RADIO IS DYING -- It is being KILLED

I recently found a few pics of my cats I had in the 1990's and 2000's. This pic I took in 2004. I had just cleared a bunch of brush that had overgrown part of my yard. Scooter is the cat in front. She was my little pal. She is followed by Boots, who was a really personable cat. Snoopy is the cat in the back. Better days, really.

I decided against having yet another Radio company icon at the top of the article. Instead, it's buried below.

Throughout my tenure here as a blog article writer, I have tried to stay as positive as possible about the Radio hobby (MW DXing, SW, etc.) and the Radio Industry in general.

It's been difficult at times, because the Industry has been in slow decline since the mid to late 2000's. But despite my skeptical and cynical nature, I always have tried to remain positive, and have tried to reflect that here in this blog.

It's more difficult to do as each year, and each month, passes.

Recently, the largest Radio company in the United States, IHeartMedia, just laid off more programmers and airstaff. It's one of those 'end of the quarter' firings that have become all too common in Radio.

IHeart has laid off an undetermined number of people -- many of them long-term veterans of the stations where they were on the air. The stations where they worked were in large and medium sized markets. The reports say that the layoffs will be 'massive', and include 'dozens' of airstaff and programming personnel.

You can read about it here.:

Sweeping Cuts Ongoing at iHeartMedia - Radio World

Here is another article on the layoffs, mentioning 'dozens of cities' being affected.

iHeartMedia Layoffs Hit Programming Hard in Cost-Cutting Push - Radio Ink

In the Radio World article, a former air personality, 'ChloeOnTheAir', talks about being laid off. She says that the station where she worked was getting good ratings, as was her show.

But she was laid off anyway.

As someone who lost my last Radio job in late 2006, during a large layoff, I can sympathise with Chloe and all the others who lost jobs.

My guess is that most of them will never work in Radio again. It is a shrinking industry.

Now, IHeart gets a LOT of pushback in Radio circles for these sorts of layoffs. They laid off roughly 10 percent of their workforce in early 2020, and there have been other layoffs since then. Other Radio companies have also had their layoffs.

But this latest round shows that Radio is dying, and -- in my opinion, as someone who worked in the industry for a couple months shy of 20 years -- Radio is being killed off by bad corporate decisions. This round of layoffs, of popular and veteran air personalities in several cities, is one of those bad decisions. Morning drive and Afternoon drive are highly rated for a reason -- they tend to have the popular air personalities. When you sack the popular air personalities, you're bound to lose listeners.

If all people want to hear is music, they don't need radio -- they've got Spotify, they've got Pandora.

The use of super long commercial sets is another factor driving people away from Radio.  

The industry, of course, is veering away from Over-The-Air broadcasting and is aiming for digital. Awesome. Once Radio is all online, the number of 'stations' and channels will diminish. There is infinite content saturation and competition online. Certainly, the heads of the Radio companies must know this. If they don't, they're not thinking.

But the rot that seems to have set in deep inside the Radio industry looks like it's amplifying the decline. Some of the symptoms -- super long commercial breaks, sacking of air personalities, short playlists -- all of which practically guarantee that no one listen longer to a station than just 15 minutes -- they all point to an industry that has lost its way.

FM RADIO IS NOT WHAT IT USED TO BE

I don't listen to FM radio much. I haven't listened to FM since the early 2010's, when I tuned into the pop stations, because the pop music back then was so good. After 2015 or so -- when Radio Disney went off the air -- pop music began to change, and it wasn't upbeat and fun anymore. At the same time, streaming services like Spotify and Pandora started taking over, and Radio found it increasingly difficult to compete with online streaming. I remember hearing people talk about Pandora and Spotify a lot during the late 2010's -- a lot more than they talked about Radio.

In the late 2010's, after the pop music changed for the worse, I tended to listen to FM HD2's, like KISW's Metal Militia channel -- until the best ones -- the Metal Militia channel, and a Delta Blues channel on another local FM -- had their plugs pulled in 2018 or 2019.

Once those HD2's had their plugs pulled, I stopped listening to FM for a few years.

