FM Radio Changes in Detroit, Grand Rapids

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SPORTS OUT IN DETROIT, R&B IS IN FOR GRAND RAPIDS
105.1 now stunting in Detroit; new micro-urban AC stations for Grand Rapids *DETROIT: After just three years on the air, Greater Media's WMGC Detroit Sports 105.1 is no longer on the air.

The station went dark Wednesday afternoon at 5 p.m., replaced with a temporary oldies format provided by sister station WCSX-HD2 94.7. In the last Nielsen book, the station only registered a .9, making them Detroit's lowest-rated commercial FM station. Meanwhile, the station they thought they could topple, CBS' WXYT 97.1 The Ticket, is sitting pretty at #1 thanks to Tigers and Red Wings play-by-play.

Since purchasing 105.1 20 years ago, Greater Media has flipped the station four times (alternative The Edge > urban oldies The Groove > AC Magic 105.1 > Detroit Sports). The station became Detroit Sports 105.1 when sister station WRIF 101.1 amicably dropped Drew and Mike and replaced them with 89X expatriates Dave and Chuck the Freak. The plan was for Drew and Mike to host a new afternoon show on 105.1, but only Drew came on board. Since the station affiliated with ESPN, they were forced to air their required programming, ie Mike and Mike. Since Detroiters could care less about some dude in Connecticut blabbing about LeBron James while 97.1 has a guy who knows Detroit from the back of his hand, well, there's the reason why Detroit Sports 105.1 bombed.

GRAND RAPIDS: In the past few weeks, not one, but two new micro-urban stations have appeared on the FM band here in Grand Rapids.

Last week, Townsquare launched a new urban AC station, Magic 94.1, which simulcasts WNWZ 1410. The 250-watt translator replaces 1410's old urban AC format "The Touch", which was satellite-fed from Cumulus. The new station is locally programmed and staffed with the exception with the syndicated Steve Harvey Morning Show.

The other station is WJWC-LP 97.3 The Beat, which is run by the Empowerment Radio Project. The 49-watt station covers downtown and most of GR metro. The station airs a mixture of R&B, hip-hop and urban oldies.

Grand Rapids has one other micro-urban FM, GR94.9, which simulcasts WYGR 1530. The closest thing to a full-powered urban FM GR has is iHeartMedia's WSNX 104.5, which plays a decent amount of urban titles, but is also a full-blown CHR.

6.30.16 Hero of the Day: Dave Barber

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A VERY SPECIAL HERO OF THE DAY!

Name: Dave Barber
Age: was 60
Occupation: former talk radio and TV host
Last Seen: in Heaven, crooning with Frank, Dean and Sammy
Awarded For: being a wonderful and unique entertainer 

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Hard to believe it, but on Monday, July 4th, it will be one year since the passing of the great radio legend and a man I considered a friend, Dave Barber.

Long before Howard Stern had naked girls running around his studio, Dave had the same thing. He was sharp as a whip and not afraid to speak his mind. A legend of Flint, MI, he entertained the masses on stations such as WFDF, WTRX and WTAC before finally getting syndicated across the state in 2001 on the Michigan Talk Radio Network. I listened to his show from the beginning and loved almost every minute of it. Hell, he was even a huge fan of my website and even invited me to breakfast at his "breakfast nook" in Grand Blanc, Kihos Island. He and I proudly shot the shit about radio and everything else.

I've had some great moments with Dave, especially when I called in the show and I made him laugh. One time, I told him that they ought to create a feature on TV sets that took out the blurs on certain TV shows. I was thinking about female nudity, but he had Cops in mind. He also laughed real hard when I reminded him why Joe Lieberman would make a bad president: "you can't even pronounce his wife's name!"

It was Dave, however, whom I was listening to when the World Trade Towers collapsed on 9/11. "It's the worst day in American history", he said. I woke up in the middle of a call he was airing and thought that he was being his sometimes sarcastic self. The top of the hour CNN News aired on my local station (the now-defunct WLDR NewsRadio 1210 in Traverse City) and thought that I was living in a sci-fi world.

