading. ACH (10/26/09) Cathy Hughes’ “Reality Radio” has been all over the airwaves of the Radio One stations here in Atlanta. The Performance Rights Act’s passage would hurt music radio in general. It would not hurt black radio any more than it would harm any other music formats. Ms. Hughes apparently feels riling up African-Americans is the most effective means of getting the Radio One audience to protest passing the act. Roddy Freeman (10/26/09) I was 100 percent correct. This morning Howard Stern made Soupy Sales death more about Howard Stern than Soupy. Way to go, stupid. Paul (10/26/09) I'm with you Mike in Frederick about the mailbag becoming tedious. Let's start discussing some real radio related issues. Something new and refreshing like, "Don and Mike", Don Geronimo, Mike O' Meara, Mike Sorce and his next short-term position, the impending (not) return of WHFS to the DC airways..... (10/26/09) To the one who wrote: "Call me when the Deadskins have their own stadium in DC, The sophisticated one they have now is in MARYLAND, Thanks to the MD. STADIUM AUTHORITY and the folks that buy lottery tickets in the state of MARYLAND." Wrong! Jack Kent Cooke paid more than $160 million to build his stadium. I think some tax dollars were used for infrastructure. That is totally different from the many millions and millions of tax dollars used to build playgrounds for the O's, Ravens and a bunch of minor league baseball team's stadiums. (10/26/09) "Thus people who buy the Post takes the ad messages more seriously, according to most research." ACH, what's your source? I've never seen any research that would support that. (10/26/09) "What happened to DC being more sophisticated than Baltimore? Call me when the Deadskins have their own stadium in DC, The sophisticated one they have now is in MARYLAND, Thanks to the MD. STADIUM AUTHORITY and the folks that buy lottery tickets in the state of MARYLAND." The Redskins' stadium may be in Maryland; so was the arena the Capitals and Bullets called home for more than two decades. But you talk to people who live in Landover, and they will tell you they identify with the Washington market, not Baltimore. If a stadium or arena for a Baltimore team was built outside the city limits, whether it be in Catonsville or Towson, I certainly wouldn't say it wasn't a Baltimore facility -- so what's the difference here? Get real. P.S. Not everyone who buys a Maryland lottery ticket is an Orioles or Ravens fan. -- Vincent in Triangle (10/26/09) This is how the board windbag operates. He disingenuously goes back to Griffith Stadium with his "facts" even though the prior discussion was about the Senators leaving in 1971. Then he claims that the Redskins sold tickets to ticket brokers because they couldn't sell them when what was in fact reported by the Post is that they were sold to ticket brokers in order to induce the brokers to also buy more expensive club seats as well. The whole point of the story was that the people on the waiting list (i.e., the one Joe suggests doesn't exist) were getting screwed by the sales to the ticket brokers. Joe's asserted reason for the sales is a figment of his imagination. Then he talks about defending some television show instead of addressing the fact that was brought up, i.e. the fact that the Colts attendance had, in fact, markedly declined prior to their move including failing to sell out playoff games. Any wonder why this guy has no credibility? And even his argument that ESPN 980 has Orioles games is disingenuous. The blurb that DCRTV had was that 980 is second in the BALTIMORE market among sportstalkers. The BALTIMORE market has ready access to Orioles games on BALTIMORE stations . So saying that Balimore fans are listening to 980 to hear Orioles games makes absolutely zero sense. (10/26/09) So no word yet on NBC4's local news going HD? With WJZ going HD, that means WRC is the only local in both Baltimore and Washington without local HD news, right? Pathetic. And any e-mails or telephone calls to the station go un-returned. What a pathetic operation. (10/26/09) (From FCC records, looks like WAVA 780 AM has permanently fired up the transmitter to 12,000 watts today. They had filed for the power increase earlier in the year and it appears have completed the work. ) Ah, good. I've been listening to, of all things, that Vita-Ganza show during the drive home. People call in and ask for nutrition/supplement recommendations, and the hosts, John and Vicki, plug their online vitamin store. I don't like Saturday-morning, infomercial supplement plugs, but the weekday show on 780 holds my interest for several minutes at a time. Which is more than I can say for most of what's on the dial at that time. Christian (10/26/09) To the person asking the QAM question, it's also possible that your digital signals have moved to another location. For example, one day, My24's digital signal disappeared from 24.1. I did an auto channel scan, and it reappeared as 56.1! You may want to try another channel scan and see if WMAR's, WBAL's, and WBFF's digital signals appear in another location. It shouldn't take too long to surf through all of the available channels after a scan, since you only have limited basic cable. I found that this happened once every two to three months, but I don't fully understand why this happens, other than Comcast wanting its customers to use their box, so that these channels will always stay in place. -Greg in Perry Hall (10/26/09) The WAVA-AM power increase has been in effect for at least several days now. Last week I noticed that from here in Rockville it was bleeding over 20 kHz to the right on both sides and that never happened before. On my Toyota radio I'm getting an image freq of it at 840 kHz and that's also something new. WAVA is now coming in almost as strong as 50 kW WMET. I thought it itself must have been bumped up to that power. KOF (10/26/09) Hyperbole? The 1498 attendance figure at Griffith Stadium for the last game is on the Washington Nationals MLB website under history of Washington baseball. ESPN 980 is an Orioles radio affiliate. The Colts also had the longest streak of NFL sellouts in the 1950s/60s. I believe it was broken at some point in the 1970s. The Redskins supposedly have one of the largest waiting lists for season tickets in the NFL, yet dumped them to ticket brokers before this season because they couldn't get rid of them. These are just simply facts, not hyperbole. I doubt anyone in Baltimore is bothered by ESPN 980 being the #2 sports station except Mangione and Nestor Apparicio. Well and maybe their sponsors too. The critically acclaimed Barry Levinson Colts film, "The Band That Wouldn't Die" speaks for itself, I don't have to defend it. It's gotten national acclaim, even in the New York & LA media and even by many people in the DC market. Obviously the one person here in the mailbag trashing it probably hasn't seen it, and I wouldn't be surprised if he never saw a Senators game either! It sounds like the inferiority complex is coming from another direction lately. :-) (10/26/09) RE: "Circ at the Washington Post." There's a huge difference between the Washington Post and radio stations. People pay money--several dollars a week to read the Washington Post-- and people get a radio station free. Thus people who buy the Post takes the ad messages more seriously, according to most research. Commercials on a radio station generally invite button pushing. Ever try to remember a phone number or website address from a radio commercial while driving to work? And no, I don't, nor ever have worked for a newspaper but can easily argue the effectiveness of both. ACH (10/26/09) "Daily circ at The Washington Post fell 6.4% to 582,844 while Sunday was down 5% to 822,208." 12 Washington radio stations had a bigger weekly audience than The Post's daily circulation: WTOP (more than double), WASH, WIHT, WBIG, WPGC, WKYS, WRQX, WHUR, WWDC, WMMJ, WTGB amd WMZQ. Source: September Arbitron adults 12+. (10/26/09) (It makes perfect sense that Limbaugh would simply go with "quoting" Obama's supposed thesis. Since when has he ever been about broadcasting the truth? But maybe he's could be in some hot water over this. I remember that on the back of all FCC licenses, among the listed prohibitions was: "false or deceptive signals or communications".) So is Rush going to have to put a disclaimer on his show that says something like: "I'm about to do some SATIRE to make my point, people. It's SATIRE, in case you are not real bright."? (10/26/09) "All the of the right vs. left bullsh*t is seriously dragging down the appeal of this forum." --As is the incesant use of dumb nicknames as signatures...ThePenis....Unsigned Corporate Suit...etc.....it really waters down the credibility of the already minisculed credible mailbag....-ThatThingIsMightier (used solely as a shot at the babbling know nothing ThePenis and not intended as a real signature; so save the "hypocrite" emails people) (10/26/09) DCRTV Dave: This once-awesome mailbag has really become tedious lately. Isn't it pathetic that the only interesting items concerned the passing of Soupy Sales and the fact that Curly of the 3 Stooges would have been 106 last week. All the of the right vs. left bullsh*t is seriously dragging down the appeal of this forum. Maybe you could replace it with a "DCRTV Babes" section. At least think about it…Mike from Frederick and the Dashboard DX Society, rockin' the red!!! (10/26/09) Here's a technical question from Baltimore I'm not sure I can even ask properly. From what I have learned online, my new television apparently has a digital tuner that permits me to receive channels via something called QAM (Quadrature amplitude modulation), so that I receive lots and lots of basic stations (no premium channels) even though I only pay Comcast for limited basic. However, since a day or two ago, I am no longer able to receive WBAL (11.1), WMAR (2.1) or WBFF's (45.1) digital broadcasts. I DO still receive WJZ's digital. (And for some reason the "regular" channels of these stations is now snowy). Can anyone explain and assist other than to suggest I pay for the lost stations? I have an old cable box but have never needed it. Thanks to you all. (10/26/09) Dave's response: If you're getting the analog tier (channels below 100) snowy, you've got a weak signal via your cable service. First, check all the cable connections behind your set. It may simply be a loose cable. If that doesn't fix the problem, call Comcast..... More silly hyperbole from Joe in Essex. It is, of course, complete nonsense that "no one noticed" when the Senators left town. It was huge, both locally and nationally. But then, no one counts on Joe for accuracy. Joe deals in bombast and unsupported assertions, not facts. And Joe's dirty little secret is that the Colts couldn't even sell out playoff games right before they left. All this nostalgia about a bunch of trumpet and tuba players doesn't change that fact. The Baltimore inferiority complex must truly be in high gear now that it is known that 980 is second in the market for sports talk. Wow. (10/26/09) [(By attributing stuff to Obama that Obama didn't really write, then saying something like "It doesn't matter if Obama didn't write it, I know he believes it," Limbaugh was trying to show how wrong it is for his own critics to attribute awful things to him (Limbaugh) that he never said. Sheesh. Are liberals that dense?] ROFLMAO. And if anyone believes that rationale, they'll believe anything. Mencken: It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place. (Shawn in DC) (10/26/09) Ref: "What happened to DC being more sophisticated than Baltimore? Call me when the Deadskins have their own stadium in DC, The sophisticated one they have now is in MARYLAND, Thanks to the MD. STADIUM AUTHORITY and the folks that buy lottery tickets in the state of MARYLAND. And by the way - you're welcome. (10/26/09) From FCC records, looks like WAVA 780 AM has permanently fired up the transmitter to 12,000 watts today. They had filed for the power increase earlier in the year and it appears have completed the work. (10/26/09) Todd Fruendlich has recently been named new GSM replacing Ernie Fears at WMAL. (10/26/09) There's always some bozo who claims to have actually seen something nobody else ever saw, but when it comes time to put up real evidence, forget it. If Sales lied, and Snopes is wrong, and everybody who saw Sales on TV and knows he didn't do anything like the supposed "F you see K" joke is wrong, still SOMEBODY would have made some money from that (non-existent) kinescope by now. Quoting from Sales' book: "I got so annoyed at these stories that I used to have a standing offer of ten thousand dollars cash to anyone who could prove that I said any of the things that people claim I've said. Look, at every TV station, whether you know it or not, there's a little spool in the master machine in engineering that records everything that's said, everything that goes on. And believe me, if I said half the things I'm supposed to have said, they would be on some blooper record making the rounds." If Sales EVER inserted smut into his children's shows, let's see actual evidence of it on YouTube. ~~CA in BC (10/26/09) It makes perfect sense that Limbaugh would simply go with "quoting" Obama's supposed thesis. Since when has he ever been about broadcasting the truth? But maybe he's could be in some hot water over this. I remember that on the back of all FCC licenses, among the listed prohibitions was: "false or deceptive signals or communications". I know that some classes of FCC licenses no longer exist, but the broadcast laws behind such prohibitions are still in effect. (10/26/09) OMG CH13 news in HiDef. What will they do with Denise Koch's makeup. Those black lines around her lips will look like highways. Yikes! (10/26/09) Rush on Friday was trying to make a point that is apparently too complicated for his liberal critics to understand. By attributing stuff to Obama that Obama didn't really write, then saying something like "It doesn't matter if Obama didn't write it, I know he believes it," Limbaugh was trying to show how wrong it is for his own critics to attribute awful things to him (Limbaugh) that he never said. Sheesh. Are liberals that dense? (10/26/09) RE:"Rush Limbaugh/Obama's college thesis hoax"...I wonder how Limbaugh's supporters are going to spin this one. Will they encourage the President to file a lawsuit against Limbaughs use of an unsourced and totally false quote?...or will these free thinkers merely say "dittos".The irony, not to mention the hypocrisy...abound! MW (10/26/09) From Radio-Info.com: Rush Limbaugh spent part of his Friday show lambasting President Obama for what he said was Obama's college thesis, titled "Aristocracy Reborn."� Limbaugh said Obama wrote, "The so-called Founders did not allow for economic freedom. While political freedom is supposedly a cornerstone of the document, the distribution of wealth is not even mentioned."� Limbaugh then criticzed Obama, saying among other things, "So here is who we have as our president of the United States: an anti-constitutionalist... Much of what he's doing is unconstitutional... Ladies and gentlemen, Barack Obama is seriously dangerous."� Only problem - Obama never wrote it. The story was written by an obscure blogger, and Limbaugh went with it as if it were breaking news. When he discovered later in his show it was a hoax, instead of apologizing, Limbaugh pinned the mindset on Obama, saying, "I don't care if these quotes are made up. I know Obama thinks it." (10/26/09) At last, a real reason to shake off that hangover and get up early on Monday: the cable channel ActionMAX (ch 425 on the Verizon FIOS network) is running some really watchable softcore porn sometime between 6a and 7-7:30a on weekdays. (10/26/09) I hear Greg Toland's been spotted on Comcast SportsNet. Such a great guy. His many friends at ABC7/News 8 are glad he's back on the air. (10/26/09) WRC: NoSignal OTA, 10:53PM, more 'maintenance' during the Giants-Cardinals game? Oh well, I guess it's off to TheFan106.7. (10/26/09) WRC Ch.4 OTA Maintenance log: 11:33pm-11:40pm, signal breaking up, picture and sound stuttering, freezing. 11:40pm gone black again. Game over. Good night...But not a good night. (10/26/09) "What happened to DC being a more sophisticated cosmopolitan town than Baltimore? Who's the moron really?" Wake me up when Baltimore has a legitimate indoor arena (Washington demolished one, the old Capital Centre, that was better than what Baltimore has now), as well as an NBA or NHL tenant to fill it. -- Vincent in Triangle (10/26/09) Actually, there WAS an interruption of WRC television service Sunday morning on DirecTV. While I can’t be certain of the exact time the signal went down and returned, the standard definition signal on DirecTV was out for much of the time “Meet the Press” was scheduled. DirecTV had a slide up that said something like: “Don’t bother to call us. We know this station is not available at this time. Sorry for the inconvenience.” The WRC Web site item says only that: “Cable TV subscribers will not notice the outage.” It makes no mention of how the WRC signal is delivered to the DirecTV Local Receive Facility. It would be useful to know that precisely. I notice that the WRC standard definition signal on DirecTV often breaks up in little blocks, just as does my off-air reception of their Channel 48 digital signal. This makes me wonder if they deliver an off-air signal to the DirecTV LRF. W (10/26/09) WRC Ch.4 back on at 11:05pm! (10/26/09) The mailbag not only suffers from the endless stream of ill-tempered political posts appearing here, but also from the continuing and juvenile competition over Baltimore and Washington sports franchises and media. Many of us in the business have worked in both markets. It's pretty natural: you lose a job in one city and find another one nearby. And, guess what: we learn to love both places. It certainly happened to me. As a native Washingtonian, I was affected when the Senators left (twice)--but I was also thrown for a loop when I was working at the Colts radio station in Baltimore and the Mayflower vans pulled out. One city isn't better than the other, just different. The sports fans aren't better in one place than the other, just different. If you have something to say about radio and TV in the area, I look forward to your posts. But please think twice if all you're trying to do is play a game of "I Gotcha" by sending in some smug message (whether it's about sports or politics) that really won't convince anybody of anything. Perhaps it makes you feel better, but it's just so many wasted electrons on the screen. (10/26/09) Looks like Snopes missed this one. I have personally seen the kine of Soupy Sales "F you see K" gag. Both Sales and Snopes disavow the fire truck story, but neither deny the scene with White Fang. Walt in Lewes (10/26/09) This morning WJZ is showing Eyewitness News in HD. It's about time. Ron in Annapolis (10/26/09) /\ October 26 Messages /\ \/ October 25 Messages \/ WJFK/106.7 apparently picked up the start of the Vikings/Steelers broadcast by mistake. The station eventually switched to Patriots/Buccaneers, the game it was presumably supposed to air all along. Everett W. (10/25/09) What happened to DC being a more sophisticated cosmopolitan town than Baltimore? Who's the moron really? The #2 Baltimore sports talk station, ESPN 980, carries the ORIOLES! And The Orioles had higher TV ratings in DC than The Nationals and probably better radio ratings too! HAha! Oh, here's a comparison of the Nationals radio network washington.nationals.mlb.com vs. the Orioles radio network baltimore.orioles.mlb.com. Sorry, can't blame Peter Angelos for that disparity either. Not to mention ESPN 980 has a better signal then at least 1 of Baltimore's sports talk stations and neither of