I listened to a lot of Sports talk radio on the AM band. My favorite shows were on CBS Sports Radio. That network started its decline about the time they turned into 'Infinity Sports Network', and then last year that network was yanked off the air. They were replaced by Westwood One Sports, which most radio listeners I've interacted with online seem to think is simply not as good as CBS Sports Radio was.

CHARGING RADIO STATIONS TO PLAY YOUR NETWORK PROGRAMMING

And WW1 Sports -- and WW1 in general -- apparently is going to charge stations to play their programming. This is a rumor that has been discussed on a couple Radio forums, mainly on Reddit, by people who work in Radio. How the charging for airing WW1 plays out, if the rumor turns out to be true, is a good guess.

CBS Sports Radio never apparently charged for their programming. Instead, stations would give CBS Sports a certain number of commercial breaks in exchange for playing CBS Sports Radio. In Radio speak, that's called 'Barter'. "You play our programming, and we won't charge you, just give us X number of spots per hour." That kind of thing.

Well, apparently WW1 is not getting enough money in barter spots. So they are going to charge stations for running the programs. Or at least that is the scuttlebutt in the industry.

What does this say for Radio in general? It says that the power of the Radio commercial as a sales tool is lower than it used to be -- or, at least that is the apparent thought in the advertising industry.

Anyway, as I said, I haven't listened to FM much since around 2014-2015. But I recently got a great FM radio, the Qodosen DX-286. So I've tuned around the FM band, hoping to hear some DX, which is rare enough here in Western WA state. So far, I've heard no FM DX whatsoever, although I've logged a few weak translators from fringe areas in the region.

But one thing I've also done is listen to local FM stations -- to see how they sound, and to see what music they are playing.

And one thing I noticed is THEY RUN A LOT OF COMMERCIALS.

'COUNT THE SPOTS'

In the Radio business, commercials are called 'spots', and the commercial breaks are called 'spot sets'. Lately, while listening to several local, popular FM stations, I've been counting the commercials as they play..... counting the 'spots' in the 'spot set'.

The first time I literally counted the commercials as they played, and wrote them down in my DX logbook, I was flabbergasted. 

I was listening to the local, popular Rock station, and they had just played a song from 2001 that I liked, called 'Blurry', by Puddle Of Mudd. Then they went into the commercial break.

I counted 13 commercials and liners in a row.

More recently, I tuned into the local, highly rated Classic Hits station. There were 11 commercials in a row. Then I tuned into one of the two local Modern Country stations, and there were 9 commercials in a row. Then I tuned into the Rock station again and heard 9 commercials in a row. 

A few days later, on June 29th, I tuned into the local Classic Rocker and heard 19 commercials and liners (where there is an announcement saying 'don't go away, music will be back in a few') in a row. Earlier today I tuned into an AC / classic hits station and heard 8 commercials in a row, and then I tuned into the Classic Hits station and heard 15 commercials and liners in a row (that commercial break was 7-8 minutes long).

By any measure, this is overkill. The quality of the commercials isn't bad. They're usually well-produced. But do these Radio companies think that the average listener is going to stick around while they play 8-15 commercials in a commercial break?

They're driving away listeners.

There may be valid, business reasons that these stations and Radio companies are playing so many spots on their stations. Radio stations need money to stay on the air and pay whatever staff they still have working at their stations and networks. Electricity isn't free, and neither is the rent, the equipment, the maintenance. Perhaps running more commercials per break is the only way they can pay the bills.

But 15 commercials and liners in a row is just overkill, and I can't help but think that it's driving away listeners to Spotify and Pandora and similar streaming services. Of course, some of these services, like IHeartRadio, are associated with Radio companies. But at the same time, it's disturbing to tune into a highly rated FM station and hear so many commercials, knowing that there are people tuning out -- and possibly tuning out FM forever.

The national numbers on Radio listening, while seemingly good, really aren't encouraging. 80 to 90 percent of Americans of all age demographics listen to Radio at least once a week. A smaller percentage -- depending on age group -- listen daily.

Eighty to 90 percent listening to Radio may seem like a lot of people, and maybe it is. But 'once a week' is definitely not a great statistic, especially when the Time Spent Listening to radio used to be much, much higher.

