AS OF JUNE 15: $450,528.85 (and 154 Sustaining)
Here are links to daily figures and graph.
In the past, when I referred to Bob Fass' show as "Radio Unbearable," it was half in jest, but on June 6 it was truly unlistenable. No, it wasn't anything Bob said—in fact, he was in better form than usual these days—it was the audio.
As someone pointed out elsewhere, Operations Chief Tony Ryan seems to be more at home with his sledgehammer. You may know that Bob now does his show from his home in Staten Island. It's technically awkward, but they finally got it to work, as it did at the top of this morning, but then it deteriorated and Bob faded, losing a battle to a nasty hum. We've heard a less obtrusive version of that hum throughout other programs, but this one was a ...dinger.
We already know that hardly anyone is listening to these programs, but one would think that someone (the board operator, perhaps?) was monitoring the outgoing signal. Bob himself appeared to be unaware of the problem, so he continued the program to the very end, but I very much doubt if anyone was listening. The next program was—you guessed it—an "encore presentation" (translation: scam) and it came through loud and clear. WBAI is a mess.
It isn't necessary to turn to technical analysis to see that the trend on those numbers, seen solely as numbers, is one of decline or 'exhaustion' with respect to any (slight) initial momentum.
ReplyDeleteIf it were a stock, and if you had any sense, you'd take your loss if you'd been in long, or you'd simply short it.
~ 'indigopirate'
As an independent stock trader for a living, I'd advise shorting it. You'll make more money... >:P
DeleteSDL
It's amazing and depressing that WBAI can raise over $300,000. Mencken was right when he observed, "No one ever went broke by underestimating the taste of the American public.
ReplyDeleteAnd this is a country where the media virtually ignored the passing of one the greatest writers of the 20th century, Gabriel García Márquez, and, in contrast wasted so much time and energy covering the death of that appalling hack, Mya Angelou.
We could have been spared a lot of terrible poetry--doggerel, actually, if the Brits had sunk the ship under Francis Scott Key, if Joyce Kilmer had been killed in battle before he wrote trees, and if Myah Angelou had gotten a job cleaning rooms at the Red Roof Inn.
I know why the caged bird moans:
He had to read your lousy poems.
TPM
That is the part that kills me too. How in the world do they have $300,000 in donations?! I can't imagine!! Even if someone liked the programming (?!!) after all of the scandals, unfulfilled premiums, corruption etc etc why would anyone trust these people enough to donate?? I'd love to know who the audience is. Seems like the most successful premiums/shows are the nutty health programs or conspiracy theories. I'm picturing a bunch of loners/paranoid people or people in someone's basement or garage, but they seems to have some money? Very confusing!
DeleteI think we can lessen the confusion somewhat by considering the high probability that only a small percentage of the pledges amounts are made as donations. This is marketing—money and products/services are being exchanged.
DeleteWhat amazes/saddens me is the gullibility of so many listeners and the gall of so many WBAI insiders.
Good point. I'm just amazed that these people keep finding money to buy this junk. You'd think after the first time they would learn. I can't imagine taking money from people that are so desperate or gullible. It must make the hosts feel sleazy. Or at least it should. But I guess as the phony product push continues that is not the case.
DeleteThe intellectual level of a radio station's programming determines that of its audience. Having systematically lowered its intellectual standards and all but done away with the moral obligations inherent in being a publicly licensed broadcaster, the current WBAI—partly by default, partly by design—addresses itself to a less demanding audience, one to whom a 99¢ store product can be sold at Bloomingdale's prices. Things have been out of hand for several years, but there comes a time when you hit bottom. That last leg of the journey has been accelerated by Berthold Reimers, a GM who seems to be as bereft of moral judgement and conscience as he is of managerial skills.
DeleteWe have heard WBAI producer/hosts voice their disgust with management and—more cautiously—colleagues over the outrageous scams WBAI perpetuates with increasing frequency. Delphine Blue was so appalled by bogus "cures" being sold to gullible listeners that she left WBAI. More people ought to have taken their cue from her; speaking up about it may relieve one's conscience a tad, but it does not help the most important players in this scenario: the listener-sponsors. Most of them have left, and rightly so, but there should have been a concerted effort on the part of the station's concerned insiders; it would have been impossible for the press and other media to ignore a mass walkout. The entire organization is corrupt and needs to be exposed—it won't bring Lew Hill's Pacifica back, but a thorough cleanup job would be a major improvement and the good people of WBAI might well find other doors open to them.
