Air1 is a Christian music format, broadcast nationwide on many FM stations across the US. Owned by the EMF organization, Air1 and other services like it are one of the few growing aspects of the radio industry in the US.
According to the online radio periodical Radio World, both AM and FM stations numbers in the US are dropping, and the FM/AM drop numbers are closer than one would normally think.
Radio World looked at the FCC data going back 10 years, and also over the past year, and the numbers are interesting.
First off, over the past year, AM stations and FM stations declined in numbers at roughly the same rate -- 41 AM stations went off the air since 2024, and 36 FM's went off the air during the same time period.
There are more FM's in the US than AM's, so the actual 'rate' isn't close, but the raw numbers are closer than one would expect, being that a lot of people think FM radio is impervious to decline. And 36 FM's having their plugs pulled isn't something one would expect in just one year in the US.
If one looks back over the past 10 years, to 2015, AM dropped in the US by 7%, and FM stations dropped in number by 2%.
It's estimated there are 10,000 FM stations in the US, 6600 of them commercial FM's. According to RadioWorld, 112 commercial FM's have gone off the air since 2015. By the same token, being that there are around 4367 AM stations in the US, a loss of 7% is 342 since 2015.
Here is a link to the Radio World article that has the info.:
While it's not great news that Radio stations are going off the air, the numbers show that FM is also in trouble in the US.
The only bright spot, numbers wise, is in the Non-Commercial part of the US FM band, where Non-Comm station numbers increased, but it's not clear if it's college radio, or religious institutions like EMF building FM relay stations between 88 and 92 MHz. There also is an increase in translators and LPFM's. LPFM numbers are slightly up, but down from their peak at over 2200 LPFM's in 2017-2018.
In the US, you have religious broadcasters who expand their coverages regionally, and even nationwide, by using translators, and being religious, they are non-commercial enterprises.
K-Love is arguably the most popular of EMF's religious music formats. They have stations in nearly every large radio market in the US.
EMF (Educational Media Foundation) -- the company that has K-Love and Air1 stations all over the US -- is one of these organizations. EMF is a radio company that runs two Christian music formats, and they have stations in nearly every major radio market.
Because of their growth, EMF gets a lot of negative commentary in Radio forums. Some Radio hobbyists insist that EMF has 'ruined' FM by putting up so many translators, and even buying commercial FM stations.
While it's true the many religious organizations have put up a lot of translators, there are also a lot more translators in general than there were 35 years ago. Also, EMF was able to purchase big city FM stations (with long histories) like WLUP-FM in Chicago, WPLJ-FM in New York City, and WAAF-FM in Boston because there were no other buyers.
The logo of famous Boston Rock station WAAF-FM, which was sold in 2020 to the religious music broadcaster organization EMF. WAAF now has different call letters (as well as a different logo, obviously) and plays K-Love.
Such is the state of radio today. WLUP was an influential Rock station, that singlehandedly 'killed Disco'. WPLJ was an influential pop station and AC station during the 80's and 90's. WAAF in Boston was one of the stations that broke major acts, especially rock acts from New England like Godsmack, Staind, Aerosmith, Theory of a Deadman, and Shinedown. Now each of those stations play K-Love or Air1.
Here's a short article on WAAF's format flip, and a look at their 50 year Rock music history.:
(Yeah, the link is a long one, but it is genuine).
The most disturbing part of the Radio World news article is that 41 AM's and 36's FM's went off the air across the US in just one year. If that trend continues, both the AM and FM bands will start to sound very different by the end of this decade -- a drop of 41 AM stations a year could be 164 less stations by 2030. If FM continues to drop by 36 stations a year, that would 144 less FM stations nationwide. There are maybe 200 major radio 'markets' in the US, ranging from the big ones like New York City, L.A. and Chicago, to smaller markets like Spokane (Market #88), Boise (Market #83), Eugene (Market #145, (medium sized cities in the Pacific Northwest, where I live), which rank in the market 50-150 range.
If 144 FM's go off the air by 2030 or 2035 or so, that would be the equivalent of one FM in each major market (probably a lot of suburban rimshotters) going off the air.
I suppose we'll have to see how the numbers play out over the next 4-5 years. I hate to see Radio stations go off the air. But it's a reality. The Radio industry is in decline. Everyone working in the industry knows it, and nearly ever Radio hobbyist knows it.
HD2's -- A RADIO DISAPPEARING ACT
One glaring example: Remember HD Radio? Nearly every AM DXer does, as many of them loathed hearing IBOC hash surrounding strong radio stations with HD, that hash blocking off nearby DX frequencies. But FM was using HD also. And on FM, HD tech allowed for additional channels -- an FM station could have an HD2, HD3, etc.
The HD1, of course, was the main station's broadcast. If you have an HD radio (like the Sangean HDR-16, which I have), tuning to an FM with HD will switch from analog to digital, HD reception. Then, if the station has an HD2 or HD3, you tune upwards to hear those channels. In the 2010's, most FM's with HD had HD2's at least -- sometimes it was an AM station in the cluster, other times it was a music channel.
I think one of the local FM'ers might have had an HD4, but don't quote me on that.
However, today HD Radio is dying. My city, Seattle, is 'Market #11' in the US, and it used to have HD2's on nearly every FM commercial station in the metro, and a bunch of them had HD3's. When I got my first HD Radio, a Sony XDR, in 2017, I think there were two FM stations that had no HD2. The local NPR station, KUOW-FM 94.9, even had the BBC World Service on their HD2.
Today? Most of the FM's in Seattle have no HD2. The rocker, KISW, shut down their HD2 4 years ago or so. Another station which had a Blues HD-2 yanked the plug on it around the same time. There are also listings for HD2's online that do not exist anymore. For example, Jim Rome's famous Sports show is listed as being on an HD2 in Seattle that does not exist. The NPR station, KUOW-FM, has no HD2 at all anymore. They play the BBC World Service overnights, but it's not on their HD2 -- because there isn't one.
Radio stations are pulling the plug on HD2's, partly because it's just another bother for the engineers to deal with, and partly because most HD2 channels don't make money.
It's just one more factor showing that Radio is in decline. The 'new' HD tech is great. But it's not being utilized to its greatest extent -- because, generally, there is no money in it.
Radio is contracting, as well as losing influence and importance -- and listeners. And, like I said, there are many diverse explanations for this, but different explanations aside, the decline is a fact.
I go into my own take on Radio's decline with this article I wrote a couple years ago, called "Who Killed Radio?". You can read that here.:
KRLC, Lewiston, Idaho's "Hometown Radio" station, a station whose plug was pulled about a year ago and recently had its license deleted, has been burned to the ground in a Fire Training exercise. The Fire training exercise took place in late November.
Over the past several years since the Pandemic ended I have written about several AM (and FM) stations in my region of the US going off the airwaves, and in those articles I have included the fact that many of those stations had FM translators, FM sister stations, and several had radio streams on the internet -- a factor that is supposedly necessary to 'save AM'.
