Read All About It: The Corporate Takeover of America's Newspapers
It is not just radio that is being monopalized

I recommend all farkers go here now before the government takes control of these too!

/Take this brother. May it serve you well.

Thank you for the WOXY radio reference! WOXY is great, even if it's just online now (I'm a huge fan and I listen to it from Nebraska)

In March they did a huge uprooting of radio stations here. Most of it had to do with WAITT radio...one out of the three owners of radio stations here (the others are Journal Broadcast and Clear Channel). Clear Channel did more of a beating in Lincoln...removing it's only rock station (106.3 the Blaze) from it's 100,000 watt tower to a 30,000 watt tower (I think). Then MY106.3 came in and took over the 100,000 watt tower...MY106.3 is a AC (Adult Contemporary station) station. The Blaze is still around...but it's on KISS 104.1's old tower. I almost forgot to mention it did uproot KISS as well (which was Lincoln's other CHR station). My promotion's teacher use to work for the Blaze until she got fired then was put onto the morning shift at MY106.3.

What a crazy day that was.

Former Enron traders pale in comparison to the father/son duo running CC. These prix have, among other perks, a "rolling" seven year contract...everyday, their employment agreements renew for seven years. If one or the other was fired today, they would receive full farking salary + bene's for SEVEN years. AND if Daddy is fired, Junior gets his job...no questions.

I used to make lots of road trips through east Texas and Louisiana and have never forgiven CC for destroying 99X...The Rebel Rocker in Shreveport, LA. But, as a long-time Houstonian, I have to agree KLOL had bottomed out long ago. CC drove me to Sirius & MP3..they are in my car and my cowboy cadillac.

Robo Beat

I'm from the Cleveland-area. I remember The End- it was a good station.

I forgot to say, The End did have a classy send-off. They played REM's "It's The End Of The World As We Know It" on repeat for their last week on the air.

They also did this when the station first started airing; it was called "Power 108" before they became The End.

From the XM Radio Website (www.xmradio.com):

XM's powerful strategic and equity partners are leaders in their respective industries. These include General Motors, the largest U.S. auto and truck manufacturer; Honda Motors; Clear Channel, the largest U.S. radio station operator.

Time to order Sirius, I guess...

caseyscrib.com

Everyone hates ClearChannel, thats a fact. They have one playlist of crap and put it on loop throughout the country.


you aint bullshiattin.

on a trip cross country last year, i heard the same 9 song sequence in lincoln nebraska and des moines iowa.

that was the final straw on buying a car MP3 system. i used to dig tuning in the local flavor on road trips, but its increasingly hard to find.

As long as they don't kill off this one. (FYI, this station is the one with the exact call letters "KISS". Not some variation that can be pronounced that way. Sorry, LA, you lose. Your station is spelled KIIS.)

/still annoyed that they turned 102.3 in Austin into a fully automated classic rock station and dumped Dr. Demento
/still remember when the DJ locked himself in the booth and played Led Zeppelin for 24 hours, demanding K-Z-E-P be changed to "K-ZEP".

I now live in Columbus, OH and I listen to CD101 whenever I listen to the radio. It's a very good station that plays "alternative" rock. And it's locally owned- it's almost like it's a college station with money. Granted, I don't like some of the things they play, but it's way better quality than the dozens of CC stations out in central Ohio.

But the funny thing is that CC owns the local Air America station...

Damn clear channel. I used live in the Bay area (1996-1999) and Houston (1986-1990) and listened to KLOL and KSJO both.

107.7 altenative
102.5 rock
99.9 rock
95.7 oldies [so sue me]

the last great stations in washington

Clear Channel seems to hate pure rock stations, if they own a pure rock station look for them to change it soon.

Clear Channel needs to be taken down by the FCC, they own too much.

"I'm 35 and it's been on the air as long as I can remember," said a real estate salesman who did not want to be identified.

and with such fiery rhetoric i can see why he doesnt want to be named ...

A buddy of mine came up with a good conspiracy theory.
These were HIS words - not mine - so don't flame me.

The Jews in the music industry know that the white people generally have more $$, and will spend $$ on satellite radio. The minority will not spend the $$, so they are switching formats to this ghetto crap, making the white-man but satellite.

Yes my friend hates THE MAN.

I'll be VERY upset if they kill KLOS, in Los Angeles. Mark and Brian in the morning help me not hate working.

This is the end of my best civilization. I don't want to live in a home that does not have exclusive English-speakers. I guess I didn't know how good it was, until they took it away from me.

I've been a broadcaster since 1997. Started out with an internship at 106.5 The End in Charlotte, NC. They were owned by a couple of brothers called "The Dalton Group"

Granted I was only 16 at the time, but 'The End' taught me a lot about the world of broadcasting. After High School I worked overnights at WBT, one of the oldest stations in the nation, and owned by Jefferson Pilot Communications.

