KRLC, Lewiston, Idaho's "Hometown Radio" station, a station whose plug was pulled about a year ago and recently had its license deleted, has been burned to the ground in a Fire Training exercise. The Fire training exercise took place in late November.
Over the past several years since the Pandemic ended I have written about several AM (and FM) stations in my region of the US going off the airwaves, and in those articles I have included the fact that many of those stations had FM translators, FM sister stations, and several had radio streams on the internet -- a factor that is supposedly necessary to 'save AM'.
KRLC, Lewiston, Idaho was one of those stations. KRLC 1350 was usually heard nightly here in the Seattle area up until it went off the air about midway through last year. Even though we have a strong local (KKMO 1360) here in the metro, KRLC could still be heard right next to it, playing Classic Country music.
In the 1960's and 70's, KRLC was a Top 40 station, but they switched to Country some time in the late 1970's, and then Classic Country about a decade or more later.
Lewiston is in Northern Idaho, and it's right across the Snake River from Clarkston, Washington -- the two are 'twin cities', and they both serve an area of dry wheatfield farmland, as well as some orchard farming. Lewiston is known as Idaho's 'seaport', being that it is on a section of the Snake River that is navigable all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
Even though the Lewiston-Clarkston metro region is around 50,000 or more, there just wasn't enough revenue to keep KRLC on the air. And the Pandemic economy finished the station off, just as it finished off KNPT Newport OR, KBCH Lincoln City OR, KUTI Yakima WA, KMED Medford OR, KKPZ Portland OR, KDUN Reedsport OR, and even big city KDWN Las Vegas, NV -- all stations which I've written about here when they were taken off the air.
In KRLC's case, one night I tuned in to 1350 to hear nothing, and then I looked KRLC up and found out they went off the air. They recently had their license deleted at the FCC.
I used to listen to Sunny 1550 at night while writing fiction. Their mix of Standards and easy listening Oldies was well presented and fun to listen to. Then they went Vietnamese, and then they went silent during the Pandemic.
A couple other stations, like KKOV 1550 Vancouver WA, the former "Sunny 1550", are silent and their futures are uncertain. Even an Asian language format couldn't save KKOV. It's been silent since the Pandemic. KZIZ 1560, a small station in Sumner, WA, just 20 miles south of me has been off the air for more than a year. A Punjabi / South Asian format apparently couldn't save it. They went off the air around the time the Pandemic happened.
It's tough for Radio all over -- and especially AM Radio, although FM is not exempt.
You can also add a bunch of Canadian AM'ers whose plugs have been pulled -- also done in by the Pandemic economy, as well as the changing economics of Radio -- CKMX 1060 Calgary, CFTE Vancouver, CKGO Vancouver, CKST Vancouver, CFRN Edmonton, and several others.
Of the American stations I mention here, all of them, except possibly KKPZ in Portland, had streams. The streams did not save the stations. Most of them also had FM translators, and KNPT Newport was part of a group of stations on the Oregon Coast. All had their plugs pulled.
An inglorious end to an 80 year-old Radio station. KRLC gets burned down in a Fire Dept. training exercise. The station was burned in November, 2025.
Photo courtesy RadioWorld dot com & Big Country News
Now KRLC is gone -- and even more, the station's building was burned down in a Fire Department training exercise, in November(I didn't find out about the building being burned down until recently). It was an inglorious fate for a station that served the city and region of Lewiston for 80 years. The once proud server of Classic Country to the wheatland region of the Palouse is now nothing more than ashes.
It all went up in flames. One wonders if that is the ultimate future of the industry I worked in for 20 years -- for it all to end up going up in flames.
Here is a news article on the burning down of KRLC.:
It's sad, in a way, but it's also indicative of the ultimate fate of probably every on-air Radio station in the United States. Eventually, when everything goes online, there won't be any Radio stations left, and the majority of remaining, online-only stations will disappear as well, because the internet is one vast content resource with endless competition for eyes and ears.
A pic of Lewiston, Idaho and Clarkston, Washington, from the old US Highway 95 switchbacks just north of the small metro. These switchbacks inspired the song "Hot Rod Lincoln". In this pic, Lewiston is to the left side, and Clarkston is to the right. These two cities are located in the sunnier and drier part of Washington state, and a dry region in Northern Idaho.
Online Radio is promising, but the promise just won't hold out for most who believe that going online-only will save Radio stations. Online radio stations have to find advertising or funding, just like On-Air stations do. And then you have the issue of Digital Royalties for the music played.
An example of this hit the radio press recently. There is an online station in San Francisco -- one of the most concentrated populations in the United States -- called HydeFM that is struggling to stay alive, even though it reportedly has a 'loyal local following'.
Even online, it's tough for a content operation like a streaming radio station to make enough money to survive.
We live in interesting times.
IN OTHER LIFE...
In other life, everything is plodding along. My internet went wonky last Saturday. Then it went good for 5 days. My cat Bear is getting used to me. She likes the bagpipes -- only if I play them downstairs, though. But she knows that when I play the bagpipes, soon enough I'll be feeding her. She is a very skittish cat, so I wanted to ensure that she associated bagpipes with a good thing. That way she wouldn't be so scared of the noise.
THE SHORTWAVE BANDS ARE 'DEAD, JIM'
DXing has been spotty lately. The SW bands are mostly dead, compared to where they should be -- being that we are still technically in a Solar peak period. I heard T88SM, a ham station out of Palau, on CW (Morse Code) two afternoons ago on 21025 kHz in the 15 Meter ham band. The rest of the band was basically dead, though. I heard 8P5AA out of Barbados on 10 Meters the same afternoon (28470 kHz, around 2058 UTC -- about 1 p.m. here), and a few faint whispers of East Coast US hams trying to talk to him.
Earlier that day I heard Brazil, PV8AL (?) on 28350, but I couldn't hear the US guys trying to reach him. The rest of the 10 Meter band was dead.
It seems that sometimes there is ionospheric propagation to various regions of the world, but no one is on. Then again, last night the SW and HF ham bands were basically nothing but static with a few faint carriers and just whispers of audio on WRMI and WWCR.
Even the Desert Whooper, a low-power, unlicensed, 'whooping' beacon on 4096 kHz, hasn't been heard here in weeks. Last year I was hearing them now and then, and in 2024 I was hearing them nightly, unless there was a whopper of a solar storm. The Desert Whooper is located probably somewhere in the deserts of California, and if you tune into it you'll hear 'whoop whoop whoop' and then a CW identifier ('DW'). If you tune in with LSB, the 'whoops' sound sad, if you tune into the Whooper with USB, it's upbeat whoops.
