CBS Radio News, 99 years old, to be shut down in May -- & Na Na Hey Hey, the hit that wasn't supposed to happen

CBS News Radio, RIP. They're 99 years old and having their plug pulled.

America's CBS Radio News, a top-of-the-hour news program on hundreds of radio stations across the US, is shutting down in May of this year, according to several reports and a memo from the head of CBS.

The reason for pulling the plug on the 99 year-old news service is apparently economic. The heads of CBS, in a memo to CBS Radio News employees, said that "a shift in radio programming strategies" (whatever that means) and "challenging economic realities" (lessening revenues) have "made it impossible to continue the service."

The complete notice sent from the CBS heads to their employees can be read here.:

CBS News Radio To Shutter Amid News Division Cuts

CBS Radio News presently is broadcast on the top of each hour on approximately 700 radio stations in the Unites States. It's long been considered one of the premiere news services in the country. There aren't that many radio news networks in the United States -- aside from CBS Radio News, there is ABC Radio News, Fox Radio News, Townhall, and a few smaller services, some of them regional.

And, of course, on the Public Radio side of things, there is NPR.

So why, really, did CBS pull the plug on its vaunted CBS Radio News broadcasts?

Money, that's why -- at least according to a few Radio experts and observers. There really isn't enough money in Radio news anymore to keep the lights on at the news department. CBS Radio News was a commercial service, and with Radio revenues down across the industry, having a large Radio news department doesn't pencil out the way it did in 2006 or 1996. 

Radio revenues nationwide are down around 50-60% or more since 2005. Radio took a big hit during the Great Recession after 2008, and the Pandemic economy during Corona didn't help, either. Internet competition has hurt Radio, which doesn't help radio news. Many stations went under after the Pandemic faded, and this economic malaise affecting Radio in general hurts the news services, too.

Competition from the internet has affected all 'legacy' media -- Radio, TV, Cable networks, Newspapers, Magazines, etc. The large advertising agencies have more media choices than ever -- they not only have what's left of Broadcast and Print media, but they have an infinite number of websites and apps to use for their advertising purposes. All those ads you see on YT vids, and the large number of ads popping up on news websites are replacing commercials that used to run on Radio and TV.

When the news of CBS Radio News impending closure hit the Radio side of social media, most reaction seemed to be mixed -- there is a lot of sadness over the coming demise of the network of news greats like Edward R. Murrow, which also had the longest running Radio news program in US history (CBS Radio's World News Roundup). 

Also, there are those who say it's just another day in Radio -- another network shut down, another heritage broadcaster pulls the plug. "The money just isn't in it anymore."

And it may very well be true. Some observers who still work in the industry say that Top Of The Hour Radio Newscasts just don't make money. You can't sell those commercials to the big advertisers anymore -- not like in the past. It's one reason that virtually no music radio stations in the US have news anymore. They can't monetize newscasts.

When I was a child, even the Top 40 music stations had newscasts, usually starting at five minutes before the hour. During the 1980's that all disappeared. To hear Radio news, you had to tune to the actual News stations, and those were all on the AM/MW band. Today, most News stations are still on the AM band, and are part of what is keeping AM alive (along with ethnic programming, Sports talk, conservative talk, and religion).

But every few years or so, another News station bites the dust. In Canada, some News radio stations have combined some operations with other stations, in other metros, even 500 miles away. CFFR 660, one of Calgary's news radio stations, runs some traffic and news reports for Vancouver, as it has combined night-time operations with CKWX, 1130. Consequently, you can hear Calgary news and traffic on CKWX at night, too.

WCBS 880, once a great all-News radio station in New York City, had the plug pulled, and it's now syndicated sports shows. KGO San Francisco, a well known News-talk station during the 1960's-2010's, went to Sports-Betting talk, and then the station was shut down, its transmitter now being used by conservative talker KSFO (which moved to KGO's 810 transmitter from their old frequency at 560 kHz).

WCBS, interestingly enough, made a LOT of money. They were the #10 station in the US (AM or FM) in revenues up until their owners pulled the plug on the News programming in 2024. Observers in the industry kept saying "the News format cost too much money to run."

But they were NUMBER TEN in the country. 

"But the News format still costs a lot of money to run, so the owners are saving money by running sports." Or so they said.

It still looks a bit odd, that any Radio company would ditch a #10 billing station to run Sports on the cheap, but hey -- when I worked in radio, I was first a newscaster, then a news director for 3 years (at a small public radio station), and then I was a sound engineer for around 16 years -- I wasn't working on the business side of things. So what do I know?

Either way, the movers and shakers at CBS believe that CBS Radio News is costing them too much to produce to keep the shows going out to the 700 affiliates.

I'll end this article with my own feelings. I am really saddened by the death of CBS Radio News. I used to listen to the local CBS news station a lot. During the early Sunday mornings I'd hear The Takeout, with Major Garrett, which was a really good interview show (it's now on YT as a podcast, with 6.9 Million subscribers, but the recent episodes have 6-10K views). I'd also hear the World News Roundup, and sometimes the Weekend version.

Like most Radio aficionados, I remember when network radio was vital. In the 2010's, when I rediscovered the night-time Radio DX hobby, I heard a LOT of network radio -- CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox Radio newscasts, NPR (from Oregon's AM outlet KOAC), and there were several interesting Sports talk networks, with three of them (CBS Sports Radio, NBC Sports Radio, and Fox Sports Radio) associated with their news radio counterparts.

Just over the past several years, Radio networks in general have been dying off. CBS Sports Radio is no more. NBC Sports Radio is no more. Radio Disney is no more. SB Nation Sports Radio is no more. ESPN Deportes is no more. Air America left us in the early 2010's, but the few straggling progressive talkers that still carried a few of their hosts are all gone.

And you can add to that the stations that have left the air -- most of them AM, but a lot of FM stations are gone, too, including at least one college FM station in my area.

I know it's just progress, and change is always with us. But sometimes those changes just don't feel good.

I'll miss hearing CBS Radio News, just as I miss hearing CBS Sports Radio. And just as I miss hearing Radio Disney, a well-operated Hit Radio network that was aimed at kids, but also had a good pop music playlist. When they went off the air it felt like a sock in the gut, being that they livened up the night-time radio airwaves with the really good pop music that was big in the early 2010's.

I suspect that in the future we'll be seeing more Radio networks bite the dust. It's probably a good practice to appreciate the ones that remain. Maybe they have 10-15 years left? We'll see. Because the revenue issues hitting Radio won't go away. 

IN OTHER LIFE....