Are the increased spot loads driving listeners away from Radio? You be the judge.

I think the commercial loads are killing Radio. Combine that with layoffs of popular Radio air personalities, and other negative trends in the industry, like short, dependable playlists (both times I heard the long commercial break on the Classic Hits station, it was followed up by "What I Like About You", by the Romantics, it was almost like clockwork), the future doesn't look very bright.

DIMINISHING SHORTWAVE STATIONS, AND ABSENT HAMS

Now let's talk about Shortwave.

With the ionosphere weakening over the past 30 years, and this latest Solar Cycle starting to fizzle, it's turned into a game of 'Count The Carriers'. In other words, when I tune the 49 Meter Band at night, many times I have to have the BFO/SSB on my radio to hear the carrier signals, where just 10 years ago -- and even 3-4 years ago -- I'd hear audio programming.

This is because at night there are only THREE Shortwave stations that I can hear regularly on any given evening on the 49 Meter Band -- WWCR 5935 kHz and WTWW on 5920 kHz, and WRMI on 5850 (it used to be located higher in the 49 Meter band). Sometimes Nikkei 1 and 2 crop up, usually with grainy signals (but cool music). Amazonia on 6180 kHz just cut their hours. Radio Educacion on 6180 is usually just a carrier. CFRX on 6070 is usually a carrier with a trace of audio. Marti on 6030 has been MIA since the plug was pulled after the Trump Administration took office. 

Sometimes I hear WRMI with good signals on 49 Meters (on 5850 kHz), but often it's already off the air by the time I tune the SW bands (if it's past 2-3 a.m. here in the Pacific time zone. If it's earlier, they do come in well, sometimes with Radio Slovakia and Polish Radio programming).

I love hearing Radio Slovakia and Polish Radio -- and some of the other programming -- on WRMI, but the 49 Meter band used to be loaded with signals. Now, many nights, there's just three of them. That's how depressing it's become.

And the SW ham bands are just as bad. No one's on the air compared to 15 years ago, or even a couple years ago. I remember when the 20 Meter Band was filled with CW and SSB, Solar Maximum or Solar Minimum, it was still a popular ham band.

Now? It's spare or empty most of the time. Now, I know that in the Southern US and Eastern Seaboard there still is a lot to hear on 20 Meters, because of more distance from the Auroral Zone and because those regions are closer to highly populated areas. But here in the PNW, 20 Meters -- the most popular SW ham band -- is dead most of the time, or partially dead. It's the same with 15 Meters, and the other bands. Even 80 Meters and 40 Meters are spare during most evenings.

Before the mid 2010's, it never used to be that spare of signals.

The hams aren't on the air, except during contests.

Recently, the ARRL had their annual event called 'Field Day', where hams operate from parks, RV's and the like. I switched on my old Realistic DX-160 to hear lots of CW signals on the 20 Meter band, and the SSB section was pretty active, too. It was unbelievable. My old DX-160 had lots of Morse Code signals and sideband, too.

It was just like the old days, when I'd switch on my DX-160 and the 20 Meter Band was packed with signals nearly any Saturday and Sunday afternoon.

Then, once Field Day was over -- nothing.

Some hams say 'well, most guys are on FT8. If you count FT8, ham radio is healthy and doing great!' FT8 is a digital radio mode that sounds like dying aliens or a sick ice cream truck. It's used by a lot of hams because your computer does all the work while you watch video or cruise the internet.

Well, I've actually counted the signals on FT8 channels. The audible ones are usually 3-7 signals at any given transmission window. They're easy enough to count -- you count the different tones, or, if you have an old-school analog receiver, tune the bandspread through the FT8 frequencies and count the zero'd signals that way.

There really aren't that many FT8 signals audible -- and even if you add in the number of FT8 signals that aren't actually audible (maybe 10 or 15 of them during a typical transmission block?) there aren't that many of them, at least compared to the vast number of CW and SSB signals that used to be clearly audible 12 years ago, or 22 years ago.