But it's been MIA for weeks.
Propagation lately could be summed up thusly.:
"It's dead, Jim." (a take on a famous Star Trek quote).
SEEMS LIKE THE SOLAR MINIMUM IS STARTING ALREADY
This Solar Cycle is playing out the way I sort of thought it would. It's depressing, in a way, but it's reality, and with reality, one must adapt and survive. One way I've attempted to 'adapt' is get a DSP SSB radio, and of the three of those I've got this year (Tecsun PL-330, Raddy RF760, and XHDATA D808), the D808 is the best for raw SSB and CW signal performance, and the Tecsun is the best for SSB readability.
I'm going to put up an outdoor wire to try to hear more when the REAL solar minimum hits -- and I think it's going to hit next year. In fact, I think it's starting to hit us already. I have the space for an outdoor wire. I just have to figure out a way to put one up again. I used to have a 100 foot wire, but it went down in a windstorm in 2005 or so. My next outdoor one will be shorter.
Here's hoping all of you are doing well and having an OK start to 2026.
Peace.
C.C., January 14th, 2026.
Jan. 15th, 2026: I forgot to add the bit about the Desert Whooper, so I added it today. The Desert Whooper is one of those fun things about Shortwave, but it's not the same when you can't hear it because propagation is so poor.
The famous Hollywood Sign, a US national landmark.
(photo courtesy Wikipedia)
When I was growing up, the influence of Hollywood, and Los Angeles, was everywhere. Every movie was made in Hollywood. Most of the music -- more than half of it, probably -- was recorded in Los Angeles, with some of the recording studios in Hollywood. The Rolling Stones 60's albums that weren't recorded in London (at Olympic Studios), for example, were recorded in Hollywood studios like Sunset Sound and Goldstar, where the famous, sunshiny, 60's music from Jan & Dean and the Beach Boys to nearly every folk rock pop hit from that era -- were all recorded.
Van Halen's albums were recorded there, at Sunset Sound. Kiss recorded in or near Hollywood. Guns 'N' Roses recorded their first album near Hollywood, and were part of the Hollywood metal scene in the 80's. Tons of vital rock and pop songs were recorded in the Hollywood studios.
From the 1960's through the 2000's most of the popular Rock music was recorded in LA. Even Nirvana's breakthrough album, Nevermind, was recorded in or near Hollywood. A lot of Nu-Metal acts I loved in the 2000's -- from Korn to Coal Chamber to Engines of Aggression to Buckcherry to Limp Bizkit -- were either part of the Los Angeles scene, or recorded there.
Most, if not all, of the movies I enjoyed were Hollywood productions. As a child of the 70's and 80's, TV was all Hollywood. In the 1980's and early 90's, I was an aspiring musician. To me -- as it was to most musicians in Seattle during those times -- Los Angeles was where you made it big. That was because Los Angeles (Hollywood) was THE center of Rock and pop music.
A view of Los Angeles from behind the Hollywood sign. Looks like paradise, doesn't it. Balmy weather all year long, and look at all those nice houses. Way off in the distance is downtown LA, and off the picture, to the right, are the beaches. But the mainstay industry of the Los Angeles region -- the entertainment industry -- is taking a big, big hit. Will it recover, or will AI do it all in?
(Photo courtesy Wikipedia)
But now there is a big problem. Hollywood is DEAD.
There have been some videos on YouTube, put there by podcasters who know the industry, who are talking about the fact that Hollywood is dying -- the famous movie and TV production studios have vacant lots and empty soundstages. Actors and all the other people who were part of the industry are unemployed, or only working part time, having to travel to other places to do their job. They're hurting for money.
There have been reports that box office revenues are at record lows. New 'blockbuster' movies aren't busting the block anymore. Something is awry here.
This chart, obtained from The-Numbers dot com, is pretty informative. On the left column, you'll see that in 2025 the Movie Industry sold roughly half the box office tickets it sold in 2005. In the third column, where the numbers account for inflation, you can see that in 2025 the Movie Industry made roughly half the box office receipts it made in 2005.
If the chart is hard to read, it can be right clicked and displayed in a new tab or window. (chart courtesy The-Numbers.com)
Looking at ticket sales stats and box office revenues over the past 20 years, the US movie industry is not only seeing nearly half the theatre audience it had in 2005, it is also making roughly half of what it made in 2005, when accounting for inflation. Now, it's not easy to find complete reports, which include streaming movie revenues, which might make the two figures more even, but a 50% cut at the box office from 2001 to 2025 is fairly telling.
Think about it. In just twenty years, the movie theatres have half the viewers and half the revenues they had in 2005.
This chart shows the Movie Industry's box office receipts, year by year (red line) and number of tickets sold per year (blue line) since 1995, which was 30 years ago. As you can see, the number of tickets sold started declining in 2004, took a deep dive during Covid, and is lower than it probably was in the 1980's (off the chart).
Correspondingly, the amount of revenue per ticket increased, starting in 2005. But if you account for inflation (see previous chart), the Industry's ticket revenues started flatlining in 2013, and making less money after that.
(chart courtesy The-Numbers.com)
The numbers indicated that the monster of entertainment we used to call Hollywood -- and Los Angeles -- is fading.
This leaves the question: What went wrong?
It turns out that a combination of factors killed Hollywood. Poor governance by California and LA politicians -- high taxes, prohibitively high permit fees for location shoots. The fires did not help any. The strikes did not help any. California's tax policies moving parts of the industry to places like Texas and Georgia did not help any. Covid definitely did not help any.
On the other hand, the movies coming out of Hollywood haven't exactly been earthshaking. The trend of constant sequels, comic-book remakes, bland plots or non-stop superhero drivel hasn't exactly made people want to go to the theatre to pay $20 for tickets and another $20 for popcorn and a drink. They stay home and stream -- which makes Hollywood less money.
Most of these factors leading to Hollywood's decline are mentioned by the movers and shakers in the videos I have linked here.
Brian Entin's interesting vid on Hollywood turning into a Ghost Town, which includes an interview with Mel Gibson about Hollywood dying.
Mel Gibson, who made his first big movie in Melbourne in 1979 ('Mad Max'), and came to the US after The Road Warrior hit in 1981, has been either starring in movies, or making his own movies, for over 40 years. He knows a bit about Hollywood.
In his view, bad government, Covid, strikes, fires, the incredibly high cost of living in California, the incredibly high cost of doing business in California -- and other factors -- all have combined to turn Hollywood into a ghost town, which is how he describes it.
