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Name: terrestrial radio
Age: 100
Occupation: entertainers and informers of the general public
Last Seen: everywhere
Bee-otched For: listeners? What are those?
Age: 100
Occupation: entertainers and informers of the general public
Last Seen: everywhere
Bee-otched For: listeners? What are those?
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It's amazing how people will fight for something.
For years, people here in Grand Rapids fought for a Chick-fil-A and now, we have several. Of course, some still want a White Castle and whether or not they'll build one here is anyone's guess.
When it comes to rock, people have always been passionate. For example, in 1957 a ten-year-old boy named Terry Ingstad felt disenfranchised over the fact that both radio stations in his hometown of Jamestown, North Dakota - pop. 15,000 didn't play rock music. So, his uncle gave him a mini transmitter, kinda like Mr. Microphone from the 1970s. Terry's inner-Tim Allen was screaming for more power. Since his father knew the local TV repairman, Terry went to see him to see if he could boost the signal. He had spare parts in his back room and taught him on how to use them to boost the signal. When Terry got home, he built a small tower on the family home's roof. After it was erected, he turned on the transmitter, plopped down a record and he and his father got into the car. They wanted to know how far the signal went before it faded. They drove one mile, which covered a small fraction of Jamestown. Despite a small setup of just a turntable and a reel-to-reel tape recorder, Terry's station was a hit. Teenage girls constantly knocked on the door with records for him to play. Soon, Terry's uncle - the one who gave him the original transmitter - came to him, and asked if he wanted to work at his station Saturday mornings. You see, Terry's uncle owned one of those two official stations, KEYJ. He agreed, and at the age of ten, Terry Ingstad started hosting his own weekly program called Spin With Terry. Not long afterward, he was featured in Life Magazine as "The World's Youngest DJ".
Terry Ingstad's 15 minutes of fame did not wear out. He continued to work in radio throughout his teens and eventually, he got a position at a station in Fargo. Then, it was Tucson, Boston and then Los Angeles where he worked at legendary KHJ in the late 60s and later, other well-known L.A. stations. By the 1980s, he made it big as one of the stars of Hollywood Squares and the longtime host of American Top 40. Most recently, he was the announcer of The Late, Late Show With Craig Ferguson and is the current voice of the classic TV channel Antenna TV.
By now, you know Terry Ingstad, the quirky ten-year-old who built a radio station from his family's attic as... Shadoe Stevens.
As the late Paul Harvey once said, "And now you know the rest of the story"... Or do you?
In 1973, Shadoe became one of the founding DJs and programmers of a radio station called KROQ. He did leave briefly to help program the now-defunct KMET 94.7 (one of his notorious stunts was creating billboards of the KMET logo upside down) only to return in 1975. During Stevens' stint - which ended in 1979 - KROQ was playing a huge role in bringing the punk and new wave genres to Los Angeles and the world. Other jocks like Rodney Bingenheimer, Jed the Fish, Richard Blade and Raechel Donahue helped to shape KROQ as a station that made left-of-the-dial college rock cool and commercial.
Throughout its nearly-50 years on the air, KROQ has been a walking history of alternative rock like Soul Train was to R&B. It broke many artists and helped launch careers.
Now, KROQ is on "life support", at least according to a beloved entertainment publication.
Variety published an article about KROQ called "It’s the End of the World Famous KROQ as We Know It" yesterday. The article talks about how the station, which once was the top station in the City of Angels is now a fish out of water. In April, the station only registered a paltry 1.4, one of its worst ratings ever. A lot of the blame is falling on station owner Entercom, who bought KROQ and other stations from CBS. Bear in mind that this is the same Entercom that killed another legendary rock station, WAAF in Boston recently by selling it to religious outlet K-Love. The station recently fired longtime programmer Kevin Weatherly and its popular morning show, Kevin in the Morning with Allie & Jensen.
The station's new programmer is Mike Kaplan, who used to program rival alt-rocker Alt 98.7. According to the article, he's known as "Mike the Show Killer". The article also states that KROQ used to be notoriously slow at adding new music and was heavy on classics. The writers even panned KROQ for adding a pop record, "Circles" by Post Malone onto their playlist. Rumor also has it that Kaplan wants his jocks to call the station K-R-O-Q instead of "K-Rock" because "rock is dead".
A current peek into KROQ's playlist shows a mix of currents ("Moral of the Story" by Ashe, "Loneliness For Love" by lovelytheband and another Posty record, his cover of Nirvana's "Come As You Are") and classics (Weezer's "Beverly Hills", Paramore's "Misery Business" and EMF's 30-year-old "Unbelievable"). Machine Gun Kelly is also now a mainstay KROQ, just a few years after he scored a pop hit with "Bad Things" with Camila Cabello (a song, which BTW borrows from Fastball's late-90s alt hit "Out of My Head"). The station still plays heritage acts like Nirvana, Foo Fighters and Green Day (who has a current hit "Oh Yeah!"), but apparently, it's in smaller doses.
