8.29.19 Bee-otches of the Day: northern Michigan radio

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Name: terrestrial radio
Age: 99
Occupation: the great Satan
Last Seen: everywhere
Bee-otched For: frying an omelette
 

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Omelette has been fried... again.

Steve Normandin - who was first at WKLT and most recently at The Bear - has just left his post at the classic rocker. It's not known if he quit or got fired, though more should be known in the future. O-man joined The Bear two years ago after being fired from WKLT due to budget issues.

His partner at The Bear, Guy Dark remains in mornings.

Meanwhile, Omelette's former partner at WKLT, Sean "Finster" Finigan will be the new morning man at 101.9 WLDR on Tuesday. It's not known what happened to the station's former morning hosts, Lori and Mike. Previously, he was on 104.5 Bob FM.

As usual, it all boils down to ratings and especially management. What's funny is that Omelette had monster ratings on KLT, but not on The Bear. And yet, I've heard that KLT's current morning show SUCKS! What's even more sad is that 20 years ago, The Bear was whipping KLT's ass in the ratings thanks to Bob and Tom. And yet, their ratings slump started not long afterward. Thanks to constant frequency changes, music tweaks (remembered when they started playing A Flock of Seagulls and Depeche Mode? Oy vey.) and so on, The Bear has turned into a giant fucking joke. And what's funny is that Black Diamond thought that getting Omelette to handle mornings would improve things. Well, it didn't.

The sad reality is that as much as I hate them, KLT will always be the classic rock king of the north. Maybe it's time for a new format for The Bear. How about classic country? WTCM needs some good competition.

The saga of Omelette and Finster only shows how fucked up northern Michigan radio can be. At KLT, both had to feel the wrath of Langer Gokey, a man with no ties to northern Michigan who only owns them, The Fox and ESPN Up North for money. It's not about the quality, it's about the profits. After all, KLT seems to have a new morning show every few years. And even if they were in the top three, that morning host would get canned only because the Gokeys treated them like they're replaceable. But now as KLT's audience erodes in both age and total number of listeners, time will only tell if they'll still be around in ten years.

In Finster's case, he ended up at 104.5 Bob FM, a station owned by Trish MacDonald-Garber who is well known for, well, treating people like shit, also. After all, her late father was a union buster. At Bob FM, he had to deal with her management style, plus the fact that Bob FM has one of the worst signals of any northern Michigan station. Now, he'll be on WLDR, a station that broadcasts with 100,000 watts and embarrassingly low ratings. Whether or not his presence will help their ratings is anybody's guess. After all, the Fall book starts very soon.

You know, I wish radio companies up north can get off their asses and ask everybody - locals, business owners and travelers alike - what they want to hear. There's several radio formats that do well elsewhere that are missing up north. It's shocking that The Bear, The Fox, WLDR and others are in the shitter ratings-wise and the owners seem to want to pretend that all's well.

Think of it this way: 20 years ago, northern Michigan had three rock stations: KLT, The Bear and The Zone. None of them dared touch bands like KoRn, Rage Against the Machine, Tool or Slipknot. The hardest band either KLT or The Zone played was probably Collective Soul. Their excuse for not wanting to play real rock bands? "Well, this is not the market for them". Oddly enough, The Zone finally started playing those bands in late 2000 and the ratings took off. Now, its predecessor, Rock 105 and 95-5, is tied with KLT as being northern Michigan's #1 rock station and they now play all those bands.

And the funny thing is that Slipknot had the #1 album in the country two weeks ago. Tool's new album is expected to do spectacular as well. Yes, rock isn't dead! However, the big radio giants and record labels deserve to shoot themselves in the ass by thinking that hard rock and metal are a thing of the past.

I love my conversations with radio people past and present since they tell me that radio - especially up north - really started to taper off because of the internet in the mid-90s. Now, even heritage stations are struggling in the ratings. Very true: many new cars don't have AM radio (which is why many stations now have FM translators) and the fact that thanks to Bluetooth, one can listen to any internet station they wish on the go. It is what it is.

Remember, folks: in the late 20s, talking motion pictures were considered a fad. Now, it's the norm. Same with Rock 'n Roll and Mad Magazine. Talkies are still going strong and so is Rock. Mad, not so much.

I wonder if terrestrial radio is next...

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