the other 2 carry any major sports team, unlike ESPN 980, which carries not 1, but 2. So, I fail to see why it's so surprising that ESPN 980 does well in Baltimore. I don't remember ever claiming there are no Redskins fans in Baltimore either. Obviously after the 13 years of no NFL football in Baltimore, many people did become Skins fans. As for the other dumb point, what loss? Nobody even noticed The Senators leave and I'm talking locally and nationally. But, don't worry, I will still say a prayer for those 1,498 Senators fans from Griffith Stadium still mourning the loss that no one else noticed except for Phil Wood! They couldn't even get anyone to show up to steal memorabilia and parts of the old stadium! So, I think we can safely put all those arguments to bed. Next... :-) (10/25/09) With regards to the rugby tournament available on MHz, it is rugby LEAGUE not rugby UNION which most Americans, or at least those who know anything about the game, are familar with. It's like the NFL and CFL, they are both playing football but there are some differences. Anyway League has been trying to make inroads in the US market and getting this stuff on TV is a good move for them. Cheers. (10/25/09) David, re: anon posted blathering about why O&A were off the air last Thursday, I was going to ignore it, but it bugs me when rumor mongers with bad info speak with authority. The anon poster speculates that it has to do with the "many times during each Sirius program, Greg Hughes (Opie from the Opie & Anthony Show) takes a few moments to give a free commercial for the business" and that Opie has not disclosed "his stake in the business." Bull. Firstly, Opie makes occasional mention of of the restaurant (sometimes the site of show-related get-togethers). Not multiple times a show and not daily. Not even weekly. Further, Opie has talked at length in the past about his ownership interest. This was a hot topic for the show when CBS prohibited him from even mentioning the name of the restaurant on their terrestrial side, while with XM (under Eric Logan) allowed them to do so. He and his brother have owned the place for years. Nothing new, nothing covert. By all accounts, they took a day off. They've both had the flu in the last week. Sometimes the best explanation is the simplest. Bob in Forest Hill (10/25/09) Joe in Essex and his Baltimoron buddy must have missed some basic reading classes in elementary school (assuming that Balamer schools have such things). The poster's clear point was that DC sports fans had suffered the loss of a team just like Balamer and Cleveland. Joe and his buddy can pontificate and obfuscate all they like, but that's a fact. And Joe must be ready to jump off a bridge with the news that 980, a station that talks all DC sports and zero Balamer sports, is the number two sportstalk station in Balamer. Too funny. (10/25/09) 105.7 The Fan had the Pats game from London while FOX Sports 1370 carried the Steelers game. That's the way it should be done in each market. It drives me nuts when I turn on 3-4 different stations and hear the same game. (10/25/09) re: WRC off the air...I smell BS to 'routine maintenance'. Did they announce it beforehand? Preempting Chris Matthews and Meet The Press for the morning... in DC? I cannot imagine it. OTA +1. I haven't had cable since the 1980's! (10/25/09) 'WEBR (FCAC Cox37) airs "The Rugby Hour "every Wednesday @8:00am for those that may be interested. Rusty Gibson' --WEBR also airs "The Other Guys Show" every Friday at 11pm. A high quality, entertaining show that's better than most talk formatted shows in the DC area... (10/25/09) RE: WRC TV being 'off'. There is no blunder with WRC having their OTA signal off during the time noted. Sunday mornings are the lowest revenue and often have no significant revenue. Weekends are the most expensive time for technical services, but daytime is slightly less expensive. The work did not impact the delivery to cable and satellite. Therefore, since probably 85% of the audience recieved the signal, there was no lost revenue or very little was lost. In looking at both the math (loss of revenue vs cost of service) and the public service (relevance of content to the number of people viewing), if you have cable and satellite penetration, then Sunday morning, day time, is in fact the best time to perform such work. There was no blunder but rather excellence in both technical and ops mgt. (10/25/09) Dave's response: Anyone know what percentage of local TV viewers actually watch over-the-air via antenna as opposed to cable/satellite? I'm sure it's got to be a lot lower since the DTV deadline in June..... Previously, there were mentions of rugby in a few posts. WEBR (FCAC Cox37) airs "The Rugby Hour "every Wednesday @8:00am for those that may be interested. Rusty Gibson (10/25/09) In the car a little after 1; want to check out NFL games. Click on WJFK: Steelers/Vikings. Click on 980: Steelers/Vikings. Same broadcast delayed by about 10 seconds. WTF???? (10/25/09) Dave's response: Also, I've noticed that WTEM's signal on 980 is always about 10 seconds behind the 94.3 feed..... Dave. How come this isnt on your front page? You have crap like MadCow and OverBite going off on how the Bush admin restricted them from meetings. Not that same thing as this. That the networks banded together and called foul on Obama is very telling. This needs to be on your front page. It shows how in trouble we are from the tyranny of this admin. I can assure the Bush admin never tried this, because the liberal media would have cried foul. Put this on the front where it belongs. www.foxnews.com (10/25/09) WRC-TV tells me there's technical difficulty. They claim it'll be back on at 3pm. An outage of this length is really embarrassing and an engineering and management blunder. Also a revenue disaster. No backup system in a market this size? Inexcusable. But then, when you think about the programming that airs during the time of the failure we're not really missing much. (10/25/09) "(WTTG) Security camera footage was being looked at but nothing has been found yet".....The only thing on the tape was an old "Panorama" episode. For Rusty Gibson's post - the ex-Orioles franchise that moved to New York City took the name "Highlanders" because their ballpark was situtated on the heights overlooking Manhattan. Al McGilvray (10/25/09) WRC-TV returned to the air shortly after 12:30pm about 3 and a half hours after it went off. (10/25/09) Hi there, didn't know if you guys were aware, WRC and the sub channels have been off the air for at least an hour. Nothing on their web site. Jim (10/25/09) There is no "over the air" digital signal on NBC4 since about 9 AM. Regards Biff (10/25/09) Dave's response: Anyone know what's up? DCRTV, Somebody mentioned Tommy Griffith for doing a morning show in Washington on your site. I dont know him, but he sent my girl friend in Yorktown Virginia a link to his website. He is looking for a job it says on his website. I just thought it was wild that you wrote about about him and then like two weeks later I got a link to his website. it's something like imeem.com/tommygriffiths - or griffith- its on imeem. You can find it. (my computer is really messed up, other wise I could find it for you.) Thought you'd want to know. I wish I could find her email and get you the link. by the way, are you the only guy with a DCRTV hat? I swear I someone wearing one. Thanks sweets, Kelli (10/25/09) Dave's response: The only DCRTV hats I'm aware of are those created by Photoshop. But if someone's crazy enough to make their own, all I can say is "WOW"..... Channel 4 OTA DTV Transmitter is currently off the air. Bob Fairfax (10/25/09) Dave's response: OK via Comcast at 9:55 AM..... Nice piece of Baltimore sports lore (from a previous post). Yes, when the Oriole franchise moved to New York in those days, I believe they became known as the "Highlanders" as the Yankee tag didn't arrive until later. Rusty Gibson (10/25/09) A brick was thrown through the front entrance window at Fox 5 on the Harrison St. side. It happened yesterday, around 4:30 in the afternoon. Police were called and investigators were sent to collect evidence. Security camera footage was being looked at but nothing has been found yet. (10/25/09) I wasn't at all trying to suggest that The Washington Nationals will fail in DC or that DC couldn't become a good MLB TV market. My only point was that comparing The Senators 2 moves to The Browns & The Colts & The Raiders moves is a pretty ridiculous comparison. Even when RFK Stadium opened, the game was not a sellout, nor was the debut of Ted Williams as manager. And only 1,498 fans showed up for the last Senators game at Griffith Stadium! That stat is from MLB.com by the way. Virtually no grown men cried when The Senators left DC and Barry Levinson would have a hard time finding anybody to make a documentary about it. I have no clue why anyone would even attempt to make that comparison, it's just plain ridiculous. And by the 1960s, Washington, DC was a market of comparable size to Baltimore and clearly growing faster while Baltimore was shrinking in size. This idea that DC was a tiny town in 1970 is total bunk. And so is any Browns/Colts/Raiders to Senators moving out of town comparisons. Ok, now a Phil Wood moment........ While I was looking up that info I did find something interesting, this quote from MLB.com about Washington baseball... "April 29, 1901 - The Washington Senators defeated the Baltimore Orioles, 5-2, in the first American League game played in Washington, DC." Both Washington & Baltimore had National League teams up until 1900, but both switched to the American league that year. The American League Senators played their 1st game ever in Philadelphia against the Philadelphia A's at Shibe Park. Orioles games in Baltimore at that time were played at the old Oriole Park on 29th street in Baltimore and that team that played the Senators on that day ultimately moved to New York at the end of the the 1901 season and became, yes, the New York Yankees. Irony of all ironies. Baltimore waited another 50 years for another MLB team, but nobody really cared much, just like with The Senators leaving twice, however The Senators did last another 70 years with last place attendance mostly. One last sports trivia thing..... What's the only city that has stolen 2 Browns teams? Yes, Baltimore, the St. Louis Browns & the Cleveland Browns. (10/25/09) NBC Engineering has not, nor ever had, anything to do with the sound of WTEM 980 since at least 1994, and probably longer. Neither in philosophy nor technology is there any legacy of NBC in any way whatsover. None of the former NBC engineering people who moved to the new company have even been anywhere near the place in more than 10 years. What you hear is a plant well built by Greater Media under Milford Smith with the best transmitter, (a Harris DX 50), the best phasor (Kintronics) and an antenna system broadbanded to handle HD radio. Many AM stations have found that their analog sounds better after the work done to broadband the antenna for HD. Audio is delivered via a digital T1 line using an uncompressed algorithm in a Harris Intraplex system. Credit should be given where it is due. Yes, there are audio processors, but those cannot be commented on. (10/25/09) /\ October 25 Messages /\ \/ October 24 Messages \/ If it’s exclusively on a Cable TV “public access channel”, how can a program be aired? That is, unless it’s on one of those antique systems using microwave to link their headend to a bunch of hubsites. I can’t imagine anybody using that crap today as it was rain fade city, even with a heavy dew of your path was too long! I say that because ENG is in the same area of spectrum and we've had to deal with just that! (10/24/09) Thanks for the blurb about the rugby on Mhz. I missed the first game (should have checked with you in the a.m.), but I'll catch the rest. I wonder who to get in touch with to tell them there is a vast audience waiting for more of this new Olympic sport on TV. Setanta is out of business in Europe, the 1 percent of the U.S. they carry (they have a monopoly on rugby) is sure to be close behind. Your pal, Buzz McClain (10/24/09) After spending something like 40 minutes on the phone with FIOS customer service (20 min on hold), they told that me that ESPN was responsible for "Blacking Out" the signal this afternoon. The Penn State game is on ABC, so why the hell would they black out the HD Clemson at Miami game, especially considering the game is on ESPN SD? Doesn't make a whole lot of sense. (10/24/09) Ah yes, WRC980 "The Rock Of The Capital". A decent station in the 70's......for a while. Rusty (10/24/09) You got me all excited about the rugby Dave. Then, I found out that you need the international package on DTV to get it. (10/24/09) Dave's response: It's on Comcast's basic digital package in the DC area..... RE: A Quote from PressBox....... " think this film should be required viewing for all snobby Washington and national media that often ridicule Baltimore for its inferiority complex or small town fixation on the Colts," said Dan Rodricks of the Sun. "It's about as clear an example as you can get of how differently the media covered the Baltimore story as opposed to, for instance, the Browns leaving Cleveland, or even the Raiders leaving Oakland. Most people in the national media or even our current local media don't even know the Baltimore story."........... Dan Rodericks did not say that quote. Rodericks did say similar sentiments in his Baltimore Sun story, but not that particular quote. I wrote that here on DCRTV. I think Rodericks would probably agree with me though. And you're welcome to quote me on PressBox Dave. I'm sure handling the mailbag gets confusing at times when people don't sign their posts, hehe. Oh, by the way, "The Band That Wouldn't Die" will be re-aired 2 more times on ESPN Classic for anyone who missed it, Sunday Oct. 25 9PM and Dec. 25, Christmas night, at 5PM. I hope ESPN ultimately releases this on DVD as it's been quite critically acclaimed. I think a lot of people would love to own it. I would also love to see the archival footage that WBAL, WJZ, & WMAR have from that infamous day in Baltimore sports history as well as WBAL TV's Chris Thomas's spoofs and skits with the Bob Irsay doll. For somebody from Baltimore, that's like a day and moment that you remember where you were, like the generation before me with the JFK assassination and I'm sure Browns fans feel the same way about the day the Browns move was announced. I also remember WJZ airing that drunken Irsay press conference live where he shouted obscenities at reporters, most notably famed sports columnist, the late John Steadman. It was truly a circus and you just couldn't believe your eyes and ears. By the way, I actually knew someone in the Baltimore Colts marching band and it is true that none of them even got paid other than some charitable contributions & in the later years, I think they even had to supply their own instruments up until The Ravens came to town. I'm not certain of this story, maybe someone else can confirm it, but didn't one NFL owner at one point buy them new uniforms? It seems unlikely they could have worn the same uniforms for 13 years. Anyway, thank You Barry Levinson and ESPN for telling virtually a previously untold story, at least untold from a national perspective. -- Joe in Essex (10/24/09) Dave's response: Sorry, Joe, about that quote. In my research on that piece, I must have mis-labeled what I thought was a Rodrick's quote..... While not local really (stretching here...Bill Handel is heard (barely) on WTNT weekends), it still gives a fascinating glimpse into the behind the scenes at one of the hottest talk stations in the country. John Ziegler, former KFI host, burns bridges with this: www.therealkfi.com. It's a long read, with audio clips. Too bad Chris Plante or Chris Core didn't do one of these when they were shown the door. (10/24/09) "Oh please, who do you think you are? Phil Wood or something? Nobody in DC even remembers the Washington Senators nor did anyone ever go to any games. They left town not once but twice without so much as a whimper. The Senators over a period of 50 years had the lowest attendance in MLB history and even had the lowest attendance in a brand new stadium too (RFK), a statistic that has never been duplicated since and a record that will never ever be broken!" Yes, Washington's attendance was low, but 1) Until the 1950s, it was perhaps the smallest market in MLB, and 2) For decades, Washington fans never saw good product from their team, and that led to lack of interest (look at the Cleveland Indians' dreadful attendance from the sixties until the early nineties, when that team never played significant September baseball). When the Senators were good (1924-1933), their attendance was competitive with the rest of MLB for the time despite the small population. None of us know how D.C. would react to having a contending team, because you'd have to be at least an octogenarian to have experienced it. (If the original Senators had stayed in town instead of fleeing for Minnesota, chances are that in 1962 -- when the Twins finished second and gave the Yankees a run -- the Senators would have easily drawn over a million to the new D.C. Stadium.) For now, Washington isn't a good baseball town, or a bad baseball town -- it's an untested one. If the Nationals' TV ratings are still worst in MLB when the team wins 90 or more games and is actually in a pennant race, then you may have a case (although based on the Capitals' improved ratings in recent years, I doubt that would happen). -- Vincent in Triangle (10/24/09) I have this neat feature on my cable box that lets me watch two channels at once. So I have the Military Channel on the left and CNN to the right, and if I time everything just right, maybe R. Lee Ermey will shoot Balloon Boy's ass RIGHT OUT OF THE SKY!!! Jesus, am I ever SICK of that freakin' story... (10/24/09) Even some very smart people are missing the point of WTOP vs The Post on circulation claims. TOP got the Post to admit that if they compare their actual circulation to the actual ratings of stations like TOP and WASH, they (the newspaper) are much lower. The correction got the newspaper to reveal (which they did not do previously) that their claim of greater audience was based on a "study" that projects how many people in each household read the newspaper. They extrapolated those numbers based on the Scarborough study. But actual Post audited circulation numbers are far lower than audience numbers on many radio stations in DC. A big admission The Post rarely if ever made before. WTOP 1, Post 0. (10/24/09) Doesn't surprise me that Baltimore likes to listen to 980KHz. The station puts a very strong AM signal up there, well-known when it was owned by NBC. During its news, then news-talk programming era in the 70s and 80s, the station then known as WRC was quite popular and gave a run for the money to rival news-talker WCBM. 980KHz continues to have exceptionally high-fidelity audio too, a philosophical and perhaps even a technical legacy from NBC Engineering. (10/24/09) Rachel Maddow, heard locally on 1050 AM, addresses Fox News-Obama clash. www.hulu.com (10/24/09) The Soupy Sales "F you see K" story is an urban myth. See here: www.snopes.com. The "funny green pieces of paper" episode is true, however: www.snopes.com... (10/24/09) Looking into the future: October 23, 2011. WUSA News Director Fred D'Ambrosi will leave the station. (10/24/09) Dave: Mike deserves a break and people shouldn't judge him for something that's a bit of a stretch..yet, his take isn't far-off. How about the fact WTEM has no problem taking plenty of money from Peter Angelos to air the Orioles' broadcasts. The DC Market has been subjected to this crap for many years and no one's made a