When I moved to Grand Rapids full-time in 2002, I met Dave one more time; this time, it was at the Admiral Tobacco at 28th and East Paris, pimping his "BUTTS" campaign (Barber Uplifts Troops Through Smokes) where he donated cigarettes to the troops in Iraq. However, not long after that, he quit MTRN over the lack of payment and went back to being live and local on Flint's SuperTalk 1570. From there, he moved to Providence, RI where he worked at WPRO Radio and then to the state's Capitol TV cable channel.

A year ago, Dave returned to Flint to attend his niece's wedding. However, he suffered a heart attack during a rehearsal dinner and was rushed to a Pontiac hospital. On July 4th, he died from its complications, plus a stroke at the age of 60.

Since his passing, so much has happened, especially with the Flint water crisis. If he was still on the air in Flint, he - like the rest of the residents - would be calling for the resignation of Gov. Snyder. But then again, he would proclaim on Facebook that he will always be a Flintstonian but she had let down her own people. While the folks in Flint are now trying to stay away from the tainted water, Dave is drinking the water of life up in the heavens, and maybe doing some crooning with a Rat Packer or two.

The world of talk radio just isn't the same without Dave.
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6.29.16 Bee-otch of the Day: Eddie Lampert

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Name: Eddie Lampert
Age: 54
Occupation: CEO, Sears Holdings
Last Seen: Chicago
Bee-otched For: running his company into the ground

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One of my favorite moments on Family Guy is when the Griffins pay a visit to Sears.

"Peter! Nobody's been in Sears for decades!", said Lois. Ain't that the truth. The two look inside to see that the once-proud store now resembled something you'd see from "Mad Max".

I had the misfortune of going to the Sears at Woodland Mall here in Grand Rapids a few months ago to find a pump for my air mattress. It seemed that everybody there was CLUELESS on where they were. One woman - who acted like she was from Bosnia - acted pissed and made me feel totally uncomfortable. Well, I found my pump by the hardware, same place as where I came in.

Once upon a time, Sears, Roebuck and Co. was a company that stood for America. Their catalogs were a part of the American home and gave people some good paper to wipe their asses with in the outhouse.

Same with Kmart. An offshoot of the old S.S. Kresge and Co. variety store chain, they were once a huge part of American culture. It was founded here in Michigan in 1899 with Kmart being developed in 1962. When I moved to Grand Rapids in 2002, my local Kmart was already out of business and is now a Burlington Coat Factory. Grand Rapids is loaded with Meijers, Walmarts and Targets, but now, there's only two Kmarts. The last time I stepped foot into a Kmart, I was pretty well ignored.

The sad thing is that over the past 20 or so years, Kmart has been turning into a white elephant in the retail business. As much as I hate Walmart, at least their stores are better-run over Kmart's. There's many websites that show Kmart's shoddy operation. Take a look at this, this and this.

According to employees, the reason why Sears and Kmart and failing is because of one man: their CEO, Eddie Lampert. Lampert is a billionaire who made his money with a hedge fund. Since taking over the company, they've been operating in the red and they've been closing stores left and right. Every year, the chain closes countless stores; there's now less than 1,000 Kmarts still in operation. Many Kmarts still in operation are very poorly-run and in older, outdated buildings.

While Walmart and Meijer invest billions in building new stores and updating older ones, Kmart is doing anything but. Hell, I gotta give Meijer major props for getting rid of their original store on 28th and Kalamazoo here in GR and building a new one in its place. The old store reminded me of a typical Kmart - sans a full line grocery - from around 1990. Every time I went there 10 years ago, I had Boyz II Men's "Motownphilly" playing in my head, and not in a good way.

Oh, did I tell you that Lampert is slated to run Sears until at least 2018? SMH.

You know, in order for any business to survive, they MUST renovate once in a great while. I even remembered when my childhood Big K remodeled when I was young, and it wasn't that old of a store. In recent years, Kmart has been anything but that. They need to learn from successful people like the Meijer family and put money not just into their stores, but into their people. If Costco can pay their workers $12 per hour, so can they. Less employee turnover equates to a successful business and it shows. I think if Kmart can start doing this, their employees would want to work and people will come back to their stores.

But until then, not even Rain Man will want to buy even their underwear.

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6.28.16 Bee-otch of the Day: Texas

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Name: Texas
Age: 497
Occupation: the Lone Star State
Last Seen: southern US
Bee-otched For: getting owned by the Supreme Court

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Sometimes, I feel so happy that I never lived in Texas.