In the 1980's I'd hear nearly every other channel in the 20 Meter band loaded with signals. The 20 Meter Ham band has about 40-50 different 5 or 10 kHz 'channels' that hams can use for sideband (every 5-10 kHz between 14150 and 14350, roughly). That means I used to hear anywhere between 40 or 50 hams or more, using the SSB section of the 20 Meter Band. And these were all audible signals.

There's no way that FT8 is making up that much difference.

It's just another barometer that Radio, and the Radio hobby, is in decline.

I'm not happy about it, but there's nothing I can do about it, either. I can write about it, and try to encourage people to get on the air if they are a ham, or keep tuning their radios if they are SWL's and DXers. But I can't make the ionosphere work better, and I can't unilaterally tell SW hams to get off their asses and get on the airwaves.

If they'd rather cruise the internet instead, there's nothing I can do about that.

And I obviously can't keep the corporate nature of the Radio industry from jacking up the commercial loads, or laying off people, or programming stale, short playlists, or otherwise sabotaging their industry. 

So what can be done, if you are a Radio DXer or hobbyist?

You can appreciate what you have, because some day in the future it will be gone.

What I'm doing is maximizing my antenna. I added about 90-100 feet of wire to my antenna, running most of it outside to my hawthorn tree. I may also get a new radio later in the year, that may out-perform the SW radios I already have. Tecsun makes a PLL radio with several stages of gain and filtering, and it also has a DSP chip for filtering, and I may get one in the Fall -- it's their PL-880 model, and from what I understand it's really good, and for such a good radio, it's reasonably priced. I could use the extra tuned circuits PLUS the benefit of DSP.

I've got the territory to extend my outdoor wire to around 150 feet or so (50 Meters), so I will probably do that before Fall. 

I may build a bigger loop antenna for MW DXing at night. I've already got the best MW DX radios you can get (GE Superadio 2 and 3; Sangean PR-D4W).

And I'll keep listening until the last stations are off the air.

Hopefully that's a decade or two away.

I'll end this article with my mantra -- 'Get 'em While You Can.'

IN OTHER LIFE....

Today it is the early morning of the Fourth Of July, an American national holiday. When I am done publishing this article, I'm going to go out on a bike ride, and then I shall put out my flags. I really don't feel like celebrating this holiday, being that the killjoys in local government have decided to make it illegal for someone to even light a sparkler in their back yard or out in their driveway, and I haven't exactly been feeling patriotic for reasons I don't care to go into here. 

But it's the Fourth nonetheless, so the holiday should indeed get a mention here.

I may also put out my Australian flag, well, just because.

Until next time, friends,

Peace.

C.C., July 4th, 2026.

ADDENDUM, July 5th. I added information on WRMI in the Shortwave section. It often comes in with readable signals on 5850 kHz, something I'd forgotten when I first wrote this article. So that info has been corrected. I also added that I enjoy much of the WRMI programming. I think they need credit when credit's due. I just with there were more stations on the 49 Meter band, and the other SW bands as well. Most SWL's feel the same way. 

'LEARN TO CODE', they said -- 142K Tech layoffs look like a broken promise

I clearly remember the Great Recession, which happened after the real estate crash of 2008-2009.  I had just been laid off in 2006-2007, and when the big Crash happened, I was in college, for the second time, and after 2010 I was working semi-regular in the legal industry through the rest of the Recession.

Many of my boss's clients during the 2010's were bankruptcy cases. We helped a lot of people get back on their feet again.

I also remember driving down the main street of my city during the early to mid-2010's and seeing half of the windows boarded up or covered by illustrations and posters. There were a lot of vacant buildings and empty storefronts, and that only started changing at the end of that decade.

Then, of course, there was a small economic boom before the Pandemic hit.

The lingering nature of the Great Recession in many parts of the US was not widely publicized, for some reason. But there were some articles by some US and UK newspapers concerning the delayed Recovery -- especially in the Rust Belt and in parts of the South, as well as Appalachia and the Rural Western US. Many media observers said that some career fields that were slammed by the Great Recession would never return -- especially coal industry jobs, and other legacy fields like manufacturing, lumbering, mining, and a lot of energy production.

What were all those laid off workers supposed to do?

"Learn to Code," they said.

