Oregon Media Insiders

In one of the other threads, someone noted that Heidi Tauber has been scrubbed from the KPOJ website, and indeed it looks like it. The morning show's been rebranded "Mornings with Carl Wolfson and Friends. Wha' happa'?

Update: Yup, she's gone. We don't know what happened yet, but the ax apparently fell end of day Wednesday.

I'll put my cards on the table right up front here; I am a fan of the Randi Rhodes, and what follows is perforce extremely personal opinion.

When I heard she was being suspended for remarks made in poor taste (but not on the air, and certainly no worse than some who get prominent air-time and endless passes for their behavior get (the gentle reader can compile their own lists)) I was dismayed, and when it happened that she was cashiered from Air America for those remarks, I was sorely disappointed.

Remember Shawn Taylor, Lars Larson's longtime producer who got fired the Friday before Christmas? Someone reported in that thread that she got hired on to be EP of Thom Hartmann's nationwide Air America show. I pinged Shawn and she said that it is indeed true.

And I have to say: That is the most hilarious thing I've heard this week.

Congratulations, Shawn!

Second quarter earnings reports are coming in. First up, KGW parent Belo reports a 15% decline, mainly due to falling newspaper revenues:

The results still beat Wall Street expectations, however.

Belo gave a cautious outlook for the third quarter, similar to recent comments from other newspaper companies. It said television revenue would be slightly higher but newspaper revenue would fall compared to a year ago. Newspaper companies have been hurt by competition from online outlets for both readers and advertising. ...

David T. Clark, an analyst for Deutsche Bank, said Belo beat expectations entirely because of a low effective tax rate. Belo said income taxes fell 15.3 percent.

The company trimmed costs 2.8 percent mostly due to job cuts last year at The Dallas Morning News and The Press-Enterprise in Riverside, Calif. The company also saved money by freezing its pension plan on March 31.

Television group revenue rose 2.5 percent, while newspaper group revenue declined 8.5 percent on weak newspaper advertising conditions and a slowdown in the Southern California housing market.

Belo also said Douglas G. Carlston, 60, chairman of Public Radio International, was elected to its board. Carlston was one of the founders and chief executive of Broderbund Software.

A PRI guy on the Belo board. Interesting!

Turning now to local radio behemoth Clear Channel, we find earnings up 19% for Q2, also beating Wall Street expectations. But it wasn't the radio division what done it:

Revenues from the radio business, which is now competing with both satellite and digital music players, continued to be flat, increased just 1% during the second-quarter. But the company's outdoor advertising revenues jumped 12% to $836.7 million.

So what have we learned? Newspapers and radio? Not so much. TV and billboards? Better.

Can producers and editors maybe get jobs pasting up the signs, you spose?

Starting Monday, progressive talker KPOJ changes its lineup. The bottom line: Less Sam Seder, more Thom Hartmann.

Winner of the job search we noted for a new morning guy is Carl Wolfson, known primarily as a stand-up if you believe the Google, though KPOJ also describes him as a political activist. Wolfson will not be replacing Hartmann and Heidi Tauber in the morning drive slot, instead making it a troika.

Hartmann will then be heard live on his national show, followed by the current line-up until 9 pm when uber-ranter Mike Malloy returns.

Update 4/6/07: Rumor has it that Sam's out as of 4/13/07. Maybe finally we'll get Rachel Maddow in daytime? Please?

Update 4/9/07: Sam announced on his blog that he's out, moving to a Sundays-only format:

It is with a heavy heart that I must announce that this week will be the last week of the Sam Seder Show on Air America. As you know, Air America recently came out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy and the new management wants to go in a different direction with the 9-Noon (est) time slot. However, as much as I would like to spend more time with Alberto Gonzales’ family, he will be doing so shortly, freeing me up to do a Sunday afternoon show on Air America Radio. The show is tentatively known as Seder on Sundays and I am excited to get it started.

That leaves Randi Rhodes as the only original AAR weekday talker left. LTR says All Access is reporting a guy named Lionel will be taking Sam's old slot starting May 14th. (I couldn't find the story at All Access.)