With respect, I’m not so certain as to those ‘other doors’.
DeleteOne aspect of the fierce resistance to change/reform/improvement at Pacifica and WBAI is probably fairly straightforward. Whether consciously, unconsciously, or a combination of the two, most management, staff, and talent know that if an ‘angel’ or two arrived to set things straight they’d be shown the door – the simple truth is that they’re overwhelmingly clueless and talentless folks who have very few if any other options and cling, therefore, to their present circumstances. They are, of course, in denial as to these simple truths, but at some level I suspect it’s likely that they do in fact sense them.
~ ‘indigopirate’
I know why Null, and the rest of the health crackpots keep selling their products. You see, I learned early on that WBAI has a lot of handicapped and/or ill and/or elderly listeners. People in those circumstances are eager for any hope they can get to improve their health and end up getting suckered. It's sad but true.
Delete@‘indigopirate’
Your comments are funny in that newer generations of WBAI management and staff often say the same things about previous generations of WBAI management and staff. From the looks of it, there won't be a new generation to make the same accusations.
As of now, I am calling Michael G. Haskins "Hay-tie" Haskins.
SDL
"Hay-tie Ho" should also work.
DeleteFlossy, the dental kit pitcher, was on again this evening. She told us that when you go to a dentist with pain, you are handed a crutch, and if it is a strong pain, you get a stronger crutch. She had the dental kit purveyor on the phone throughout the infomercial. He said some startling things and one of them seemed to be that glaucoma can spread to the ears! Mind you, I may be wrong about that, but it was certainly in keeping with his other claims. He also—by way of repetition—made sure that we got his phone number and e-mail address (for gratis consultation) and that we were aware of his upcoming workshops. He was also anxious to know if listeners could order his kit even when the fundraiser was off the air. He just loved WBAI, having "worked with them" for almost ten years.
And the cheat goes on...
While I was cooking today, I turned on the radio and heard Blosdale with some ex Wall Street guy, or some such crap. His whole schtick is that money is evil and won't make you happy. Well, he was sure to plug all the private consultations you could buy with him, both in person or on the internet. I guess he knows how to spend your money better than you do...
DeleteNeedless to say, Blosdale was licking his butt like it was an organic acai berry.
I turned on the radio again to hear her again! This time, if you don't support WBAI, many of the staff will lose their jobs and livelyhoods... Um, didn't that happen last year? Maybe Blosdale needs to be brought up to date by Reese..?
SDL
I heard that one yesterday—they never bother to time-correct these "encore presentations" or give the original air date. They also very often continue promoting shows and events long after they occurred. This morning, as he has previously, Haskins presented five minutes of dead air around 8 AM. No explanation, no apology, no professionalism.
DeleteI wonder what Reimers is doing with his time these days. "Earthmom" was Daulton Anderson's pitching partner last Sunday morning—that royal telephone didn't ring, so pledges were registered. There was a lot of segueing, but I don't think she is going to have his baby. :)
This is a cultue that can’t handle the challenge of the metric system.
ReplyDeleteMencken may have been too kind.
~ ‘indigopirate’
Snapped on WBAI for a couple of minutes and heard the one health crackpot with her show about eye health, evil eyeglasses, etc., which is oft repeated. When I was about to shut off the radio, I heard a plug for the computer giveaway that passed a few days ago. There was no warning that it had passed and was no longer valid. I wonder about the legality of that.
ReplyDeleteSDL
I heard that one the other day, and also wondered, but this is typical of Reimers' WBAI. Some of the earlier Apple product prizes were never acquired by the station (Reimers' excuse was that they couldn't afford it), but donations were solicited, so that is an outright con.
DeleteAs for the eye ladies' iPad offering, I am not sure if that is something they did on their own. Of course, all this should have been made clear, rules cited, drawing witnessed, etc. Reimers and his flock have their own rules when it comes to a lot of things WBAI does. They are, in fact, crooks—I know that sounds harsh, but let's not beat around the bush/
Hmmm, metrics...
ReplyDeleteAnd then you got the folks, who tend to measure the American Mile with the Russian Verst, as one song goes.