big deal about that fact. It's all about business and when things aren't good, people do crazy things...in the case of the Redskins, their own radio people are even criticizing the team. The problem here is people like Theismann and Doc Walker slam the team and think they're are the spokes- men for the fans. However, when the slightest improvement is made, these people take credit by saying, "I told you so." It's so fake...why bother listening to the station. Not sure people agree but if Mr. Snyder and the Redskins are going to clean-up their public image, common sense reads that you need the right tools and people in-place to support your cause. ESPN980 simply follows it's parent company. (10/24/09) In the wee hours I was Googling around for information about microphones and I happened upon this nifty site. Lots of celebrities (some with DC connections) and their vintage microphones. www.coutant.org (10/24/09) The Baltimore Sun has apparently come to some decision about giving out my email and personal data without my consent. Instead of fixing their website to prevent my email address from being given out, my posts are just now BANNED? Problem solved I guess from their perspective. So I guess I have to re-register because they can't figure out how to run a newspaper website? What a bunch of idiots! No wonder they are in bankruptcy! (10/24/09) Oh please, who do you think you are? Phil Wood or something? Nobody in DC even remembers the Washington Senators nor did anyone ever go to any games. They left town not once but twice without so much as a whimper. The Senators over a period of 50 years had the lowest attendance in MLB history and even had the lowest attendance in a brand new stadium too (RFK), a statistic that has never been duplicated since and a record that will never ever be broken! Even the notion of thinking about comparing the Senators to The Browns and The Colts moving from Cleveland and Baltimore is beyond ludicrous & laughable, practically INSANE! Do you think ESPN could find a director to film a Senators documentary for their 30 for 30 Series? Yeah right, what are you smoking? The best you could probably come up with is Phil Wood pulls out his old baseball card collection! HAha! And I worked around DC the year the Ravens went to the Super Bowl and people honked their horns & waved at me every day when seeing the Ravens flags on my car around DC (and no it was not due to poor driving skills either). Btw, they occasionally do take Redskins calls on the Baltimore sports talk stations, but as you would expect they are usually disgruntled Redskins fans. I've even heard Steelers calls before. At the rate Daniel Snyder is going in destroying the Redskins franchise and the fact that he had to dump tickets this year to ticket brokers for the first time in team history, it would not surprise me if another Ravens Super Bowl run turned a few DC heads into some small interest in the Ravens. Hell, if the Orioles still have more TV viewers than the Nationals in DC and once had as much as 30% of their attendance from the DC market, anything is possible. I will say one thing though. The one thing about Washington, DC that you could always count on has always been Redskins fanaticism. Daniel Snyder is seriously testing that rule of thumb, that much is certain. And even the national media is finally starting to catch on. The days of the Skins having all those national TV games will soon be over. Both the FOX and CBS crews have been publicly ridiculing their games, team, and owner, and the networks no longer think of the Skins as a national TV money maker. At this point a Steelers/Ravens or Vikings/Ravens matchup has more national draw than practically any Skins game. One last point... as to Denise Koch's makeup... Now you know why WJZ 13 is not doing news in HD! Just imagine if she didn't have any makeup on at all in HD. It would be like a Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode! :-) (10/24/09) Hi Dave, I have an opinion as to why Opie and Anthony were not at work this past Thursday October 22nd even though they gave no prior indication to the listeners they would be absent and they had guests scheduled for that date. (I would imagine) Someone emailed a bunch of higher-ups at Sirius with a message which (I would guess) was forwarded to others at the Sirius building including maybe someone I know. The message that was sent follows. "Opie & Anthony breaking Sirius contract stipulations, Free commercials for brothers' restaurant" --- "Many times during each Sirius program, Greg Hughes (Opie from the Opie & Anthony Show) takes a few moments to give a free commercial for the business Opie's brother (Brett Hughes) owns. The restaurant is named F.H. Riley's at 400 New York Avenue, Huntington Village, NY 11743. Greg has been delivering these free commercials for his brother Brett's business all the while charging other advertisers a normal rate and without disclosing his stake in the business and without setting up an advertising contract between Sirius and his brother Brett Hughes' business." It is my opinion (and building gossip) that Opie and Anthony were told not to show up the next day as they had a bit of a talking to buy some directors or management from Sirius about what Opie was up to. Could a Stern crew member be more of a pest than Opie & Anthony ever had for themselves? (10/24/09) I find it hard to believe Jim Farley fell for the trap the Post set expressly for him and his justified professional pride in running what could easily become the finest radio news organization in the U.S. (If he added more investigative/hard news reporters and reduced the “fluff”.) However, since Jim Farley is a first-rate journalist and not that much into sales, I’ll cut him some slack. What the Post did is one of the oldest tricks in the marketing playbook. The angle is, “When you fear becoming irrelevant because of a competitor, you take aim at that competitor to gain their respect by making them react to your claim, no matter how outrageous the claim may be.” By gaining their “respect” via mere acknowledgement, you acquire relevancy by action of your competitor. OK, so it’s unethical. But, going out of business is more unpleasant than being unethical is. Besides, except for an aging few of us remaining veterans/survivors in the media ‘biz, does anybody still give a rats ass about ethics? The Post (along with other urban-focused print media in demographic rich suburb/exurb dominant markets) knows that it’s largely irrelevant in a potentially pico-targeted marketing electronic age with diminishing ad-supported importance, where rather than capitalizing on their advantages, they’ve done all they can to cheapen themselves and their once-storied franchises. They’ve blown the opportunity to be creative and have chosen to become imitative instead. What Jim Farley has done is to “save” the “Post” from itself by allowing it a shot at the set of steak knives, rather than the fourth-place showing it so richly deserves. My take? Shame on the “Post”. –Unsigned Corporate Suit (10/24/09) Would someone please purchase WCTN very limited music library so they never again be able to pretend that they really want to be a nostalgic radio station. We don't need another spanish station in Metro DC. It would be more productive to run RJ100 Manila Philippines off the internet on AM 950. At least its in english and they music library contains oldies that we can't hear in DC anymore and They have Nosalgic music on Sundays. John T. Henneman (10/24/09) /\ October 24 Messages /\ \/ October 23 Messages \/ Mike in Fairfax rarely has a good take and his last one was moronic. To suggest that any DC Sports station should talk more about the Ravens makes it clear to me once and for all that Mike doesn't know anything. Nobody in DC cares about the Ravens and if WTEM took his advice, they'd end up just like him-having lots of free time to write notes to DCRTV Dave. (10/23/09) To the poster suggesting a Major WH Press Conference and pie fight as a tribute to Soupy; sure and Osama Obama can attend appropriately as Homey The Clown! Rusty Gibson (10/23/09) All this talk about which network is a news organization and which one isn't, is really pointless. How about this? In honor of the passing of Soupy Sales, let's have the White House call a major news conference and supply all the reporters with plenty of pies for a big pie fight. We'd still get the same amount of useful information as before and it would help the economically troubled pie industry. (10/23/09) Mike in Fairfax sometimes comes up with well thought out criticisms of local sports media. Today was not one of those days. The reaction of Redskins fans and local media to the team's woes has very little to do with a lack of production on offense and everything to do with frustration over ten years of Snyder mismanagement of the team and mistreatment of fans. THAT is why it is such a fire storm and I'm surprised Mike missed that. And his criticism of Redskins fans as having a "sense of entitlement" is downright silly. It is known as wanting to win and EVERY fan in EVERY city has it. He's also conveniently forgeting that any local fan over 45 years old remembers the pain of having a team ripped out of town; that team was the Washington Senators, and baseball remained out of town for 34 years. So let's lose the sob story for Baltimore, Cleveland, etc. Local fans can relate fully. Finally, let's deep six Mike's idea of DC sportstalk hosts taking Ravens calls. This is WASHINGTON, not BALTIMORE. BALTIMORE has its own talk stations. The huge majority of DC fans don't give a rat's ass about the Ravens. Bad day, Mike. (10/23/09) The gag that got him thrown off the air consisted of Soupy giving White Fang an alphabet lesson. Soupy wrote an F on the black board and asked what letter is was. WF replied K. Soupy erases the board and again writes an F asking what letter it is. WF replies K. Again the board gets erased and the F again appears. WF again replies K. As this point Soupy exclaims "how come every time I write F you see K?" (10/23/09) I just wanted to congratulate WJZ-TV for hiring a disadvantaged make up artist to do the face makeup for Denise Koch. The black lines around her lips and those black spikes under her eyes are unbelievable. Its a good thing they aren't in HD or it would be even worse. Thanks again. :-( (10/23/09) Big bummer to WCTN changing to Spanish! That makes what, 8 stations broadcasting in spanish in D.C. area? I guess the Saturday afternoon rock shows are also finished on WCTN? More Better Man show and then Luke with his WHFS style of music of yore. Is WJLA channel 7 planning another round of cutbacks on reporters? Seems like the morning program with Starling and McKelway has gone from using 3 reporters doing live reports to 1 or maybe 2 some mornings. seems to be replaced by the anchors reading "Top Stories" a lot and more banter between the anchors. And oh yeah MORE GOTD*MN weather and traffic segments on the 10's. Which in reality is more like every 6 minutes or less. Hey I always looked forward to seeing Pamela Brown and/or Courtney Robinson in the mornings but now they seem to be on maybe once a week. Bummer, click! Boy Czaban and Pollin are taking it easy on wee lil' danny, almost like they want to get canned. Just maybe we might see Czaban and Pollin moving over to WJFK in the afternoons to replace the gawdawful Lavar Arrington show. Sorry Chad Dukes, even with all your heavy lifting it just ain't thick enough. Hey reunite Big O and Dukes in the evenings after a Czaban and Pollin show (10/23/09) Dave's response: I count 11 radio stations broadcasting in Spanish in the DC area, including WDCN, 87.7, which is technically a TV station: 730, 900, 950, 1030, 1390, 1460, 1480, 1540, 1600, 87.7, and 99.1..... Drudge is a "clown...." and Matthews gets tingles up his leg....LOL... KJ, Laurel MD (10/23/09) Ahhh, my next question to Ray from WIOO would be when do you fire up the 5000 watt WIOO 1010AM signal? And my next question after that would be..... Why on God's earth is the FCC issuing FM translator licenses to AM radio stations that don't even have permanent AM FACILITIES for like 10+ YEARS? I hate to beat a dead horse, but once again WAMS 1600, Dover, DE is a clear STA abuse case as the FCC issued FM translators in multiple states to a company that owns an AM station that hasn't had licensed facilities for over 10 YEARS! Someone explain the insanity to me please. If a company cannot afford to or meet their license requirements for a full power AM station, why in the world would you then license such a company multiple FM translators for an AM station with no permanent transmission facilities? It's PURE MADNESS. But, I'm sure Mr. Loudin will once again defend the FCC as he always does. And finally, I'll chime in on the WH vs Fox News controversy...... I personally don't think of any news organization as "fair and balanced", not even CNN, but Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow, and Keith Olbermann are your idea of fair and balanced vs. Fox News? I mean, c'mon, no matter which side you're on if you believe either one is, you need therapy in my opinion. The only way to get fair and balanced news is to read and listen and watch a variety of sources. Anyone who trusts just one news source is a complete idiot. And any White House that attacks the currently most popular news source in America is probably not far behind. Even as a Democrat, you have to realize this is a no-win situation for Obama. Sure, Olbermann might go on the attack against FOX, maybe even Katie Couric will step in, but at the end of the day, guess what? NO ONE IS WATCHING THEM! Hell, it's entirely possible that President Obama might have to bail out NBC/Universal before they go under! Wouldn't that be funny? :-) (10/23/09) "...effective October 1st, it officially became legal for AM stations to carry their programming on FM translators." For years, the FCC gave in to industry pressure and allowed so many AM stations to crowd the AM band that now there is too much interference. What's the cure for that? Allow the AMs to have so many FM translators crowding the FM band so that there will be too much interference. What is the definition of insanity? (10/23/09) "Robb Spewak on KCJJ all day starting with the morning show today with phone calls from Tom Gavin" --Jesus Christ....That abomination of a human is now stalking radio shows outside of the DC area??? God takes Soupy Sales...but that thing continues to live? No justice I tell ya! -ThatThingIsMightier (10/23/09) I think that the poster trying to quote Karl Marx is in error. The quote made nos sense to me. I googled the phrase he used 'Where the press is free, none ever will be" and found nothing similar by Marx. i did find this quote---which makes mores ense but it isa ttributed to Thomas Jefferson “No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.” (10/23/09) RE: They "report" with a distinct right-wing slant...And the rest (CNN, MSNBC, etc.) do the EXACT same thing - except in the other direction. Can we get over all of this crap NOW? I left the mailbag three days ago and haven't been back because of this crap. I come back today to catch up on who CITADEL is hiring and come back to this pile of stench? Fox is RIGHT, most if not all the rest are to the LEFT. Its that simple. GET OVER IT. FOX created a news/information/infotainment source that went where everyone else wasn't - and staked out market share. If you don't like them don't turn them on. The same thing people do who don't like Chris Mathews,, etc. For any President to rail against any news organization...is STUPID. Its a waste of his time, your time and reading all of this is a waste of MY TIME. As long as they are not screaming FIRE in a crowded movie house - FOX can say what they want...You, the BUYER beware and figure it out on your own for CHRISSAKE...Now, can we get back to RADIO and TV??? Media NERDS of the world UNITE and take back this website for real MEDIA NEWS - not the claptrap of what FOX is or isn't or what CNN is or isn't. (10/23/09) Not to split hairs, but the first Soupy dance was called the Soupy Shuffle, that's what he did in the show open, later on he invented The Mouse. Tom in DC (10/23/09) Saddest thing about Soupy Sales passing away is that in his own twisted way, Howard Stern will SOMEHOW say that HE influenced Soupy over the years. Even though Soupy was on before Howard. It's getting kind of sad listening to Howard. He's becoming more and more a bitter, old man. Paul (10/23/09) “I think it’s beneath the White House to get into a tit for tat with news organizations.” That presumes that Fox News IS a news organization. They "report" with a distinct right-wing slant. They "report" with a rightward bias that matches the extent that they perceive a leftward bias among regular journalists. Whereas Fox News "talent" is hired for 1) its looks, 2) its suspicion that left-wing elected officials are up to no good, and 3) its ability to repeat right-wing talking points all day long and even during "news" reports, reporters at regular news organization are hired for their intellect, learning/ability to learn, and reportorial ability. It is no accident that people who have been awarded degrees from nationally accredited institutions tend to value facts and analysis over opinion and ideology. How often of late have we seen right-wingers in high dudgeon after it is clearly demonstrated that they have got their facts wrong? Facts don't matter to them. Belief is what matters to them. Should the White House get down and dirty with an ersatz news organization? It's probably a hopeless cause. Roger Ailes and Rahm Emmanuel in a dirt ring in a fight to the death with tube socks filled with horse manure would put the two organizations on an equal footing. (10/23/09) Those STA's that were dismissed on October 1st were for AM stations that had STA's in effect to allow them to carry their programming on FM translators. The FCC had been issuing such STA's for about 3 years. But effective October 1st, it officially became legal for AM stations to carry their programming on FM translators. So all the STA's that had been previously issued (over 200 of them) were dismissed as no longer being necessary. We had two of them dismissed for our 2 translators. Ray Thomas, WIOO/W250AP, WEEO/W230AX. (10/23/09) Robb Spewak on KCJJ all day starting with the morning show today with phone calls from Tom Gavin and Dennis Murphy. He plans to do his show this afternoon too. CC (10/23/09) Note to WOW: Obama's approval rating today in the Gallup tracking poll is 54 percent approve, 39 percent disapprove. Earlier this week Wash. Post/ ABC had him at 57 percent. These are solid, good approval numbers. Oh, today's CNN poll has the Republican party's approval at 36 percent, the lowest in more than ten years. Want more? Because I can do this all day. ACH (10/23/09) Note to WOW: Want to quote congressman? Here's one: "Fox News and their Republican collaborators are the enemy of America." That's from Alan Grayson, D-Florida. Direct from Capitol Hill, too. ACH (10/23/09) I'm listening to "Inside Pitch with Casey Stern and Kevin Kennedy" on MLB Home Plate XM 175 (at 3:05pm), and former 'BALer Steve Davis is sitting in for Casey Stern today. -Greg in Perry Hall (10/23/09) Watching that ESPN documentary on the Baltimore Colts' marching band, it was impossible not to get a sense of how the heart was ripped out of a city by the abrupt departure of its NFL team for Indianapolis back in '84 - and it also makes Redskins fans (and their enablers in the local media) look silly for acting like the world's coming to an end because their team can't seem to put points on the board. I've thought for a long time that this town has an unjustified sense of entitltement when it comes to the Skins, as if it's somehow our birthright to be