As I thumbed through the paper this morning, my eye fell on the back page of the classifieds, which happened to have "R" at the top left. Imagine my surprise when I saw this, which I then dug up online:

RADIO AM 620 KPOJ - Portland's Only Progressive Talk Station looks to add a Part Time live, local host to our morning show. Must be a team player who can help deliver interesting, entertaining and relevant programming to our progressive listeners. Must know and understand local and national issues and the people involved. Talk radio experience preferred.

So did Thom finally get too exhausted to do two full radio talk shows a day? Is Heidi going away? Or is someone else being brought in to the team, which seems unlikely?

Side note: Also in the "R"s were a bunch of jobs at KPDQ/KTRO. Odd, no? Two radio job ads in one day? I remember being young and naive stupid enough to look through the want ads for radio jobs, in vain, and here's a whole packet.

Pop the popcorn, kids! WW reports this morning that KXL's Lars Larson is going after KPOJ morning guy and recently ascended AAR talker Thom Hartmann over a failed physical in 1968:

In the O's profile, Peter Ames Carlin quotes Hartmann saying of the Vietnam War that "Lyndon Johnson wanted to kill me." Carlin then writes, "Still, Hartmann joined the Air Force in 1968, thinking he could work as an engineer, thus avoiding dangerous duty. Quickly realizing he was wrong, Hartmann managed to flunk an end-of-basic-training physical, earning a quick ticket back to civilian life."

Lars Larson pounced on that admission. ... In an article this week for the online version of the national conservative journal Human Events (humanevents.com), Larson wrote, "From this it's only reasonable to infer that Hartman lied his way out of the Air Force, which is a federal crime."

Hartmann didn't have a comment for WW since he was out of town, but if I were a betting woman, in a word fight between Larson and Hartmann I'd bet on Thom. Extra butter, please.

Update: Hartmann fires back:

"I was not unhappy to get out, Hartmann said, stressing that he got an honorable discharge.

Then borrowing from Gertrude Stein's observation about her Oakland hometown, Hartmann said of Larson's charge: "There's no there."

Hm. Not as buttery as I hoped for, but it's still early.

Editorial note: A correspondent points out that either Mr. Hartmann or WWeek misquoted Ms. Stein: The correct quote is "There's no there, there."

this morning on his Air America Radio program, Al Franken announced that he's leaving his show on Feb 14th, and that his spot in the schedule is going to be filled by Thom Hartmann. i've been trying to find more info but so far, nothing (and did not hear Hartmann this morning. Thom is currently doing afternoons on AAR, although affiliates are free to play it at other times (or not at all). now he'll be getting the primo timeslot. will this mean a change at KPOJ? the Heidi Traub Show? Mornings with Jefferson Smith?

i'm going to miss Al, that's for sure. he'd stumble now and then, but he's still one of the funniest people in the world.

Update from Lynn: Air America has also been sold. The new buyer is SLG Radio LLC, wholly owned by NYC realtor guy Stephen Green. Good luck to Thom on the prominent national gig.

Meant to post this earlier, too busy a day.

To pretty much no one's surprise--even its fans--Air America Radio filed for bankruptcy today:

While the filing does not put Air America out of business, it does put a large question mark over the network’s future. As speculation mounted in recent weeks that the network was not financially healthy enough to survive, Air America executives dismissed suggestions that a filing was imminent. ...

Court documents filed today paint a picture of a business under increasing financial distress. It has lost more than $13 million so far this year and a total of more than $40 million since May 2004. It also owes Mr. [Al] Franken more than $360,000.

Air America said that a company called Democracy Allies L.L.C. will provide it with the necessary financing to stay on the air. The company’s statement gave no information about that entity, but The Associated Press reported that it was an investor group set up by a former chairman of Piquant, Robert Glaser, who still owns more than one-third of the company.

Clear Channel, owner of local progressive talker KPOJ where AAR host Thom Hartmann holds forth locally in the morning, says it's sticking with the network for now.

...but don't blame the radio stations:

San Antonio-based Clear Channel has bet on a strategy to cut back commercial air time in a bid to boost ratings and prices per ad. The "Less is More" ad policy comes as radio operators face growing competition from satellite radio and digital music players.

For the second quarter, Clear Channel said radio broadcast revenue rose 6 percent to $983.5 million, while outdoor advertising grew 9 percent to $748 million.