Feeling like I wasn't going to advance up the talent pole, I ditched commercial broadcasting, and became a Military Broadcaster for the American Forces Network. I've been working for AFN for several years now, and absolutely love it.

Since then, Clear Channel bought the dalton group's two stations, and recently re-formated the Oldies station to R&B/hip hop. As sad as I was to hear about several of my co-workers losing their job, Magic 96.1 was in the bottom half of the ratings game, and the Number 1 station in the Charlotte Market (#37) has been Power 98's R&B/Hip Hop.

If you were in charge of Clear Channel, what would you do?

Clear Channel has the power to tinker with other stations. If it works, it works. If it doesn't work, then they can switch back to the original format and revamp it up. If a station isn't making a profit... it's time to cut your losses, and move on.

It's sad to hear about KLOL, as a Native Texan- I remember listening to that station... but if they were sucking as bad as they were... I'd pull them too. But I would also look at some of the other bottom feeders and consider changing them into a Rock Station.

101's new Format Spanglish, might actually work. It looks like it's different than the polka sounding Tejano. Bridge the latin sound with top-40 pop. It actually sounds like a good idea, although I don't believe the playlist will be that thick.

I'm just glad that I can't be fired/laid off from my job as a military broadcaster.

Radio went to hell when Z-Rock went silent in the 90s

RIP - KSJO

Walton and Johnson used to do bits lifted directly from The Onion without crediting them.

Plus all of their characters - the gay one, the black one, and the hick one all shared a love for the republican party.

/pffft

There is an online petition started for people who are upset about KLOL going away. Discussions about it are @ http://www.radio-info.com/mods/board?Board=houston&Post=298848&page=

I hope this was the last album they played.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00004NRW9/qid=1100475267/sr=2-1/ref=pd _ka_b_2_1/104-0043233-6887147

I wish I was in Tijuana...eating bar-b-qued iguana.

Clear Channel is the Devil! A couple years ago they bought out KDL 103.1 in LA and changed it into some crap indie rock station. I was so pissed.

The way Clearchannel moves stations around is weird. Here in Northern Ohio we have no shortage of classic rock stations, with 3 starting up in the last year,between Cleveland and Toledo, along with the areas oldest, WNCX in Cleveland.

Just out of curiousity as an expatriated Houstonian I went to the 2000 Harris County Census (Harris County comprising the majority of Houston). According to the most recent figures, the population of Harris County is just over 3.5M people and of that population, 58.7% identify themselves as Caucasian and 32.9% as Hispanic. I also looked at Ft. Bend County (57/21%), Montgomery Count (88.3/12.7%) and Waller County (57.8/19.9).

A quick scan of the City of Houston's radio station list, reveals that with KLOL, 4 FM stations specialize in Tejano or Spanish format while only 2 are labeled as rock (the Arrow, 93.7 and 94.5 the Buzz. Call me crazy, but I have a hard time considering a station that plays Hoobastank endlessly, like the Buzz rock.).

While I dont think that anyone would dispute that the Latino population continues to grow, I think that suggesting the market is underserved is a mistatement. Granted, the Caucasian audience is fragmented across Top 40, Adult Contemporary (Sunny!) and Country but whose to say that the same framentation doesn't happen in the Latin audience?

Anyway, weve established that Clear Channel is Satan and I dont think that Houston's been the same since the demise of the metal station, 106.9, years and years ago. When I go home for Christmas, Ill listen to KPFT and thank God that my father had XM installed so the trip to my Granny's house will be slightly less arduous.

PS: You want a really underserved audience, fire up a Vietnamese or Chinese radio station. The part of town I grew up in, that population was HUGE and there's nothing marketing to them.

BTW, forgot to mention one of the three, 100.9 The Coast, is a clearchannel station. One of my son's friends is a DJ there.

Texas radio's been dead for almost 20 years now.

Since this station went dark:



KLOL was just a distant echo. And now even that's gone.

Who listens to radio stations anymore, anyhow? I mean, apart from talk radio?

Hearing the umpteenth playing of the same Coldplay song in between the umpteenth Gold Bond skin cream commercial isn't my idea of getting to work. That's why mp3s and bittorrent were invented.

When 97.1 The Eagle died I was on my way back from lunch at Cool River Cafe in Las Colinas, heading back to the office, when I heard Sammy Hagar's "Last Flight of the Eagle."

And after that moment, it was poop.

I'm still pissed about WLS-AM 890 going all-talk in 1987.

It pissed me off when CC fired off KLOL's old morning show claiming they wanted to "change the format", only to hire Walton and Johnson - who were nothing but a poor, right-wing slanted imitation of the old guys - a few weeks later. This change just moves my hatred of the compnay from "great" to "total".