cheering for a perennial Super Bowl contender and seemingly oblivious (or callous) to the fact that a number of other markets have suffered through much longer periods of futility with their professional teams. Take Cleveland for example - the fans up there haven't been able to celebrate a sports title of any sort for more than four decades, not to mention seeing their beloved Browns bolt for Baltimore 14 years ago (although they did eventually get a replacement franchise that's been a dismal failure in terms of win/loss record thus far). Meanwhile, ESPN 980 and 106.7 The Fan keep feeding the monster with their saturation coverage of such pressing issues as who'll be calling the offensive plays for the Skins next Monday night (as if people were actually losing sleep over that), while everything else going on in sports is largely ignored. While it may seem as if everyone's totally fixated on the ongoing soap opera at Redskins Park right now, there are actually issues involving other local teams that deserve attention from sports talk radio but aren't getting any - the Nats' managerial search, the Terps' disappointing football season, the Wizards starting out next week, early impressions regarding the Caps, etc. How about the NFL in general? - I've noticed that Mike Francesa routinely fields calls from fans of a number of football teams other than the Giants and Jets on his WFAN show (available on the YES Network via Verizon FIOS), and they're not out-of-towners but New York area residents who've adopted those particular teams. By contrast, John Thompson has been known to abruptly hang up on callers who identified themselves as Cowboy or Giant supporters (which struck me as awful sports radio practice). At the very least, they could do some Ravens stuff on a regular basis as a nod to the fact that the listening range of both stations extends into Baltimore territory. Whether the respective programming directors realize this or not, there are more than a few fans in this area who don't necessarily live and breathe Redskin football 24/7 and sports talk radio that's totally consumed with one franchise to the virtual exclusion of everything else can get very boring and tedious. On another topic, Tony Kornheiser and his panelists-du-jour were inexplicably unable to recall the name of the signature dance from Soupy Sales' old TV show this morning - for their information, it was 'The Mouse'. Mike, Fairfax (10/23/09) As a Radio Listener of many years,considered a bit fanatical by my friends and family, I pompously believe my opinion counts. And why not? It seems there are plenty of Radio programs that do that and ONLY that. Opinions. Not facts. Not historical truths. Opinions based on personal feelings,prejudices,dislikes and petty squables. I do not like,in fact I detest,Talk Radio. If I DID enjoy Talk Radio what stations or shows do you think I'd tune in to? People who share MY opinions. Which amounts to a group of people tuning in to a host who pats himself on the back and encourages his fans to pat him,and themselves,on the back. Does this make for good journalism? Useful information? No. It does not. It makes for a gang mentality of people who believe that by voicing thier opinion on the air rather than the street corner or barbershop they distinguish themselves from those who simply bitch and moan. I admit I am no better. I don't tune in to listen to people who oppose my views and beliefs. I tune in to stations that think like I do. Ones that think the airwaves should be filled with Modern/Alternative/Indie Rock. Where is the outrage and defiance of shitty music stations broadcast from? What show slings mud about that?Conspiracy Theories,Audible Lobotomy,Musical Genocide. Who is blaming who for THAT? What station do you call to raise hell about that? The beliefs and actions of one political party led to the policy of killing off stations that I like. They also brought about the destruction of the economy. The reduction of Citizens Rights. The New Confederacy in which the Banks,Insurance Companies ,Pharmaceutical Companies,Oil Companies etc are the new plantation owners. Who do they own? US! Face it....you had your way and you fucked it up. Shut UP and give back the airwaves. (10/23/09) I vote an end to political bull***t. We’ve now been told we don’t know what we’re talking about by someone that can’t even sign their KNOWLEDGABLE KNAME..LOL (10/23/09) "Very rarely did we communicate through the press anything that we didn't absolutely control," Dunn said, admitting that the strategy "did not always make us popular in the press." This is a quote from Anita Dunn who is part of the Obama Administration. This is why Obama and his ilk do not like commentators on Fox News. The will not go along with Obama’s sanitized news. And when something is brought out they do not want the citizens to know, the cry foul because it is something outside their control. Commentators like Ron Smith, Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, Glen Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, ET AL are paid for their OPINIONS. They are not reporting news. They are giving their opinions on the news. There is a big difference there. Bias is allowed at that point. The fact the Obama Administration doesn’t like Conservative opinions is what puts Fox in the Enemies list. (10/23/09) Well Libs…..it’s not only Fox and Conservatives any longer…Let the music play on….from the POLITICO: Read this and weep!! A White House effort to undermine conservative critics is generating a backlash on Capitol Hill — and not just from Republicans. “It’s a mistake,” said Rep. Jason Altmire, a moderate Democrat from western Pennsylvania. “I think it’s beneath the White House to get into a tit for tat with news organizations.” Altmire was talking about the Obama administration’s efforts to undercut Fox News. WOW!!! (10/23/09) re: "Obama has exceeded Cheney in being an arrogant dictator." There's a lot more bullshit than brains in the Mailbag lately. An awful lot of political posturing by people who obviously don't have any idea what they're talking about. (10/23/09) RE: [What isn't mentioned is that Marxists also shut down opposition free speech. Fox News is right on point stating the Obama is a Marxist.] YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THAT FOX NEWS WAS SHUT DOWN AND FORCED OFF THE AIR YESTERDAY? Our president sent in armed storm troopers in to pull their plug and force FOX out of the broadcasting business???? Interesting....Why didn't I get the memo? Drop the "Drama Queen" act. White House opposition to Fox's chosen partisan message is in no way the same as denying Fox any "free speech" rights. (In all honesty, this isn't even close to being a "free speech" issue, but there is no logic in arguing such a simple point with people who clearly refuse to comprehend the difference.) No need to get your teabags all in a knot, peasants. You can put away the pitchforks for now. FOX still has their microphone. They are in no way being censored. The only difference is that the White House stated they have no intent to accept any invitations to come to play in FOX's sandbox until FOX agrees to pull back on the silly "Obama = socialist/anti-american/marxist/islamofacist/etc." rhetoric, that's all. (10/23/09) To whoever posted the FoxNews YouTube video below...thank you. As usual, Faux News' hypocrisy is on full display for all the world to see...Neal (10/23/09) To our resident STA watcher, yes, I did notice that there were a bunch of those dismissed a while back. I would imagine that the bulk of those AM STAs were for operations at reduced power to fix antenna systems that had a built-in expiration date and had never been "officially" been superseded by a return to normal operations. You are welcome to pore through all those to find some sort of conspiracy. I've noticed an increased tempo of STA dismissals, which I chalk up to paying attention to when they are no longer needed. I will grant to you that there aren't too many CP extension requests being filed now because most were filed in June. Crews ARE still busy and I'll wager that we will see some more extension requests in a month or two. Regards, Dave Loudin (10/23/09) Quoting Karl Marx, "Where the press is free, none ever will be." In other words, we can't go about our tyranny if our actions are being reported. Therefore, to have free reign, we must first reign in the press. Ok, so we conservatives were wrong. Obama is not socialist. And that is why religion, or a more liberal marijuana policy, is allowed to be the opiate of the masses. As long as the proletariet is high and happy, they won't look behind the curtain. Roman emperors referred to this as bread and circuses. Long live central government. Obama has exceeded Cheney in being an arrogant dictator. (10/23/09) What I find funny is that the WH and the liberals on this board cannot tell the difference between the news broadcasts and the commentators. Ron Smith doesn’t report the news. He is a commentator. He gives opinions and those are based on his biases. The same thing goes for Glen Beck, Hannity, and O’Reilly. Those shows do not claim to be news and those commentators do not claim to be journalists. The fact is that the WH and Liberals do not like Conservative-leaning commentary. So, since Fox broadcasts that, the whole channel is disparaged. I don’t see the Liberals on this board screaming about MSNBC. The last I checked Maddow with her butch hair, the pompous a$$ Olbermann, and loud-mouth Matthews are as Liberal as they come. One could accuse MSNBC of being just a Liberal station that is biased and not real news. However, the WH nor the nutty Liberals on this board would never say that. When the commentators are sucking up to this President and administration and making Obama the Messiah, it is all good and there is no problem there. When a station has people who show this President as the Emperor without clothes, it is Katy bar the door. (10/23/09) What a sad day. Soupy Sales gone. I loved him as a kid growing up on the farm in Central NJ during the '60's. For a Brass Figligee: what were the names of the two dogs/wolves he used to intersperse conversations with throughout the show? Hint: they were on the other side of the door frame, with only their paws visible. Genghis Cohen, saddened by it all (10/23/09) What kind of moron thinks Obama saying Fox is similar to talk radio is "shutting down opposition" or censoring anything? Answer: the kind of moron who thinks it is a good thing that there is a network working in opposition to the President of the United States. I think the shitwave of stupidity flooding the Mailbag lately makes it very clear why the conservative movement in this country is dead. You guys sound insane; you have a lot of over the top rhetoric and almost no knowledge of the issues. (10/23/09) I posted this awhile back and no one has made any comment or explanation about it, so I'll repeat it. On October 1, the FCC dismissed a boatload of STA requests and extensions across the entire U.S., almost a dozen in this region (and mostly AM stations), so from just a quick glance of several states, I figure hundreds nationwide. This will cause some stations to most likely be sold or go dark, so Red Zebra is going to be on a shorter leash with WWRC 1260. Do they even have a chief engineer? And to Dave Loudin... if you've been watching the FCC application news, you'll notice that there are very few filings lately and far less related to DTV. The FCC app list has been quite quiet since the end of summer. While it is true that radio stations had trouble getting qualified help earlier this year and last year during the DTV transition, that excuse does not hold true anymore. Stations like WWRC 1260 are going to have to put up or shut up as they say. (10/23/09) "LOL to you leftists who don't believe in freedom of speech..." No, we believe in it just fine. The WH staff and the President haven't limited Fox's freedom of speech, they are just exercising theirs. And I do agree with the poster below that this is tedious. Howie (10/23/09) I have finally figured out why that legitimate news organization, MSNBC, gets no ratings. They are obviously targeting the agnostic/atheist audience. Watch here as legitimate journalist and commentator Chris Matthews states that the Taliban most closely resembles the American religious right. www.youtube.com (10/23/09) Re: WWRC 1260. It is a directional station, the main tower is skirt fed and de-tuned. The wiring and tuning gear can easily be damaged by careless tenants on the tower. It can take a long time to work this out, especially if there is bad blood with the tenants. If the operation is not meeting the terms of the license, they need an STA or they have to go off the air. End of story, nothing to see here, please move along. (10/23/09) WOW -- Thanks for filling us in. It's nice to know who the last person on earth is reading Drudge's made-up silliness. (10/23/09) LOL to you leftists who don't believe in freedom of speech. It's obvious that Obama is such a spineless, thjin skinned bore. Sjhutting down the free speech of your ofpponents is a characteristic of all world dictators. (10/23/09) By the way, here is the definition of Marxism: The political and economic philosophy of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in which the concept of class struggle plays a central role in understanding society's allegedly inevitable development from bourgeois oppression under capitalism to a socialist and ultimately classless society. That definition is the perfect description of the Obama political philosophy. What isn't mentioned is that Marxists also shut down opposition free speech. Fox News is right on point stating the Obama is a Marxist. (10/23/09) Dave's response: Ah, I like Groucho, Harpo, and Chico. Does that make me a "Marxist" too? re: "Mr. Farley: I go to your station to find out what time it is in order to reset the clock in my car. I go to the Washington Post for news." Well, I go to WTOP to get weather updates. I go to the Washington Post to find electronic gear deals in the Best Buy inserts." (10/23/09) Man it never ceases to amaze me how Fox and its sycophants howl like stuck pigs when someone tosses a haymaker or even a few jabs. Really hurts to lose an election, doesn't it? (Shawn in DC) (10/23/09) Dave: The "Obama sucks . . no, he doesn't, Fox News sucks . . . no, they don't, Obama sucks" discussion has, predictably, degenerated quickly. Yes, it's media-related, but almost unspeakably tiresome and repetitious, particularly on a day when we must bid farewell to a TRUE radio/t.v. giant like Soupy Sales. Time to swing the hammer. Sincerely, TMU (10/23/09) Hey liberals….Obama is losing his BAMA….headline on Drudge….and it will spread to the Nets….BE SURE!! Obama sees worst poll rating drop in 50 years...- Life is good-WOW (10/23/09) Dave's response: Drudge is a clown..... From Channel 9: A rough week for the Washington Redskins may get even rougher. A new YouTube video has surfaced showing beer vendors selling suds in a men's room at FedEx Field. www.youtube.com... (10/23/09) RE: [It's funny how Fox can go 24/7 with its silly Kenyan/Stalinist/Maoist/Fascist cr@p, but the WH is being "like Nixon" when they point out that Fox isn't a news source, it's a political player.] Let's all face reality here: it isn't the White House that declared a war with Faux Nooze, it is Faux Nooze that declared a war on Obama from the get-go. If you have not yet been completly brainwashed (or as you righties like to refer to it, "Hannitized") here is all he proof you need to make the case: It is quite clear to anyone with more than three active neurons firing at the same time that Faux Nooze declared a dirty war on the Obama administration months before he even took office. The White House reaction of finally having had enough of the lies and distortions to put their foot down to declare "Enough is enough!" by calling one major supposed "news" organization out for branding administration policies as "socialist", "Communist", "Marxist" is more than justified. "Fair and Balanced" my ass. It's about damn time that the adults escorted the spoiled brats of the "news" industry out to the woodshed to exact punishment for their blatant and clearly institutional political bias. It is certainly a justifiable response to FauxNooze's brash, boorish (and some would say un-American) behavior. Good for Obama. Good for America. (10/23/09) Soupy Sales' show was on WDCA-20 back when it first started broadcasting. In those early days, the station didn't come on the air until 6 or 7 PM and Soupy's show was the first program of the day. Ah, good times! Howie (10/23/09) Interesting that "Frederick in Bowie" commented on he passing of Soupy Sales because 2 of Soupy's sons were in David Bowie's "Tin Machine." Rusty Gibson (10/23/09) If anyone hears of a public memorial taking place in NY for Soupy, please post it. I want to be there. -alan peterson (10/23/09) Dave's response: I'll be there, too. Sally Star is giving me a ride up the NJ Turnpike on her horse..... How sad to hear of the passing of Soupy Sales. What a talent!. I remember seeing Soupy do an interview with Johnny Holliday during a Muscular Dystrophy Telethon on Channel 5 back in the late 80's. I wonder if someone at the station could retrieve it from the archives, it was a classic. (10/23/09) Soupy's mid-'60s run on Metromedia was carried exclusively in DC by Milt Grant's WDCA TV 20. Not one episode was ever broadcast on WTTG-5. Presumably at that time, (the 1965-1967 era), WTTG was still doing fine ratings-wise with their afternoon kid show powerhouse "Countdown Carnival", ably hosted by Bill Gormly. See kidshow.dcmemories.com. Little known fact: Metromedia tested Gormly and "Countdown Carnival" on New York's WNEW-5 for one week before deciding that the show's format was too localized for the DC market. Bill Gormly recently sat before the cameras of Fairfax Cable's "Out of the Past" program to reminisce about his broadcasting days. Watch this space for details on when Gormly's appearance will be aired. (10/23/09) Point of clarification on WWRC's special temporary authority requests: please read the last one filed electronically by Clear Channel. They had to evict via legal proceedings a tenant who had done damage to the 1260 array before any attempt at repairs could be made. That STA request was for a year! I bet the paper filing from Red Zebra was a request to extend that STA. Granted that the RZ operation may not be the smoothest sailing ship in the world, but tower site crews have been pretty darn busy with something called digital TV. There are many CP and STA extension requests throughout broadcasting citing the unavailability of qualified crews. Regards, Dave Loudin (10/23/09) Nor really a local media story, but I just read that Soupy Sales passed away last night at the age of 83. I remember Soupy well from my childhood growing up in NYC. Always on the cusp of being a “big star”. Spoken of often on the Stern show from their days at NBC together. Another side note – Soupy’s niece / goddaughter (?) is Kathy Connell, host of “Kid’s Corner”, a daily show for kids on WXPN out of Philly. Soupy will be missed, my regards to his family. Pies in the face to all!!! Patrick, Bowie (10/23/09) Dave's response: As a little kid in Willingboro NJ in the 1960s, I watched Soupy's show on Channel 5/WNEW out of NYC. Goodbye Soupy! Couldn't sleep... So I decided to look at DCRTV. And, a topic from my long-ago childhood appears. Halloween Costumes! The company which made the best ones was Ben Cooper, as i recall. They had all the cool ones out of the cartoons and such. You could get them at F.W. Woolworth, Peoples Drug Stores, Dart Drug, etc. There was a cheaper competitor which made cheaper, more "generic" ones, but I cannot recall their name at this early hour. (3:58 AM) John