In an interview with podcaster Brian Entin, Mel Gibson said it was cheaper to fly an entire movie production to Bulgaria for three days, film some scenes there -- and the cost, including housing and transportation -- was less than it would be for shooting the same scene for one day in Los Angeles.
Everything is so expensive in LA, Gibson says. Even the cost of an apple in LA is so much higher than it is in Rome or Bulgaria.
Looking at the footage in Brian Entin's excellent video on the death of Hollywood drives Mel's point home -- Hollywood is indeed becoming a ghost town. Entin shows scenes of empty parking lots. Empty buildings. Soundstages with no activity -- no people.
It's all DEAD.
For those who work in Hollywood, it's a personal disaster. For those of us who grew up on Hollywood movies and music, it's heartbreaking.
But it's the new reality.
And this leads to the question: will it ever come back? My conclusion is that it never will. I now will tell you why.
This is a video by the Film Threat podcast on Hollywood dying. It concentrates on LA's Hollywood job losses. Over 20% job loss in just a year... a year that was supposed to be make-or-break for Hollywood.
The video I discuss below, which was a roundtable of FilmThreat industry experts, did not show up in the Blogger search function. Here is a link that that video.:
THEY ALL TALKED ABOUT EVERYTHING EXCEPT the INTERNET and A.I.
In both of the videos I have linked above, there are two things that none of these movers and shakers have mentioned -- two factors that are systemic, and are killing the audio and video entertainment industry -- and one of those factors will kill it off: the death of physical entertainment media (DVD's, CD's), and AI.
First off, the death of physical media sales -- i.e. VHS tapes, DVD's, cassettes and CD sales -- is an important factor affecting Hollywood, because the death of DVD sales removed a massive revenue stream that propped up the movie and recording industries, and gave music and movie producers more money to work with -- more money to take chances on new artists, new scripts, new song and movie ideas. The billions of dollars that came in from CD sales allowed record companies to invest in new artists. DVD sales did the same for movie companies.
The movie industry, like the music industry, openly embraced streaming, without ensuring that DVD or video download SALES would be included in the contracts for licensing. Instead of ensuring that the video-file equivalent of the DVD would be a vital part of movie consumption, the movie industry agreed to the online streaming model, where there is no sale, and the revenues are based on declining box office receipts and abysmally low streaming revenues.
From what I've read, some movie companies rush their products to the streaming services, which undercuts any theatre revenues or whatever remaining DVD sales there may be -- killing off, or choking off two revenue streams.
The music industry did the same thing in 2001 when it embraced MP3 singles as being the only revenue model, and later on the music industry also embraced streaming, letting the revenues dwindle further in the process. They allowed the CD and the MP3 album to be killed off, replacing it with streamed 'album-equivalent-units', which bring in much less revenue.
This lack of sales of the movie or album has stifled creativity, because there is less revenue to invest in new artists or movie products.
Here is an example of how physical album sales helped propel a genre to dominance: Nirvana in 1991.
Nirvana only became massive because of the Nevermind album, which was an example of a record company taking a chance on a small-city (i.e. Seattle) alternative band, a band that as late as 1990 only alt rock and punk rock fans knew about. Once Geffen Records dumped money into recording and production, there was a sellable product, with all this money behind it to push it to radio and MTV.
The money that was used to front the recording, album cover, CD manufacturing; the video production costs, the merch, and the promotion posters and cardboard, record store promotion kiosks -- it all came from other artists' hit album sales.
Other albums that the recording company had in its roster had provided the revenues that were used to record, produce, and promote Nevermind to be the smash hit that it came to be.
Today there are no album sales. Streaming revenues are incredibly low. A million selling CD single in 2001 brought in over $5 million in revenue. A million plays of a single song on streaming platforms today will bring in $4000.
In 2001, a million selling CD album brought in about $18 million. Today, an "Album-Equivalent-Unit' getting one million plays will bring in about $48,000.
Get the picture? There is a lot less money in streaming -- both in music streaming, and in movie streaming. The death of physical media sales killed off a LOT of revenue, not only for the music industry, but the movie industry also. Actor and filmmaker Matt Damon discussed this in an interview several years ago. He said that in the 2000's, a movie producer could take a chance, because if the movie stiffed in the movie theatres, they could always count on DVD sales, and DVD rentals (which brought in more than streaming).
Damon insisted that killing the DVD killed off a lot of revenue, and was one reason that movies are so cookie cutter today -- the studios have less money available to take chances.
So the death of physical media sales (DVD's, CD's) has drastically affected Hollywood. One of the media experts in the second video I linked does talk about how the internet, and Tik-Tok, has changed media consumption, and that is a similar problem for Hollywood, being that the more hours you're watching clips on Tik-Tok, that's less time you're watching Hollywood productions.
But amazingly, none of these experts mentioned the death of the DVD as being one major factor in Hollywood's decline.
A.I. -- THE FINAL NAIL IN HOLLYWOOD'S COFFIN
AI is the 900-pound gorilla in the room that neither Mel Gibson, nor the experts in the second video address when discussing what is happening to Hollywood and the entertainment industry in general. Only one of the experts in the second video alluded to AI being in the future, in passing, where he mentioned that people may soon be able to use prompts to order up their own AI movie, on their phone or laptop.
The reality is that AI is not just going to be a trend. It is going to replace all other forms of audio and visual entertainment. Anyone who has seen the rapid improvement in AI video over the past two years can see that it's not going to go away. It's only going to get better in quality. Right now, the best AI out there can create high quality 10 minute clips. Soon enough -- maybe 5 years or so -- it will be able to create movie-length videos that you won't be able to tell from the movies Hollywood is producing now.
Right now AI is only starting to kill off other entertainment forms. In 20 years it will have finished the job. In the rest of this article I will tell you why.
First, let's look at how things used to be. Then we'll look at how they are now.
It used to be that actors, writers, and musicians would go to Los Angeles to try to make it big. When I still had my rock and roll dreams in the 80's and 90's, Los Angeles was always the place I figured I'd have to go to make it.
Why Los Angeles? Because all of the movie studios, TV studios, and recording studios were there. After all, it's HOLLYWOOD, and all the entertainment industries interconnect there.
And because of LA being so big, so diverse, and such a media center -- after all, it's the number two city in the United States -- it is a natural magnet for movie and music star wannabes. And with the great weather, and the beaches, and the sunshine -- it's naturally a place everyone wants to go.
Of course, music and movies often go hand in hand, as do music and TV. And all the entertainment forms converge together in Hollywood. Music stars used to make music videos -- often, those videos were made by people who were from the movie industry. As late as the 2010's, many music videos looked like full-on Hollywood productions.