KRLC, Lewiston, Idaho was one of those stations. KRLC 1350 was usually heard nightly here in the Seattle area up until it went off the air about midway through last year. Even though we have a strong local (KKMO 1360) here in the metro, KRLC could still be heard right next to it, playing Classic Country music.
In the 1960's and 70's, KRLC was a Top 40 station, but they switched to Country some time in the late 1970's, and then Classic Country about a decade or more later.
Lewiston is in Northern Idaho, and it's right across the Snake River from Clarkston, Washington -- the two are 'twin cities', and they both serve an area of dry wheatfield farmland, as well as some orchard farming. Lewiston is known as Idaho's 'seaport', being that it is on a section of the Snake River that is navigable all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
Even though the Lewiston-Clarkston metro region is around 50,000 or more, there just wasn't enough revenue to keep KRLC on the air. And the Pandemic economy finished the station off, just as it finished off KNPT Newport OR, KBCH Lincoln City OR, KUTI Yakima WA, KMED Medford OR, KKPZ Portland OR, KDUN Reedsport OR, and even big city KDWN Las Vegas, NV -- all stations which I've written about here when they were taken off the air.
In KRLC's case, one night I tuned in to 1350 to hear nothing, and then I looked KRLC up and found out they went off the air. They recently had their license deleted at the FCC.
I used to listen to Sunny 1550 at night while writing fiction. Their mix of Standards and easy listening Oldies was well presented and fun to listen to. Then they went Vietnamese, and then they went silent during the Pandemic.
A couple other stations, like KKOV 1550 Vancouver WA, the former "Sunny 1550", are silent and their futures are uncertain. Even an Asian language format couldn't save KKOV. It's been silent since the Pandemic. KZIZ 1560, a small station in Sumner, WA, just 20 miles south of me has been off the air for more than a year. A Punjabi / South Asian format apparently couldn't save it. They went off the air around the time the Pandemic happened.
It's tough for Radio all over -- and especially AM Radio, although FM is not exempt.
You can also add a bunch of Canadian AM'ers whose plugs have been pulled -- also done in by the Pandemic economy, as well as the changing economics of Radio -- CKMX 1060 Calgary, CFTE Vancouver, CKGO Vancouver, CKST Vancouver, CFRN Edmonton, and several others.
Of the American stations I mention here, all of them, except possibly KKPZ in Portland, had streams. The streams did not save the stations. Most of them also had FM translators, and KNPT Newport was part of a group of stations on the Oregon Coast. All had their plugs pulled.
An inglorious end to an 80 year-old Radio station. KRLC gets burned down in a Fire Dept. training exercise. The station was burned in November, 2025.
Photo courtesy RadioWorld dot com & Big Country News
Now KRLC is gone -- and even more, the station's building was burned down in a Fire Department training exercise, in November(I didn't find out about the building being burned down until recently). It was an inglorious fate for a station that served the city and region of Lewiston for 80 years. The once proud server of Classic Country to the wheatland region of the Palouse is now nothing more than ashes.
It all went up in flames. One wonders if that is the ultimate future of the industry I worked in for 20 years -- for it all to end up going up in flames.
Here is a news article on the burning down of KRLC.:
It's sad, in a way, but it's also indicative of the ultimate fate of probably every on-air Radio station in the United States. Eventually, when everything goes online, there won't be any Radio stations left, and the majority of remaining, online-only stations will disappear as well, because the internet is one vast content resource with endless competition for eyes and ears.
A pic of Lewiston, Idaho and Clarkston, Washington, from the old US Highway 95 switchbacks just north of the small metro. These switchbacks inspired the song "Hot Rod Lincoln". In this pic, Lewiston is to the left side, and Clarkston is to the right. These two cities are located in the sunnier and drier part of Washington state, and a dry region in Northern Idaho.
Online Radio is promising, but the promise just won't hold out for most who believe that going online-only will save Radio stations. Online radio stations have to find advertising or funding, just like On-Air stations do. And then you have the issue of Digital Royalties for the music played.
An example of this hit the radio press recently. There is an online station in San Francisco -- one of the most concentrated populations in the United States -- called HydeFM that is struggling to stay alive, even though it reportedly has a 'loyal local following'.
Even online, it's tough for a content operation like a streaming radio station to make enough money to survive.
We live in interesting times.
IN OTHER LIFE...
In other life, everything is plodding along. My internet went wonky last Saturday. Then it went good for 5 days. My cat Bear is getting used to me. She likes the bagpipes -- only if I play them downstairs, though. But she knows that when I play the bagpipes, soon enough I'll be feeding her. She is a very skittish cat, so I wanted to ensure that she associated bagpipes with a good thing. That way she wouldn't be so scared of the noise.
THE SHORTWAVE BANDS ARE 'DEAD, JIM'
DXing has been spotty lately. The SW bands are mostly dead, compared to where they should be -- being that we are still technically in a Solar peak period. I heard T88SM, a ham station out of Palau, on CW (Morse Code) two afternoons ago on 21025 kHz in the 15 Meter ham band. The rest of the band was basically dead, though. I heard 8P5AA out of Barbados on 10 Meters the same afternoon (28470 kHz, around 2058 UTC -- about 1 p.m. here), and a few faint whispers of East Coast US hams trying to talk to him.
Earlier that day I heard Brazil, PV8AL (?) on 28350, but I couldn't hear the US guys trying to reach him. The rest of the 10 Meter band was dead.
It seems that sometimes there is ionospheric propagation to various regions of the world, but no one is on. Then again, last night the SW and HF ham bands were basically nothing but static with a few faint carriers and just whispers of audio on WRMI and WWCR.
Even the Desert Whooper, a low-power, unlicensed, 'whooping' beacon on 4096 kHz, hasn't been heard here in weeks. Last year I was hearing them now and then, and in 2024 I was hearing them nightly, unless there was a whopper of a solar storm. The Desert Whooper is located probably somewhere in the deserts of California, and if you tune into it you'll hear 'whoop whoop whoop' and then a CW identifier ('DW'). If you tune in with LSB, the 'whoops' sound sad, if you tune into the Whooper with USB, it's upbeat whoops.
But it's been MIA for weeks.
Propagation lately could be summed up thusly.:
"It's dead, Jim." (a take on a famous Star Trek quote).
SEEMS LIKE THE SOLAR MINIMUM IS STARTING ALREADY
This Solar Cycle is playing out the way I sort of thought it would. It's depressing, in a way, but it's reality, and with reality, one must adapt and survive. One way I've attempted to 'adapt' is get a DSP SSB radio, and of the three of those I've got this year (Tecsun PL-330, Raddy RF760, and XHDATA D808), the D808 is the best for raw SSB and CW signal performance, and the Tecsun is the best for SSB readability.
