''KPTK rearranges the furniture''

"It gripes our ass.

Seattle finally gets a liberal talk radio station carrying Air America and other liberals, but it's owned by Infinity Broadcasting--the cheapest company in radio--the one least likely to take a risk. This from Bill Virgin's Radio Beat in today's Seattle Post Intelligencer: "KPTK-AM (1090) is shuffling its weekday lineup to emphasize West Coast hosts beginning Monday. Stephanie Miller's Los Angeles-based show takes over the 6-9 a.m. slot currently held by "Morning Sedition," which moves to 3-5 a.m. Thom Hartmann's show, originating in Portland, takes over the 9 a.m.-noon slot currently held by Al Franken, who moves to 3-6 p.m. Ed Schultz stays at noon-3 p.m., while Randi Rhodes takes the 6-10 p.m. slot and Mike Malloy is heard 10 p.m.-1 a.m."

Yes, KPTK is rearranging the furniture... Stephanie Miller will be live. Thom Hartmann will be live. Morning Sedition will be live if you want to podcast it or get up in the middle of the night. Al Franken will be pre-recorded, which doesn't matter so much since he doesn't take many callers, but we'll lose Randi Rhodes in living color and Janeane Garofalo and Sam Seder's Majority Report altogether. We're fans of both Miller and Hartmann--but this reshuffling is a lateral move at best. Infinity's trying to plump up KPTK's piss-poor ratings without spending any money. These syndicated shows don't cost them a dime and since Infinity doesn't seem to know much or give a shit about talk radio, they won't make an investment in local programming, which would, by our lights, make a huge difference.

Local blabberjockeys like Dave Ross, John Carlson, Dori Monson--even Mike Webb are paid well (even overpaid in some obvious cases). Because we're liberals political activists and and support lib-talk down to the short strokes, we've tried to put lipstick on this pig any number of times and we've yelled at 'em--to no avail. We're starting to give up on 'em.

What's sad is, that while we and many others have tried and given up, so many more people haven't even tuned in. (Portland's KPOJ, the most successful liberal talker in the country, brought Thom Harmann out from Vermont to do a 6-9a local show, which precedes his syndicated one which KPTK will carry. They invested in liberal radio and reap the benefits.)

KPTK isn't serious about talk radio. They have their KMPS, Seattle's long time top-rated station which plays shit-kicker music to the washed masses, plus some other big music stations--so what the hell. We get letters like this:

"I have stopped listening to 1090AM. Why bother? I have XM radio and I can Air America anywhere. I have called 1090, I have emailed them, I have even sent them a cake with the words: "Local Talent: Get a clue", but obviously they don't care. So if they don't care, I don't care. My only dream at this point is that KIRO yanks the AAR format away from 1090 and gives us the best of both worlds."

They've blown public relations opportunities and stiffed listeners for the community touch that makes for station loyalty--despite even the ad-rate advantage to having local jocks with a "live" book and endorsement ads. They have a liberal book club and an hour of traffic reporter Tami Kosch doing "community matters" at 6-7a Saturdays and those PSA's and community bulletins, but these things are just window dressing to real community-building. Meanwhile, KVI, the right-wing station overcame the huge ratings blow of losing Rush Limpjaw to KTTH; and they did it by having local jocks, doing local issues while KTTH with Big Pants and marginal local programming is on its lips. We've tried in our humble benevolence. BlatherWatch gave them reader-generated lists of able and willing local amateur talents. They've had decent local professionals apply.

We're in this for the politics. We'd like to have a liberal local talk-crew to counter the dreadful damage KVI's Carlson (m-f, 3-6p) and Wilbur (m-f, 5-9a) are doing to America and Washington State. We understand Infinity's priority is business, not politics. But in the end, our goals are the same: successful progressive talk in Seattle. But what we don't get is how KPTK can to do the same things over and over and expect a different result. It makes us think this is more about a quick buck than anything else--the talk radio version of Jack, the robot that's taking over the rest of the radio industry.

Ultimately, a progressive audience will reject this exploitation altogether--makes us think we might just have to get Sirius--and we suspect, we're not the only ones."-from Michael Hood's post on blatherWatch.