This is because they actually were full-on Hollywood productions. Here is an example, which I've used in an earlier article 2 years ago -- Selena Gomez's video for her excellent pop song A Year Without Rain (2010), which looks like a Hollywood movie production.
The video for Selena Gomez's 2010 Top 40 pop hit A Year Without Rain. Look at the direction; the widescreen, high resolution; the breathtaking cinematography; look at how perfect everything is. Not only is it a great song -- but there was a lot of money put into this video. ...Money that the music industry lacks today.
As you can tell, the cinematography is perfect. Selena's hair is perfect. Her makeup is perfect. Every movement of her dress is perfect. The sweeping vista shots in the widescreen video look like big-movie cinematography. It's all that way by design.
It has Hollywood written all over it. There was a LOT of money expended to make the video, and the pop track wasn't even a top ten hit. It was a great song, but didn't top the charts.
But look at all the money that went into that video!
Today, most of a video like that would be AI. In fact, in maybe ten years the entirety of such a video -- including the singer, music production and songwriting -- will all be AI.
This is how far we've progressed in just 15 years. From awesome pop hits, sung by real singers, written by real songwriters, and played by real musicians, to everything being done by a computer app.
What does this mean for Hollywood? It means 'it's dead, Jim.'
One reason that Hollywood was such an important place was because it was a LOCATION where everyone involved in music, movies, TV, and other audio-visual entertainment lived or travelled to get albums recorded, videos filmed, movies produced. To record an album, you could do it in Seattle, but the big production albums were finished and mastered in Los Angeles -- because that's where the big name producers were based. That was where the record companies were based. That's where the videos were made for most rock and pop hits.
With AI, none of that is needed. It all can be done via the internet, and in the future, it will all be done on your phone, on your AI app.
At the same time, we've seen the Tik-Tok effect, where there are no big singing stars anymore, and there are really no big movie stars anymore -- the internet has democratized and nichefied audio and video entertainment so much that the days of the mass media star are drawing to a close.
And AI will kill that off, too. Just give it time.
A.I. WILL ALSO REPLACE THE AUTHOR
I'll close this article off with a more personal take. As many of you may know, I've written books and published them on Amazon. Consequently, I frequent some forums for eBook authors, and a couple subreddits (on Reddit) where eBook authors hang out.
The vast majority of them are willingly blinded to the disaster that is coming down the pike. They really think that AI will have no effect whatsoever on the eBook publishing business.
"Readers will always want to read books by real human authors," they invariably say. "AI writing is trash, no one will read it," they invariably say. "Books are different from video and music," they invariably say.
They are blind, blind, blind.
First off, I have read some of the AI produced fiction recently. Sure, some of it is trashy writing. AI is nothing like Melville, Dickens or Shelley in its ability to turn out literature -- not yet. It hasn't even reached Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, Robert Ruark or George Orwell level of writing skills yet.
But at the same time, most modern fiction is pulp fiction, or a variety of it, and I can't see where AI fiction is much different from any drugstore pulp novel writing. Are there glitches and some issues with the stories? Sure. But any glitches will undoubtedly be smoothed out and fixed as the AI-writing models are streamlined. Another issue is that the average eBook fiction author today reads fiction differently from the way the average consumer reads it. I've seen a lot of top selling books that weren't anything close to what I'd call literary in nature.
But they sell. And so will AI fiction, eventually.
Also, these AI detractors aren't keeping track of the trend in book consumption. Younger demos do not read books the same way that GenXer's, older Millennials, and Boomers did. They read less books, and buy fewer books than their older counterparts did.
Younger people are also much more open to new technology, and especially more open to new entertainment technology. That includes AI fiction writing, as well as AI videos, AI produced music, and the like.
If you are an eBook author and you think AI isn't going to eventually replace you, you are being willfully ignorant, friend. It's going to take over everything, and it's just a matter of time.
There will always be human written books, just as there will always be real music made by real people on real instruments. There will always be real people taking real photos on real cameras.
They just won't be making much, if any, money doing it.
BREAKING RUST: THE FUTURE IS NOW
Just recently, a new wrinkle in the AI factor has surfaced: a mysterious AI country singer named Breaking Rust topped the Country Digital Song Sales chart on Billboard. It's had 4 million streams on Spotify and 11 million streams on YouTube (according to CBS News).
Sounds like Gospel tinged Country to me. Not too different in tone from Lil Nas X's 'Old Town Road', which was a smash just before Corona hit. 'Walk My Walk' has had 4 million streams on Spotify. That means it's made the creators (whoever they are) somewhere around $16,000.
If you listen toBreaking Rust,it sounds just like modern day country -- the words, of course are cliche. So are the words in most modern country songs -- I hear a lot of country while scanning the AM band at night, and the lyrics are almost non-stop cliches. The Breaking Rust singer sounds like a soulful white guy, or a black American gospel singer with a country-tinged accent.
Now, the fact that this track topped the MP3 Download Sales chart isn't necessarily a harbinger for the end of all musicians. But it shows exactly what AI is capable of doing. And if you listen to the track, it's not much different from what you might hear on the radio today, production and content-wise.
This is the future folks. We're already in it.
MY ONLY VISIT TO HOLLYWOOD
After viewing the first two videos I linked above, and writing this article, I have to admit that it's very saddening what has happened to Hollywood, and the entertainment industry in general.
I only have been to Hollywood once. It was during a road trip I took, by car, with a former girlfriend. We drove from Seattle to New Orleans and back. The furthest east we made it was Pass Christian, Mississippi, where my ex and I waded in the warmth of the Gulf of Mexico for the first time. I clearly recall the heat of the sun, the calming feel of the warm water, and hearing and seeing the flying fishes flip away in front of us as we were nearly waist deep in the water. It is one of my fondest memories. I was truly happy.
On the way back home from New Orleans, we went through Los Angeles. That night, we stopped in Hollywood. Sunset and Vine. I got out of the car, and walked up and down the block, and we both got a can of soda at a corner market.
So this is Hollywood, I thought to myself. On one hand, Sunset Boulevard reminded me of First Avenue in Seattle, a key thoroughfare that used to be a combination of Skid Row and culture central -- it ran from the touristy Pioneer Square district, pass several adult video arcades and pawn shops and music stores, to the famous Pike Place Market. Sunset reminded me slightly of this combination of run down and upscale.
On the other hand, my heart was pounding, because I was there -- at the center of the universe -- Sunset and Vine!
We drove west on Sunset, before heading north, and back to Interstate 5, so we could make our way back home.