In other life, the weather here has warmed up slightly, and I can hear the frogs croaking and chirruping at night, which usually happens in March during normal years. The past several years this hasn't happened until April or May. My birch tree's climbing rose bush is already starting to bud green.

My cat Bear is doing well. She still is too scared to come out of her room. She's a very skittish cat, but she meows and wants me to pet her, so it's going well.

I'm still having some internet issues, especially when it's cold and rainy. I am looking into alternatives for internet service because of it.

The Ionosphere is Weaker than watered-down Tea

In the DX hobby, the ionosphere is not performing well lately. Some wags in the ham radio hobby and SWL hobby blame Solar flares, but really it's the ionosphere is weakening. I think we are already in the Solar minimum, and it's diving fast, just like in 2018 or so, when SW conditions went from good to fair to abysmal in just a few months.

It's eUV, that supreme factor that makes the ionosphere work. It's been in decline since the mid to late 1990's, and it's also that one factor that you won't find much information about online. There are scientific articles stating that eUV from the Sun makes the ionosphere ionized, but the decline in eUV is only mentioned in one NASA article that hasn't been updated in over 5 years.

Two New MW Stations Heard -- KGOW 1560 and KIRV 1510

So there hasn't been that much to hear, or listen to, on the Shortwaves. Medium Wave, my first DX love, is OK but I haven't heard any new stations aside from a couple surprises, usually due to human or computer error, not ionospheric conditions.

I heard KGOW, Houston Texas on 1560 kHz one a.m. when they had just switched up to day power, and KVAN, a Spanish language religious station in Pasco, WA had a period of silence (probably a computer glitch or other issue at that station). KGOW is a Vietnamese and Asian language station out of Houston, and the way I was able to ID it was hearing a woman speaking Viet, and the music was Asian pop standards. As soon as KVAN's audio came back on, KGOW was gone.

Another new station, KIRV Fresno, on 1510 kHz, was a surprise appearance. They are a daytime only station out of Fresno, with Spanish language religion. The talk on this station matched the KIRV stream, and that's how I was able to ID that station. Otherwise, 1510 had Ben Maller (KGA Spokane) and KSFN Piedmont, California's Mexican ranchero music.

Travelling the Airwaves with the Sangean PR-D4W

Both of these stations I heard on my trusty Sangean PR-D4W, with help from my Eton AN-200 loop antenna. The PR-D4W is my best MW DX radio, bar none. Not only does it pull in stations terrifically, it sounds as good, or better, than a GE Superadio, especially if you use headphones.

It has 'smart tuning', where the DSP chip will take 2-3 seconds to maximise the signal once you tune to a MW channel. Sometimes you have to re-up the tuner -- flip down to the next frequency and back up again, for the DSP to maximise the best. This is probably because radio signals fade, and the DSP might 'lock in' at the wrong time during a fade-up. But it often only takes one 're-up' to get the signal as loud as it's going to get. Then I peak it with my AN-200 and I'm listening to MW DX on a channel in high fidelity.

I have to admit that during the nights that Shortwave is dead -- to where even the noise maker on 6838 kHz is inaudible -- it's nice to plug the headphones into the PR-D4W and hear talk, news, and music on the AM band in hi-fi. I often hear KEJB Eureka, California, an oldies station on 1480 kHz. They play a wide mix of oldies. 

One night they played a track I hadn't heard in ages, Steam's Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye -- a track which was never intended to be released as a single. In fact, its makers were just trying to fill tape to make a B-side to back Garrett Scott's next single (Garrett Scott was the singer on the Steam record).

Garrett Scott's own single never was released, and Na Na Hey Hey was released as an A-side at the insistence of Mercury Records. It's the only prominent single that Garrett Scott sang on, that got extensive airplay, and it became a hit -- knocking the Beatles off the number one spot in December, 1969.

Here it is. Listen to the drums. It also has congas and Garrett Scott hitting a piece of wood with a drumstick. The instruments are all keyboards -- a piano or two, several organs, and some vibrophones (all played by Paul Leka, who wrote and produced Green Tambourine, a hit track by the Lemon Pipers in 1968). The drums were mostly an 8 bar tape loop, taken from a drum track to another, non-released Garrett Scott single. I think there is a primitive rhythm-box in there, too. Being that it was made to be a throw-away B-side, it's a remarkable recording. And what a catchy chorus!:

A TV promo video for Na Na Hey Hey, by the Steam touring band. The singer here, Bill Steer, didn't sing on the Na Na Hey Hey single, but I think he sang on the album that came out after the single hit.

This is the LONG version. The one that was a hit on radio was a shorter edit. This video shows the Steam touring band miming to the hit. None of the guys in this video were on the record. They were a put together band to capitalize on the hit. The music, of course, is off the CD.

And with that, my friends, until next time,

Peace.

C.C., March 23rd, 2026.

More Job Layoffs in Radio: IHeart slashes hundreds of positions nationwide

The largest Radio company in the United States, IHeartMedia, has started laying off "less than 5%" of their workforce, as announced in the radio press (and other news outlets) recently.

The layoffs include managers, programmers, positions that oversee operations of entire 'clusters' of IHeart stations, as well as air staff. The NY Post says the layoffs amount to "hundreds" of positions.

As I reported in this blog four years ago (and it was also reported in the Radio press, as well as elsewhere), IHeart laid off roughly 10% of their workforce at the beginning of 2020. There have been other layoffs in the Radio industry by other companies since then, including some IHeart positions. 

So -- since the beginning of 2020 -- the largest Radio company in the US has gotten rid of maybe 12-14% of their workers.

IT HAS HAPPENED SEVERAL TIMES BEFORE

In this section I am listing links to several earlier articles I wrote in this blog concerning the previous layoffs in Radio. There are a few common threads in the reasons for the layoffs. First, Radio revenues are down, largely because ad rates industry wide have declined. Secondly, leaders in the industry think that Radio is in decline and are acting accordingly. Thirdly, the companies involved are in debt, or otherwise having revenue problems, and possibly ratings issues as well. Fourthly, the industry's bigger players are consolidating operations, thanks to available technology. With more centralized operations, middle management positions -- like program directors in major and middle sized markets -- are less needed, or important. 

And the mostly unstated reason is that listeners are going online -- but not necessarily to online platforms run by Radio companies.