Well, for starters, their politics suck. Hell, guess who used to be that state's governor? A guy by the name of George W. Bush. Remember him? When he was governor, he forced schools to go abstinence-only in regards to sex ed. The end result: the state ended up with one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates and even some schools reported an outbreak of syphilis. Even Bush's successor, Rick Perry claimed that abstinence-only education works but didn't have proof that it did.

Now, the Supreme Court has turned the heat on Texas because a few years ago, the state ordered half of its abortion clinics to close. The state claimed that the shuttered clinics were not sanitary enough for their patients, but with the lack of places for a woman to get an abortion other than with a coat hanger, some even had to go to other states like California to get their abortion.

Yesterday, in a 5-3 decision, the High Court ruled that Texas' abortion ban was indeed unconstitutional. Now, other states with similar laws - namely my home state of Michigan - are now worried that their abortion laws might be unconstitutional, too.

In Michigan's case, a woman under the age of 18 must have parental consent to have an abortion. OK, so what if that person was raped and doesn't want to talk about it with their parents? When a woman is raped, IT'S NEVER HER FAULT. But since this state's local governments are mostly run by the women-hating GOP, this is what we get. If a young lady in Flint is raped and doesn't get parental consent, she must have the baby, but hey! She can expose the little rugrat to the lead-tainted water that our state government created as-is!

Thanks to states that think that they're all above the law, there's a few of them that have stupid laws that pertain to abortion and sadly, it's all unconstitutional. Roe V. Wade was passed 40 + years ago and it's time for the assholes running those states to stop taking them to the past.

What's next? All women must be barefoot and pregnant? 
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6.27.16 Bee-otch of the Day: non-voters

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Names: various
Age: various
Occupation: various
Last Seen: England
Bee-otched For: not voting

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For years, England seemed to be a more liberal country than America.

Their healthcare system is way better than ours, they actually have no problems with nudity and swearing on TV and, well, they're definite leftists because they drive on the left side of the road.

However, the country it seems is now turning into a place that looks like what America would be if Donald Trump was running the joint. Last week, the country voted to leave the European Union. The vote was a slim one, but the "leaves" outvoted the "ins". Many believe that the reason why people wanted England to leave the EU was over the growing amount of racism the country is facing over the influx of refugees entering the country.

Most of those voted "leave" were mostly older while the "ins" were younger. Sound familiar? We have that same problem here in America where younger people simply don't vote because, well, they don't care. As long as mommy and daddy wipes their ass, the whole world is A-OK.

Yes, young people work and they don't want to stand in a long line to vote. Old people, however, have the time. They think that the biggest problem this world is facing is that Muslims are taking over this world and when they do, it's the equivalent to bowing to the murderers on 9/11 and the guy who shot up the gay nightclub in Orlando. Guess what? The Dow and other international markets took a hit and oil prices are going back up.

I know, independence is nice, but when one secedes, they're on their own. What's next for post-Brexit England? Company-run healthcare? Private pensions? Hell, if your home's burning down, wanna pay the fire department to put the fire out?

Less government isn't always nice.

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6.23.16 Bee-otches of the Day: The Republican Party

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Name: The Republican Party
Age: 162
Occupation: right-winged schmucks
Last Seen: Washington, DC
Bee-otched For: causing people to sit
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As I'm typing this on a muggy Wednesday night here in Grand Rapids, things are heating up in Washington, DC.

A group of Democrats are holding a sit-in at the House of Representatives to force a vote on gun control. The idea for the sit-in came from Georgia Congressman John Lewis who got the idea from the sit-ins he was involved in as a Civil Rights activist in the 1960s. Now, he and others in the House are now pressuring the Republicans to create a bill that would further limit the sale of assault weapons in wake of the tragedy in Orlando, FL that has taken 50 lives and wounded 53 others.

Since Obama took office in 2009, there have been way too many shootings and mass murders, such as the one at Sandy Hook. It didn't help matters when in 2014, both the House and Senate were taken over by the Repukes, mainly those funded by pro-gun groups like the NRA.