That may be the verst joke I ever heard.
DeleteSorry, j/k, couldn't resist the pun ;)
The 'rest of the world', incidentally, uses A4, which is part of a very efficient system of paper sizes, with very little to no waste. The US 'standard' 8 1/2 x 11, on the other hand, is part of a system of cutting down large sheets into various sizes that entails a good deal of inevitable wastage. No one seems to really know how that 8 1/2 x 11 size was arrived at. In the 1930s various US government departments had various 'standard' sizes, and at some point 8 1/2 x 11 became the 'standard'.
Go figure.
~ 'indigopirate'
I used to listen to Bob on Saturday nights at 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. Now I turn him on Thurs-Fri at midnight and last 5 minutes before conking out. If you're gonna say he is a legend and put him on at a time that nobody can stay awake, give hem a rocking chair and a crochet set and a glass of warm milk and retire him.
ReplyDeleteAs I have said before, Bob should have retired his show when it lost its significance, while it still had listeners. Not that he should have gone into retirement himself... he should have written a book about his experiences.
DeleteMy experience with Bob Fass only starts in the early 1980s when he came back to radio on WFMU and then went back to WBAI. To be honest, and I KNOW I missed his heyday of the 1960s/early 1970s, I didn't like him at all. I thought/think he epitomizes the absolutest hypocrisy of the left. His cutting people off the phone who disagree with him is simply way too much. I'm not a fan.
DeleteAs a side note. Remember John Stanley? He used to write letters and call WBAI demanding the return of Fass. I remember how he turned on Fass because Fass was happy with one night a week and Stanley felt he was a traitor for not demanding all his old hours back. Funny thing is stanley seemed to be THE expert on the 1977 fiasco...
SDL
Bob was fired by Joseph Binns, the manager who hired me as an announcer and whom I eventually replaced. Bob came to see me shortly after I took over the manager's position, asking for his job back. I agreed, but have later had very mixed feelings about that decision. I think Radio Unnameable was important for WBAI, and Bob handled it well. His ego was still in its early stages of growth, and gathering interesting guests was as easy as throwing a line into a crowded fish tank. That said, I saw another, unexpected side of Bob when Chris Koch and his fellow opportunists removed their masks and bared their fangs. Hypocritical? You bet, but also the only game in town. I used to tell people that Bob was apt to strangle opponents with his love beads—I see now that this was not so far-fetched, but I still think he was good for the station back in that day. Mind you, he does not deserve as much credit as over-the-shoulders glances are giving him, he was in the right place at the right time. WBAI's open door and microphone were the carrot, but he deserves credit for handling it well—his horizon was broad, his interests eclectic. It is interesting to note that only a handful of Bob's early guests—people who moved with the times and enjoyed successful careers—keep in touch. Among the faithful are Paul Krassner, whom Bob will leave hanging on hold for an inordinate length of time, and David Amram, a man who contrasts an almost imperceptible ego with enormous talent and accomplishments. He really should have ended his show when it was still relevant rather than allow it to fizzle out, as it is doing.
DeleteFass occupied a unique and a fortunate space in place and time in the late 1960s–early 1970s, and I agree that the truly critical component was WBAI’s occupying a critical nexus in that moment, and that Fass handled it well.
ReplyDeleteThat said, during the period from the earlyish-to-mid-1970s through ‘The Crisis’ of late 1976-early 1977 which led to the occupation of ‘The Church’ 11 February 1977, Fass was occupying air time which ought have been otherwise allocated – fresh talent, folks like Lynn Samuels were rightly champing at the bit as Fass droned on for years on drug-hazed autopilot – the Wikipedia entry for Samuels, incidentally, is incorrect in saying she started at WBAI only in 1979. Folks like Joe Frank, Lenny Lopate, and Mickey Waldman were also unable to get access to that particularly valuable free form air time which Fass occupied, simply because Fass occupied it as a sacred personal possession.
This may sound as if I have a brief against Fass. I don’t, really, other than that he overstayed his welcome by many years, simply because his ego got in the way, and because management let him – he absolutely couldn’t conceive of even the remote possibility that what went down in early 1977 might go down, because he couldn’t imagine, couldn’t conceive of even the most remote possibility that he wouldn’t occupy his slot through all known and all projected eternities.