Pinckney of beautiful Pasadena (10/23/09) I heard on the late news that Soupy Sales has died, at 83. As a kid in the 60s, I remember seeing him on TV in DC, but I'm not sure what channel he was on. I know that one incarnation of his show originated at WNEW, the New York City Metromedia station, so it might have been on WTTG. Could another of his shows (maybe an earlier one) have also been broadcast on Channel 7, at some point? My memory is a little fuzzy there. Anyway, here's ol' Soup, telling the story of the "green pieces of paper" incident. (10/23/09) RE:..."this is nothing but a play from the saul alinsky handbook (one of obambi's real life heroes). post-partisan my ass." I find myself laughing out loud when I hear a conservative (I am assuming the author is a conservative given the content of the post) invoke the name of Saul Alinski with such disdain. If you had ever actually read Saul Alinski instead of the present revisionist "interpretations", you might recognize the current right wing tactics and demonstrations (think agitation, birthers and teabaggers) are vintage Alinski. Do yourself a favor and read Alinski (and Thomas Paine), you may see what I'm referring to.MW (10/23/09) The Halloween costume company you are looking for is Ben Cooper: costumes.lovetoknow.com... Some of these go for big bucks on eBay these days. (10/23/09) WGMD talker Bill Colley appears to be taking some unscheduled beach time. The crazed right winger, known for his associations with militias and a “my way or the highway” treatment of callers, looks to be on unpaid sabbatical. Word on the street is that Colley’s low rent preacher act, mixing Ayn Rand, sanctimonious gospel and Barry Goldwater has raised the hackles of Rehoboth Beach gays through his honest talk, quick wit and knowledge of history. Management pays him to talk, and when he does, they stifle him because it might offend the minority. (10/23/09) Re the Hallowe'en costumes....I'm reasonably certain the manufacturer was Collegeville Costumes. What a great time to have grown up. Sometimes I think we were the last kids allowed to be just kids.... KJ, Laurel MD (10/23/09) I.e. the post on costume CO's. I seem to recall they were called "Colgem" or perhaps something else that began w/ the letter "c". Hope that helped! Rusty Gibson (10/23/09) /\ October 23 Messages /\ \/ October 22 Messages \/ This was a big TV story in my old stomping grounds of Russia. The traffic in ????? (Perm in Russian) is always a bitch. Paul Brandus (10/22/09) I'd like to enlist the help of DCRTV readers. Around this time of year, back in the early 60s, kids could buy a Halloween costume that came in a box for a couple of bucks. I know G.C. Murphy stores had 'em (and I suspect that other '5 & 10' stores did too). I've Googled around, trying to find the name of the company that produced these costumes, but I haven't found it. Any help on this would be appreciated. Thanks! (10/22/09) Just saw on FOX NEWS that the other nets joined hands when the WH decided to set up an interview and bar FOX/. DAMN' if all the NETWORKS didn't say they wouldn't do the interview either!!!! Methinks the NETS are starting to realize just what the WH is doing... CENTRALIZED NEWS...ONE BIG HEADLINE ON ALL NETS! Damn' and Fox is the only Diverse storyteller...AMAZING! Oh and the to Flaming Liberals..Even the Baltimore SUN and WP thought it was OUTRAGEOUS...I am lovin this...WOW (10/22/09) (WOW:"Fox won’t bend over so he’s doing his damndest to create a “lack of credibility” image." No, the image has always been there, he's just honestly pointing it out.) if that's the case, and we really wanted to marginalize networks that are more opinion than fact, then why is teleprompter jesus inviting "journalists" from MSNBC and CNN to the white house for a strategy session? not only are MSNBC and CNN further to the left than fox is to the right (with only a fraction of the ratings to go with it), but their "journalists" actually get e-mails from the white house and make corrections *while doing their shows*! this is nothing but a play from the saul alinsky handbook (one of obambi's real life heroes). post-partisan my ass. (10/22/09) A couple of things 1. Did I hear 1590 Glen Burnie/Baltimore the new WFBR ? On my way home from B'more today. 2. And did I hear right? The FBI listens/watches Rush and Glenn on Fox TV? or was I just dreaming? Somebody give me a wake-up call, Thanks J.J. "Hitman" McKay Ocean City, Maryland (10/22/09) Obama: Fox News Is Talk Radio - how petty and thin-skinned is this man? seriously. so one network doesn't worship the ground he walks on. good thing our messiah is focusing on the big issues. if fox news is talk radio, what does that make the other 98% of the MSM? and an honest question for the liberals who post here (and dave too): if ari fleisher (sp?) or tony snow had told the white house press corps to ignore the stories coming from a network critical of them, do you think the media would remain silent (and compliant) about it like they are now? or would they have screamed their collective heads off about fascism and the attempt to silence free press? this administration has some serious issues to deal with. and our "objective" media (with the exception of jake tapper) are failing to do their jobs. (10/22/09) It would be funny, if it weren't true... Redskins Hold Press Conference To Announce They Are Still Sort Of A Football Team www.theonion.com (10/22/09) re: "It’s funny how the only network that is of the conservative ilk is being bashed by the White House." Actually, the bias of FOX is "being bashed" by most of the educated people on the planet. Doesn't it seem odd to you that a network simultaneously attacks "liberal media bias" even as it sells itself as having a conservative bias? Isn't the point to have no bias? Christ! Would it be too hard for people to know what journalism IS before they start their blathering diatribes about it?!? (10/22/09) WOW:"Fox won’t bend over so he’s doing his damndest to create a “lack of credibility” image." No, the image has always been there, he's just honestly pointing it out. It's funny how Fox can go 24/7 with its silly Kenyan/Stalinist/Maoist/Fascist cr@p, but the WH is being "like Nixon" when they point out that Fox isn't a news source, it's a political player. BTW, Nixon used the power of government to actually damage his opponents. This WH just spoke words. Howie (10/22/09) Well, it looks like the Oldies are gone again from 950. Back to Spanish. I had wondered how long that format would last, again, since there were hardly any commercials or live jocks except for some weekend programs. Hope More Better Man lands somewhere soon. (10/22/09) Mr. Farley: I go to your station to find out what time it is in order to reset the clock in my car. I go to the Washington Post for news. And the last time I checked, that's where your station was getting all of its news, too. (10/22/09) Well, Obama is now calling Fox News “Talk Radio” and “he doesn’t lose any sleep over it”. RIGHT. It’s funny how the only network that is of the conservative ilk is being bashed by the White House. Obama has every other network in his hip pocket, Fox won’t bend over so he’s doing his damndest to create a “lack of credibility” image. What did old Harry Truman say? “if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen”. Sure wish he would.-WOW (10/22/09) Not a local story, but a "watershed" moment for the newspaper many consider to be the country's gold standard: "The New York Times Company released its quarterly earnings report on Thursday, and for the first time, the publisher’s circulation revenue eclipsed revenue from advertising. The Times Co. said its circulation revenue grew 6.7 percent during the third quarter, to $175.2 million. Advertising revenue fell 29.6 percent to $164.5 million -- as the Times' own Richard Perez-Pena called it, a 'watershed moment' in an industry that has been traditionally ad-driven. Meanwhile, the company reported a $35.6 million loss for the quarter." www.thewrap.com... Christian (10/22/09) ("Even with Doc Walker's inflated ego, he's scared to correct coach Thompson, when John keeps calling the Redskins' Sherm Lewis, "Sherm Smith."") You know that there that the Redskins Offensive Coordinator is Sherman Smith right? Now I didn't hear this so he could have meant Sherman Lewis, but there is indeed a Sherman Smith on the coaching staff. -Gep. (10/22/09) I attempted to contact the Baltimore Sun to have them remove my email address from being publicly posted on the newspaper's website without any success. An attempt to log-in and change my www.baltmoresun.com screen name to something other than my email address is not allowed by the website. When I signed up to BaltimoreSun.com, the company clearly stated that my email address would not be disclosed publicly. I've since gotten spammed hundreds of times. And because my email address is partially my name & nickname, it's far worse. Has this happened to anyone else? What do I have to do, like sue them to get them to change it? I know it sounds ridiculous but The Baltimore Sun & Tribune, Inc. has clearly violated their own public information disclosure policy and violated my privacy in my opinion. (10/22/09) I’ve had a running battle with the PENIS…he’s a agitator and not a very good one! The name itself describes him perfectly! He’s a DICK-WOW (10/22/09) After viewing at night's airing of "The Band That Wouldn't Die," I must admit that I (like the rest of the world) Was deeply moved. As a Maryland native, I clearly recall Irsay's shameful escape to Indy. I was heading into the lot across 33rd from Memorial Stadium for the Orioles Opener when I saw a guy hawking "Irsay Sucks" bumper stickers along w/ a dart board target w/ his picture in the center (I still have them). Appropriate too was seeing an emotional Vince Bagli describe his obvious personal loss. Though seeing a young Tom Davis and the late John Steadman at the airport in the footage from the airport press conference w/ Irsay and BillyDon was priceless. I've often wondered if Irsay even had recall of that performance. It reminded me of an old cartoon of a hungover Abraham Lincoln awaking in a bed surrounded by empty bottles where the caption read; "I freed WHAT?" Rusty Gibson, Future WEBR/Radioairfax (10/22/09) While I don't think Jim Farley is right defending radio's commitment to news reporting, I don't think newspapers should attack radio. Radio and newspapers are entirely different from each other. Radio has the ability to report as it happens. News papers have the ability to write very long form items about what happened yesterday. Both useful, but very different. You don't buy the newspaper to get a traffic report, and you don't turn on the radio to read the comics. Another thing, according to PEW Research, "While the total time that people spend with the news is largely unchanged from a decade ago, time devoted to reading newspapers is down from an average of 18 minutes in 1998 to 13 minutes in 2008." People buy newspapers, but they don't spend much time reading them. Horoscopes, Comics, Obits, and Sports take up most of the reading time. Both radio and newspapers should be better. There is no war, there are only declining customers. Ed Graham (10/22/09) Dave: Say what you will about Mike Wise, but Mike never calls people by different names and most of the time, he gives you accurate information. Ok, where am I going with this. You have to wonder why management and talent over at ESPN980 is intimidated by Coach Thompson. Even with Doc Walker's inflated ego, he's scared to correct coach Thompson, when John keeps calling the Redskins' Sherm Lewis, "Sherm Smith." Gee, things must be so bad over at WTEM that Frank Hanrahan is starting to slam the team and may be that will pull better ratings? I know their PPM's are slowly creeping-up but their overall credibility is in the basement. Since they are the Redskins' station, you would think their talent would get the names right. Finally, I applaud WJFK attempt to cover the Redskins and the day-parts are starting to sound better. I know, sportstalk radio in this market is still a work in progress. (10/22/09) I am eagerly awaiting today's psycho-babble from resident DCRTV nutbag ThePenis....The anticipation is mind numbing...much like the majority of his posts. -ThatThingIsMightier (10/22/09) Re: Yesterday's Rant: Here's 8 "who cares" reasons to switch to Windows 7, and 3 compelling reasons not to: windowssecrets.com (10/22/09) Reporter Mark Feldstein penned the following, which appeared in the Washington Post's "Letters To The Editor" on Thursday. He's worked at Channel 9/WUSA, ABC, and CNN..... The Oct. 14 article about WTTG-TV Channel 5's plan to reassign teleprompter operators ["This Just In -- I'll Now Work My Own Prompter," Style] underscores a larger problem facing broadcast journalism. It is not just that news anchors will be more likely to stumble on the air while using foot pedals to operate their teleprompters, or that they will be distracted from the content of the news that they are reading, or that being quick with their feet as well as physically attractive will become more important than journalistic chops -- although all of this is undoubtedly true. Rather, this change -- much like the elimination of copy-editing jobs at newspapers that result in small but noticeable errors -- are just part of a wave of cost-cutting that steadily erodes journalistic quality. The result is a vicious cycle in which falling revenue leads to cutbacks, diminishing both the product and the audience, causing revenue to fall further, with no obvious end to the downturn in sight. But perhaps Fox5 will discover a silver lining in this gloomy cloud: a temporary ratings bump as viewers tune in to watch the inevitable goofs and glitches that occur as harried, multitasking anchors practice their fancy footwork. (10/22/09) I just wanted to let you know that Walt Swanston is a woman. You referred to her as “he” in your blurb. She deserves proper treatment for her outstanding service to both broadcasting and the community at large. (10/22/09) Happy 106th birthday anniversary (10/22) to the late Jerome Lester Horwitz - aka "Curley Howard." Nuk Nuk Nuk" Al McGilvray (10/22/09) Much as I would love to have Grease on 105.9, and all these rumors surfacing just when he comes to town to roast Ronnie Mervis, I seemed to sense from your headline a couple of days ago, this morning show might be headed to DC from another market, say Columbus OH (don't they have a station called "The Brew" out there). I also think back to when Z104 launched their airstaff, it was about two months after they launched the station itself. and we didn't have DCRTV to tell us any rumors on who was meeting to be on that airstaff. (10/22/09) Who doesn't like some numbers? Well, let's look at who won the prestigeous Edward R. Morrow awards that WTOP's Mr. Farley speaks so highly of. Large market; 12 winners. Who are the owners? Bonneville won 5; CBS, 2; Citadel-ABC, 1; Clear Channel, 1 and 3 went to Public Broadcasters. Small market... Who are the owners? Clear Channel won 2; Rubber City (3 stations in Akron), 2; Regent (5 stations in their area), 1; Delmarva (11 stations in their area), 1 and 7 went to Public broadcasters. What did we learn? Forty per-cent of the awards went to Public Broadcasting stations. Groups with just a few stations won 36% of the awards. The big boys hauled in 24% of the awards. Cumulatively, the big boys mentioned own 1,227 stations. Also, remember that pay in radio newsrooms is abysmal. News directors average $ 30K per year and usually have serveral jobs, including hosting a show or operations manager. Reporters average $ 24K. Check out the full report: www.stateofthemedia.org. John (10/22/09) (It always amazes me that the Don and Mike ''haters'' are still spewing their lovely brand of vemom. Especially the asshole who just HAD to write about Mike's bed and his ''fat ass''. I'd be willing to bet it took him all day to come up with that sheer brilliant writing. And I love the fact that you cowards are too scared to sign your names. Don and Mikes show ended some time ago. Grow the fuck up and get a life. Can Fox5 possibly get Julie Wright to MAYBE tone down the giggling flirtiness just a few watts? THAT shit is really annoying at 5AM. Paul) Hey “Paul” (if that is your real name, but I think it’s D &M’s toothless Robert The Angry Mailman based on the “Don & Mikes” reference): first of all, Dave just simply is not going to post any Mailbagger’s alleged name. So it’s not the poster you are calling “coward” who is omitting their name (every single e-mail I send clearly identifies me), it’s up to DCRTV’s Dave Hughes: take it up with him. Second: if you ever listened to D & M you know how cruel, vicious, heartless, willing to berate, subjugate, insult, bemoan or just generally whine about or at anyone. Those fancy homes & beds these two fat creeps are having their way with their poor women in were paid for on the backs of all the people they amused AND ABUSED all these years. As for poor Julie Wright, you’re the one probably wanking off to her at 5:00 AM in the morning: ain’t it your bedtime? (10/22/09) Radio news seems to be a topic on the tips of many a tongue. Yes, awards are handed out every year. Some richly deserved others filler for the awarding organization. If you are within the service area of an all news, top drawer NPR/news station or one of the true full service news-talk hybrids (such as WBAL) you can probably count on reasonable news coverage. But drift beyond the major metros ( or, God help a daypart other than morning drive) and radio news is scarce. A once in a hundred years weather event struck Centre County, Pa. last weekend. The home of Penn State University had a freak mid October snowfall. 6 inches of wet heavy snow downed trees still in full foliage. That, in turn, downed power lines leaving 9,000 residences and businesses in the dark. Add to the misery: It was Homecoming weekend with an estimated 100,000 heading to town. Guess what? The local radio robots made little mention of the on-going problem. The only reliable local news operation (with 2 full timers I believe) was off the air the entire weekend. A local News/Talk FM went hours without any information.(Though the machine had no trouble insertice the local breaks in the Limbaugh go around.) The local NPR was equally mute. So how would a visitor get information? NOAA weather radio and the Internet. And the radio establishment wonders where the listeners went. (10/22/09) Re Chris "WALRUS" - KCHU is Valdez AK, not "AL". My fukkupp. (10/22/09) Dave's response: Yeah, I always get Alaska's two letter postal abbreviation mixed up, too. How about all those "M" ones - MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MS, and MT. Sheesh..... right winger Glenn Beck's early days in New Haven newhavenadvocate.com (10/22/09) /\ October 22 Messages /\ \/ October 21 Messages \/ About this feud between the Post and WTOP...from "Washingtonian": "Downie...has been frowning on news outlets that, in his view, don’t practice serious journalism. Kurtz wrote: 'Commercial radio stations, except for a handful of big-city outlets, do little or no local reporting.' " "WTOP’s Farley was not amused. 'That is neither fair nor accurate,' Farley wrote to Kurtz. 'All you need to do to check this is to look at the award winners from the recent Edward R. Murrow Awards. Look at stations like WRVA in Richmond which won for Breaking News. Or WMSI in Jackson, Mississippi, which won for Feature Reporting.' His list went on. 