So here are the articles I wrote:

This article is about the IHeart layoffs at the beginning of 2020, where they laid off 10% of their workforce.:

Interrock Nation: THE SLOW DEATH OF RADIO

These articles deal with various layoffs, or station closures that also negatively affected Radio employment.:

Interrock Nation: Radio Morning Shows Experiencing Decline -- another moneymaker for Radio is fading

Interrock Nation: Another Large Radio Company Slashes Jobs in the Midwest US

Interrock Nation: Canadian Radio Company Slashes Jobs, Kills 7 AM Radio Stations

Interrock Nation: SO LONG, RADIO DISNEY. You had a good run.

This next, extensive article, 'Who Killed Radio', goes into detail concerning the numerous processes that reduced the Radio medium from something vital and relevant to an industry in decline.:

Interrock Nation: WHO KILLED RADIO? -- The Processes, People and Decisions that Destroyed the Radio Industry; + Mondo Bando, proto-metal, 1976!

This chart reflects the popularity and listenership among the various large music streaming platforms in the United States. IHeart, at the bottom of the chart, is apparently considered a key player. But they only have 8% of the 18-34's, which does not look promising for online Radio streaming platforms. If the biggest Radio company in the United States can't get more than 8% of the younger demographics, what does that say for the future of Radio online?

(To more easily see the graph, you can right click, and open it in a new tab).

REVENUES ARE DOWN, OR FLAT -- BUT COSTS ARE STILL GOING UP

This latest series of IHeart layoffs are yet one more indicator of an industry in decline, and an unfortunate one. IHeart's impetus for laying off just under 5% of their workers is that -- despite some claims of Radio companies seeing more revenues recently -- revenues overall are down in Radio, and costs are still up, due to inflation.

In one of the articles below, it is claimed that IHeart's online media platform has increased numbers of listeners. Of course, other data (see the graph above) shows that IHeart's online platform is not one of the top players in online listening, and it's only got 8% of streaming listeners in GenZ and the Millennials.

THEY'LL JUST 'GO ONLINE' -- NOPE

Some commenters and experts in the Radio industry believe that the laid off IHeart radio workers will be able to find similar jobs in related fields, mostly online. They think some of the Radio skills transfer to other fields. After all, audio entertainment, in general, is headed online. So why wouldn't the lost jobs also drift online?

Well, the biggest problem with that style of thinking is that online is a different animal. Some of the tech -- audio and visual tech used -- may be similar, but the online content business model is much, much different, and much less apt to have actual employees.

Most podcasts (aside from the big names like Joe Rogan, Tucker Carlson, Shawn Ryan, Rick Beato, David Pakman, the Daily Wire podcast guys, and the like) are one or two person affairs, where everything is done by one person, using their computer, with perhaps a nice backdrop, a good microphone, and a high quality web camera. They don't need the extra people that traditional media have usually needed. Also, as AI and other automated technology increases, the need for former Radio skills in other fields will be lessened.

If you have AI gathering your news for reporting, who needs actual people?

If you have AI voices for announcing your YouTube infotainment videos, who needs actual announcers?

If you have an easy to use Digital Audio Workstation on your computer, which has less of a learning curve than the SADIE, AudioVault, or SONIC systems that were popular in Radio in the 2000's, who needs a sound engineer or sound editing tech?

And if you are a smaller operation, podcasting on a platform that can monetise your podcasts via a contractual agreement -- who needs sales reps?

I'll repeat what I've said previously whenever these stories of layoffs come up: The vast majority of the laid off people will never work in Radio again, and most of them will never work in a related field again. They will have to be retrained in another industry. 

I wish them luck. Been there, done that.

Technology, and changes in media from legacy industries like Radio, TV, Cable, and Newspapers to everything being online content (much of it not bringing in much revenue unless you are a BIG player like the aforementioned podcasters) has made many of the skills used for Radio redundant.

And, as I said before, a lot of podcasters are small businesses with moderate incomes. No extra revenue for employees.

I feel for the laid off people. They got their notices just before Thanksgiving and Christmas. Most of them know that they won't work in the field again, and many of their skills -- like the sound engineering skills I had when I worked in Radio -- do not transfer outside of the industry.

But it is what it is.

Here are two news articles on the layoffs, which I've referenced throughout the article.:

Widespread Layoffs at iHeartMedia as Music Radio Gets Downsized

Radio giant iHeart Media slashes hundreds of jobs

[Link removed, August 2025. -- C.C.]

A picture of my Squeakers in better days. I had just gotten my DSL router, and had just hooked it up. She was -- naturally -- curious about it. This was around 2012? 2013? I still miss my cat....

IN OTHER LIFE...

Just a week ago, we had Halloween. I took a handful of pics of decorations in my neighborhood. I think I will put them in a separate blog article. I only had two small groups of trick-or-treaters -- three kids in all, with three more people if you include parents and one of the kids' mom. They all got candy (except the one mom, who doesn't tolerate candy well).

So now I've got more mini chocolate bars to eat -- enough to last me for a year.

The weather is somewhat moderate for November, which I'm fine with. The MW DX conditions have picked up a little. As most long time DXers know, this Solar Cycle has been a dud. But it does seem to finally be showing a little promise. I actually heard a couple Oregon stations again for the first time in over a decade! 

I have several posts I've been working on and they just need pics. So over the next couple weeks there will be a cluster of them posted, including one on the Solar Cycle.

So stay tuned.

Peace.

C.C., November 9th, 2024.

Top Billing Station WCBS 880 Flips To Sports -- What That Means For Radio in the US

WCBS 880 AM, a powerhouse station that New York City depended on for News. The station made almost $30 Million a year, and it was one of the top billing Radio stations, AM or FM, in the country.

A good reason to kill it, right? 

Right.

Over the past several months, I've posted articles here about AM radio stations in the US either going dark, or flipping to syndicated, automated formats like Sports Bet talk.

Since the start of last year, Bell Media in Canada turned off 6 or 7 AM stations; KNPT Newport Oregon (which had a stream and an FM translator) switched off permanently -- along with a couple sister, AM and FM stations; KUTI Yakima (ESPN Yakima -- an already syndicated station) turned off; CKGO Vancouver and CHQT Edmonton saw their staff fired and the two stations went to a simulcast, and may end up going off the air; 50KW station KDWN in Las Vegas went off the air permanently (their stream didn't help them survive); CHML Hamilton, Ontario went off the air permanently; another company in Canada sold off a ton of AM stations last year.

It seems that a lot of Radio companies are downsizing and AM radio is bearing the brunt of it; the others bearing the brunt, naturally, are the laid off airstaff and other laid off workers, the majority of whom will never work in Radio ever again.