I'm going to put up an outdoor wire to try to hear more when the REAL solar minimum hits -- and I think it's going to hit next year. In fact, I think it's starting to hit us already. I have the space for an outdoor wire. I just have to figure out a way to put one up again. I used to have a 100 foot wire, but it went down in a windstorm in 2005 or so. My next outdoor one will be shorter.
Here's hoping all of you are doing well and having an OK start to 2026.
Peace.
C.C., January 14th, 2026.
Jan. 15th, 2026: I forgot to add the bit about the Desert Whooper, so I added it today. The Desert Whooper is one of those fun things about Shortwave, but it's not the same when you can't hear it because propagation is so poor.
My Christmas Star, my paper star lantern, from 2016, which I think I got in 2012 or 2013. I saw it at Bartell's, a local drug store that had a really nice, holiday gifty section. Bartell's was sold to a national chain about 6 years ago and now they're all closed down. It's just the way of the world. But the paper star lantern still brightens up my window every Christmas season.
As I write this, it is Christmas Eve. Just around midnight.
I am listening to the Vatican Christmas Day mass, ritual and celebration, which is being broadcast on local Catholic radio station KBLE 1050 AM. Last year I was able to hear it broadcast on shortwave station Radio Marti, in the 41 Meter Band -- which was really cool to hear -- but Marti either isn't on the air at these hours anymore, or the Shortwave ionospheric conditions are horrible -- probably both.
That dud we SWL's know as Solar Cycle #25 is slipping into the morass of static and weak signals, accented here and there by some RFI.... I predicted long ago that this Solar Cycle would be an overall dud, and it turned out to be a dud compared to previous cycles, and the fact that Christmas Eve presented an nearly blank SW band is in indicator of it. Cycle #25 had a few bright spots -- Summer 2024 being one of them. Then, a never ending series of mediocre to fair SW conditions and solar storms, including SW blackouts.
But there's no need to dwell on that -- it is what it is. :-)
Back to Christmas, hey?
I slept in greatly this Christmas Eve, as is often my custom, being a night-owl, and I switched on my radio and had my coffee, and -- to my chagrin -- found that the Shortwave band was mostly dead. The utility stations that are always present were missing, and the HF ham bands were dead, except for one group of Northern California hams on 3900 kHz, and one weak CW QSO in the 40 Meter ham band. The Shortwave bands were MIA, except for three weak, barely readable signals from US domestic stations WRMI, WWCR, and WTWW.
None of them had any Christmas like programming. I then tuned to the AM band, listened to the end of the California-Hawaii college football game, and tuned to 1480 kHz, and heard Christmas music coming out of California's KEJB, Eureka.
Then I got up.
I tuned the kitchen radio to one of the two local Catholic stations, because usually one or both of them will broadcast the major masses out of the Vatican -- Easter and Christmas. This year it was just KBLE that was broadcasting the Christmas Day mass. So I left it on as I made another cup of coffee and as the Christmas Mass music filled the room I fired up my bagpipes.
My outdoor Christmas lights, 2016 or so.
I finally got my third Surefire-brand, synthetic chanter reed set up to where it works really well, and I worked up a pipe version of Silent Nighta couple weeks ago, and it sounds really good on the pipes. I also practiced The First Noel, a version I worked up in 2016 or so. I was going to play them out on the street around 10 p.m., when it's quiet, and maybe some of the neighbors would hear them, maybe they wouldn't. Didn't matter. It was something I wanted to do. I played on Christmas Eve about 6 years ago, and no one complained.
So I warmed up the reed by about 5 minutes of playing, and went outside. The pipes worked excellently. This 'third' reed I've got is louder than my #1 reed, and much quieter than my harder reed (#2) -- I can play it without needing earplugs. As soon as I finished the Christmas Carols on my pipes, I went inside. I made a cup of tea. I was going to call my Aunt, and play the Carols for her. I then warmed up the pipes again, and suddenly the reed sputtered and a bunch of liquid spilled out of the bottom of my chanter.
It was bagpipe bag seasoning. Seasoning is a mixture of Murphy's Oil Soap, Glycerine, and a tiny bit of Pine Sol (which kills bacteria and mold) that I add to the bag in small amounts about once every month or so. It keeps the leather conditioned, and kills any mildew or bacteria. Sometimes after putting it in, the remainder of it decides to leave the bag -- through my reed and chanter. Oh well. It never damages anything, it's just a little messy when it happens. So I cleaned it all up.
Then I called my Aunt and played the two Christmas Carols for her on the phone. The pipes worked well. It was fun to play them on Christmas, being that I got them Christmas morning, 1981.
When I got off the phone with my aunt, I then came upstairs. And here I am, listening to the end of the Vatican Christmas Mass.
Me, Christmas Eve, 2016. I look about the same. I don't have any new pics because my camera's SD card is full, and I need to get a new SD card. I still have the Elf Hat, which I got at the Dollar store that year.
Now they are about to start playing the Mass all over again. I'm not Catholic, but I enjoy hearing the music of the rituals, especially the Christmas ones.
I'm not much of a Christmas celebrant anymore. It brings back too many memories. But I try to take the holiday for what it is, because that's all you can do.
Going through my old pics, I found this pic of my little Squeakers, two weeks after I got her in 2010. How time flies. See you on the other side, my little pal.
With that, I am going to feed Bear the Cat, who is getting really friendly now. Then I'll go out on a bike ride around the neighborhood, to ensure that the streets are safe for Santa Claus. Who knows? Perhaps I'll see good ol' St. Nick land on someone's roof with his sleigh and reindeer!
I wish all my readers a Merry Christmas, and a safe holiday season.
Infinity Sports Network is going through some major changes, starting on December 29th, 2025, when they will merge with a Sports Betting talk network, and become the Westwood One Sports network. It will be the second major change and second name change since the network started as CBS Sports Radio in 2013. In fact, in most respects, the entire CBS Sports Network / Infinity Sports Network is coming to an end.
That's the take on it from many who were involved in the network from the beginning.
CBS Sports Radio started not too long after I got back into the MW DXing and listening hobby in early Winter of 2011. At the time, I rediscovered the fun of listening to long distance AM radio at night, and the night time airwaves were alive with Radio Disney, ESPN, ESPN Deportes, Fox Sports Radio, SB Nation sports, and other lively programming.
Soon enough, ESPN, Fox, and SB Nation were joined by NBC Sports Radio, and then CBS Sports Radio, which, when it was launched, took over 1090 kHz here in Seattle, flipping the station from KPTK Progressive Talk to KFNQ 'The Fan'.
Now, although I enjoy listening to NFL football on the radio, I have never been a sports nut. That said, when I started listening to the Sports Talk networks, I was pleasantly surprised. Unlike conservative talk shows, the Sports Talkers usually had callers, and the callers were almost as entertaining as the hosts. And CBS Sports Radio had a great lineup of hosts.