'There is an impressive body of work by radio newsrooms outside a handful of big cities,' he wrote." What planet is Mr. Farley reporting from? He needs to look outside his Lido Pizza glass enclosed nerve center and check what is going on in the rest of the industry. How many reporters are employed at the Clear Channel cluster in Washington. How many at the Citadel cluster in Washington? Zero-point-zero. How many news people were employed in radio ten years ago, five years ago and today? How many are at the Clear Channel cluster in Dayton, OH? Last year, a deadly wind blew through the area on a Sunday morning. Trees down; power off for about a week in some parts of the area. The stations all stayed on the air and ran the usual music and voice tracked DJ's. How many news people do they employ? Zero-point-zero. The same wind blew through Cincinnati. The news-talk station, the 50,000 watt flamethrower, WLW, didn't report on the destruction. They stayed with the Bengals game...The Freakin' Bengals, for God's sake. C'mon Mr. Farley. Don't urinate on my leg and report that it is raining. John (10/21/09) RE:Sports Radio Battle: TEM Tops JFK, Wise & Korny Tied Dave, is there any way to track John Thompson/The Sports Reporters on TEM since they seem to share drive time against Arrington on JFK? (10/21/09) Dave's response: In the latest PPMs, age 12+, WTEM placed 13th in afternoon drive, with WJFK in 17th..... Had to post a reminder... "PROGRAMMING NOTE: ESPN 2 is re-airing Barry Levinson's critically acclaimed documentary "The Band That Wouldn't Die" at 8PM TONIGHT!" (10/21/09) From Politico: Los Angeles comedian Andy Cobb is back with another YouTube affront directed at Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza and Dana Milbank. In August, Cobb received Beltway attention with his parody of the Post’s now-defunct online feature, “Mouthpiece Theater,” which featured Cilizza and Milbank attempting to make light of the political news. “Mouthpiece Theater” was ultimately shuttered after a joke Milbank made about Hillary Clinton drinking “Mad Bitch Beer” received criticism. Some credited Cobb’s mockery as helping to bring the segment to its knees. Cobb’s newest spoof, which he uploaded Wednesday, attacks the Post’s online reality contest, “America’s Next Great Pundit.” The deadline for contest participants is today and Cobb, a self-proclaimed “lover of the Washington Post and journalism,” thought it was good timing to issue his online slap. “It is interesting,” says Cobb. “This may be a part of the frustrations of some of these major institutions trying to move on the web, which resulted in things like this contest.” He dinged the paper for being “cheap” – winning contestants stand to pocket a grand sum of $2600 – and for engaging in a “ham-fisted effort to get people to vote and be involved in this selection process.” Cobb adds: “I think they should be jived when they do something silly and I think this contest is one of those things.” (10/21/09) Shows how smart Tony Kornheiser is, WTEM 980 and its 2 sister FM stations have an incredible advantage signal-wise over WJFK 106.7, which can't even be heard in Laurel or College Park or Annapolis easily. Hell, daytime, you can easily listen to WTEM 980 in Baltimore! No one anywhere much northeast of the Capital Beltway on The Parkway or I-95 can get 106.7 The Fan! What a dumb ass. Every time Kornheiser opens his mouth, he explains clearly why he was fired by ESPN as he has no clue what the hell he's talking about half the time when he shoots his mouth off. LOL (10/21/09) So with the Washington Post formally endorsing Deeds, will McDonnell contine to use quotes from the Post that speak negative of Deeds?.. (10/21/09) Vic Mizzy-TV's Sitcom Theme King in the Examiner: www.examiner.com (10/21/09) Caught John Riggins's rant about Red Zebra (and alleged-NFL football team) owner Dan Snyder while en-route to a client meeting,,,, All I can say is, What a gift of tempered understatement. -Unsigned Corporate Suit (10/21/09) Why does The Baltimore Sun give out the email addresses of people who register to the site? I'm getting spammed dozens of times a day now just from commenting on stories at BaltimoreSun.com! They're listing my email address publicly on BaltimoreSun.com in plain view of anyone who reads the website! This is so wrong. There's also no way to retract a comment, so once your email address is on www.Baltimoresun.com, guess what? You're fucked! BEWARE PEOPLE! (10/21/09) "I thought I had read previously in the DCRTV Mailbag,...banned from posting. Apparently, I am incorrect about this, since another lame post showed up today." You must not read the site much. Too busy putting out a major metropolitan daily? "Dave, this person is not funny. He/she is often offensive." Of course I'm funny! And offensive! "... Please make them go away!" Another Polanski defender checking in from 15th & L? You just go back and tell Nancy Drew, Girl Publisher, that you delivered the message. --- ThePenIsMightier (10/21/09) Does anyone know what happened to the woman who was the General Manager of WJZW ? She did not a good job of handling listener complaints. I'm glad to see that the listeners revolted though the ratings. I certainly hope she is gone. (10/21/09) MSNBC Anchor Introduces Rev. Al Sharpton When She's Really Interviewing Rev. Jesse Jackson www.mediabistro.com (10/21/09) Man, time to get the eyes checked... I thought the name on the front page said, "Chris WalRus". I'm sure he's heard that his whole life. Although, how cool would it have been if he also worked at KUKU (Willow Springs, MO) and KCHU (Valdez, AL)? Say it out loud & you'll get it. (10/21/09) It always amazes me that the Don and Mike ''haters'' are still spewing their lovely brand of vemom. Especially the asshole who just HAD to write about Mike's bed and his ''fat ass''. I'd be willing to bet it took him all day to come up with that sheer brilliant writing. And I love the fact that you cowards are too scared to sign your names. Don and Mikes show ended some time ago. Grow the fuck up and get a life. Can Fox5 possibly get Julie Wright to MAYBE tone down the giggling flirtiness just a few watts? THAT shit is really annoying at 5AM. Paul (10/21/09) Regarding journalistic ethics at the Post -- I recently got into an email disagreement with Andy Alexander over a Post columnist's false and misleading op-ed column about a 2008 Federal Trade Commission case. I won't bore you with all the details, but the relevant points are: (1) the columnist cited confidential FTC reports that were never made available to the public or the defendants in the case and (2) the FTC violated multiple federal laws by removing the independent administrative law judge and replacing him with the FTC commissioner who oversaw the investigation. The columnist never even discussed this latter point, and when I confronted him about it, he said he wasn't going to undermine an FTC case that he actively supported. When I raised the first point to Alexander, he said that the columnist had a right to maintain the confidentiality of his sources. But here's the kicker: One of the FTC commissioners overseeing the case -- now the FTC chairman -- is married to Ruth Marcus, another op-ed columnist at the Post (though not the author of the column in question.) Anyone want to guess how the other columnist got access to confidential FTC reports? And you better believe there was no disclosure of any of this in the paper. Skip Oliva, Charlottesville, Virginia (10/21/09) Try reading posts from ThePenIsMighter with Jim Rome's "have a take and do not suck" voice. It helps. Howie (10/21/09) Jaffe's final line at the end of this www.washingtonian.com - "Why is Downie coauthoring a report on the future of journalism when he is so rooted in the past?" (10/21/09) I am not fan of Mike Wise or the Redskins. However, I have no issue with how the Post handled todays article. Dan Snyder is far better known as the owner of the Redskins then as the owner of WTEM. Snyder has had made himself an easy target for criticism based on the team's performance since he became owner and his boorish actions over the years. The article in the paper today was not a column and it was John Kent Cooke not Wise who slammed Snyder. If Snyder bought The Washington Times, would it then be a conflict of interest for The Washington Post to write at all about the Redskins since they would be competing in the newspaper business? (10/21/09) Dave's response: I agree. Wise's article was very fair and well-written. Think about this, though. What if CBS Radio bought DCRTV? Like Mike Wise, I'm sure, I would still do my best to cover Dan Snyder's WTEM and Snyder himself as fair and balanced as I could. But since I'm now taking a paycheck from a company running a rival station to Snyder's, you might just question if my coverage of WTEM and Snyder is really unbiased. Maybe I'd be so worried about being perceived as anti-Snyder that I'd actually lean too much in his direction and be afraid to attack him when he deserves it. In journalism, "appearance" matters..... I thought I had read previously in the DCRTV Mailbag, that the person who calls him/herself "ThePenIsMightier," had been banned from posting. Apparently, I am incorrect about this, since another lame post showed up today. Dave, this person is not funny. He/she is often offensive. May I suggest that you encourage him/her to start a personal blog - or, perhaps, that he/she channel their material to a local comedy club, on Open Mike Night. This person brings nothing of use or substance to the DCRTV Mailbag. Please make them go away! (10/21/09) I never understood why Clear Channel didn't take some action to change frequencies for co-owned Charlottesville's WCHV 1260 and complain to the FCC about Newark, Delaware's WNWK 1260, which hasn't had a transmitter site for over 12 years now. WNWK should have long ago had its license revoked. If you click on their transmitter site on www.Radio-locator.com, you get a housing development and I think it's been there for over 5 years, possibly 10! The combination of those 2 changes would have allowed WWRC 1260 to not only better cover Virginia with a higher power, but probably reach up to Baltimore. Let's face it, 5000 watts, day or night, is NOT sufficient to cover the Washington market anymore. Not even Baltimore really, except for WCAO 600, but that's only because they're a very low frequency and have an intrinsic advantage. WWRC 1260, like many of Danny Snyder's enterprises, is doomed to epic fail. (10/21/09) Are we experiencing a radio war among print journalist crossovers? Today on the Tony Kornheiser show, TK was lamenting how the AM signal is terrible. He said that if you are on the FM dial and cannot get three times the ratings as someone on an AM station you should be fired. Was this a direct shot at Mike Wise? (TK and Wise are currently tied in the "beauty pageant" ratings.) The barbs continued on the Mike Wise show. In an apparent response to today's rant on DCRTV, Wise said his employment with the Washington Post was not a conflict of interest. Wise revealed that he was offered employment at the other sports talk station for a show that was only two hours. Wise said working for Dan Snyder would be a conflict of interest. Was Wise saying that Thom Loverro was Dan Snyder's second choice for the mid-day show? Or was Wise set to replace John Thompson? (10/21/09) Dave's response: At the VERY least, the WaPo should have run a disclaimer at the end of Wise's John Kent Cooke piece today to inform readers that he does a show on a direct rival radio station to a station owned by Dan Snyder. Whatever contract dance Wise and the Post do, there's no question that Wise has a very real radio-related business (!!!) interest in trashing Snyder - higher ratings and more ad revenue for his WJFK show. I know that nobody likes Snyder, but the Post is being unfair and blatently biased against the Redskins owner when it continues to run Wise's pieces as alleged "fair and balanced journalism"..... And oh yeah something. While we're talking about ince... nepotism at the Post, there was a story by a "Binyamin Appelbaum" who from my limited research is not related to RomanPolanskiconvictedchildrapist defender Anne Applebaum (note the different spellings of the last name) but it's always fun to point out that Washington Post columnist and Editorial Board member Anne Applebaum is a defender of convicted child rapist Roman Polanski. And the new landing page for the WaPo website blows dead bear. Did they test it on more than one browser? Apparently not. Score another one for Nancy Drew, Girl Publisher. --- ThePenIsMightier (10/21/09) HAHAHAAA!!! Another failure of AM radio. At 10:30 this morning I caught WTRI (Radio Earl, 1520) repeatedly stuck on the same thirty seconds of "Whiskey Lullaby" by Brad Paisley. I must have listened to it about 5-6 times before I realized what was (and for all I know may very well still be) happening. The lyrics of that part of the record are: "She put him out like the burnin' end of a midnight cigarette / She broke his heart he spent his whole life tryin' to forget / We watched him drink his pain away a little at a time / But he never could get drunk enough to get her off his mind / Until the night / He put that bottle to his head and pulled the trigger" [rinse and repeat ad infinitum]... KOF (10/21/09) RE: RIGGO Saw the same clip that an earlier poster had commented on regarding Riggo ripping Danny the Douchebag Snyder on the local news. I saw it on NBC4. He asked was it appropriate to be aired on the local news? Why the hell not. At least Riggo and Frank Herzog aren't gonna take any more shit from that little A-hole of an owner and I think it's great. The Redskins have become a joke because of Snyder. Riggo would know having played for them when they were a once great team. Now that all of their press lately is negative tough shit I say. Maybe Snyder will get his head out of his ass and fire himself. At least the fans would have something to cheer about. M/bethesda (10/21/09) Harry Jaffe reports on this: The Washington Post and the Columbia School of Journalism have spent much of this week celebrating the latest report on how to save journalism, this one by former Post editor Leonard Downie and Columbia University professor Michael Schudson. But all the self-congratulation didn’t sit well with Jim Farley, head of news and reporting at WTOP radio, Washington’s all-news station. He called the report’s denigration of radio journalism “thin gruel—not based on any serious research.” The Post devoted a chunk of Monday’s opinion page to a Downie-Schudson essay promoting their ideas, which boil down to suggesting ways for charities, government, and universities to help finance journalism. The new business model, they argue, is handouts and subsidies of various kinds. Post media reporter Howard Kurtz used his Monday media column to give the Downie report more attention. Kurtz focused on the report’s listing of new ventures that show “journalism is being revived and reinvented in some encouraging ways.” But Kurtz also wrote about some of the report’s criticism of news organizations. Downie for years has been frowning on news outlets that, in his view, don’t practice serious journalism. Kurtz wrote: “Commercial radio stations, except for a handful of big-city outlets, do little or no local reporting.” WTOP’s Farley was not amused. The full piece is here: washingtonian.com (10/21/09) (“Mike O'Meara:: So Mike and Carla’s “We Got Married” party was last Saturday. God, I hope a few weeks earlier O'Meara had a "Pre-Nup Party?" [We] kid for we care. Congratulations guys!”) Oh please, please, pretty please Uncle Dave: run that photo of Star Trek Mike & Carla again just for old time’s sake! And were the “Tons of Fun” (at least Mike’s rear end of the deal) couple married by Mr. Spock or Captain Kirk? Inquiring minds wanna know….what a load: I feel sorry for Mike’s kids (“Mommy, mommy, which wife are you?”) Carla and Mike’s bed, which must surely take a beating nightly from his fat ass. And what: no Donnie G. and wife number 15? Too busy trashing people via his Twittering. (10/21/09) A look at that fjallfoss.fcc.gov page shows five STA's, applications and extensions to STA's for WWRC since 2006. They *really* don't want to do any work over there at Brookfield Road, do they? (10/21/09) LIfe is too short to waste time wishing metaphorical lupus on Katie Weymouth for her Dan Snyder-like decision to reformat the Washington Post. But when this malformed abortion of a once-proud newspaper hits my doorstep I begin to reconsider my pro-choice (or is it pro-life?) position. Would Katie ever even be in this position were she not the daughter of Lally Weymouth? I'm sure she's smokin' hot and all, but she effs up everything she touches. I know we'll get used to it but right now when the trauma is still fresh: get rid of the stupid drawings of columnists - you're not the Wall Street Journal, and the drawings are simply not good. Go back to a Health section on Tuesday, not Science - you're not the New York Times. Well, actually, yesterday's Science was pretty good... but the layout still SUCKS Katie. Don't make your editorials wider at the expense of Letters to the Editor - no one cares what your editorial staff thinks. Kudos to the Washington City Paper's recent article on the Post Magazine for reminding us of Post columnist Richard Cohen's racist writings. Hope he doesn't try to buy a football team. And wasn't he adulterously involved with the wife of the then-not-late Peter Jennings up in the NYC? Fine fellow, our Richard. On the sunny side, the Post today ran a worthwhile article on Lou Cibbaro, Jr. who apparently has been writing for the Blade since the days of Oscar Wilde. Who knew? Have you ever looked at the personals in the Blade? That's a wild ride. On the Evil Gay side of the news, Jim "Frames" Graham finally bought a clue and recused himself from DC taxicab matters, a month too late. Sounds like he's got his own personal Steven Gobey. And in some Sad Gay news, the City Paper covered the closing of a sex club at 1618 14th Street NW after the falling death of a patron. Apparently they were a little shloppy about sanitation and a little lax in providing condoms to their largely closeted, furtive clients. Another example of why I'm DC Eagle all the way, Babee! --- ThePenIsMightier (10/21/09) I was just sent a promo piece from something called the Super Mega Fest happening up in Framingham Mass in November. It reads like a combined pop culture/sci-fi/music/classic TV/potpourri hobby show, all in a hotel convention center. Imagine Brent "Data" Spiner, two of The Monkees, porn star Ginger Lynn, a couple of out-of-work actors from the old "Bionic Woman" TV show and a few retired wrestlers all in the same place. All that's missing is the robot from "Lost in Space", the 1928 Porter automobile from "My Mother the Car" and Dwight Schulze from The A-Team. It sounds silly on its face, but if one came to DC, betcha every radio station in town would have a remote booth there. (10/21/09) There was really no need to add Zier to the Roast. He has done been roasted over and over in real life! (10/21/09) More Red Zebra news... WWRC 1260 is apparently having engineering troubles and is going to be operating under Special Temporary Authority at low power. fjallfoss.fcc.gov. Do they even have a chief engineer to oversee the repairs? (10/21/09) Dave, This is a cool new device for comparing the current playlists of UK music stations, and also getting an idea of what’s hot--- www.comparemyradio.com... The London/national stations to compare in the Alternative Rock sector are- Xfm, NME Radio, Absolute Extreme and BBC 6 Music. Cheers, Mark (10/21/09) Dave's response: DC's 105.9 should just plug into a feed of BBC Radio 6. Way cool radio on the ultra cheap. Or, take the BBC 6 Music playlist and slap in on 105.9 with local DJs..... September 2009 marked 60 years since WJMA AM first signed on the air in Orange, Virginia. "Now This" is a documentary on the first 35 years of WJMA radio. The Arts Center In Orange will be hosting a screening of the documentary on