So, as you can see, it's been a fairly dark year or so for AM radio in the US and Canada. In one case, where Bell Media got rid of so many stations (some of which had OK ratings), their leadership said that "radio isn't a viable media anymore". It seems that they no longer believed in Radio as a relevant medium with any future. 

It wouldn't be the first time, of course, that a large media company has shown that it no longer believes in Radio -- Radio Disney proved that when they sold off all of their AM radio stations, then turned off all their HD Radio channels nationwide, and then finally cut off their Radio Disney stream.

Radio Disney went from being an Over-The-Air radio player, to pulling the plug on all Radio operations -- OTA or online streaming -- completely in just under 5 years.

WCBS 880's most recent logo, used until Midnight, the morning of August 26th, 2024.

In many cases, the stations that I wrote about last year weren't really making enough money to stay in operation -- that was the case with KNPT Newport (50% decline in ad revenues after the Pandemic was over), and it is said the KUTI / ESPN Yakima had a deteriorating antenna system and it probably wasn't worth all the money needed to rebuild it. The return on investment just wasn't there.

Radio in general is in a tough spot economically. Anyone who is acquainted with the economics of Radio knows that. But it turns out that even if you are a Top Billing Station in the US, your owners will lay off staff, and flip the station.

And this has happened in the US's "Market #1", New York City. WCBS 880, a mainstay in New York City media culture, is flipping from All-News to Sports.

WCBS was a TOP BILLING AM RADIO STATION in New York City. They are one of the top 20 billing radio stations in the United States.

Here is a list of the Top Ten Billing Radio Stations in the United States, last year.

WCBS 880 is #10, with $29.7 Million in revenues.

And WCBS 880 was the #2 Top Billing AM Radio station in the United States last year, also (competitor WINS in NYC is FM as well as AM).

It naturally begs the question: What company risks throwing $29.7 Million away?

Here is a link to the RadioInk article where I got those two charts. It's a roundup of Radio revenues for last year.:

BIA Reveals US Radio's Highest Billing Stations Of 2023 - Radio Ink

Despite the fact that WCBS 880 pulled in over $29 million a year, their owners have fired 22 people and have just switched WCBS to Sports -- with part of that programming being syndicated, and some of it appearing to be a simulcast of another station in NYC. And on top of that, they changed the call letters to generic and forgettable sounding ones, WHSQ.

On the radio forums there are all sorts of reasons given for this flip. "They're saving money this way" seems to be the general mantra. Being that WCBS's owners, Audacy, Inc., also runs WINS in New York -- another All-News station -- they figure that the WCBS newsies will migrate to WINS and WINS will get even more revenue from it.

And that begs the question: when you treat your listeners like shit, why are they going to stick around and migrate to one of your other stations?

After all, News is not confined to a Radio station. You can easily get your news from your smartphone or laptop computer. There are alternatives, and even older demos who love radio know about the alternatives, many of which are right on their phone.

Pissing off your listeners doesn't always work well. When Radio ditched several music formats for older listeners in the late 2000's -- Smooth Jazz, AAA, Oldies, Alternative Rock, Motown, Old-School R&B, Standards, Beautiful Music, and even other niche formats like Kid's radio and Heavy Metal -- many of those listeners left Radio completely, and went to streaming services like Pandora, Spotify and YouTube. 

If I want to hear all 2010's pop music (like Radio Disney used to play a lot), there's a Pandora channel for that. It's a great channel to listen to, if you want to slip back into 2012 when things didn't suck as much as they do now.  If I want to hear Metal, thanks to the local FM rocker pulling the plug on their HD2 Metal Militia channel, I just go to YouTube or Pandora for that kind of music.

No Radio necessary.

Here's the article I wrote on Radio Disney, and Radio Disney's demise. It is a capsule of everything wrong with Radio today.:

Interrock Nation: SO LONG, RADIO DISNEY. You had a good run.

Thanks for giving me the finger over the last few years, Radio. I guess in a way -- by going online to get the music I like -- I'm giving you the finger right back. And I'm not apparently alone. Now, I still listen to radio. I still tune around. I listen to some talk, some music, a little bit of religious radio from time to time, and a lot of the Sikh prayer music at night on KVRI 1600, and sometimes the CBC. There's also an classic alternative HD2, as well as a Classical Christmas HD2 channel I like. 

But it is a bit jarring to read some of the attitudes of radio people towards folks in my age range (I'm a Generation Joneser), along with Boomers and Gen X'ers -- people who grew up with and love radio -- to where they seem to view us with disdain. If often feels like they are indeed giving us the finger.

And right now, WCBS's owners are giving the WCBS listeners the big middle finger. Despite the money they were making, they're cutting staff, cutting costs, and hoping that in the end it will still pencil out for the corporation.

I suppose time will tell.

For those interested, here is a link to ESPN New York's website, where there is a list of the shows on both WEPN 1050 and WCBS 880.:

ESPN New York - Good Karma Brands

The new logo for ex-WCBS, WHSQ 880. 

OK, IT'S A BUSINESS. BUT IS IT A GOOD BUSINESS PRACTICE TO KILL A MONEY-MAKER?

You know, on the Radio forums, they keep repeating the mantra that "Radio is a Business".

OK. I get it. It is indeed a business. And power bills, airstaff -- they all need to be paid. And that means you have to have ad revenue.

But what business -- that is making big money, and is a top revenue earner in its market -- gives the finger to its consumer base?

Of course, in Radio, they say "our customers are the advertisers -- you listeners are the product, which we deliver to the advertisers". OK, you're doing a great job, Radio. Too often you're telling your "product" -- the listeners -- to go away. You are giving your "product", the listeners, less reason to tune in to your stations, and many of them are indeed leaving. You really think your "customers", the advertisers, are still going to pay you for that smooth move?

Thankfully, my own livelihood is not on the line. My last job in the Radio industry ended on December 31st, 2006. Since then I've just been an interested observer with nearly 20 years of working in the Radio industry (a 3 month internship, 3 years at one station, 16 years at a radio format company) under my belt.

And -- for the life of me -- I just can't wrap my head around a company taking a gamble by killing a Top Billing Radio station in America's #1 city. It just doesn't add up.

But I suppose I could be wrong.

My headline poses the question: What does this mean for Radio in the US?

I think it's a sure sign of Radio's decline. If the industry truly thinks that Radio listeners don't really count -- even when you have a top billing station in Market #1 -- then you're going to increase the decline of Radio listeners.

