Radio Waves Podcast #354

 Audacy supports mental health with a special concert

Audacy — owner of numerous local stations including KRTH (101.1 FM) and The Wave (KTWV, 94.7 FM) recently announced its ninth annual "We Can Survive" concert at the iconic Hollywood Bowl on October 22.

This year's event, part of Audacy’s year-round “I’m Listening” mental health initiative, will feature performances from Alanis Morrisette, Halsey, Weezer, OneRepublic, Garbage and more. The event celebrates the power of music to bring people together, strengthening mental health in support of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP).

The initiative is part of Audacy’s support of the American Foundation of Suicide Prevention which includes this concert along with a national live broadcast held on September 21st entitled “I’m Special” that brought together athletes, artists, medical experts and others who spoke openly about important mental health issues. You can hear the special on the Audacity app.

Tickets went on sale Friday, September 16 via Ticketmaster.com and as a special treat, listeners can help decide who the next big music superstar will be during concert’s opening act. The contest, which is going on now, will help determine who will be the opening act at We Can Survive. Voting is going on as you read this at OpeningActRadio.com and the winner will take home $10,000.

Stick a fork in it

As if radio has not suffered enough under previous deregulation rules, Senator Rand Paul has introduced legislation to deregulate broadcasting even more. Ironically called the Local News and Broadcast Media Preservation Act of 2022, the idea is to prevent the FCC from limiting in any way the number of radio stations, television stations and newspapers one person or company could own in any market.

Senator Paul believes this will help local broadcast companies to merge without government interference and allow them to better compete against tech giants.

With all due respect, Senator Paul is totally, absolutely, 100 percent wrong. Radio doesn’t compete against the tech giants because it doesn’t try. More accurately, the large companies formed by previous deregulation don’t try. And it is these large companies that are dragging down the entire industry. Independents do their darnedest to compete, but the big boys cut out creativity, driving away listeners at the same time that they add to the commercial load, driving down ad rates. Deregulation has absolutely destroyed radio.

If Senator Paul would truly like to save broadcasting, he would push to restore station limits. Giving time for divesture, ownership should be limited to no more than two stations in any one market and perhaps 50 nationwide. Only through the destruction of the large companies will radio ever recover, and television is not that far off.

Guilty Pleasure

I happened across a special recording on Retro Radio Joe’s MixCloud.Com feed - Bill Moffett on KCBQ (1170 AM) out of San Diego. This was the station I grew up with, even though I grew upon in San Pedro, for reasons even I do not quite understand. I LOVED KCBQ. Loved it.

Anyway, I had totally forgotten about Moffett until the I heard the recording. Then it all came back to me, and the reason I loved the station. He — and almost everyone else there during their popular days of the late ‘60s through the mid 1970s —  was quick-witted. Almost every set was entertaining and funny, even if it was just a few sentences long. 

And it got me thinking … this would be so easy to do again. But it would take some training and commitment from programmers and owners to actually support and pay … one of the reasons stations like KCBQ (and KHJ, and KEZY, and 10-Q, and KFI when they were top-40) was quick wit … not long drawn-out skits such as we generally are used to with morning shows. Every show was entertaining, mostly because you wanted to hang on to every word just to make sure you didn’t miss anything.

Back to the subject at hand, Moffett was a master. Check it out on the MixCliud feed or search Bill Moffett KCBQ on YouTube for samples.