Look, I'll betcha that most of the schmucks who want lighter gun registration will cry that the Orlando massacre would have ended much faster if somebody themselves had an open carry permit in the bar. OK, so should we ALL own a gun in case we're confronted with a mad gunman?

Like I keep saying, it's on us. If you call yourself a Democrat and you didn't vote in the 2014 elections, FUCK YOU. YOU'RE PART OF THE REASON THIS HAPPENED BECAUSE YOU ALLOWED PRO-GUN REPUKES TO TAKE CONTROL DESPITE A 10% APPROVAL RATING.

I applaud this sit-in since I hope it will cause the Repukes' hearts to grow two times too big like the Grinch's. But as long as the NRA keeps filling their pockets, I doubt it.

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6.22.16 Bee-otch of the Day: iHeartMedia

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Name: iHeartMedia
Age: 44
Occupation: nearly-bankrupt media giant
Last Seen: San Antonio
Bee-otched For: giving Howard and Bubba a Swift firing, but all others that might cost them a Tong of money are A-OK
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It was a sad day in 2004 when the company formerly known as Clear Channel, iHeartMedia decided to can all their shock jocks simply because of the Janet Jackson nip slip during the Super Bowl.

Many radio markets canned the Stern show, only to have their rivals pick up the program. Of course, when Stern moved to Sirius in 2006, it left iHeart and their competitors wondering how to do radio again.

I remember Howard talking about how CC was now forcing their jocks to sign an agreement that if they did something that would give their station a massive fine from the FCC, they would be the one paying it. Well, say that to Steve Swift, one of the Sunday night mix show DJs at CHR WSNX 104.5 here in Grand Rapids.

WSNX has had a Sunday night mix show called Club 1045 for years, where local turntablists mix together popular tunes in the EDM and top 40 genres. As somebody who's been getting into EDM myself these past few years, I decided to break through my iHeart ban and gave Club 1045 a whirl. The program airs Sundays 8-10p while 7-8p is filled by Evolution which is hosted by legendary British DJ Pete Tong (iHeart syndicates the show and many of their CHRs air it). Swift's segment airs from 8-9p while 9-10 is handled by DJ Digimark.

Anyway, a few weeks ago, I was listening to Evolution when towards the end of the show, they were playing a remix of Prince's "Erotic City" with the alleged lyrics "funk so pretty you and me/Erotic City come alive/if we funk until the dawn...." etc. Now, I've heard that back in the day, some radio stations were fined for playing that tune, and it was when indecency fines were $7,000. Now, it's $325,000.

Last Sunday night during Steve Swift's first set, he played not one, but TWO songs that contained the word "fuck" unbleeped: "Never Be Like You" by Flume featuring Kai and "Sex" by Cheat Codes with Kris Kross Amsterdam (no, not the 1990's teenage rap duo who dressed backwards). The Flume tune contained the line "now I fucked up" four times while "Sex" - which borrows the chorus from the 1990s Salt 'N Pepa classic "Let's Talk About Sex" - has the lines "let's fuck for hours" and "pussy power".

Ironically for "Never Be Like You", the chorus goes "I'm only human, can't you see?/I made, I made a mistake."

Now, I'm not trying to get anybody fired here. I think Mr. Swift is a fine DJ who is a fixture at local clubs in the 616 while Tong is well-respected by EDM fans around the world. There's that slight part of me that Swift didn't know that those two remixes were not safe for radio, plus the fact that he might have been too busy syncing up the next track for transition while producing the mix show. Plus, the person who uploaded the tracks into WSNX's automation system probably only makes $20,000 per year and didn't catch the profanities.

However, at the end of the day, 1) WSNX won't get fined by the FCC because most people don't give a flying fuck despite them being the CHR station of record for Grand Rapids, 2) Steve Swift and Pete Tong will still be getting paychecks from iHeartMedia and 3) iHeart will still have a staggering $20 billion in debt and will wonder if they can afford to renew Rush Limbaugh's contract.

To me, however, it shows how hypocritical iHeartMedia is. Howard is bad for saying "blumpkin" but it's OK for somebody spinning 1s and 2s to play something with the f-bomb in it. Good thing their stock price is hovering over a buck while SiriusXM is doing four times as better.

Maybe somebody needs to know what Lifebuoy tastes like.


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