Oh, and to those who run the Radio industry: The listeners aren't migrating to your online platforms. They're going to Spotify, YT, Pandora, and online podcasting. This includes older demographics (who traditionally love Radio) as well as the younger ones. They not only are finding Radio to be irrelevant because it's older tech -- they're finding it irrelevant because Radio is making itself irrelevant to the listener. From 2012 to 2022 Radio lost 10% of its listeners. They didn't leave just because of Spotify. They also left because Radio itself is too homogenized and blah to listen to.

The local rock station situation in Seattle is a classic example. Seattle is a Rock town. AC/DC sold out the 20K seater, Seattle Center Coliseum 4 nights in a row in 1981. Grunge was born here. 

Rock 98.9's Logo and website banner. The station lasted about a year and a half.

In 2016 there was a new station, KVRQ Rock 98.9, that played Rock aimed at Gen X, and the mix was better than that at the mainstay, KISW, which has an afternoon show of yakkers who play little music, and the yakking simply isn't that entertaining to listen to. Most of the Gen Xers and Boomers I knew who liked rock listened to Rock 98.9 instead. They liked the mix of music, and they preferred the artists that were 98.9's core artists (80's through 00's hard rock, with some Grunge, Nu-Metal, and classic Metal).

The owners of KVRQ Rock 98.9 didn't promote the station well. There were no billboards, no advertising. No real visibility outside of the FM band. They thought that just flipping the format and putting up a website was adequate.

It wasn't. Since then KVRQ Rock 98.9 turned into KNUC The Bull (Modern country); into KPNW (Alt Rock - AAA); and into The Bull (Modern Country) again. With none of these changes did the company ever advertise outside of the FM radio dial. They seemed to take it for granted that if they just put a format on the air, it would draw listeners.

Here's the 2016 article I wrote on KVRQ Rock 98.9 when it was still a new station in town.:

Interrock Nation: KVRQ 98.9 FM -- New Classic Rock Station in Seattle

Many in Radio have lost touch with the concept how to grow and run a business. Part of that aspect is advertising your product, to gain more consumers or customers. Too many in Radio have lost it. They think it's 1970 and if they just build it, they will come. That worked in 1975, but it doesn't work anymore. Too many Radio owners seem to be stuck in a 1970's Radio mindset, combined with the early 2000's "just put up a website and we'll make tons of money off the New Economy" mindset. 

Neither mindset applies today.

For example, a lot of stations still "stunt" when changing formats. WCBS 880 didn't, but there have been some stations doing this as late as last year. It was pertinent in 1980 when people literally tuned the FM dial with analog tuning mechanisms, and could pick up a new station by chance -- but in today's smartphone, smartscreen, virtual pushbutton environment, the idea that people are tuning around on the dial looking for something to listen to are long gone.

The days of "stunting" to flip a format were over 15 years ago, but some stations still do it.

News flash: Today's radio listeners don't tune around anymore, looking for new stations. The older demographics that Radio experts make fun of do that, sure, but your 18-49 demos don't do that anymore. 

They go online.

That's why you need to advertise.

Wake up, Radio.

A VID CLIP OF WCBS 880's LAST MINUTES

I will end this article with a vid taken by a guy on a radio forum I go to, a guy named Dalton, who lives in Pennsylvania. Like me, he likes older radios, and he likes AM radio. He recorded this clip of WCBS signing off for the last time, on a classic old 1960's AM portable radio. During the clip, one of their announcers is telling a tale -- a tale of how he always loved WCBS ever since he was a kid -- and he ended up working there. His voice is the last one heard before the WCBS ID at Midnight, and the plug is pulled, before the station ID's as "WHSQ".

Because there seems to be an issue with Blogger's YT search function (they changed it, and their Blogger/YT search function is basically broken -- all results, instead of being specific, are now completely useless), here is a link to the vid. It's worth checking out.:

The death of WCBS (youtube.com)

EDIT: I found a way to embed the YouTube video. Had to use quotes around my search terms. The panel should play when you click the arrow.

IN OTHER LIFE....

My two cats I lost last year and this year: Fluffy is on the left, and Squeakers is on the right. They were pals. As you can tell, I was working on my GE Superadio 1, and also had some cleanup to do. You can tell I still read newspapers, and there were a couple books I was reading, too. The cats, of course, helped themselves to the table to take a nice rest from playing mouse. 

This was in 2011. Such a long, long time ago.

In other life, yeah, it's been pretty shitty around here. My cat Squeakers died, and I had to bury her earlier today. It really sucks to lose your little friend, after dealing with her sickness for over a year, and all the joy she brought to my life before that. I still have a couple other cats, but Squeakers was my little pal.

Losing this one really hurts.

There's not much more to say.  I still have a few new articles written, that just need editing, and some pics added. I'll get around to it eventually.

C.C. August 25th, 2024.

NEW YEAR'S UN-CELEBRATION, Newspapers Are Dying, + Oz Rock band MANTISSA

This is the Seattle Times, Seattle's remaining print newspaper, which also has a decent news website that carries the same articles, and then some extra news content. The other major Seattle newspaper, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, went online-only in March, 2009. Newspapers were a vital medium providing news and information for Americans for at least two and a half centuries. Now they are dying, with it being unclear what exactly is going to replace them. At the same time, other traditional news media -- like Radio and TV -- find themselves facing the same problems.

Happy New Year's to all of you who check in to the blog from time to time. As I begin to write this, it is New Year's Day. It was around 28F last night, a bit cold, but not the frigid temps that we had about 3 weeks ago, so I'm not going to complain.

Last night I didn't go anywhere for New Year's, I just laid low. I did some writing, ate some pizza, fed my cat, played my guitar, and listened to the radio.

While I was writing on the computer during the hour after Midnight struck, and the New Year kicked in, I was listening to 1270 kHz AM on my Sangean PR-D5, which is my writing den radio. I was hoping to hear KVMI Tulare or KAJO Grants Pass -- stations that play Adult Contemporary music, and are based in cities that are in more southern latitudes with warmer climates. 

Also on 1270 is KTFI, a Catholic radio station out of Idaho, which plays EWTN radio programming. Most Catholic radio stations in the US have varied programming, from teaching, to audio versions of the Mass (sometimes with nice singing of Psalms and the like), to call in shows.

This New Year's, just after Midnight, I was treated to a long piano piece, waving and fading in and out all the way from southern Idaho -- a beautiful version of Debussy's Clair De Lune, which is probably one of the most beautiful piano pieces ever written. In a way, it was a very poignant way to bring in the New Year.