Just deal with the fact your job is never coming back, go to school, and "Learn to Code."

After all, computer tech is growing, and those jobs will be limitless. Computers and the internet are the future. There will always be jobs in those fields.

Or so they said.

In other words, all those laid off energy, manufacturing, and service workers -- especially those in legacy fields -- were supposed to go to tech school or college and get 'retraining', and the buzz phrase in the 2010's -- just 10 years ago, really -- was 'Learn to Code', learn how to program computer apps, web services, websites, and computer systems.

Being laid off on New Year's Eve 2006, I found out the hard way just how difficult it can be to find employment in your field when your field of work is in decline. According to NAICS -- the job statistic part of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics -- my field was 'Sound Engineering'. And thanks to computer tech taking over in Radio and Recording, the numbers of 'Sound Engineers' in the US was in decline. 

The field of 'Sound Engineering' simply was NOT predicted to increase in numbers. It's one reason that when I went back to college, I had to choose the paralegal field because it most fit my aptitude and previous schooling, and because I didn't have the math capability to 'learn to code' or get into a tech field.

That said, when I kept hearing politicians and news media pundits tell laid off workers that they just needed to "Learn to Code", I was suspicious, because nothing seems guaranteed in this world, especially with job markets. I had learned that in Radio.

After all, when I went to college the first time around in the 1980's, Radio, TV, and Newspapers were supposed to be growing fields that would never suffer massive job losses. It only took around 25 years for those fields to turn into disappearing, 'legacy' fields where annual layoffs are a normal thing. Newspapers folded by the thousands in just one year in 2022. The number of journalists in the US right now is around 10% of what the number was in 1986, when I graduated from the University.

And the number of journalists drops every year now. It's the same in Radio and TV.

LEARN TO CODE -- THEN WE'LL LAY YOU OFF

So -- how did this "Learn to Code" thing turn out?

Well, not so good after all, it seems.

Many of America's biggest tech firms are announcing massive layoffs that make those in Radio look pale. Some estimates of last year's tech layoffs amounted to 245,000 tech workers. 

This year, so far, 142,000 layoffs in Tech have been announced. That is 387,000 tech jobs either lost, or about to be lost, in just a year and a half.

You can read about this here, on Yahoo! News.:

https://tech.yahoo.com/general/article/tech-layoffs-2026-over-142000-jobs-cut-at-meta-linkedin-wix-webflow-and-more-144545455.html

Well known Tech companies like Meta (Facebook & Instagram), LinkedIn, Intuit, Amazon, Microsoft, Wix, CloudFlare, PayPal, Cisco, Coinbase, GM, Nike, Snapchat, GoPro, Vimeo, Disney, Oracle, T-Mobile, Epic Games, and Ubisoft have all announced layoffs scheduled for this year.

Although the US economy has been hit by a war-related boost in energy prices and some industries were hit by the tariffs that were enacted in the Spring of 2025, most of these Tech companies are saying that the adoption of AI is the reason for most of their layoffs.

AI WAS PREDICTED TO KILL JOBS -- in the 2010's, No One Listened

AI was forecast long ago to be a problem for the American worker. I remember reading articles in the newspapers back in 2012, 2013, and 2014 about how AI was going to make 50% of the workforce redundant within 50 years.

There were a lot of people back then saying that would not be true -- AI would just be another form of Tech, and Tech companies would always need people to program the AI.

In other words, "Learn to Code."

How's that working out, folks? Not too good.

Needless to say -- I really feel for all the people being laid off. 

Trust me: I know how that feels. 

AI IS KILLING SELF-PUBLISHING FOR A LOT OF AUTHORS

I've said here before that I am an independent author. I don't make much, if any, money from my eBooks, but I do have a strong connection to the independent author forums and author social media, and track what goes on in independent authoring and publishing.

And some independent, eBook authors online are complaining that AI-written books are literally killing their incomes. All the AI competition -- AI-written books, introduced by the hundreds every week, all with AI-produced covers, flooding the eBook marketplace, making eBooks written by REAL authors more and more invisible -- it's killing self-published authors books and revenues.

And this sort of trend is coming to EVERY CONTENT FIELD, and probably most career fields. 