Saturday October 24, 2009 at 7pm. "Now This" includes interviews with 30 people who were part of the creation and operation of the radio station during its first 35 years. The video also includes numerous vintage photographs and newspaper articles. One viewer has said "Many stories of extraordinary people and times were told in loving and humorous detail." There is a trailer for "Now This" on YouTube. A web site with lots of old radio station photos and some audio clips is on-line at www.wjma.radiohistory.net. A longer version of the documentary with an additional 30 minutes of video and a second disc of "extras" will be released later this fall. Copies will be available at the branches of the Orange County Public Library and for sale at various locations. The Arts Center In Orange is located at 129 East Main Street in Orange. Phone 540-672-7311 or email: theartsorange@aol.com. (10/21/09) Once again WYPO has not audio since last night. Aren't non-comm's in the middle of a fund drive? Who really needs another NPR station in Ocean City, when WSDL covers three times the area with local news and weather, plus the top NPR programs. Now if they would just flip the Classical to 90.7 and the News/Talk to 89.5, that would be a real winner. (10/21/09) Wonder what’s up with the Rug Man? Seems to be taking an awful lot of time off. Bad enough Channel 4 lost its weekend weather guy. Doug Hill always seems to be off. At least Topper comes to work… (10/21/09) Mike O'Meara:: So Mike and Carla’s “We Got Married” party was last Saturday. God, I hope a few weeks earlier O'Meara had a "Pre-Nup Party?" [We] kid for we care. Congratulations guys! (10/21/09) When I saw Windows Vista on my in-laws' PC ("please fix this thing", they had said to me), I knew I would never voluntarily allow that mess into anything I owned. Fortunately, even Microsoft had to agree with me--this computer I'm typing on is only 5 months old and came with XP. I agree that "upgrading" an OS is an unnecessary headache, but if you currently have Vista you probably have a large supply of headache remedy on hand. The thing is, no Microsoft product should be touched until _at_least_ SP1 is released for it. What I don't get, though, is why this new thing is called Windows "7". Is Microsoft officially disowning several preceding Windows versions? Not that I would blame them... Oh, wait--remember when they bumped Word from version "2" to version "6", just because WordPerfect was then at version 6? Maybe they're hoping that giving the new Windows the number "7" will change their luck. All the Vista users are certainly hoping for a change in _their_ luck. (10/21/09) Re: "There are a lot of home-PC virus protection optoins available for free download. I personally recommend Avast." I agree that Avast is a great product, but only if you load it onto a computer running Windows XP. If you load it onto a computer running Vista and and you use Firefox, it'll freeze Firefox every few minutes. So you end up having to uninstall Avast or using IE which is the worst browser on the market. So, once again, another bug in the Vista operating system. Avast doesn't freeze Firefox on a computer running XP. And the entire Windows operating system sucks. Ask anyone with a Mac. (10/21/09) "Dave, I had a chance recently to read the Tampa Tribune's print edition, and that paper looks as emaciated as its sister publication in Baltimore." Er, the Tampa Tribune is not owned by the Tribune Co., which publishes the Sun; it is owned by Media General, which publishes the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the Winston-Salem Journal and locally the News & Messenger in Prince William County. -- Vincent in Triangle (10/21/09) So one of the lead stories on tonight's 7pm news on WUSA was Derek McGinty reporting on John Riggins' call-in show from earlier in the day on WTOP. Riggins and Frank Herzog ripped Danny Snyder pretty bad. One of the quotes that aired on the WUSA story (I wasn't paying 100% attention, so I don't have the exact quote) referred to the castration of Jim Zorn...one teste at a time. I'm going to go to wtop.com and listen to the archived audio. Was it really appropriate for WUSA to air that quote on a newscast? BG in Reston (10/21/09) A friend sent this to me. Kind of fun to see and compare to today. These jocks were on before you arrived to the area, but I have to tell you, Bob Raleigh and Felix Grant were gods in our house. Your pal, Buzz McClain (10/21/09) "You must have been downloading cheesy MP3s from the Internet all your life, and that is your point of reference." I said "CD" and I know the difference between the various bitrates, compressions, and PCM on a CD. Say what you want if you listen in a studio, but in my car at 70mph, HD over FM sounds just like a CD--not FM, not MP3--and my HD radio with its CD/MP3 player plays those, too, so I am able to compare. Why go out of the existing bands for digital? Split them and go full power on digital so no user equipment needs to become obsolete. Another standard or another part of the spectrum at this point as a replacement (e.g. satrad) and it will probably die along with what we already have now--which does work albeit not as well as it could. (10/21/09) /\ October 21 Messages /\ \/ October 20 Messages \/ HD RADIO just like AM STEREO is already a CONFIRMED FAILURE. The FCC needs to yank the 8 or so stations on channel 6 in the country and come up with and ALL-DIGITAL FM RADIO PLAN. And work on a total AM DIGITAL plan that cleans up the dial and makes it listenable. The current HD-Radio plan, both FM and AM is EPIC FAIL! (10/20/09) Also- If Congress enabled the number of stations to be reduced, the HD Radio system would work just fine with elevated HD power level. Simply eliminating station spacings that do not meet rule 73.207 would enable more HD power. The solution for IBOC digital radio is fewer stations. Radio needs to deliver content digitally. But why must iBiquity degrade and harm analog to validate their system? It's like iBiquity has to poison analog to make their HD Radio system seem better. (10/20/09) While attempting to comment on several Baltimore Sun stories, I discovered PROOF the website is run by monkeys... "There were errors processing your information. Please correct the following: The text "who re" was identified as questionable language."........ I typed "who refused" & "who read" and both times this error came up. Obviously, it's clear that The Sun does not allow the word "WHORE" even when it even isn't that word! IDIOTS IN BANKRUPTCY! NO WONDER! LOL (10/20/09) RE: "HD Radio..it sounds just like a CD" You must have been downloading cheesy MP3s from the Internet all your life, and that is your point of reference. HD Radio runs at 96 kilobits per second, a CD runs at about 1.41 million bits per second. The key point is we have not heard the HD Radio system pressed to the edge like nearly every analog FM station is processed. What will the 96 Kbps HD Radio stream sound like when programmers A-B the signals against each other, and the 5 db headroom advantage (of HD over analog) is traded for loudness? True, HD does not have to fight pre-emphasis or reception difficulties, but from that point on it is an audio quagmire. (10/20/09) George Longwell.........any relation to Bob Longwell who managed WXTR and WGAY in the early 90's? (10/20/09) (Dave said: The problem with getting the power up for HD Radio is that it will further reduce the coverage of analog stations on adjacent channels. The digital signal creates an audible "buzz" on either side of the main agalog channel...) Yeah, but I have an HD radio so I wouldn't hear any buzz! ;-) Look, I'm no fan of iBiquity and their proprietary data stream on public airwaves and I don't know what other mailbaggers have that sours them on the quality--but when my radio goes from analog to digital, it sounds just like a CD with comparable S/N. What's left of AM HD sounds like FM. Channel separation is amazing. I want to hear that more often and we are not going to get rid of that standard nor the royalties to iBiquity. So get the power up on digital and, you're right, change the station freqs if necessary to separate HDs from analogs and stop this mish-mash hybrid crap! (10/20/09) Dave's response: I listened to WMAL when it ran HD Radio on 630 AM and it sounded magnificent. Like FM. Expect, of course, at night and when there were thunderstorms or other static. At night, with skywave signals taking over the AM band, signal strength of all but a handful of locals becomes an ever-changing thing. And because of that, HD Radio simply doesn't work right. If the FCC created a dedicated digital radio band, a la in the 200 or 300 MHz range like some of the European nations did, then ALL stations, including AM and FM, could run at full digital power (!) and have great local coverage without degrading their analog signals. Yeah, that would mean that all current HD Radio receivers would become doorstops. The Fucked Communications Commission dropped the ball on digital radio in the USA - big time. And we're now paying for that blunder with a crummy digital radio service that doesn't work for all stations and has serious coverage problems..... Pat Lawson Muse was very funny tonight on channel 4's 4:00 News. In commenting on the NBC News series, "A Woman's Nation," she said, "Women have balls...to juggle." I think the humor was unintentional (I think). -- Bobbie (10/20/09) I done been running Windows 7 since August, when it became available, in its final form, to MSDN subscribers such as myself. It has the usual familiarity problems that result from Microsoft's desire to make changes to the user interface whether they are needed or not. My attempt to perform what Microsoft calls an in-place upgrade from Vista was a disaster. I was instructed by Windows 7's installer to remove several programs for incompatibility reasons. After I did that, Windows 7 installed apparently okay. However, one program from Microsoft had a fit. I deinstalled it and tried to reinstall it. Refusal. I phoned Redmond who informed me that support for Windows 7 wouldn't be available until October. This was in August. I completely backed up my computer and wiped the hard drive. I installed Windows 7 fresh. Then I began loading files from my backup device which, wouldn't you know it, decided to take a powder half-way through. One Thousand Five Hundred dollars and one month later I got my backup data back and three devices to replace the one device that had failed (twice). I decided toys that cost around $600 are not reliable enough for my purposes. Some people only lose irreplaceable family photos. I could lose 20 years of software I have developed. So now I have a RAID-5 server, which I recommend to everyone if you have the means. Having gotten over the XP-to-Vista familiarity hump some years ago, I found Windows 7 to be Vista with fewer annoyances. They have, in fact, fixed several longstanding Vista bugs. Considering Microsoft's history, I'd say they worked out the major kinks in W7 before release this time. I use Audacity to record from my sound card. Pretty great and no cost, too. I use Adobe Audition to edit WAV files. It does a fine job removing impulse noise from LPs. Its direct antecedant is Cool Edit 2000, which does NOT run on Vista or W7. I use Exact Audio Copy to legally "rip" from CDs. (10/20/09) Oh yes Chad Dukes. I use to think that Elvis was 'The Thing' but I will now will cup my flushed red face and will scream for the gawdalmighty NFL now that I know that they are number one. Oh Chad, you are so smart. I just know you are dreamy. Daddy says that you are a transparent parasitic suck up to the cash register NFL radio sports mafia, but I know you are smart and dreamy and will listen to your sweet voice until I die. (10/20/09) According to a previous mailbagger, NPR opposes an increase of HD power to 10% (it's only 1% now??!!!). But NPR wants to sell dedicated Wi-Fi radios for $199? WTH? Is this the reason why I can't get Jack FM or 98Rock on HD Radio down here? I barely get the HD stream from them as it is so 10% would probably lock it in. Screw NPR, get the HD power up! (10/20/09) Dave's response: The problem with getting the power up for HD Radio is that it will further reduce the coverage of analog stations on adjacent channels. The digital signal creates an audible "buzz" on either side of the main analog channel. Listeners in DC will still be able to hear DC FM radio stations, but you might have trouble listening to FM stations in places like Baltimore, Fredericksburg, and Frederick. The FCC needs to go back to the drawing board and create a digital-only radio band (for both AM and FM stations) and stop "piggy backing" stations' digital signals in the analog FM and AM bands. It's a mess..... (regarding the software & operating system chatter posts) I've been a happy owner of a Macintosh since they came out in 1984. I upgraded desktop Macs in '92 & '97 and got my first iBook in 2005. I've never had a bit of trouble with any of 'em and I've never lost a minute of sleep over security or virus worries. Also, I'm a big fan of Audacity. (10/20/09) Indeed. Forget Adobe Audition and ProTools LE. The first is too much of hassle to purchase. The second is 4X the cost of the former..or more. I have had excellent results with Audacity on more than one occassion. The most recent though convinced me to stick with it. Client has on-air computer and production computer. Prod machine had some CoolEdit like app from 10 yrs ago. Hard drive died. Emailed the customer support to find out how to xfer licensce. No response. Called customer support. Next day get a call telling me that they need the original serial number and they can email me a new key to allow a new install. I explained the hardrive died but I could provide proof of purchase. Nope...gotta have the S/N from the install. Site also need soundcard,,,forget that driver hassle. Got a $79 USB audio I/F from local music shop. Plug and Play. Came with CuBase LE. I figured cool, edit issues resolved. Installed it,,,and then got the registration and demo-mode run around. So I downloaded Audacity..didn't take what, 15 mins from download to operating. No registration crap, no licensce crap, just no crap. Hard to justify the rest of the options when you are billing by the hour and trying to justify your invoice. Go Audacity. (10/20/09) A penny for your thoughts, Citadel. KOF (10/20/09) To answer my own question, Citadel Broadcasting is still $00.01 a share (says ADVFN.COM) and has been so since March. I've bought pricier gumballs at the barbershop. (10/20/09) Ignorant Mailbagger wrote: "Limbaugh is fat, rich, and too isolated at his 'Southern Command.'" Well, you got two out of three right. (Seen any recent photos of Rush?) That puts you about 30% behind Rush's percentage of being right. Christian (10/20/09) Dave, I flew off the handle and just e-mailed in response to someone I labeled an "ignorant Mailbagger." I instantly regretted hitting the "send" button. I apologize to the Mailbag participant, whose post is not at all ignorant (although I disagree that Rush is "fat" these days) and to you, for sullying the Mailbag. Christian (10/20/09) Although I know the FCC turned him down, does anyone know the name of the city closer to DC that Dan Snyder wanted to move his FM 92.7, (currently licensed to Prince Frederick)? (10/20/09) Dave's response: Wasn't it Dunkirk? For all Robb fans, he has a new site www.robbradio.com. There you'll find links to his shows from KCJJ and the Beatles anthology and a little news about what's going on in his life. Enjoy! CC (10/20/09) Dave, I've got to disagree with you on two points on Windows: 1) Microsoft's history is of putting our terrible product every other release. Windows 2.0, crap, 3.0..kinda crappy, but good by 3.1. Windows Bob...terrible...windows 95, pretty good, especially by SP2. Windows ME -> XP. Vista -> 7. Each major update to the OS required a shakedown release unfortunately. I've been running 7 for two months now and it is by far the smoothest new product launch I've seen from Microsoft. Now, granted, Vista was a catastrophe, but they're getting much better at turning the corner from one launch to the next. So I'm not as much defending Microsoft here as I am Windows 7...it really is pretty good. 2) As for virus protection, you don't have to pay for it. I can't disagree that Microsoft shouldn't do a better job of providing secure code, but to a degree, that's the penalty for versatility. There are a lot of home-PC virus protection optoins available for free download. I personally recommend Avast! (www.avast.com). -Grant in Laurel (10/20/09) Alvin - You might want to give thought to another editor: Cool Edit 2.0 is six years out of date. Once Adobe bought it off of Syntrillium in 2003, that was the end of Cool Edit as we knew it. I still use it and like it a lot, but I would give consideration to other editors that have evolved with the times. SAWStudio is still valid, if a little awkward. ProTools LE is everywhere, but only works with ProTools hardware. Audacity and Traverso are free. Samplitude has the best pitch- and time-squeeze algo out there. Adobe's Soundbooth is basically Audition with a limited feature set. Even the Cakewalk cheapies at Best Buy sound pretty decent. And if you bail off of Windows entirely, there's always Logic for the Mac operating system and Ardour for the Linux platform. Your call. -AP (10/20/09) RE: " 27) WILC and WDCN and WFED and WAFY and WACA "......... All tied at #27, are you kidding me??? A low power TV station, an out of market station and 2 crappy signals all tied with a 50,000 watt blow torch that reaches up and down the east coast at night? Wonderful usage of a 50,000 watt blowtorch. Geez, would Bonneville make any less money airing the Club Fed crap on AM 1050 with it now being 10,000 watts? I think not. What a complete utter waste of a CLASS A station! At least the Brits listening in the UK at night have a better understanding of how stupid our government & the Mormon church is though. LOL (10/20/09) Both WTOP and WTEM web streams showed up in Arbitron. (10/20/09) "Let's go to Dick in Fairfax!"