I have no idea who the pianist was on the recording EWTN played, but here is an example of a prominent classical pianist playing the piece.:

Not being all that acquainted with the current state of Classical music, I've never heard of Pascal Roge before. But he definitely sounds good here. That piano is as big as a boat. Wow.

A beautiful piece of music.

And here is what you could call the original version of Clair De Lune -- recorded by the composer Debussy himself, in 1913! He recorded it on a piano roll.:

Debussy playing his own composition in 1913, one year before World War One started, and just over 110 years ago, on a piano roll.

Later I went downstairs to get some tea, and on my kitchen radio, which I had tuned to NPR (KUOW FM 94.9), there was a story about the decline of newspapers. That definitely caught my ear.

Now, I'm not a terrific NPR listener. I find a lot of their programming a little on the dull side. But they do have the BBC on all night, and some of their newscasts are OK. Anyway, one of the leading stories on New Year's Eve was that newspapers in the US are dying. After I heard the NPR story, I looked up some articles about this subject on the internet. I found an article in Fortune's online magazine that covered the same facts, and I also found a Pew Research article from late in 2022 that covered much of the same territory.

30 PERCENT LESS NEWSPAPERS IN THE US SINCE THE 2000's

The number of newspapers in the US has declined by 30% since 2005, and that decline sped up over the past year. Also, in just in the past decade or so (the Fortune article I read about this same subject is not specific on the timeline) 48,000 Journalists lost their jobs. The Fortune article says that amounts to two thirds of the Journalists that had jobs in the 2000's. In the 1980's, it's estimated there were around 350,000 Journalists in the US. So -- while our population increased from around 230 million people to 340 million, the number of Journalists in the US declined precipitously -- from 350K to 46K or so Journalists -- in just over 35 years.

The Fortune magazine article says that in 2023, approximately 2.5 newspapers in the US shut down for good every week. In 2022, the number of papers that shut down permanently each week was two papers -- so the rate of newspapers shutting down is increasing. My home suburb of 100K people has no local newspaper to speak of. When I was a kid there was a bi-weekly paper, the Renton Record-Chronicle. It was part of a chain of three newspapers, that covered three major suburbs south of Seattle.

I also worked for another suburban chain for about a year. That newspaper chain had five weekly newspapers that covered the entire region from West Seattle to Federal Way. All those papers are long gone. It's an indicator of the miserable state of newspapering in the US today. People don't read print newspapers anymore. 

And -- news flash -- they don't really read online papers, either (see below).

Online newspapers aren't really filling the gap. According to famed polling company Pew Research, online newspapers' readership has dropped back to 2014 levels, and is still declining. And the average amount of time spent reading an online newspaper, according to Pew Research, is one minute and 39 seconds. That's down from around 2 minutes an online session just a few years ago. How much news can you really take in, in just one and a half minutes?

And what does this say about the appeal, or durability, of online newspapers?

This decline in US Journalism is happening more to the local newspapers than the big national ones (NY Times, Washington Post, LA Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, etc.) -- but even the big national newspapers are feeling the pinch.

For example, in 2023, the Washington Post made 240 positions redundant, and the Los Angeles Times laid off 71 of their staff (The LA Times additionaly cut 115 of their staff in late January, 2024 -- after I wrote this article. Please see Addendum below). The crunch is even hitting other news media -- NPR, whose listenership is dropping while revenues are still (amazingly) increasing, even laid off some people last year. Some news websites, like Jezebel, shut down in 2023. 

The NPR story, and others similar to it that I found online (Fortune magazine, as well as several Pew Research articles), paint a picture of Journalism as a declining industry.

Here is a link to the Fortune magazine article I found on this news story.:

https://fortune.com/2023/11/16/crisis-newspapers-media-journalism-northwestern-university-study/

Here is the main Pew Research article I found on the state of News in the US today, and most of the statistics look a bit grim. Falling readership rates for Papers, declining audiences for Cable News and some OTA TV services, and declining interest in News -- in all demographics -- since 2016.:

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/11/28/audiences-are-declining-for-traditional-news-media-in-the-us-with-some-exceptions/#:~:text=Here%20are%20some%20data%20points%20on%20how%20these,2020%20to%20about%20%241.2%20billion%20in%202021.%20

Here is one of the Pew Research articles I found that goes further into the state of Newspapers in America.:

https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/newspapers/

Now, I was trained as a Journalist in college, and I did quite well at it. It was one of the reasons I was able to get a start in radio, as a three-year stint as news director at KCMU (the community-based Seattle FM station that pre-dated KEXP). I never worked more than a year in the newspaper industry itself (and that was in the back shop), however, and I only wrote one article for a local paper as a stringer.

But I've always had an interest in the newspaper industry, and I even wrote two separate articles here, in this blog, about Journalism and Newspapers. One article I wrote was about the decline in Journalistic quality that I'd noticed over the past couple decades, and I thought the rise of the internet was negatively affecting Journalism. The other article I wrote, about the Decline of Mass Media, and how it affects the News Media, covers the subject more extensively.

It looks like I was perhaps correct on both accounts.

Here are the links to those two blog articles.:

This article I wrote concerning what I perceived as the decline in newspaper, and news writing quality, much of which I attributed to the rise of online news media.:

Interrock Nation: The Lost Art of Journalism

This linked article I wrote some time last year, about the decline of mass media in general -- we are entering a world where there is no real "mass" media -- everything is just "content", and everything is just "media". Online is the great equalizer, and it has its pluses, and minuses. I also cover a lot of statistics that are pertinent to the closing of newspapers and the impending job losses in other traditional media like Radio and Television.:

Interrock Nation: The Death of The Mass Media, and Why It Is Bad for America

I still stand by what I said in those two pieces.

As you can tell from the statistics that I've listed, both here in this article, and from what I mentioned in my previous, linked articles here, the malaise hitting Journalism in particular, and the News Industry in general, dates back at least a decade or more. And it's not getting any better. It's like the American people junked Newspapers and News altogether when they shifted their attention away from paper and Over-The-Air media, when they started getting all of their entertainment and information online.

Now, I love the internet. I'm using it right now. I have had just over 101,000 visits to this blog since I opened it up in 2015. The idea that my writings would be read by over 100K people would have been absolutely unthinkable when I was in high school or college. But I do have an audience, thanks to the internet.

I have some music online, available for people to hear -- something I never would have been able to do without the internet.

But the internet -- even though it is a Godsend in many ways -- is causing some problems, especially in how Americans -- and maybe people in other parts of the world -- get their news and information.