AI has already made photographers, illustrators, journalists, writers, authors, voice talent, models, actors, editors, paralegals, telemarketers, secretaries, receptionists, musicians, video producers, clerical workers, and some educators redundant. And the job losses from AI are just starting.

Lawyers, teachers, analysts, researchers, agents of all types, librarians, professors, historians, middle level managers -- all these career fields and more may be next in line for the AI job loss chopping block.

And if you add in the increase of AI programmed robots in completely automated factories -- and similar robotics-related job losses -- there won't be much left for human employment.

And the AI losses right now are hitting the Tech field, the field that everyone said would always be immune to layoffs and job-killing AI.

So how do we fix this problem? Can we?

I really don't know. But it bothers me to see this happen. Like I said, I was laid off in 2006. My Radio job never came back. My old newspaper job I had in the 80's never came back. If I were to try to find new employment in the legal field tomorrow, I doubt there are jobs available. If I were depending on income from my eBook sales, I'm sure I'd be feeling the pinch from AI-produced competition.

We're in a new era, folks, and it doesn't look all that pretty. And sometimes this merry-go-round of get laid off / get retraining / get laid off again / get more retraining just looks more and more like a broken promise.

IN OTHER LIFE....

I just paid off the last of my late mother's debts. That's a big load of rocks off my shoulders. The weather's been a bit better. My neighbor, who is a mechanic, moved back in across the street with his wife and kids, so hopefully my Lincoln Continental can get fixed and back to 100% so I can drive around a bit once more. It runs. I just need it to run dependably.

I added about 90-100 feet (30 meters, roughly) to my shortwave antenna on the 19th of May, and 25th of May, by running a spool of wire outside to my hawthorn tree. At first I added about 50-60 feet, and then I added some more a few nights later. I know have about 7-8 dbu additional signal strength for my radios.

It's my way of preparing for the Solar Minimum, I guess. Right now there is a Morse Code, ham radio contest going on. I heard the Chatham Islands this morning -- a station called ZL7IO. The Chatham Islands are a part of New Zealand, and they're right next to the International Date Line. Pretty cool to hear, even if it was just Morse Code.

My XHDATA D808 radio is really good with Morse Code, actually. It's also great for MW and LW. It has Airband, which is useful for current, local weather reports from the Renton Airport. FM is good, but I'm not an FM DXer, so I can't say how DX-worthy the FM is on the D808. But the other bands really pull in the signals well.

I've still been riding my bike at nights, when it's cool and quiet out. And I'm still playing my bagpipes, trying to learn an old tune called Blue Bonnets Over The Border. I always wanted to learn it, but never thought I could. I've got it about 80-90% down.

Now it's back to writing my next eBook which won't sell because of AI. :-)

Enough doom and gloom. Here's some 2010's pop to brighten your day. Andy Grammer put out this hit in 2010, right after the Great Recession was kicking in big time. It's a great song. I first heard it on Radio Disney in 2011. Keep Your Head Up!

I miss the early 2010's. Yeah, the economy was still crap, but the pop music was so good, and it was so upbeat and fun.

Until next time, my friends,

Peace.

C.C. -- Sunday, May 31st, 2026.

Silent Radio Station KRLC 1350 LEWISTON burned down in Fire Training exercise

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.:

Longtime Idaho Radio Studio Burned Down in Training Exercise - Radio World

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'.

Here is an article on HydeFM's challenges.:

Independent S.F. radio station seeks donations to remain on-air

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.

INFINITY SPORTS NETWORK ends; replaced by Westwood One / BetMGM sports network

 

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.:

https://barrettmedia.com/2025/12/17/executive-producer-michael-samtur-announces-exit-from-audacy-infinity-sports-network/

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.:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGM_Resorts_International#BetMGM

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. 

Peace,

C.C. December 21st, 2025.

HOLLYWOOD is DEAD, & It's NOT COMING BACK. Here's why.

 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.:

MEL GIBSON ON THE DEATH OF HOLLYWOOD | Film Threat Versus

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 to Breaking 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.

She needs a chance to be a 'princess'.

Peace.

C.C., November 21st, 2025.