---You know, Dave...A wise man once said that "It takes a tender man to make a tender chicken" and because of this I'd like to request that this post be removed expeditiously as it is offensive to dicks and the surrounding areas of Fairfax! -ThatThingIsMightier (10/20/09) Anyone know what this is all about? washingtondc.craigslist.org... It's a locally based online brokered radio station, looking - oddly enough - for "good looking radio hosts". Man, if no one's listening to the brokered ones in town now, who's gonna go up to the web to do the same? And who cares how the hosts look? (10/20/09) RE: Attention Alvin G. Lawton - You say I gotta call the utilities?? Aaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwww sh-t! Just kidding! I completely forgot about that "little part!" I'll make sure I do that BEFORE I drive that pole into the ground! Now let me add my two cents in on Vista/Windows 7. I purchased a Sony laptop a year ago and an E machine with Vista Home premium on both! I was very pleased with it's performance! The only problem was the IE browser. It would crash almost anytime you hit the "back" button. After I download IE 8 I have no problems at all running it! One thing I noticed with the desktop, if you ad extra memory (I'm using 5GB) and a seperate video card (not that shared memory garbage) it will speed things up nicely! As soon as Best Buy puts togethor an E machine package with Windows 7 on it I'll get that and hold off on the Windows 7 upgrades on the other two when the SP1 upgrade comes out! Can anyone tell me if Cool Edit Version 2 will work on 64 bit Windows 7? Signed, Alvin G. Lawton (A Very Happy Vista User!) (10/20/09) Virus protection? Never heard of it PC. What is that used for & why would anyone buying Windows 7 even need it? Signed - Justin Long. :-) (10/20/09) Re: Dave, I had a chance recently to read the Tampa Tribune's print edition, and that paper looks as emaciated as its sister publication in Baltimore..... Actually, The Tampa Tribune is a sister paper of the Times-Dispatch, NOT the Sun. Tampa and Richmond are both published by Media General. Charles in Winchester (10/20/09) Doug wants too much money for Citadel's blood. There were two reasons Citadel hired back Plante: Most important, they were supposedly having unrest from Grandpa and Gopher. Grandpa was supposedly ready to quit after that extra hour was thrown on. And, AM drive would've died w/Gopher teamed w/Nehman. And, Joe and Mika were doing as well here as Imus did. So, what could they do? They couldn't get Core back. So, they went with the cheapest alternative: They re-hired Plante. However, the deal likely isn't as sweet as he'd liked. Citadel is but one of several operations where the band is rehearsing "Nearer My God to Thee". There are others where the empty cubes far outnumber the occupied ones. On another subject, isn't the "White House Declares War on Fox News" timing interesting so soon after Axelrod met with Ailes? Remember what I said? I knew something was coming, but couldn't say for certain last week. Watch for a real push/shove in the last week before the elections in NJ and VA. Obama is not willing to give up VA without a gopd old-fashioned Chicago fight, although he'd willing to let it go. That's why he's touring on the 27th w/Deeds. What the operatives are afraid of is what happens if Chris Christie wins NJ w/a sizable margin. If he does, and McDonnell has a big win in VA, the gloves come off at the FCC. Ironically, it's not Limbaugh that they're going after. It's Hannity. He's actually more potent than Limbaugh. Limbaugh is even more full of himself than Hannity is. Limbaugh is fat, rich, and too isolated at his "Southern Command", while Hannity is scrappier and hungrier than Limbaugh. Hannity is scared to death that all he has is going to be taken from him. Limbaugh is much further away from the insecurity and discomfort of roach-trap apartments, clunker used cars, and living paycheck-to-paycheck than Hannity is. Hannity remembers those days all too well. And, he's scared shitless of giving up the Long Island mansion, the hybrid Escalade, etc. Watch all hell start breaking loose if the Democrats lose NJ on 11/3. (10/20/09) OK, so much for Radio One's stock. What's the latest with Citadel? Can you still get 500 shares in exchange for a Bit O'Honey and a Soupy Sales trading card? (10/20/09) Dave's response: You know, if you bought Radio One stock at 20-cents per share, your stock value would have jumped more than 500 percent. Imagine that..... Dave: I couldn't agree with you more on your Windows rant. However, I have never been able to get Vista working properly on my home computer; so I'll be one of those suckers who gets Windows 7 as soon as an upgrade for Vista is released. Vista has been by far the worst Windows release, imho. (Shawn in DC) (10/20/09) Dave's response: I like to consider the operating system to be a "part" of the computer. You just don't fuck with it. If you want Windows 7, buy it on a new comnputer. You can pick up a cheapo desktop at MicroCenter or Best Buy for $500-ish. Might be a better use of your money than by coughing up $120 for an upgrade copy of Windows 7 that may or may not work right on your current system..... (RE Today's Rant: While you're right that many Microsoft products are initially "buggy," my experience in several months of using an authorized "evaluation copy" of Windows 7 (legally downloaded from Microsoft) I can tell you it's far more stable than you might expect. I think you'd be quite happy with its performance. Whether it's worth $120 to you is your decision. I'm not a spokesman, a salesman, or a shill, just a happy Windows 7 user. (10/20/09) Dave's response: Oh, and don't get me started on why Windows doesn't have built-in virus protection. No, you have to pay extra to a 3rd party (or to Microsloth) to protect the operating system from viruses due to way too many faults in the original operating system itself. I know, it's a big corrupt scam to fund millions to the companies that make virus scanning software (hello Symantec!), but it should be included with the operating system, shouldn't it? Sheesh..... Dave, at 10:55 this morning on WMAL (home of the Grandy and Andy Morning Show) Chris Plante said "Let's go to Dick in Fairfax!" Is there perhaps something you'd like to tell us? --- ThePenIsMightier (10/20/09) Tell them, Glenn Beck, it's unAmerican to volunteer in the community, to donate some of your personal time and effort to create a more common good in our nation! If there's old people in your neighborhood that need assistance, tell them to go fu*&k themselves, they must be traitors needing help!!! You tell them, Glenn Beck, how it's every man for himself, American Darwinism!! Now that I'm done with the sarchastic rant, can somebody rationally explain how volunteerism is bad for America, hell, the state of Tennessee refers to themselves as volunteers. Should we deport them from the Union? Please let us know how in the hell Glenn Beck's comments have any validity at all... (10/20/09) If the Yankees/Angels game finished in 9 innings, it would have finished around 7:50 (I was home to watch the last few innings). House started at 8:45 last night and aired the entire episode. I think FOX was smart to try and get the baseball game in hence the 4 PM start time because House is a consistent top 20 viewed show. Mike in Alexandria (10/20/09) The Sun's Dan Rodericks edited his WBAL TV Channel 2 flub to fix it, so apparently DCRTV does have some influence, hehe. Sun cartoonist Mike Ricigliano sat next to the Bob Irsay doll in protest of the Colts move from Baltimore while at an Eagles/Colts game in Philly. Of course this got absolutely no national media attention at the time, I'm even shocked there's still even a pic of it! This pic is hysterical, but nobody nationally or probably even in DC saw it unlike all the Browns move hoopla. I wish WBAL TV would release those old Chris Thomas taped skits with the doll. I'd pay to buy those. The one of the Irsay doll puking in the Inner Harbor that aired on WBAL TV was priceless. By the way, they paid for a seat at Veteran's Stadium for the doll to stage this protest but its doubtful anyone even saw it other than the Eagles fans who were at the stadium that day. There was virtually no media coverage of this outside of Baltimore. This kind of explains why famed director Barry Levinson felt compelled to film this documentary. He'd been trying to do it for years, finally ESPN stepped up to the plate to tell the story. Kudos to ESPN. Unfortunately, The Baltmore Sun has virtually no journalist left even qualified or informed enough to tell the story, so Hollywood had to step in. Go figure. (10/20/09) Dave you're right about last night's baseball game running over. The game ended around 8:35PM in the 11th inning with the Yankees losing. I wasn't home when the game ended, so I don't know what time HOUSE came on. I do know FOX aired the whole show and the whole episode of LIE TO ME. FOX also does not schedule enough time for the game. The had it scheduled as 4PM-7PM. Most games last longer than 3 hours and the game didn't even start until about 12 or 13 after 4PM. Even though it still would've ran over they should've scheduled it 4PM-8PM. Yesterday my local FOX Station's schedule was supposed to be as follows: 2PM The Doctors (Pre-empting Jerry Springer)... 3PM Dr. OZ (Pre-empting Steve Wilcos)... 4PM Yankees @ Angels (Pre-empting The Doctors, Dr. Oz, and Family Guy)... 7PM Two and a Half Men x 2... 8PM FOX Prime Time... 10PM FOX 61 News @ 10... 11PM FOX 61 News @ 11... Since Jerry, Steve, Family Guy, and Two and a Half Men were all pre-empted they all have to be reschduled. Jerry and Steve will end up on the overnight schedule either on FOX 61 or sister station CW20. FG and Two and a Half Men will probably be double-run on the weekend. (10/20/09) Spooky Movie - The Washington D.C. International Horror Film Festival www.thespookymovie.com got a nice write up in today's Washington Post style section www.washingtonpost.com. Tomorrow night is opening night at the AFI Silver Theatre with director Herschell Gordon Lewis in town to present the 45th Anniversary Screening of TWO THOUSAND MANIACS! Over 40 features and shorts will follow through Sunday, October 25, at Cinema Arts Theatre in Fairfax, VA. Here's the festival trailer. (10/20/09) "I've always been annoyed by the way WAMU shamelessly presents stories from the Wapo as their own news without attribution." The Associated Press is a news cooperative that shares stories among members. Stations that PAY for A.P. service (WAMU, WTOP, WMAL) have a right to use those stories without attribution. Stations that do NOT pay for A.P. service that use them are stealing. (10/20/09) WOW writes, "Get a life, better yet sign the post you a****le! You think you can do better than either of them?" - - But, WOW didn't SIGN her post. Mike Joseph (10/20/09) (All stations now play PSA's to fill for network timing obligations and their strict adherence to the Sarbanes/Oxley act which requires broadcasters to reflect exactly what commercials they play, at what time, for how much and every other detail) Actually, if a station has a good sales department, they have sold out their station and they don't need PSA's to fill for network timing obligations. Or, they can grab that instrumental tune from the cart rack, and fade it into the network news... P.S. - only publicly traded companies need to adhere to the Sarbanes/Oxley act. (10/20/090 Dave, I listen to WTOP during my morning commute from 7-7:30am every morning, and the last several weeks I’ve noticed an annoying trend. They skip on most local news during this half hour and focus on H1N1 and transportation issues. While I want to hear about these issues, I feel like I am going to have to find another station to listen to if I want to hear local news. David (10/20/09) Re Dave Loudin - [Fish in a barrel time: (1) Although there may be breaks where PSAs are run, I've heard more and more sponsors (Wal*Mart and Mervis) on WJFK-FM lately] Mervis - good shot at the fish. Wal*Mart - nothing more than Westwood One inventory that they are required to run after stealing away - I mean - getting the rights to sports from WTEM. Wal*Mart doesn't buy locally. They don't have to. (10/20/09) Faux Nooz self-proclaimed "Rodeo Clown" Glenn Beck now believes people who volunteer in their communities are "Communists". We get it Beck...we understand you have a pathological opposition to anything said by our President...but isn't this foolishness getting to the point where if Obama ate a BLT for lunch, Glenn Beck and his flying monkeys would come out tomorrow calling for a national boycott of BACON?? Other than waiting for the trainwreck to come, can anyone explain why is this tool is still on television? (10/20/09) PROGRAMMING NOTE: ESPN 2 is re-airing Barry Levinson's critically acclaimed documentary "The Band That Wouldn't Die" at 8PM Wednesday night. I think this film should be required viewing for all snobby Washington and national media that often ridicule Baltimore for its inferiority complex or small town fixation on The Colts. It's about as clear an example as you can get of how differently the media covered the Baltimore story as opposed to, for instance, The Browns leaving Cleveland, or even The Raiders leaving Oakland. Most people in the national media or even our current local media don't even know the Baltimore story. For instance, even Baltimore's own, The Baltimore Sun's Dan Rodericks, penned a story in today's paper about the movie and referred to WBAL Channel 2 and its coverage with the late Chris Thomas. How does someone who's lived in Baltimore most of his life get that wrong? www.baltimoresun.com... For anyone from Cleveland who's still got a huge Art Modell grudge, I suggest watching the movie too, especially the infamous WJZ clip of Robert Irsay shouting obscenities and out-right lies at local reporters at BWI Airport that was aired LIVE on WJZ 13 unedited including the swear words. Today, such an occurrence would result in an FCC fine and the story would be the top news on ESPN and FOX Sports radio and TV. And who knows, The Colts might not have even moved to Indy as a result or at least the team name might have stayed in Baltimore where it belonged. People from Cleveland and the bay area should feel damn lucky after watching this movie. (10/20/09) Didn't hear anything about MPT's 40th Anniversary on DCRTV and it was kind of buried in The Sun too, but David Zurawik always has politics on his mind instead of covering local TV. Some interesting people in the pics though, including film director John Waters... www.baltimoresun.com (10/20/09) Fish in a barrel time: (1) Although there may be breaks where PSAs are run, I've heard more and more sponsors (Wal*Mart and Mervis) on WJFK-FM lately. The sales dept. seems to be closing more deals. You hear 94.7 mentioned on legal IDs because 'JFK is being simulcast on WTGB-HD2, and the FCC requires legal IDs on all HD subchannels. (2) The FCC doesn't "want" to do anything with applications except process them according to their regulations. Red Zebra's applications to change the communities of license for their FMs were defective. An amendment to the 94.3 app fixed the problem (you have to prove that a fully-spaced station can actually be located near the COL.) Regards, Dave Loudin (10/20/09) Dave, I had a chance recently to read the Tampa Tribune's print edition, and that paper looks as emaciated as its sister publication in Baltimore. Same narrow page width and same skimpiness of news coverage - when I first picked up a copy, for a minute I thought I had left some sections in the store rack by mistake. The paper is far inferior to its competitor across the bay, the St. Petersburg Times, and I wasn't surprised to learn that the locally owned Times has a higher circulation. While I don't pretend to know how to make newspapers profitable in the digital age, I do know that trimming news staffs to save money is like trying to cure a kidney patient by removing one of the lungs. (10/20/09) Dave's response: I hear if from a lot of people. All the changes at the Post are actually moving people closer to the day that that they are going cancel the thing. The whole redesign thing, while the paper may look "pretty," is actually a way of disguising the fact that there's less content in the thing. Bigger pics, more headlines and white space, with larger, clearer text. And less news..... (RE: Moving WWXX 94.3's city of license:) Buckland, Virginia Here's the app... fjallfoss.fcc.gov... What's most interesting is that there was a removal of all grandfathered FM short spacings in the amended app, so it appears the FCC was at the very least suspicious of Red Zebra's motives for both of these simultaneous moves with 2 FM stations near DC. (10/20/09) ATTENTION Alvin G. Lawton!!! Before driving that copper ground rod, remember to call Miss Utility!! Just because the interfaces are on one side of the house doesn't mean the crew wasn't a little happy that day and got creative. And just because the lines are supposed to be a couple feet below ground level doesn'r make it so. Be careful. (10/20/09) Has WTTG expanded NewsEdge?? It's 11:48 and the Simpsons still aren't on. Have they dumped the Simpsons completely? or am I not paying enough attention? On a completely other note, GreaseMan on 105.9? sounds SCHWEET and all, but don't he have commitments to WFYV in Jacksonville right now? Would he do both slots? why not Mike O'Meara for mornings? that would be pretty fucking cool......... (10/20/09) Dave's response: Baseball playoff overrun on 5? RE: "If you haven't noticed, WFAN 1067 is still playing a healthy dose of PSA's to fill out their ad schedule. This means that they may not be having much luck selling spots with the new flip." Sorry, you're wrong. All stations now play PSA's to fill for network timing obligations and their strict adherence to the Sarbanes/Oxley act which requires broadcasters to reflect exactly what commercials they play, at what time, for how much and every other detail. So, broadcasters can now longer "bonus" un-paid commercials unless those "unpaid" commercials are intended to be played and on the station log. Also, when the corporate parent sees that a station is playing "unpaid" commercials, the local manager must answer as to why. Therefore, if a "Board-operator" needs to fill time between a local show or event, she or he must play PSA's to "backtime" into the network (ESPN, FOX, CBS, ABC, NBC, ...). WJFK-FM is doing great commercial wise. Also makes you realize how the recession has hurt the broadcast industry. There isn't a business has not been affected in this historic time reference. (10/20/09) RE: “If Citadel would have put together a local staff for WJZW True Oldies and done any promotion, it would have had a top radio station, just like WCBS-FM in New York or WOGL-FM in Philadelphia.”…And, pros like Ken Merson, Johnny Dark, Kathy Whiteside and other gifted and admired radio talents remain off the air in DC/Baltimore. Unbelievable and shameful! (10/20/09) Newspapers shouldn't be endorsing ANY political candidate, EVER! ... I don't CARE that it's traditional for an editorial board to writes a biannual endorsement, effectively giving readers a holier-than-thou "we think Candidate A is the best person for the job" message! I DO NOT CARE! In this day and age, in fact, I find it inappropriate to the mission of a newsgathering organization, print or otherwise ... It's up to the newspaper staff and editors to REPORT on what's happening, NOT make headlines themselves. We certainly don't hear television anchors throw their support to campaigning politicians in between sports and weather! (10/20/09) There is a significant improvement in the WKHS signal over a wide area since the upgrade. I receive a steady signal in my car around Easton and in southern Caroline County where reception was spotty at best before. I also noticed a very strong signal around Annapolis and on the west and north sides of Baltimore, areas where reception was problematic before. Thanks WKHS/WXPN and hopefully this will translate into more listeners in those areas. (10/20/09) Just read the mailbag. Some clarifications: Grease was on DC101 Saturday mornings as recently as last year. To say he hasn't been on a "real" radio station in market for decades is wrong. Elliot being afraid of a new show on the Edge? Everyone is giving alot of credit to a show that has dropped in the PPM world. Isn't he losing to Kane and the Junkies in most demos? (10/20/09) Has anyone actually heard Grease's Jacksonville show as of late? Because I am unable to. Is he *truly* still doing 80's vintage material; i.e., Clinton & the Punk etc? Because if he isn't, then its unfair for us to make these kinds of judgments. Sure, after close to 11 years of being both off-air and on underperforming D.C. stations using his tried-&-true legacy material, the act has withered and become a relic. It could be possible though that he may have finally evolved the routine into something modern. However, since it's Classic Rock, then he might also fit in as a nostalgia act -- "Grease in the Mornings on the Edge: the same crap you laughed at in 1985 and the same music to boot." I love Doug to death, same as many other broadcasters posting here. But I truly think the show - in the form we are most familiar with - cannot sustain itself today. Much like Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. Or even Howard. (10/20/09) /\ October 20 Messages /\ Jump to the Mailbag Archive Index.....