When what went down did in fact go down he was still unable to grasp that reality for many years, and perhaps in a sense still is.
Please don’t hear me wrong on this. I emphasize that Fass was a significant talent and a significant minor cultural force in his time – but his time was over by somewhere in the early 1970s.
~ ‘indigopirate’
I was holding back a bit, Indigo. I have no quarrel with your reading of the situation, including Bob's inability to handle things after the string broke and the love beads scattered. In my many years on the inside of a field that very publicly thrusts some into the spotlight while keeping others in the shadows, I have seen individuals change character and abandon salient personal virtues that once helped propel them towards the light.
DeleteWe should all take our work seriously, but we must not fail to recognize our own shortcomings and see hype for what it is. I think Bob viewed himself as an icon, but it was almost by default that he became a centerpiece. A growing ego blocked out reality and threw him off course—his popularity, though relatively modest in the bigger scheme of things, grew beyond his capacity to see it as an ephemeral natural result of extended exposure. He had command of an open microphone and a mandate to exercise freedom of speech: unique properties that separated PacificaI stations from other broadcasting outlets. Timing was equally pertinent to the success of his show, for a generation of Americans were crying out for major changes lifestyles and political policies. More than any other voice heard on the air, Bob's was that of the anti-establishment. He was an iconoclast for the times who played his role well and—in the early years—with genuine sincerity. Inevitably, times and attitudes changed: protesters became politicians, rebellious performers rode their old coattails to the tops of rigged charts and bought homes in the Hamptons; youthful idealism inherently morphed into something akin to once-scorned values. People took what they had learned, and moved on to assimilate into new surroundings, focus on new goals.
Bob stagnated. The early years at WBAI had left him with rich resources with which to pave the rest of the road, but he was trapped by his own delusions of permanence. The recent documentary was a fine job of film making, but it bolstered Bob's false confidence and accelerated a sad, avoidable fizzle that only a handful of surviving devotees are left to witness.
Agreed – very well put, indeed.
Delete~ 'indigopirate'
Wow, I can't believe the success of High Praize. I thought when Bertie was saying they would raise $5,000.00 a week he was blowing smoke out his nether regions. But looking at the marathon show by show breakdowns, over $25,000 a week!! Oh wait a minute, I think there's a booger on my computer screen . Never mind!
ReplyDeleteTPM--Maya Angelou is one of those writers who can rouse audiences of like-minded people when she reads her stuff publicly. But when you see it on paper (or on the screen), you realize there was less than what met the ear. In that regard, it's like most political speeches or mediocre stand-up comedy.
ReplyDeleteI couldn’t agree with you more Justine.
ReplyDeleteWhat’s maddening is the time and space dedicated to Ms. Angelou in the press. Democracy Now did an entire show on this mediocrity. On the other hand, when Gabriel García Márquez died in April, there was very little time about his life and works. He was one of the most important writers of the 20th century.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
No, Maya, you are not phenomenal. You’re a hack.
http://schencka.mindsay.com/a_poem_that_sucks_phenomenal_woman_by_maya_angelou.mws
http://www.theoverratedtimes.com/the-list/maya-angelou/
Democracy Now has become tedious. Like the awful Nation magazine, it’s become a Liberals’ Home Journal dedicated to a sentimental advocacy journalism that sucks big time instead of doing hard investigative journalism.
Where are I.F. Stone, H.L. Mencken, Oriana Fallaci, and Alexander Cockburn when we need them the most?
TPM
I don't know how many people who read this blog are familiar with pirate radio stations in the NY area. For some years now, we have had a vibrant ethnic based pirate scene that is so strong that the FCC has essentially thrown up its hands and given up trying to shut them down. In fact, you name a Carribean or Hispanic group, and there is a pirate station broadcasting to their community on the FM dial somewhere.
ReplyDeleteHow does this relate to community radio WBAI? Simple. Ask people in these ethnic communities about which they know better, the pirate station that broadcasts to their community or WBAI. The answer will be the pirate station. To me, that's VERY telling about what a poor job WBAI has done in community outreach. Think about it. A 50,000 watt station in the middle of the FM dial loses out to 10 watt stations with night time only broadcasts on 91.9FM,102.3FM, etc.In fact, a couple of these stations broadcast on either side of 99.5 FM!
I just think it's interesting.
SDL