To those saying they'll have to listen to 94.5 or other stations from now on: DON'T! Go to clearchannel.com, pull up a list of Houston stations, and be sure to avoid the ones they own (94.5 included). Migrating from KLOL to another of their stations is exactly what they're hoping you do.

Ordinary Average Guy-

WNCX is owned by Infinity Broadcasting, which, I believe is much smaller than CC but operates on the same principles. The main thing that separates The Buzzard (WMMS for all of you not familiar with the land of Cleve) is that WMMS at least tries to mix in some newer stuff while WNCX seems to be stuck in the same time warp from 1981

Grunge Hampster-
Sounds like you are an OSU student like me. CD101 is indeed the shiat.

Mandrax

You didn't happen to grow up in Port Lavaca did you? I lived there for 16 years. That was the location for the movie Alamo Bay. Lotta vietnamese and Tawainese live in that area. It was cool when I lived there- but when I realized that there was a whole 'nother world out there with <gasp> seasons... Port Lavaca becomes the small town it really is.

/Obvious Elvis Costello song reference:
____________________________________________________________
I was tuning in the shine on the light night dial
Doing anything my radio advised
With every one of those late night stations
Playing songs bringing tears to me eyes
I was seriously thinking about hiding the receiver
When the switch broke cause its old
Theyre saying things that I can hardly believe.
They really think were getting out of control.

Radio is a sound salvation
Radio is cleaning up the nation
They say you better listen to the voice of reason
But they dont give you any choice
cause they think that its treason.
So you had better do as you are told.
You better listen to the radio.

I wanna bite the hand that feeds me.
I wanna bite that hand so badly.
I want to make them wish theyd never seen me.

Some of my friends sit around every evening
And they worry about the times ahead
But everybody else is overwhelmed by indifference
And the promise of an early death
You either shut up or get cut up;
They dont wanna hear about it.
Its only inches on the reel-to-reel.
And the radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools
Tryin to anaesthetise the way that you feel

Wonderful radio
Marvelous radio
Wonderful radio
Radio, radio...___________________________________________________________
//This song was written more than 25 years ago. Sadly, things have gotten a lot worse.

walton and johnson sucked from day 1...
I used to listen to Stevens and Pruett when they were Hudson and Harrigan on KILT AM in the late 70's...

KLOL was at it's peak when the next station over on the dial, KILT, was a rock station. When they went redneck in 1981, Houston radio went to hell.

Another vote for KTRU, here. It's the only Houston station that I've been consistently been able to enjoy--depending on the particular program/DJ--since coming to Houston in 1980. Eclectic and often edgy, though often amateurish; but that's college radio for ya.

I gave up on KLOL completely and forever after hearing Walton and Johnson a couple of times. S & P's schtick had been getting old and lame for quite some time, but it didn't flat-out chap my ass like W & J did.

R.I.P., KLOL. You provided the soundtrack for alotta good times for a alotta folks over the years.

Clearchannel and bigots, chupamela.

NDP2:

"Maintaining radio silence from now on...."

"America: It's Not Just For White People Anymore!"

If Clear Channel is about profit, why'd they dump Howard Stern, the most profitable DJ in history?

/they make more money as a shill of the republican party than by listeners

Whoever asked about the other rock stations, allow me to reply. (I've been reading the thread for 30 minutes, so I'm sorry if someone else spoke up).

101.1 played a mix of classic rock and modern rock.
94.5 the buzz is "alternative" rock, mainly.
93.7 is strictly classic rock (Motley Crue's "Dr. Feelgood" is now classic rock, btw)

We used to have Z-rock, some national station that broadcast out of Detroit(?) that was absolutely awesome. Then they were pulled, mysteriously.

Sat radio is only $100 you say? Hm, might be time to take the plunge.

Get Your Lazy Ass Outta Bed, Houston Texas.

Clear Channel's done the same with 105.3FM in Atlanta.
It's now VIVA! or some such el crapo.
I guess some suit in Houston decided it's time to make bucks off illegal immigrants.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT ON CLEAR CHANNEL:

They own enough stations in the U.S. and abroad (where regulations allow for bigger signal strengths), to reach a total of one billion people every quarter hour.

One Billion

That's 1/6 of all the farking people on the planet...listening to programming that comes from ONE corporate office that only wants their money.

/Used to work for CC
//Have showered many times since, still can't get all the stink off.

///and no, I'm not some bitter nutcase who they fired. I quit.

Ahh Sirius takes the satellite radio prize in my book. I don't own a receiver, but the fact that it is a better technology, it is the underdog (no pun intended), and since most auto manufacturers support XM and Clear Channel owns a slice of XM (biggest reason), I'd definitely take Sirius over XM.

XM is way too "hyped" for me. Plus, NFL is on Sirius. You can't beat that.

RIP, KLOL. You will be missed...