Looking south from Sunset as we were driving towards the hills, you could see this vast panorama of lights to the south of us -- Beverly Hills, and the western part of LA that is the 'Los Angeles' that always makes it in the movies. In fact, the view reminded me of the sweeping vista one can see in the 2000's movie Crash, which features LA, with all of its diversity, glamour, and its hope, and also its underbelly. There is a sweeping vista in that movie that looked identical to the grand view I saw driving west on Sunset.
It was my only foray into Hollywood, but one I'll never forget.
Hollywood is that magical place that now is facing a declining future. Hollywood the neighborhood will always exist. I'm sure that there will always be entertainment in some form happening there, and being produced there.
But the glamour days are over. AI is going to kill it all off.
I'll be glad if that doesn't happen that way, but I don't think I'm wrong. AI is changing everything, folks, and we're in for a wild ride.
My last thoughts are a bit historical, I suppose. Hollywood as we still know it is only about 100 years old. The movie industry, which had been previously based out of New Jersey, moved west to Los Angeles in the 1920's -- just 100 years ago. 100 years is a long time for a single location like Hollywood to be the center of the entertainment universe.
It was a good run.
IN OTHER LIFE....
In other life, it's been going normally. I'm still sorting out some finances left over from my mother's passing, and I'm still riding my bike at night, playing guitar and working on my bagpipes, so I can play them for the family at Thanksgiving. The temperatures have been moderate for November, which is refreshing. When I ride my bike at night, it feels like Spring.
I just got some new, plastic/synthetic Surefire brand chanter reeds for my bagpipes, and they work really well. There are four different strengths, and I ordered one of each, to figure out which strength reed works the best.
I also have a new cat. She's a grey tabby, 8-9 years old. I'm the third owner. The former owner couldn't keep her anymore. She was almost headed to be euthanized. She is now in my upstairs bathroom, which is heated -- and it's her own space.
She still isn't sure of me. Hisses a lot -- it's because she's scared. Cats don't like change. I'm using food as a weapon -- getting her to get to know me, because I'm the human putting the food in the dish. She still hisses a bit, but is meowing more and hissing less.
I don't have any pics because both my phone and camera's memories are full and I need to clear them to take more pics. She looks a bit like my Fluffamuffins did, my little grey cat that died just over a year and a half ago. Here is a pic of Fluffy as a reminder of what she looked like.:
Fluffy, a.k.a. Fluffamuffins, when a kitten, in 2011. My new cat looks incredibly like her.
As you can tell, I was working on my Superadio some time before or after I took this pic. Fluffy just made herself at home on the table.
I think I'll call the new cat Princess, because she's a shelter cat that's on her third (or fourth?) owner since she was at a Lompoc, California animal shelter in 2017.
The logo for 'Jack FM', WLXX 101.5, Lexington, Kentucky -- a station shut down during recent budget cuts at one of America's largest radio companies. Lexington is a fairly large city, with about 300K in the metro region. Jack-FM's usually do fairly well in the ratings, as they play a wide range of Classic Hits from the 1980's to the 2000's and early 2010's. But the Jack format didn't save this FM station from being shut down. Radio station shut-downs are now hitting FM as well as AM.
My industry is dying. Radio is dying. The Great Recession kicked it in the guts, the internet economy slammed it in the head, the Pandemic economy cut it off at the legs, and now the industry is starting to fold.
When I hit the internet with my first cup of coffee or tea every day, I usually check the Radio site called _________________. It's a forum of Radio industry insiders, experts, former Radio workers, and Radio hobbyists, and often it's a good source of news on what is happening in the industry.
Earlier this evening I was slammed by a news report on ___ that two of the largest Radio companies in the United States -- Cumulus and Townsquare Media -- are shutting down 20 AM, and FM, radio stations. There are staff cuts, too, but they're not just cutting staff. They're literally shutting down radio stations as well.
Here is a link to the news article posted on ___.:
[Link Removed -- bad site. see the Appendix. -- C.C.]
The stations' programming ranges from Country, to News-Talk (an FM as well as AM's), to Sports-Talk (with both Infinity Sports Network and Fox Spots taking a hit), to "Jack" style 80's-00's Classic Hits, to Classic Country (an FM at that), to 'Lite Rock' (an AM with an FM translator), to an FM Classic Hits station (in Missouri). That's just a sampling from the article linked above, and its source says that there are more station shutdowns to come.
MANY THOUGHT FM RADIO WAS IMMUNE
Up until recently, the revenue issues associated with Radio's new, shaky business model (FM, AM, HD, + online) have only hit the AM band, and staffing. I've reported on these AM stations going off the air over the past several years, since the Pandemic ended.
The stations that went off the air in this region, since 2019, are fairly numerous -- KNPT Newport OR, KUTI Yakima WA, KMED/KYVL Medford OR, KKPZ Portland OR, KDWN Las Vegas NV, CKMX Calgary AB, CFTE Vancouver BC, CKST Vancouver BC, CHED 630 Edmonton, CKGO 730 Vancouver (the last two were replaced by sister stations that were moved to their frequency) are just a few of the stations in the Western US and Canada that have shut down operations permanently. There have been other stations in the Eastern US and Canada that went off the air, too -- CHML Hamilton ON a classic example.
The most recent shakeup on the West Coast of the US was KGO 810 San Francisco being changed to play KSFO 560's conservative talk programming -- and KSFO 560 was then shut down. It is no longer on the air. 810 now identifies as KSFO.
Some of these stations that were switched off permanently may still have a small online presence. But most are gone, gone, gone. As you can tell, the stations I just listed above were all AM stations.
But now this trend is shutting down some FM stations as well. FM radio, as a medium, is NOT immune to the difficult economics of Radio these days.
SPORTS TALK TAKES A SMALL HIT
Several of the shut-down stations in the article linked about are Sports talkers. For the past few years, Sports stations have been able to survive on low ratings, because -- the prevailing wisdom states -- Sports talk stations don't need ratings. They have a lock on men. Advertisers that want to reach men will use Sports talk stations, regardless of their ratings.
But it turns out that Sports stations aren't immune to being shut down due to Radio economics. The advertising revenue crunch is hitting Sports radio, too.
IT SUCKS TO SEE IT HAPPEN
It is probably obvious I'm a MW/AM radio fan. I like tuning into the distant stations at night, and I'll listen to the programming -- be it Classic Hits, Classic Country, Sports talk, public radio from OPB (Oregon Public Radio) or the CBC, some religious music and programming, some news-talk, a lot of South Asian music, ranchero, etc.
And for the past several years those of us who are AM radio fans have had to endure the negative comments about AM radio being 'ancient' and needing to go off their air.