During this time period -- 2011-2015 or so -- Sports Talk Radio in general seemed to be a growing trend on the AM band, being that many who were tired of political talk would now have an alternative, and here in the US, most people follow at least one sport. Some radio companies, seeing the success that ESPN Sports Radio already had nationwide, decided that Sports talk, national networks could be a money maker. CBS and NBC decided to join the fray. For a few years, Yahoo also had a sports network, too, as did SB Nation.
ESPN had ESPN Deportes, which had rapidfire, interesting sounding, Spanish language talk hosts, who'd talk a lot about soccer as well as basketball and NFL. The ESPN Deportes jingle had a wild guitar line, too. I remember hearing it one night on my GE Superadio 3, when I heard KSVE El Paso on 1650 kHz -- the only time I heard that station, in 2013 or 2014.
The period from 2011 to the Pandemic was a lively time for talk radio in general, as there were also new conservative talkers like Andy Dean and Steve Deace trying to build audiences in the early 2010's -- all trying to invigorate the talk radio airwaves.
I actually enjoyed CBS Sports Radio. I was listening when it first launched in Seattle, on January 2nd, 2013. Their theme music was rousing and lively, and really fit the Sports Radio image, and the first CBS Sports Radio talk host I heard was Scott Ferrall, a gritty sounding guy who reminded the listener of a the guy in the back of some New York City pub with the scrunchy hat, reading the sports pages religiously. Ferrall had a gruff voice, and a quick wit. He left CBS Sports late in the 2010's for an online Sports Bet website or podcast.
Others on CBS Sports Radio were DA (Damon Amendolara), who always was willing to beam you up on the 'mothership' while his hip-hop music theme played; and Jim Rome, who was already a big name in sports talk. I didn't listen to Jim Rome much, but like the rest of the CBS Sports Radio hosts, he was knowledgeable, and fun to listen to.
And Amy Lawrence was the overnight host, who always had a friendly attitude and extensive knowledge of football, basketball, and baseball.
Mike & Mike were a popular duo on ESPN Radio, and I sometimes heard their early morning show after 3 a.m. on some ESPN stations in the 2010's. They were sort of an 'odd couple', a theme which is somewhat popular on Sports Talk networks.
Several years ago, after CBS sold its radio properties, the name of the CBS Sports Radio network changed to Infinity Sports Radio -- by this time, Infinity was already producing the shows, so the change was really in name only. By the time of the name change, many of the hosts I enjoyed hearing in 2013 were gone. Scott Ferrall was gone. I think Jim Rome moved to another network.
Amy Lawrence left CBS Sports Radio not too long after it became the Infinity Sports Network, and although she didn't say a ton about it, there were behind the scenes issues -- related to cost cutting -- that apparently prompted her to leave.
DA, who left Infinity Sports Radio in 2023, also talks about the decline on this video clip here. He refers to the end of CBS Sports Radio / Infinity Sports Radio as the end of an era.:
Part of the 'decline' in CBS Sports Radio may have been the loss of affiliates. If one looks at the number of Infinity Sports Radio affiliates today, and compares it with Fox Sports Radio, Fox Sports has twice the affiliates nationwide.
A couple of the other Sports networks also had major changes about 5-6 years ago, which -- to me, anyway -- took away from some of the fun listening. Mike and Mike were gone from the ESPN. Colin Cowherd is still on the radio (on Fox Sports since 2015), but his show was moved to a different time slot. There were two other hosts (an 'odd couple' of sports guys whose names I can't recall) who shared an early morning show that I often heard early mornings on Fox Sports that saw their show axed.
There are a few holdouts, however.
Ben Maller, who's been the overnight guy on Fox Sports Radio, is still very entertaining, and he has managed to stay on the air. Dan Patrick and Doug Gottlieb are still on Fox Sports Radio, too. They are long time, popular hosts. But a lot of the others are off the air, either doing satellite radio, or podcasts.
Before the Pandemic hit, Yahoo Sports, SB Nation, ESPN Deportes, and NBC Sports Radio all saw their plugs pulled, and new, Sports Betting Talk shows and networks began to grow on the radio airwaves. For example, there's a station in Southern Oregon, KDSO 1300, out of Ashland -- that is sports bet talk only. KGO San Francisco tried a version of Sports Bet talk that kept the station afloat before it was taken over by conservative talker KSFO. If KGO and KSFO's owners didn't think that KGO had a better signal, KGO would probably still be Sports Bet talk.
The radio scene at night on the AM band sounds very much different from how it sounded in 2013, and this latest change to what was CBS Sports Radio is yet another indicator that not only is Radio changing as it adapts to lower revenues and other changes in the industry, but even formats like Sports Talk are changing, as Westwood One Sports will have at least two shows brought over from BetMGM, one in the morning (morning drive, East Coast Time) and one in the early evening.
The tentative Westwood One Sports schedule is included in this Barrett Media article on the network change.:
The two Sports Bet Talk shows are from BetMGM. Think about that for a moment. Even the name 'BetMGM' speaks loads. BetMGM is an online betting website. You can read about BetMGM's development here, on the Wiki.:
In the 1950s and 60s, MGM was known as a movie company, more or less family friendly. Then they opened up a resort hotel in Las Vegas -- which, naturally, has a casino. Now they have a Sports Bet talk network. And betting itself has become more accepted in Sports. One could say that Betting has become vital to Sports in the US. For years, Las Vegas wanted an NFL team, but the league balked, because of the potential association with gambling.
Obviously, that concern changed. Las Vegas now has an NFL team, the Raiders.
Now, I'm not trying to cast any aspersions on betting, or the sports bet industry.
But it's obviously a fact that Gambling, and Sports Betting in particular, are very big deals in both Sports and Radio. During the NFL downturn in the mid 2010's, at least one observer said the NFL's TV ratings were still as high as they were because of sports betting and fantasy football, which is sports betting related. Sports bettors would still tune into the games to double check on their bets, or make new bets.
Even now, a lot of commercials on the Sports networks are for sports betting websites like FanDuel and DraftKings. A couple months ago I heard a journalist interviewed on the Catholic radio network Relevant Radio talking about how pervasive Sports Betting actually is. It's a multimillion dollar industry. And its effect is being felt on Radio.
So, what does this all say for the state of Radio in general? I think it says a lot. Radio is hurting for revenues, as everything media shifts more and more online. DA and Amy Lawrence both stated they saw evidence of cost cutting at CBS Sports Radio -- and CBS Sports Radio was an excellent product, and -- as far as I know -- it got decent ratings for sports radio.
But the entire Radio industry is feeling the pinch. For those of us who love Radio and worked in Radio (as I did for 20 years, total), it really hurts to see some of these changes happening.
So, starting December 29th, Infinity Sports Network is disappearing, being replaced by Westwood One Sports. In some ways, the change may be in name only, as some shows will remain -- but even now the Infinity Sports Network just doesn't have the same kick and pizazz that CBS Sports Radio did during the glory days in the early 2010's when Scott Ferrall would decry boring, pitcher oriented baseball.