NEWSPAPERS: THE CANARY IN THE COALMINE

And newspapers, which are one of the oldest mass media, are dying. It may be a harbinger for nearly all other traditional media as well. AM radio, as most of us in the listening hobby already know, is on the verge. FM radio will be fading away perhaps in 15-20 years. Over the Air broadcasting, with all of its infrastructure costs, will not be with us forever. Magazines and print books are starting to decline in importance, as the big book publishers combine to attempt to stay relevant, and stay alive.

The big movie and TV companies are feeling the pinch. Box Office attendance is down, and streaming doesn't bring in the same amount of money that movie tickets and DVD and VHS sales once did. The big visual (Movie and TV) entertainment conglomerates are struggling, even after dumping so much money into streaming. The most recent reports show that as the big media companies -- like Netflix, Amazon, Apple, and Disney -- invest in streaming, they have to jack up their subscription rates, and/or add commercials to their streams to attempt to keep from losing money. 

It ain't workin'.

STREAMING VIDEO IS THE FUTURE -- WHILE IT LOSES SUBSCRIBERS

People are cancelling subscriptions at increasing rates. The streaming world is slowly learning the concept of "price elasticity of demand", i.e., there are only so many price hikes on things like streaming that the average consumer will tolerate, especially in a saturated marketplace. Here is a current news article on the Streaming services' problems.:

More people are canceling their streaming services as companies like Netflix, Amazon, and Disney hike prices (yahoo.com)

Even Netflix, which is apparently gaining profits and has actually added subscribers since the Pandemic, has less average time-spent-viewing by its subscribers than it had a year ago (a decline in one year of 17%).

Here is an article about Netflix's particular successes and problems. 17% percent less watching of their content isn't a great thing. They've also dropped in percentage of viewers overall (7.4% of all viewing in 2023, vs. 7.9% of all viewers in 2022). But, you know? -- it could just be a glitch. There is an interesting chart about halfway down the article, that breaks down the percentage of TV and Video viewing by media -- Broadcast, Cable, Streaming, and 'other'. Streaming is the largest medium used for Visual entertainment, being used for 36% of all viewing.

Netflix Viewing Declined By 17% in 2023 | Next TV

The music streaming sites are struggling, economically. Pandora and Spotify only rarely show a profit. Apple's costs are nearly 50% of their revenues when it comes to music streaming. Some of the big radio companies' streaming platforms are sustainable, but that is only because a) they still make money off most of their radio stations, and b) they were able to cut deals with the record companies over royalty costs. 

But once all of their stations get rid of their antennas and go online-only, that will undoubtedly change. Instantly, the online-only stations will have to pay more in streaming royalties than they presently pay in broadcast royalties. Also, the individual stations' streams on those large platforms will fade into the vast internet static once they become just another faceless channel on the platform. Right now, there are 15,445 radio stations in the US. What's going to happen when all of those 15,445 radio stations are nothing more than channels on a larger platform, with no more unique, local identity, and no primarily local audience?

Here is an article about Spotify and Apple, and it mentions that Apple pays out 52 cents in costs for every dollar earned from their music streaming services.:

https://www.businessinsider.com/spotify-pays-artists-half-apple-penny-per-stream-2021-4#:~:text=Artists%20across%20the%20industry%20have%20been%20critical%20of,asking%20the%20platform%20to%20adopt%20a%20user-centric%20model.

The big radio companies' platforms now deliver online streams for the local radio stations, along with the big platform's own music streaming channels. And the local stations can send people to the big platform to hear the local stations', and big platforms' own, independent streams. IHeart is an example of this, and Audacy also has a large streaming platform for its stations. 

But once those local stations go off the air, the big platforms running their streams will become just another Pandora and Spotify. There will be no local stations on the air to promote the stations. The stations themselves will be much like online newspapers are now -- just another faceless cog in a big, big wheel. Except -- once they are digital only, their royalty costs will be much higher, because digital music royalties are higher than over-the-air broadcast royalties are. And once the local stations go online only, the tendency for their listeners to drift to other, nationally based streaming services will only increase.

And the corporate radio streaming platforms will end up saturated with 15,000 channels with few listeners per channel, higher royalty costs, and undoubtedly much lower revenue.

It's thanks to all the digital and online competition.

Newspapers are, of course, the canary in the coalmine. Print costs of the paper versions are expensive, and not getting any cheaper. The online versions aren't bringing in enough revenues to keep smaller papers from folding and the bigger ones from laying off staff and using AI to fill in for some reporting and editing.

The newspapers' plight is an indicator of the troubles that all traditional media face when they're dealing with nearly infinite online competition.

A cup of hot coffee, and a print newspaper to read during lunch hour -- it's looking more and more antiquated as the years progress.

THE PROBLEM WITH PAYWALLS -- THEY CAN DRIVE READERS AWAY

One issue that could be affecting the decline in the newspaper audience isn't mentioned in the press, and that is the increasing use of paywalls to limit online readers to only those who are paid subscribers. Sometimes you don't even get one or two free stories before the paywall kicks in.

Although this seems at first blush to be a practical and proper idea, being that a) no one should be working for free, and b) those who read the print newspapers either had to pay at the news box or they subscribed for delivery -- paywalls also have their negatives. First off, any time I see a news article appearing in my social media news feed, and I click on the article, and find that it's behind a paywall, I don't read it. They may get a click out of me (using their headlines as clickbait?), but they're not getting my readership, nor am I seeing their ads.

It's a bit irritating, because the paywalled stories often appear in my news feed -- and often it's a distant news magazine, news site, or non-local paper. If something is in my news feed, I should be able to at least read that item. After all, the papers who do this not only want clicks, they want "engagement". How can they get engagement from far away readers if the story that they place on people's news feeds is behind a paywall?

So, how many readers, and potential readers, are these papers losing by being super tight with their paywall? Some of the papers and news mags / sites I've seen in my news feed I've never read before. I don't even have a chance to get the 1 or 2 free stories out of them before the paywall occurs.

It just often seems counterproductive -- especially for an industry that is losing readers and losing revenues year to year. I know that running everything for free won't bring in revenue, but tight paywalls definitely aren't helping many of these news sites, papers, and periodicals either.

Tight paywalls may be part of the reason for the Pew Research statistic that the "average" time spent reading an online newspaper is about one and a half minutes. That's enough time to discover that the article is paywalled.

FACING THE REALITY -- THE NATURE OF ALL MEDIA HAS CHANGED

Sooner or later, that sector of the news media has to realise that internet commerce is a completely different business model from the old, traditionally delivered one. Online news and entertainment media is not just an online version of the traditional newspaper, radio or TV media. 