But now FM radio is also feeling the pinch. A bunch of the 20 stations owned by Cumulus and Townsquare Media that are being shut down are on the FM band -- the one that the AM decriers always like to say is the only 'Radio' that counts.
NEWS FLASH: FM radio is not sacrosanct. Ever since WPLJ -- once a TOP STATION in America's Market #1, New York City, sold for millions less than it was worth in the 1990's and 2000's, the writing for FM has been on the wall.
FM Radio is not beyond the reach of cost cutting.
It's sad, because from time to time I have been an avid FM listener, too. FM was where you could hear all sorts of great pop and rock music in the 80's through the 2000's. When I got a Sanyo FM-AM boombox on Christmas 1982, I was glued to it for years until that radio was stolen. I tuned the Rock stations and Pop stations and some R&B stations. And there is no denying that for decades, FM Radio has been a vital part of American music culture.
Now it is fading, along with AM.
My Sangean PR-D14, my last purchase from now-defunct Fry's Electronics. It is my kitchen radio, on 24/7. It will bring in DX, but usually I have it tuned to local talk, NPR, or the local Catholic Station on 1590. When I bought this radio in 2020, there were a lot more radio stations on the air. That number, on both FM and AM, is declining.
GET 'EM WHILE YOU CAN
One of my mantras that I repeat periodically on this blog site is 'Get 'Em While You Can!'
This applies to Shortwave and Medium Wave, two media that are obviously in decline, and it appears with the recent shutdowns, staff cuts, stock price declines, and other Radio economics, the decline of Radio in general is only going to accelerate.
If you have a radio, switch it on, listen around -- both FM and AM, and SW too.
The day will come those bands will be all static and hiss, with maybe a couple pirate stations here and there. You never know when your favorite program, or favorite station, is going off the air.
My guess is that at this rate, the AM band has 10 years left. FM maybe 15. SW maybe 5.
DEAR RADIO:
DON'T EXPECT STREAMING TO SAVE YOUR STATION
At the same time, streaming will not 'save' Radio. There are still roughly 15,000 radio stations in the US. In no way will all 15K stations today be viable internet streaming channels tomorrow.
The competition is just too infinite, and online, visibility is everything.
RADIO DISNEY'S DEMISE WAS A HARBINGER OF THE FUTURE
Remember Radio Disney? They switched off their AM stations and sold them in 2015. At the time they switched off their AM stations, they admitted that 16% of their audience -- mostly teens and younger people -- were still listening to the AM's.
They sold off all their AM radio stations anyway.
They said their audience would automatically go online, to their stream.
Apparently, that didn't happen. Their predictions and prognostications about their new, preferred choice of broadcast medium were wrong.
Streaming was the new business model, they said. Streaming was the future, they said. AM and OTA radio is old school, they said.
For a couple years they were on HD2's (until late 2017) and then just on their own online stream.
Then they shut the entire operation down. The RD page is now a 404.
Streaming did not save them -- and their programming was good, backed by a plethora of Disney media and singing stars. Their DJ's and announcers were very good and engaging. Still, that business model failed.
When one of the largest media companies in the US has no more faith in Radio, in general, it says something. I think the shutdowns and layoffs since the Pandemic are the writing on the wall.
I hate to make such statements, but one thing I've learned over the years is that you have to be a realist. My former industry -- a dream job, really -- and one of my favorite hobbies, is on borrowed time. That's the reality.
Until next time, my friends,
Peace.
C.C. March 15th, 2025.
August 21, 2025: I edited out the name of a forum I used to go to, but because of their moderation policies, I am not promoting their website, or an associated website, in any way anymore.
CJWL, 98.5 FM, a Hot-AC station in Canada's capital and fourth largest city, will soon be shut down, and taken off the air. Two other FM Country stations in nearby, smaller cities are also getting their plugs pulled.
[NOTE: Several weeks after writing and posting this article, I learned that the three Ottawa region FM stations mentioned in this article were bought by two separate, Canadian radio companies and they will stay on the air. I decided not to cut up the article with this news, but I added an Addendum (with news link) at the bottom of the blog post with this information. I have left the article otherwise intact because most of the negative factors concerning the radio business, that are covered in this article, still exist and are still affecting radio companies and radio stations in the U.S. and Canada.]
Over the past several years, some AM stations have been shut down, flipped to syndicated programming like Sports Betting, or otherwise just plain removed from the airwaves, and being that this blog is about AM Radio as well as all other things Radio, in recent articles here I have covered the closings of several AM stations -- as quite a few of those closings have occurred after the Pandemic.
The post-Pandemic economy is socking it to Radio, and now it is apparent that it's not just AM Radio that's taking the hit.
It was recently announced that three FM stations in Canada (owned by the Evanov company) are being shut down, due to financial reasons, and one of them is a station that plays Hot AC, a very popular radio format, and that station is in Canada's #4 city (and its capital), Ottawa -- metro population approximately 1.5 million people.
The three FM stations in question went on the air in 2000's, with CJWL Lite 98.5 going on the air in 2006, with the other two stations hitting the airwaves not long afterwards.
It appears that these FM stations -- like many others -- have been getting hit by changes in listenership, with its migrating to Streaming. On top of that, there have been downturns in advertising revenues in the Radio industry, especially since the Pandemic.
The Evanov company's PR release concerning the shutting down of the FM radio stations says it all, really: "All broadcasters are now contending with the challenges of increased competition, a difficult media climate, and the residual effects of the pandemic."
Here is a link to the _________ article on the FM station closings.:
[Link removed, sorry. -- see appendix for explanation. C.C. 8-2025]
Whether a new buyer is interested in purchasing these stations to make a go of it is a good question. None have been mentioned. No potential sale was mentioned, either. It looks like these three Eastern Ontario stations will go permanently dark.
From everything else that I've read concerning the state of Radio, the Evanov spokesman seems correct. The 'difficult media climate' he mentions is directly related to the state of advertising -- ad revenues are down across the board, especially for legacy media like Radio, TV, Cable, Newspapers, Magazines -- there are infinite 'slots' for advertisers on the internet and it decreases the value of those advertising 'slots' media wide.
On top of that, of course, you've got inflation, something which Canadians also deal with. Their dollar, like the US dollar, is worth less than it was worth in the 2000's. For example, according to the Bank of Canada, the Canadian dollar is worth 69% less than it was in 2000, and 18% less than it was before the Pandemic hit.
The Bank of Canada inflation calculator can be found here. It is similar to the US BLS Inflation Calculator.:
Being that the Canadian dollar -- like the US dollar -- has declined in value since the 2000's, the effect has hit Radio with a double-whammy: you have decreased numbers of listeners since the 2000's, increased online competition for advertising over the same time period, and overall inflation, too.