"I don't want to see eight innings of boring pitching and strikeouts!" he'd say. "I want to see base hits! I want to see doubles! I want to see home runs!"
And he was right.
Now I'm going to go back to listening to Sports Talk on my GE Superadio, and try to get back to writing some fiction.
CJVB 1470, a long time Chinese language broadcaster out of Vancouver, BC Canada, is going off the air. Its owner, Fairchild Radio (Vancouver FM) Ltd, which also runs an FM station out of Vancouver (CHKG-FM), is pulling the plug on CJVB and they're going to be FM only. The switching off of CJVB appears slated for March.
The CRTC (Canada's communications arm, which regulates Radio there) has approved the shutting down of CJVB.
The reasons for the shut down are decreased revenue, and increased costs -- an issue that is hitting most Radio stations in the US and Canada -- whether FM or AM.
Fairchild, in a request sent to the CRTC in June, stated that "both the stations have experienced decreased advertising and airtime brokerage sales," and that "the operating costs for the two stations [CJVB and CHKG-FM] continue to increase and that the stations have sustained significant losses for several years."
Furthermore, Fairchild said that the two stations, AM and FM, had "incurred significant economic losses for the past five years, and that it expects this trend to continue in the foreseeable future."
It looks like the Pandemic economy hurt CJVB and it's FM sister station, just as it's slammed a lot of radio stations since 2020.
Fairchild said they would transfer a block of Chinese programming to CHKG after CJVB is pulled off the air, and that the block of Chinese language programming would be from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m.
It's a sad case but increasingly common in Radio, and not just AM. As I've posted in several articles over the past two to three years, it's not just AM stations going off the air, but also some FM's are seeing their plugs pulled also. It's because of the reasons that Fairchild told the CRTC -- decreased revenues, and increasing costs.
Even highly rated, local NPR station KUOW-FM had to cut some staff last year because of increased costs. They had record donations, and increased revenues, but the increasing costs outweighed the increase in revenues.
CJVB has always been a barn burner signal here in Seattle. Vancouver is just 130 or so air miles north of us, and CJVB has had a really good signal, with their transmitters not too far from the water in Richmond, BC.
Now it appears that KELA, Centralia, WA -- just 100 miles south of me -- will dominate the 1470 frequency in the NW US and SW Canada, once CJVB is switched off. CJVB is due to have its license revoked on March 6th, 2026.
The first time I noticed CJVB was when I got my Sanyo Boombox for Christmas, in 1982.It was my first FM Stereo radio, and the AM side was a good performer. Not only did I discover New Wave music (on the former 'The Wave' KYYX 96 FM) I rediscovered AM Band DXing, and CJVB was hard to 'null' to hear other stations on 1470. They were easy to ID because of the Chinese language programming, and Chinese (or any other Asian language) programming was rare to hear on the radio -- AM or FM -- in the 1980's.
So CJVB really stuck out on the AM band at night.
Now, obviously, after CJVB goes off the air early next year, nulling that signal won't be an issue.
It's too bad, because recently they've been playing a lot of cool Asian rock and pop music at night. I recently heard a song sung by a guy in Chinese, which sounded like a pop-rock song from 2000 or 2001, complete with a lead guitar that sounded like it was right from that era (an Alice In Chains style wah-wah).
Looks like there's just 2-3 more months to hear it before it's off the airwaves.
And so it goes. So long, CJVB. You had a good run.
That's about it for now. Life has gone normally. I've been having some internet issues, and the repair people never seem to really fix them 100%. It's frustrating. The internet cuts out, even though the connection is good. I think it might be my router, but the repair people said they think it's still good. I'm beginning to doubt their expertise or credibility anymore.
Other than that, my new cat, now named 'Bear', is finally getting used to me. She waits by the door to her room for me to go in and feed her and pet her. I'm still leaving her in my upstairs bathroom so she has her own space. With cats, change = bad. So I give her her own space, and in a month or so I'll see if she comes out and checks out the rest of the house.
GETTING A QODOSEN DX-286
I also got a new radio, a Qodosen DX-286, which a lot of people rave about. I got it on my late father's 100th birthday, December 10th. Dad was the one who got me into radio, and into listening to SW radio and long distance MW radio. He taught me that the key to hearing distant stations was to 'tune slowly, and listen carefully', something I'm sure he learned from his father, my grandfather, who built radios, including a tube shortwave radio.
The DX-286 has an NXP, TEF chip in it, that is the same type of chip used in the Sony XDR's that were popular with FM DXers in the 2000's and 2010's. The TEF chips are also used in car dash radio systems, and the chips are known for excellent reception, both on FM, AM, and SW.
My first impression with the DX-286 is that it's very good on MW and SW. It picks up MW as good as my Sony XDR does -- very clear reception, and the AGC is tight, without pumping. I'm still putting the DX-286 through its paces. So far, I think it's a good radio, well worth the money.
ONE WATT AUDIO CHIP, GOOD RECEPTION OVERALL
It has a rep for eating batteries -- but the audio chip puts out ONE WATT. That's a lot of audio power, and it takes a lot of juice to drive a ONE WATT AF chip. So if you want to increase time between charges when using a DX-286, use headphones, or keep that volume down. :-)
Good clear audio on this radio, though. I'm impressed.
SOME 'TIC' NOISES, that disappear when you use a LOOP
There is only one minor glitch I've found with the DX-286. The radio puts out two 'ticks' per second, which are audible on 810, 820 and some lower channels on the AM band. I think it has something to do with the clock function for the microprocessor. My Grundig G2 has the same issue, except it receives the 'ticks' on a lot more channels.
The DX-286 only get these 'tick' noises on headphones. Not on the speaker. Which leads me to believe that the radio's headphone amp is near a clock function of some sort (the DX-286 has two audio amp chips -- the one watt chip for the speaker and a lower wattage chip that drives the headphones).
The happy part of this is that when I use an external loop on MW, the tick noises disappear from 810, 820, etc. So the issue really doesn't bother me.
....IN OTHER LIFE
Aside from all that -- all is about as well as it can be. If I don't post another article before then, Merry Christmas to all my readers, wherever you are.
My family won't be having a get-together for this Christmas, so I will celebrate alone, just me and my cat. I'll probably play Silent Night and The First Noel on my bagpipes, outside, for the neighbors, and maybe write a Christmas-themed fiction tale.
The famous Hollywood Sign, a US national landmark.
(photo courtesy Wikipedia)
When I was growing up, the influence of Hollywood, and Los Angeles, was everywhere. Every movie was made in Hollywood. Most of the music -- more than half of it, probably -- was recorded in Los Angeles, with some of the recording studios in Hollywood. The Rolling Stones 60's albums that weren't recorded in London (at Olympic Studios), for example, were recorded in Hollywood studios like Sunset Sound and Goldstar, where the famous, sunshiny, 60's music from Jan & Dean and the Beach Boys to nearly every folk rock pop hit from that era -- were all recorded.