The tragic truth is that KROQ is trying to program to younger listeners who probably have never listened to regular radio before. Evenmore, people are beyond PISSED that the station canned Kevin Ryder, who along with Gene “Bean” Baxter did the morning shift on KROQ for 30 years.
Years ago, if people wanted something from radio, they would write letters to station management, start campaigns or in Shadoe Stevens' case, build their own damn station. Hell, I started this site because I was stuck in a spot in Michigan where none of the rock stations gave two shits about me. KLT and The Zone's definition of "new rock" in the 1990s were limited to has-beens like The Goo Goo Dolls, Matchbox Twenty, Hootie and the Blowfish and many-a-Lilith Fairian. As a matter of fact, the sole station in northern Michigan that reached my demographic, 106.7 The Peak was loaded to the hilt with boy bands galore. And of course, The Peak faced the same fate as KROQ is going through now when then-owner Northern Broadcast decided to take the station AC as WSRT. Needless to say, Northern Broadcast ended up going out of business not long ago, selling all but two of their stations. The Peak - which NBI bought in 1996 for $3 million - was recently sold to their heated rival, 106 KHQ's owner for $215,000.
(By the way, I checked out KLOS' playlist. It reminds me of KLT without the two recurrents they played within the hour I was typing this: "Rolling 7s" by Dirty Honey (which is a shitty song) and "Die to Live" by Danish rockers Volbeat featuring Neil Fallon from the severely-underrated Clutch.)
If I was born in 2000 instead of 39 years ago this Tuesday, this blog might have never existed. Gen-Z-ers have it easy. Instead of having to switch through shitty stations and commercials, they have Spotify, Pandora and whatever cool app is out these days. If they want, they could shell out their allowance for a SiriusXM subscription and listen to Howard Stern. The days of dangerously installing an antenna atop the family house and starting a website to "Bring ____ To BFE" are long gone. Don't like your hometown radio scene? Going digital always has been the way to go. Name one person you personally know under 50 that doesn't have a smartphone. My father's 68 and computer illiterate. Yet, he has a smartphone and uses it religiously! Hell, he even gives me GIFs all the time! Yes, his phone's from Consumer Cellular. Don't start with the rotary dial jokes.
The reality is that radio is changing. Way back when, music was only heard on the AM and it was staticky as hell. I'm amazed that close to here in Grand Rapids, we have WION "I-1430" out of Ionia which plays music on AM and does quite well! Beautiful music, with its syrupy strings and soft melodies was a common format in towns big and small way back in the day. But now, there's only a few stations of their kind left in America. Why? Their audience died off. But the few remaining beautiful stations left apparently do well. There's even a beautiful music station on SiriusXM, Escape on channel 69. When SiriusXM killed the station a few years ago, listeners demanded its return. Not only that, one such station in Prescott, AZ, KAHM 102.1 charges $10 per month for their fans to stream the station online.
One of the lessons I've long learned is that if it's broke, don't fix it. But then again, this is the radio business we're talking about, an industry that fires good people and replaces them with jerks. Look at WKLQ here in Grand Rapids. Starting in 2002, they royally fucked over their listeners when they moved Howard Stern to a crappy AM station and started cleaning house of its popular jocks. Their general manager, Matt Hanlon claimed that it was time to change direction. Of course he did! The station went down to right around the same ratings KROQ is at now. And now, KLQ is long gone with dorky AAA music now playing at 94.5.
But here's another thought worth pondering: WHERE'S THE ROCK? Thanks to corporations like CBS/Entercom and iHeartMedia, it sucks royally that the active rock format is missing in many major cities like LA. There's many great songs in the genre right now, like KoRn's catchy "Can You Hear Me" and Falling in Reverse's semi-autobiographical "Popular Monster". It sucks that companies like CBS replaced all their hard rock stations with their shitty, ill-fated "Free FM" format that they created when Stern left for Sirius. Not only that, I CRINGE knowing that many rockers are putting in more classics like WGRD here in Grand Rapids because Townsquare is clueless on how to properly run a radio station.
Look, radio is a business. Poor ownership and management has killed too many great stations over the years. It's also why there's many silent stations in northern Michigan and others that may or may not survive the COVID-19 pandemic. I hate KLT with a severe passion, but I'm happy there's Rock 105/95-5. which I think is the best-programmed rock station not just in northern Michigan, but maybe the whole state.
I've seen enough episodes of Bar Rescue and Kitchen Nightmares to know how moronic bosses can be. Same with my ex-boss, who treated me and others like scum. Respect isn't just earned in rock radio, but also in real life.
Don't forget: if you own or manage a business and think that you no longer have a boss, think again. When I enter your shop and buy something, I become your boss. And yes, I can fire you by never going in there again or in this case, not listening to your station.
And in the case of many KROQ fans, they've fired that station.
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Bee-otch of the Day is a production of Chuck69.com, Grand Rapids' site for Stern, politics and more!
Bee-otch of the Day Archives can be seen on http://beeotchoftheday.blogspot.com
Bee-otch of the Day is a production of Chuck69.com, Grand Rapids' site for Stern, politics and more!
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