Radio is a difficult business anymore because of these factors.
KNPT 1310, Newport, Oregon, left the air for good in late January, 2024, after seeing its ad revenues dive by more than 50% during and after the Pandemic. Several other stations in Newport's Oregon Coast market, both FM and AM, as well as a stream, were shut down at the same time. This left Lincoln City, OR, without an AM station (KBCH).
WHEN IT WAS JUST AM STATIONS, NO ONE CARED
Over the past couple of years, I've noted -- on this blog -- the shutting down, or potential shutting down, of several radio stations in the Pacific Northwest and Canada. From KNPT Newport, to KUTI Yakima, to KYVL/KMED Medford, to the shutting down of Las Vegas's 50KW powerhouse station KDWN, to the potential closings of two stations in Edmonton and Vancouver, to the shutting down of 7 AM stations in Canada by Bell Media (4 of them in Alberta and British Columbia), to Bell Media's selling off 45 other radio stations in Canada last year to smaller Radio companies. Many of the stations in Bell Media's 45 station fire sale (this last February) were on the AM band, with all of them affected by the post-Pandemic economy, and migration of listeners to Streaming platforms.
During the February sale of the 45 stations, Bell Media's spokesman said "radio is not a viable business anymore."
Here is my article on Bell Media's selling off the 45 stations -- many in Western Canada.:
To AM Radio fans, all of these sales and station closings were a bit of a shock.
But to many others in the Radio business, there were a lot of scoffers, who just shrugged it off as 'AM Radio', the 'dying media'.
However, now, the picture is changing. The shutdowns are starting to hit FM.
Both AM, and FM, are being bludgeoned by Streaming platforms -- and those Streaming platforms aren't owned by Radio companies.
In one of my last articles on this subject, I mentioned that I understand why some listeners migrate to Streaming. If I want to hear all 2010's Electronic pop, Radio doesn't provide a lot of it. But Pandora has a channel devoted entirely to 2010's Pop. If I want to hear 2000's Nu-Metal, there are channels online that cater to that genre as well. The local FM Rocker that played a lot of it -- KVRQ 98.9 -- got flipped to country after a year, and the other local FM rocker, KISW, doesn't play a lot of Nu-Metal, and they shut down their HD2, Metal Militia channel that played nothing but Metal.
However, I can get all the Nu-Metal and Metal I want on a couple channels on Pandora, which is on my phone.
CKHK-FM was a Modern Country station in Hawkesbury, a small to medium sized city on the Ottawa River, near the eastern tip of Ontario, about 30 miles upstream from the junction of the Ottawa and St. Lawrence Rivers. Country is one of the hottest radio formats. Even such a format can not save a station if the ad revenues are down.
THE DECLINE OF HD RADIO -- GIVING THE LISTENERS THE FINGER
Radio is stuck between a rock and a hard place, but it's not helping itself by leaving a lot of listeners in the lurch. Half the HD FM signals in my metro of 4 million people are HD1 only, meaning that their HD signal just broadcasts the main channel. A lot of FM's have no HD.
It wasn't always this way. Just 8 years ago there were quite a few HD2's with different formats -- Blues, Metal, BBC, Alt, Radio Disney, LBGTQ, Viet, Religion.... Yet the radio companies got rid of a lot of them. Thankfully, some companies still have HD2's on their FM stations. But it seems to be a declining trend.
They sometimes say that HD2's are expensive to maintain, which seems a bit laughable: it's just another programmed computer playlist and the signal is already on the air.
Either way, Radio in general appears to be drifting in free fall, and many of the experts seem to be resigned to the fact that the future is all online, and they're resigned to keep it that way.
Some of them, but not all of them, understand that the transformation to All Streaming means that by 2035 or 2040 most of them won't have a job, because most listening won't be to individual stations, but to channels on Pandora and other platforms, as well as individual, user-programmed streams.
For those who are or were in the Radio business, it's just the reality. Radio could advertise more, but apparently the Radio companies are strapped for promotion revenue, and the ROI that would come from advertising your station/stream's existence on other platforms like YT, FB, or other online media -- to try to attract and gain new listeners -- just isn't there.
In conclusion, it's sad to see FM radio take the hit. For the past few years, a lot of folks -- even Radio people -- make fun of AM as the old-person's media, and even MW DX'ers talk as if they wish a lot of stations would just shut down.
I've always been against that idea, and detest that attitude. I know some stations are going to shut down due to economics, but I in no way applaud it. Any stations shutting down -- AM or FM -- is an indicator that the industry is in great trouble.And this applies not just to AM, but FM also.
If an FM station that plays one of the two most popular music formats in North America can't pay the bills, while being on the air in one of Canada's Top 4 cities, what does that say for the state of Radio today?
WPLJ New York City was a top FM station in the 70's and 80's, and probably one of the top stations in the US. When it finally sold to EMF in 2019, it was valued much lower than it was even 20 years ago. An FM station with a good signal, in America's biggest city, couldn't keep going without being sold to a religious broadcaster.
THE WRITING FOR FM WAS ON THE WALL WITH WPLJ
I have a feeling that there may be more of these stations going off the air, or otherwise being sold to religious broadcasters -- some of which have enough money to buy an FM in a big city, as was proven by EMF's purchase of WPLJ New York several years ago in 2019 (it was part of a deal where EMF bought 5 Cumulus FM stations, including FM stations in Washington, D.C., and Atlanta). The purchase of WPLJ, once a major station in NYC, got the biggest discussion in Radio circles, however.
That purchase, of what once was a hit radio station in the #1 market and #1 city in the United States was a harbinger of the future of FM radio.The station also sold for a fraction of what it was worth in the 1980's.
WPLJ's logo today. K-Love is a national, Christian contemporary / praise music format, with stations in nearly every major city in the US. They are owned by EMF, who also runs Air-1 stations in most metros. The Air-1 in Seattle is on 88.1 FM.
So now Canada's capital city, and Canada's fourth largest metro area, will see a station go dark on 98.5 FM. The other two FM stations being shut down, both Country (the #1 music format in the US), serve smaller cities SE and East of Ottawa. According to the RadioInsight article above, three employees of these stations will still have jobs at other stations in the company, but whether there were other employees let go or not isn't mentioned.
If there were, I feel for them, as their Radio days are probably over. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: chances are extremely high they will never work in the Radio industry again. The industry is in decline. Even a cursory look at BLS labor stats indicates that employment in Radio, and broadcast media in general, is dropping. Although that's just the US, I'm certain in Canada it isn't much different.