Van Halen's albums were recorded there, at Sunset Sound. Kiss recorded in or near Hollywood. Guns 'N' Roses recorded their first album near Hollywood, and were part of the Hollywood metal scene in the 80's. Tons of vital rock and pop songs were recorded in the Hollywood studios.
From the 1960's through the 2000's most of the popular Rock music was recorded in LA. Even Nirvana's breakthrough album, Nevermind, was recorded in or near Hollywood. A lot of Nu-Metal acts I loved in the 2000's -- from Korn to Coal Chamber to Engines of Aggression to Buckcherry to Limp Bizkit -- were either part of the Los Angeles scene, or recorded there.
Most, if not all, of the movies I enjoyed were Hollywood productions. As a child of the 70's and 80's, TV was all Hollywood. In the 1980's and early 90's, I was an aspiring musician. To me -- as it was to most musicians in Seattle during those times -- Los Angeles was where you made it big. That was because Los Angeles (Hollywood) was THE center of Rock and pop music.
A view of Los Angeles from behind the Hollywood sign. Looks like paradise, doesn't it. Balmy weather all year long, and look at all those nice houses. Way off in the distance is downtown LA, and off the picture, to the right, are the beaches. But the mainstay industry of the Los Angeles region -- the entertainment industry -- is taking a big, big hit. Will it recover, or will AI do it all in?
(Photo courtesy Wikipedia)
But now there is a big problem. Hollywood is DEAD.
There have been some videos on YouTube, put there by podcasters who know the industry, who are talking about the fact that Hollywood is dying -- the famous movie and TV production studios have vacant lots and empty soundstages. Actors and all the other people who were part of the industry are unemployed, or only working part time, having to travel to other places to do their job. They're hurting for money.
There have been reports that box office revenues are at record lows. New 'blockbuster' movies aren't busting the block anymore. Something is awry here.
This chart, obtained from The-Numbers dot com, is pretty informative. On the left column, you'll see that in 2025 the Movie Industry sold roughly half the box office tickets it sold in 2005. In the third column, where the numbers account for inflation, you can see that in 2025 the Movie Industry made roughly half the box office receipts it made in 2005.
If the chart is hard to read, it can be right clicked and displayed in a new tab or window. (chart courtesy The-Numbers.com)
Looking at ticket sales stats and box office revenues over the past 20 years, the US movie industry is not only seeing nearly half the theatre audience it had in 2005, it is also making roughly half of what it made in 2005, when accounting for inflation. Now, it's not easy to find complete reports, which include streaming movie revenues, which might make the two figures more even, but a 50% cut at the box office from 2001 to 2025 is fairly telling.
Think about it. In just twenty years, the movie theatres have half the viewers and half the revenues they had in 2005.
This chart shows the Movie Industry's box office receipts, year by year (red line) and number of tickets sold per year (blue line) since 1995, which was 30 years ago. As you can see, the number of tickets sold started declining in 2004, took a deep dive during Covid, and is lower than it probably was in the 1980's (off the chart).
Correspondingly, the amount of revenue per ticket increased, starting in 2005. But if you account for inflation (see previous chart), the Industry's ticket revenues started flatlining in 2013, and making less money after that.
(chart courtesy The-Numbers.com)
The numbers indicated that the monster of entertainment we used to call Hollywood -- and Los Angeles -- is fading.
This leaves the question: What went wrong?
It turns out that a combination of factors killed Hollywood. Poor governance by California and LA politicians -- high taxes, prohibitively high permit fees for location shoots. The fires did not help any. The strikes did not help any. California's tax policies moving parts of the industry to places like Texas and Georgia did not help any. Covid definitely did not help any.
On the other hand, the movies coming out of Hollywood haven't exactly been earthshaking. The trend of constant sequels, comic-book remakes, bland plots or non-stop superhero drivel hasn't exactly made people want to go to the theatre to pay $20 for tickets and another $20 for popcorn and a drink. They stay home and stream -- which makes Hollywood less money.
Most of these factors leading to Hollywood's decline are mentioned by the movers and shakers in the videos I have linked here.
Brian Entin's interesting vid on Hollywood turning into a Ghost Town, which includes an interview with Mel Gibson about Hollywood dying.
Mel Gibson, who made his first big movie in Melbourne in 1979 ('Mad Max'), and came to the US after The Road Warrior hit in 1981, has been either starring in movies, or making his own movies, for over 40 years. He knows a bit about Hollywood.
In his view, bad government, Covid, strikes, fires, the incredibly high cost of living in California, the incredibly high cost of doing business in California -- and other factors -- all have combined to turn Hollywood into a ghost town, which is how he describes it.
In an interview with podcaster Brian Entin, Mel Gibson said it was cheaper to fly an entire movie production to Bulgaria for three days, film some scenes there -- and the cost, including housing and transportation -- was less than it would be for shooting the same scene for one day in Los Angeles.
Everything is so expensive in LA, Gibson says. Even the cost of an apple in LA is so much higher than it is in Rome or Bulgaria.
Looking at the footage in Brian Entin's excellent video on the death of Hollywood drives Mel's point home -- Hollywood is indeed becoming a ghost town. Entin shows scenes of empty parking lots. Empty buildings. Soundstages with no activity -- no people.
It's all DEAD.
For those who work in Hollywood, it's a personal disaster. For those of us who grew up on Hollywood movies and music, it's heartbreaking.
But it's the new reality.
And this leads to the question: will it ever come back? My conclusion is that it never will. I now will tell you why.
This is a video by the Film Threat podcast on Hollywood dying. It concentrates on LA's Hollywood job losses. Over 20% job loss in just a year... a year that was supposed to be make-or-break for Hollywood.
The video I discuss below, which was a roundtable of FilmThreat industry experts, did not show up in the Blogger search function. Here is a link that that video.:
THEY ALL TALKED ABOUT EVERYTHING EXCEPT the INTERNET and A.I.
In both of the videos I have linked above, there are two things that none of these movers and shakers have mentioned -- two factors that are systemic, and are killing the audio and video entertainment industry -- and one of those factors will kill it off: the death of physical entertainment media (DVD's, CD's), and AI.
First off, the death of physical media sales -- i.e. VHS tapes, DVD's, cassettes and CD sales -- is an important factor affecting Hollywood, because the death of DVD sales removed a massive revenue stream that propped up the movie and recording industries, and gave music and movie producers more money to work with -- more money to take chances on new artists, new scripts, new song and movie ideas. The billions of dollars that came in from CD sales allowed record companies to invest in new artists. DVD sales did the same for movie companies.