Online is a completely different animal.

Online you have nearly INFINITE competition. It's just the reality of online news, music, and information delivery. Everything has been reduced to just another form of "Content". As I mentioned previously, I've seen this reality in the eBook world.

Visibility is everything, and Competition is IMMENSE. That usually means you're going to make less money than you did under the old model. 

Further, you're going to have plan on making less money off the new model, than you made off the old model. Because you are competing with a gazillion other "content" creators, who are turning out stuff just like yours.

So, in my view, newspapers -- online or the remaining paper ones -- have a tough job cut out for them. I don't envy them. But, being an eBook creator, I get it. In a business model where there are basically no gatekeepers and the marketplace in every genre is saturated with content, it's a tough slog trying to get seen, and trying to gain revenue.

It can be done, but not easily. In 1995 or even 2005, I wouldn't have been published. No one would have published my books. My revenues from book writing would have been zero. Today, I make modest money. It's better than nothing. I can go to eBook publisher and author forums and see that most of them are probably just making a modest amount of money. Some of them, however, pay more in marketing than they make off of their book sales. Because of all the competition.

But under the old model -- the print model -- probably 99% of them would never have had a chance. Under the new, online electronic media model, they at least can gain an audience, even if their income from selling their books is modest.

This is what the newspapers face. And it's also what radio faces when it goes all online.

I don't envy them. There will be thousands more jobs lost. Radio, in particular, will be gutted. Most newspapers will be the same way. Less money will be made per unit of content produced -- be it news, music, or other "content". But it's the reality, and there's no putting the genie back into the bottle.

MANTISSA -- Kickass Oz Rock From Melbourne, 1993!!

I shall end this article with another music video or two, these ones being quite a bit different from the Debussy ones above. 

How about some Mantissa?

Of course, you probably never heard of them. But you should have.

Mantissa were a relatively short-lived Australian rock band that got attention playing pubs and clubs in the Melbourne area in the very early 1990's. Formed originally in 1989, they called themselves Killing Time, until they got signed to a US record label in 1992, and it was found that an East Coast punk rock band already had that name. So they changed their name to Mantissa, apparently the title of a book they liked. 

Mantissa played a mix of hard rock, metal, and grunge. The 'grunge' was mostly their clothing and attitude. After all, the grunge music and fashion explosion had hit Australia, just as it had hit the rest of the world. Mantissa also had some songs that sounded clearly like alternative rock, without the metal sounding guitars. They also had a chick bass player, who was a co-writer on a lot of their songs -- not unlike White Zombie. Women were getting more recognition in rock music in the 1990's.

Their one US album, Mossy God, is no longer available, unless you can find a used CD somewhere. This seems to be the case with a lot of 1990's and 2000's era, second and third tier, signed rock bands. I can't even find the whole Mossy God album online at YouTube -- there are several tracks available, though, along with some early Killing Time-era live performances.

I first learned of Mantissa when the CD single came into my place of work. The single never got used by our rock formats, and the CD single was placed in the grab bin. I grabbed it.

Here's the track -- Mary Mary. Like most Oz rock of the time, it KICKS. This is the official audio from the album track.:

Blogger's search doesn't bring up the actual video panel to the official video -- where the band is shown on a Sydney region freeway bridge (that was under construction at the time), and in a rural location near Healesville, Victoria -- but here is a link to it. Just click it and it will take you to YouTube where you can see it.:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7kONbAPzEs

The cinematic photography for the Mary Mary official vid looks 90's to the max!

This next vid is the official vid for the track that was on the CD single I've still got. It's a live recording of Mantissa playing Mary Mary at the Big Day Out in Melbourne in 1993. The Big Day Out was a massive festival in Australia during the 1990's -- it was similar in bent to the Lollapalooza Festival here in the US. And, just like Lollapalooza, it travelled from city to city. In the case of the Big Day Out, they played the major capital cities in Australia -- Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Canberra, and Perth (I'm not sure if they played Hobart and Darwin).

Big Day Out went away not too long after the Grunge and Nu-Metal eras faded. 

Although it's clear that the band here are playing parts to another track (by looking at the guitar chords and the like), the video gives a good picture of what it was like for a band to play the Big Day Out, and the recording here is definitely live. Being that Blogger's YouTube search doesn't bring it up, I can only insert the link. Click it and it will take you there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZbHVb3kCb8

Here is another track by Mantissa, Land Of The Living. It's another single that was released during the Mossy God years, 1993-1994. Not too long after this, the band disbanded. Another victim of varying trends during the 1990's, as well as the difficulty for even a great band like Mantissa to break the US when there was such a plethora of great rock, pop, and alt music on the radio during that incredible decade.:

Land Of The Living also has an official video, which Blogger's search function couldn't seemingly find. Here is a link to it on YT.:

Mantissa - Land of The Living - 1992 (youtube.com)

I hope that this article finds my readers everywhere doing well. The holiday season is now behind us -- except some parts of Scandinavia, which apparently hold off until the "20th day of Christmas" (Tjugondag Jul in Sweden) to take down their Christmas tree. Whether that custom still is common, I have no idea. 

But for most of us, it's back to the grind again. Here in Western WA, it means more cold and rain. Lately, we've managed to avoid the 25-28 degree temperatures F that we experienced in late November and early December. 

2024 is upon us. In the US, that means election year, and all the junk that goes with it. I plan on getting some projects done this year, and being that my boss is retiring, I'll have more time to do them in.

Let's all hope that 2024 is better than 2023 was.

Until next time, my friends,

Peace.

C.C., January 2nd and 3rd, 2024. Re-edited on January 5th, with a news article on video streaming services losing subscription added. January 16th I corrected the call letters of KTFI Twin Falls (I had mistakenly typed in KTWI).

ADDENDUM, January 24th, 2024: The Los Angeles Times is reported to layoff approximately 20% of its remaining workforce (about 115 people), even after its owner propped the paper up with $1 Billion (after purchasing the paper with $500 Million) since he purchased the LA Times in 2018.

The owner, a billionaire, reportedly has lost "tens of millions of dollars" from the paper's operations, including a loss of $40 Million last year. The second article below states that the LA Times' staff had previously been cut from 1,200 to 500.

Here is an article about the layoffs from MSN (the article exhibits some bias):

The Los Angeles Times plunges into ‘chaos’ as brutal layoffs loom and senior editors call it quits (msn.com)

And another article on the LA Times' problems:

‘We had great hope’: Layoffs at Los Angeles Times cause optimism to dwindle (msn.com)