Rockland, Ontario is a moderate sized city maybe 20km / 15 miles East of Ottawa, on the Ottawa River. Modern Country is the #1 or #2 music format on radio in North America (excluding Mexico and Greenland). It couldn't keep this FM station on the air. The spectre of listener migration to online Streaming, as well as the decline in advertising revenues is killing Radio stations. Including FM.
CANADA IS A DIFFICULT RADIO MARKET
I used to work with two Canadians who were format consultants at the Radio Format company where I worked for 16 years. They both told me that it's a tougher market in Canada. It's because it's a smaller national Radio market. The country is vast, but the population is comparatively small, and it's mostly concentrated in just ten or eleven large metros (Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Quebec City, Hamilton, Kitchener, London, Victoria, Halifax, and a few other cities with over 200K in the market).
The Canadian radio experts I knew each said that the Canadian Radio infrastructure isn't financially robust, especially compared to the US Radio marketplace. They each consulted hundreds of radio stations in the US. That was something they couldn't do in Canada. The economics of Radio in Canada is smaller than it is in the US.
Perhaps with the shutting down of these three Ontario FM stations we're seeing some of that. And we may be seeing the start of a trend, not just in Canada, but in the US as well, of FM's going under. Because the economics of Radio in the US isn't very robust at the moment.
Remember, one of the largest Radio companies in the US, Audacy, just flipped the #10 billing radio station in the country -- WCBS-AM -- from news to sports. Top billing doesn't count like it used to.
My article on WCBS having the news format 'plug' yanked.:
FM going down the tubes is inevitable. I personally think the death of FM is a few decades away, but it's apparent that everything is going online, and that means more concentrated power in the hands of a few key players: Spotify, YT, Pandora, Apple, Amazon Music, IHeart, and Audacy, and a few other large music and audio streaming platforms.
There will come a day when the economics of Radio won't support studios (with all the expensive desks, microphones, processors, computers, etc.), station audio processing equipment, STL's, Transmitters, backup transmitters, and Towers -- and all the electric bills it takes to run that FM infrastructure. Many FM stations in the US are 100KW or more. Even smaller ones can be 30-50KW. That electricity cost adds up.
One expert on a Radio forum I go to said that most of the stations in a small metro of around 45K people in the Eastern part of my state are financially in trouble, because of the decline in advertising revenues. Most of those stations are FM's. Another small metro on the western side of the state is seeing its small cluster of stations (including an FM) getting rid of staff because of a decline in revenues.
As can be seen, FM Radio is not immune to the decline. Remember, KNPT Newport had two FM stations in its cluster, and KNPT itself had an FM translator. They also had a station stream.
It didn't save them. The economics just wasn't there for the operation anymore.
To those of you in Canada, my other mother country: I realise that the economy is hitting Radio in your country, and it's sad that so many of these stories are about shut down radio stations across your great land.
CKMX, CFRN, CKST, CFTE, and other stations in major Canadian cities -- some of which still had ratings (like Edmonton's CFRN, a TSN/ESPN affiliate), and some of which I listened to (CKMX, CFRN) are now all gone. Just recently, 900 CHML Hamilton, an AM news and talk station, was shut down. Its owners, media company Corus, is facing economic difficulties.
97 years on the airwaves, and a Global / City News format in Canada's #9 city couldn't keep CHML 900 from having the plug pulled. The mayor of Hamilton called CHML the 'DNA' and the 'fabric of the city.' Not any more. The company abruptly laid off the staff one morning in mid-August, switched to automated music for a couple hours, and then -- after a statement by a radio company exec -- went to one hour of dead carrier before finally switching it off. True class.
Here's a CBC news story on that destruction of a nearly 100 year old, community-related news station.:
And now these 3 FM's in Ottawa and nearby cities are being shut down.
What my former Canadian workmates said about media in Canada turns out to be pretty accurate. It's a tough radio marketplace. And it's getting that way all over.
My oldest cat, Tigger, born some time in March, 2007. He is now 88 cat years old.
He's a tough, gentle cat. He still misses one of his cat pals that ran off 6 years ago. But his other pal, Racofrats, keeps him good company.
IN OTHER LIFE? SHITTY, BASICALLY
There really isn't all that much to say about what's going on, really. The weather is still relatively warm, and I buried my cat Squeakers, but it didn't take away the pain. She was getting stronger and doing better over a couple days, and then I went in to check on her and she was dead. Now she rests near my hawthorn tree.
Now I just have to ensure that my other cats stay healthy.
I'm keeping physically active. I eat OK. A lot of noodle soups, with beans, peas, celery, bok choy, onions, potatoes, carrots, and some cut oats mixed in -- with lots of paprika, curry, cayenne and other spices. I still DX the SW and MW bands, although it's been a bit boring to do so, as I'm not really enthused about it. I'm starting to plan ahead for Halloween. I have some electric jack o' lanterns to fix, and I suppose I'll have to carve a pumpkin for this Halloween also. But that's a month away.
Although I really have nothing to celebrate, I'll at least put up the effort.
There are millions of people worse off than me. Believe me, I am aware of that.
Racofrats, named after my very first cat, that I had when I was a little kid. Racofrats is Tigger's pal.
Today, of course, is September 11th. On this day, 23 years ago, we all know what happened in New York City. It was an event that changed the United States in many ways.
I have since learned that a couple small radio companies have decided to buy all three of the FM stations in the Ottawa and nearby areas. They were purchased at the last minute, and they will stay on the air.
Here is a link to an article about the sale, and the continuance of CJWL and the other FM's being on the airwaves in Eastern Ontario.:
[Link removed, Aug. 2025, see appendix for explanation. C.C]
I added a short paragraph inside the article about this.
During a discussion online about this situation with the three stations -- the failure of the Evanov company to see a good ROI in Canada's 4th largest metro, one radio expert reminded me that Ottawa (and probably other radio markets on the Ontario / Quebec border -- Pembroke would probably be another similar city) have split Anglophone / Francophone markets, because the audiences get divided between the two dominant language groups, and advertisers generally prefer one language group over another. Makes sense, as it would decrease the size of the market from 1.4 million to whatever size the Anglos / French speakers are in their effective areas.
C.C. 10-23-2024
APPENDIX:
I used to frequent a radio web forum, which I sometimes mentioned here on my blog. Because of something that happened on that site, I decided that I am not going there anymore -- nor am I promoting, in any way, any traffic to their website. So I have deleted some links and a site name from this article because of that.
Sorry for any inconveniences, but any website that treats me like crap isn't getting promoted on my blog. C.C., August 21, 2025
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