The movie industry, like the music industry, openly embraced streaming, without ensuring that DVD or video download SALES would be included in the contracts for licensing. Instead of ensuring that the video-file equivalent of the DVD would be a vital part of movie consumption, the movie industry agreed to the online streaming model, where there is no sale, and the revenues are based on declining box office receipts and abysmally low streaming revenues.
From what I've read, some movie companies rush their products to the streaming services, which undercuts any theatre revenues or whatever remaining DVD sales there may be -- killing off, or choking off two revenue streams.
The music industry did the same thing in 2001 when it embraced MP3 singles as being the only revenue model, and later on the music industry also embraced streaming, letting the revenues dwindle further in the process. They allowed the CD and the MP3 album to be killed off, replacing it with streamed 'album-equivalent-units', which bring in much less revenue.
This lack of sales of the movie or album has stifled creativity, because there is less revenue to invest in new artists or movie products.
Here is an example of how physical album sales helped propel a genre to dominance: Nirvana in 1991.
Nirvana only became massive because of the Nevermind album, which was an example of a record company taking a chance on a small-city (i.e. Seattle) alternative band, a band that as late as 1990 only alt rock and punk rock fans knew about. Once Geffen Records dumped money into recording and production, there was a sellable product, with all this money behind it to push it to radio and MTV.
The money that was used to front the recording, album cover, CD manufacturing; the video production costs, the merch, and the promotion posters and cardboard, record store promotion kiosks -- it all came from other artists' hit album sales.
Other albums that the recording company had in its roster had provided the revenues that were used to record, produce, and promote Nevermind to be the smash hit that it came to be.
Today there are no album sales. Streaming revenues are incredibly low. A million selling CD single in 2001 brought in over $5 million in revenue. A million plays of a single song on streaming platforms today will bring in $4000.
In 2001, a million selling CD album brought in about $18 million. Today, an "Album-Equivalent-Unit' getting one million plays will bring in about $48,000.
Get the picture? There is a lot less money in streaming -- both in music streaming, and in movie streaming. The death of physical media sales killed off a LOT of revenue, not only for the music industry, but the movie industry also. Actor and filmmaker Matt Damon discussed this in an interview several years ago. He said that in the 2000's, a movie producer could take a chance, because if the movie stiffed in the movie theatres, they could always count on DVD sales, and DVD rentals (which brought in more than streaming).
Damon insisted that killing the DVD killed off a lot of revenue, and was one reason that movies are so cookie cutter today -- the studios have less money available to take chances.
So the death of physical media sales (DVD's, CD's) has drastically affected Hollywood. One of the media experts in the second video I linked does talk about how the internet, and Tik-Tok, has changed media consumption, and that is a similar problem for Hollywood, being that the more hours you're watching clips on Tik-Tok, that's less time you're watching Hollywood productions.
But amazingly, none of these experts mentioned the death of the DVD as being one major factor in Hollywood's decline.
A.I. -- THE FINAL NAIL IN HOLLYWOOD'S COFFIN
AI is the 900-pound gorilla in the room that neither Mel Gibson, nor the experts in the second video address when discussing what is happening to Hollywood and the entertainment industry in general. Only one of the experts in the second video alluded to AI being in the future, in passing, where he mentioned that people may soon be able to use prompts to order up their own AI movie, on their phone or laptop.
The reality is that AI is not just going to be a trend. It is going to replace all other forms of audio and visual entertainment. Anyone who has seen the rapid improvement in AI video over the past two years can see that it's not going to go away. It's only going to get better in quality. Right now, the best AI out there can create high quality 10 minute clips. Soon enough -- maybe 5 years or so -- it will be able to create movie-length videos that you won't be able to tell from the movies Hollywood is producing now.
Right now AI is only starting to kill off other entertainment forms. In 20 years it will have finished the job. In the rest of this article I will tell you why.
First, let's look at how things used to be. Then we'll look at how they are now.
It used to be that actors, writers, and musicians would go to Los Angeles to try to make it big. When I still had my rock and roll dreams in the 80's and 90's, Los Angeles was always the place I figured I'd have to go to make it.
Why Los Angeles? Because all of the movie studios, TV studios, and recording studios were there. After all, it's HOLLYWOOD, and all the entertainment industries interconnect there.
And because of LA being so big, so diverse, and such a media center -- after all, it's the number two city in the United States -- it is a natural magnet for movie and music star wannabes. And with the great weather, and the beaches, and the sunshine -- it's naturally a place everyone wants to go.
Of course, music and movies often go hand in hand, as do music and TV. And all the entertainment forms converge together in Hollywood. Music stars used to make music videos -- often, those videos were made by people who were from the movie industry. As late as the 2010's, many music videos looked like full-on Hollywood productions.
This is because they actually were full-on Hollywood productions. Here is an example, which I've used in an earlier article 2 years ago -- Selena Gomez's video for her excellent pop song A Year Without Rain (2010), which looks like a Hollywood movie production.
The video for Selena Gomez's 2010 Top 40 pop hit A Year Without Rain. Look at the direction; the widescreen, high resolution; the breathtaking cinematography; look at how perfect everything is. Not only is it a great song -- but there was a lot of money put into this video. ...Money that the music industry lacks today.
As you can tell, the cinematography is perfect. Selena's hair is perfect. Her makeup is perfect. Every movement of her dress is perfect. The sweeping vista shots in the widescreen video look like big-movie cinematography. It's all that way by design.
It has Hollywood written all over it. There was a LOT of money expended to make the video, and the pop track wasn't even a top ten hit. It was a great song, but didn't top the charts.
But look at all the money that went into that video!
Today, most of a video like that would be AI. In fact, in maybe ten years the entirety of such a video -- including the singer, music production and songwriting -- will all be AI.
This is how far we've progressed in just 15 years. From awesome pop hits, sung by real singers, written by real songwriters, and played by real musicians, to everything being done by a computer app.
What does this mean for Hollywood? It means 'it's dead, Jim.'
One reason that Hollywood was such an important place was because it was a LOCATION where everyone involved in music, movies, TV, and other audio-visual entertainment lived or travelled to get albums recorded, videos filmed, movies produced. To record an album, you could do it in Seattle, but the big production albums were finished and mastered in Los Angeles -- because that's where the big name producers were based. That was where the record companies were based. That's where the videos were made for most rock and pop hits.
With AI, none of that is needed. It all can be done via the internet, and in the future, it will all be done on your phone, on your AI app.
At the same time, we've seen the Tik-Tok effect, where there are no big singing stars anymore, and there are really no big movie stars anymore -- the internet has democratized and nichefied audio and video entertainment so much that the days of the mass media star are drawing to a close.
And AI will kill that off, too. Just give it time.
A.I. WILL ALSO REPLACE THE AUTHOR
I'll close this article off with a more personal take. As many of you may know, I've written books and published them on Amazon. Consequently, I frequent some forums for eBook authors, and a couple subreddits (on Reddit) where eBook authors hang out.
The vast majority of them are willingly blinded to the disaster that is coming down the pike. They really think that AI will have no effect whatsoever on the eBook publishing business.
"Readers will always want to read books by real human authors," they invariably say. "AI writing is trash, no one will read it," they invariably say. "Books are different from video and music," they invariably say.
They are blind, blind, blind.
First off, I have read some of the AI produced fiction recently. Sure, some of it is trashy writing. AI is nothing like Melville, Dickens or Shelley in its ability to turn out literature -- not yet. It hasn't even reached Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, Robert Ruark or George Orwell level of writing skills yet.
But at the same time, most modern fiction is pulp fiction, or a variety of it, and I can't see where AI fiction is much different from any drugstore pulp novel writing. Are there glitches and some issues with the stories? Sure. But any glitches will undoubtedly be smoothed out and fixed as the AI-writing models are streamlined. Another issue is that the average eBook fiction author today reads fiction differently from the way the average consumer reads it. I've seen a lot of top selling books that weren't anything close to what I'd call literary in nature.
But they sell. And so will AI fiction, eventually.
Also, these AI detractors aren't keeping track of the trend in book consumption. Younger demos do not read books the same way that GenXer's, older Millennials, and Boomers did. They read less books, and buy fewer books than their older counterparts did.
Younger people are also much more open to new technology, and especially more open to new entertainment technology. That includes AI fiction writing, as well as AI videos, AI produced music, and the like.
If you are an eBook author and you think AI isn't going to eventually replace you, you are being willfully ignorant, friend. It's going to take over everything, and it's just a matter of time.
There will always be human written books, just as there will always be real music made by real people on real instruments. There will always be real people taking real photos on real cameras.
They just won't be making much, if any, money doing it.
BREAKING RUST: THE FUTURE IS NOW
Just recently, a new wrinkle in the AI factor has surfaced: a mysterious AI country singer named Breaking Rust topped the Country Digital Song Sales chart on Billboard. It's had 4 million streams on Spotify and 11 million streams on YouTube (according to CBS News).
Sounds like Gospel tinged Country to me. Not too different in tone from Lil Nas X's 'Old Town Road', which was a smash just before Corona hit. 'Walk My Walk' has had 4 million streams on Spotify. That means it's made the creators (whoever they are) somewhere around $16,000.
If you listen toBreaking Rust,it sounds just like modern day country -- the words, of course are cliche. So are the words in most modern country songs -- I hear a lot of country while scanning the AM band at night, and the lyrics are almost non-stop cliches. The Breaking Rust singer sounds like a soulful white guy, or a black American gospel singer with a country-tinged accent.
Now, the fact that this track topped the MP3 Download Sales chart isn't necessarily a harbinger for the end of all musicians. But it shows exactly what AI is capable of doing. And if you listen to the track, it's not much different from what you might hear on the radio today, production and content-wise.
This is the future folks. We're already in it.
MY ONLY VISIT TO HOLLYWOOD
After viewing the first two videos I linked above, and writing this article, I have to admit that it's very saddening what has happened to Hollywood, and the entertainment industry in general.
I only have been to Hollywood once. It was during a road trip I took, by car, with a former girlfriend. We drove from Seattle to New Orleans and back. The furthest east we made it was Pass Christian, Mississippi, where my ex and I waded in the warmth of the Gulf of Mexico for the first time. I clearly recall the heat of the sun, the calming feel of the warm water, and hearing and seeing the flying fishes flip away in front of us as we were nearly waist deep in the water. It is one of my fondest memories. I was truly happy.
On the way back home from New Orleans, we went through Los Angeles. That night, we stopped in Hollywood. Sunset and Vine. I got out of the car, and walked up and down the block, and we both got a can of soda at a corner market.
So this is Hollywood, I thought to myself. On one hand, Sunset Boulevard reminded me of First Avenue in Seattle, a key thoroughfare that used to be a combination of Skid Row and culture central -- it ran from the touristy Pioneer Square district, pass several adult video arcades and pawn shops and music stores, to the famous Pike Place Market. Sunset reminded me slightly of this combination of run down and upscale.
On the other hand, my heart was pounding, because I was there -- at the center of the universe -- Sunset and Vine!
We drove west on Sunset, before heading north, and back to Interstate 5, so we could make our way back home.
Looking south from Sunset as we were driving towards the hills, you could see this vast panorama of lights to the south of us -- Beverly Hills, and the western part of LA that is the 'Los Angeles' that always makes it in the movies. In fact, the view reminded me of the sweeping vista one can see in the 2000's movie Crash, which features LA, with all of its diversity, glamour, and its hope, and also its underbelly. There is a sweeping vista in that movie that looked identical to the grand view I saw driving west on Sunset.
It was my only foray into Hollywood, but one I'll never forget.
Hollywood is that magical place that now is facing a declining future. Hollywood the neighborhood will always exist. I'm sure that there will always be entertainment in some form happening there, and being produced there.
But the glamour days are over. AI is going to kill it all off.
I'll be glad if that doesn't happen that way, but I don't think I'm wrong. AI is changing everything, folks, and we're in for a wild ride.
My last thoughts are a bit historical, I suppose. Hollywood as we still know it is only about 100 years old. The movie industry, which had been previously based out of New Jersey, moved west to Los Angeles in the 1920's -- just 100 years ago. 100 years is a long time for a single location like Hollywood to be the center of the entertainment universe.
It was a good run.
IN OTHER LIFE....
In other life, it's been going normally. I'm still sorting out some finances left over from my mother's passing, and I'm still riding my bike at night, playing guitar and working on my bagpipes, so I can play them for the family at Thanksgiving. The temperatures have been moderate for November, which is refreshing. When I ride my bike at night, it feels like Spring.
I just got some new, plastic/synthetic Surefire brand chanter reeds for my bagpipes, and they work really well. There are four different strengths, and I ordered one of each, to figure out which strength reed works the best.
I also have a new cat. She's a grey tabby, 8-9 years old. I'm the third owner. The former owner couldn't keep her anymore. She was almost headed to be euthanized. She is now in my upstairs bathroom, which is heated -- and it's her own space.
She still isn't sure of me. Hisses a lot -- it's because she's scared. Cats don't like change. I'm using food as a weapon -- getting her to get to know me, because I'm the human putting the food in the dish. She still hisses a bit, but is meowing more and hissing less.
I don't have any pics because both my phone and camera's memories are full and I need to clear them to take more pics. She looks a bit like my Fluffamuffins did, my little grey cat that died just over a year and a half ago. Here is a pic of Fluffy as a reminder of what she looked like.:
Fluffy, a.k.a. Fluffamuffins, when a kitten, in 2011. My new cat looks incredibly like her.
As you can tell, I was working on my Superadio some time before or after I took this pic. Fluffy just made herself at home on the table.
I think I'll call the new cat Princess, because she's a shelter cat that's on her third (or fourth?) owner since she was at a Lompoc, California animal shelter in 2017.
