I am generally in agreement with Andrew here, but I would add Chris Whent, Joyce Jones and Through the Opera Glass to the not so lame music programs.
An unvarnished blog that dips into the past and comments on the present of WBAI-FM, a once significant, intelligent New York radio station that for years has suffered chronic abuse from within and now nears extinction. Your comments are welcomed and will not be censored.
Also, Dave Kenney can have a very good show and has had Michael Feinstein and Harry Connick, Jr. as guests. Aside from that, FUGGEDABAUDIT.
ReplyDeleteHe has his moments, but there is no excuse for airing recordings by a worn-out Liza Minelli and cabaret singers who never were nor will ever be listenable. Unless, of course, it's politically expedient and permissible when playing to an empty house.
DeleteIf he were ever fired, we'd have to do a South Park: "Oh my God, they fired Kenney." "You Bastards!"
DeleteSDL
p.s.- Can someone tell me why Bob Hennelly didn't work out? HIs reportage for WNYC was always spot on. He probably had too much class for the gavons remaining in BAI management.
ReplyDeleteI believe he was WNYC's labor reporter, which would account for his doing a professional job there. At WBAI, it was obvious to me that he pushed his way into the morning show and--in very short order after Andrew left—a salaried position as iPD. He also was a shill for labor unions, specifically ones in his home state, NJ, and he very transparently was attempting to turn WBAI into the area's labor union voice, they having just lost WBLS to the Latino community. He made trips to NJ union headquarters to solicit "donations." He was, actually, selling them time, which is a very naughty thing to do at a Pacifica station. I doubt if Reimers got rid of Hennelley without some persuasion from Haskins, whose turf had been invaded.
DeleteHennelley came on like gangbusters, but he fizzled a few days later.Although he is white, I'm sure Mimi closed her eyes and gave him a big juicy kiss. :) BTW, I am not against Mimi Rosenberg, but a little of her unpunctuated spiel goes a long way. This morning, she did a good job undefending Israel;s current atrocities.
Let me emphasize that the above is strictly my own guess as to what happened . I wasn't a fly on Haskin's strudel.
Haskins cannot eat strudel. Gary Null won't let him, unless it's organic, has less than 5 Calories, is made from whole wheat and from pesticide-free apples from Gary's upstate NY farm and gives you agita.
DeleteScrew it. Just run infomercials all the time. Make some new ones, though, for new scams and products, so it doesn't become too redundant. There are enough suckers to spend money on the crap, as we've seen.
ReplyDeleteA $150 Pete Seeger's Greatest Hits CD should get some dough out of the older crowd. Maybe they could sell morning wake-up calls by Mimi Rosenberg? That voice goes through my head like an Israeli bullet. Record a multiple CD package of Bob Fass telling tales from his life. Great entertainment for those cold nights during an occupy something or other. We know we have a gospel music CD coming down the pike.
Oh, the fun WBAI Home Shopping Channel could be.
SDL
I have to admit that I'm impressed by how long and how ugly a process this particular death is proving to be.
ReplyDeleteAnyone have any rumors/guesses as to what tomorrow night's latest urgency/panic NB meeting is to have as its ostensible subject?
~ 'indigopirate'
That's anybody's guess, Indigo, but expect a good dose of animosity and fingerprinting, none of which will do Pacifica or its stations any good. I wonder if the present layer of governance has ever had a productive meeting? I doubt it.Mass resignation would be nice.
DeleteYou cannot fire Berthold Reimers because he is black and Haitian. Nice going, liberals. LMAO.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that even if a new station manager or program director came in, they couldn't do much to fix the station due to all the self-serving cliques in all the layers of "democracy" that have power at Pacifica, from the national level to the local level. Try firing people who are a detriment to WBAI and their friends will come out, defend them and keep them on the air, all while having fun playing pseudo Comintern games.
ReplyDeleteWhat got lost over the years is that Pacifica is a radio network. No matter what the content, it still needs to be run as a radio business, both nationally and locally. As the years have passed and more chefs have been added to the soup named democratization, the flavor has become putrid and management ineffectual.
What's needed won't happen, which is WBAI getting a radio business educated/trained station manager and program director with the power to make and carry out their own decisions without interference.
There must be certain minimum standards for a show staying on the air. A show should, at least, be able to make a small amount of money to show it has some minimal interest to, at least, a small following willing to support it. Shows that make $0 - $300 during a multi week pledge drive just have no reason to be allowed to waste the various utility bills. If you want that stuff, put them on the website for online only listening. Some radio stations, like WFMU, do these online only shows.
I've listened to WBAI for about 35ish years and have seen it go through various formats. Personally, I prefered the late 1970s - early 1980s, which featured a many shades of diverse left wing programming on many varied topics, with nearly all shows being locally produced, lots of call-in shows, some arts and music, etc. I didn't like everything, but I liked enough to make WBAI one of my two favorite stations (WFMU was the other).
Unfortunately, I don't know if we can even see a return to intelligent, diverse programming. Where will you draw good hosts/producers from? They used to be people who hooked up with WBAI behind the scenes and eventually earned a show. I doubt you have those kind of people doing the minor jobs anymore.
Even if you start improving the on air content, you are left with a moronic, miniscule listenership. Now you would have a waiting game of hoping to have long gone listeners return (many are dead, since they were old), and a lack of money coming in for probably a year or two until the said audience returned. Add WNYC as main competition to the mix, having gained from WBAI's loss.
Oh, well... It's a mess and probably won't get better because the people who need to care about WBAI are the most self-centered of all.
Maybe WBAI should just go Spanish, like half the local radio stations have. I still like my previous idea of WBAI - New Age Radio. If they went to an all gay format they would probably do better than they do now.
Gary Null should just get a group of monied backers together and buy the station. His ego would hit all time highs.
Of course, Pacifica could sell off all their stations and go internet only. Have 5 - 10 different streams and hundreds of millions of dollars to live on for years.
No matter what, the current hobby radio that is WBAI will simply end up with fewer listeners than the smallest college station if it keeps on this road to oblivion.
SDL
Andrew's description of WBAI as being, overall, a "walking corpse" is not at all far fetched. You hear it as traveling the "road to oblivion," and I agree with both status reports---more importantly, so has an overwhelming majority of the station's listenership. Their departure is the clearest message of all, but management still doesn't get it.
ReplyDeleteNotice the reason given for this latest fund drive extension: "poor results from regular programming." Nothing new there, "regular" programming has been giving WBAI poor results for several years, yet it is allowed to stay in place. Inexplicably, Reimers' reaction is not to scrutinize the schedule and make the necessary changes, it is to extend the fund drive poor programming derailed!
And the Pacifica National Board continues to pay this man $100,000.00 a year! I wonder if any of this will come up at tonight's PNB "Special" meeting? It starts at 8:30 Eastern Time and you should be able to hear iy at http://kpftx.org:6280/
The line "poor results from regular programming" sounds like a perfect way of excusing all the infomercials, since you WBAI nitwits can't earn anything. It's all YOUR fault, staff members!
Delete"Reimers' reaction is not to scrutinize the schedule and make the necessary changes..." Nor should it be, as he is station manager and has a job of not paying the bills. That job is a program director's job- Oops, forgot. There is no program director. Nobody wants the job. Even when I offered to take the job for zero salary, I never heard back.
Reimers makes $100,000 per year by keeping the staus quo. If he tried to shake things up and do what has to be done, he'd be fired and make $0 per year. He damn well knows that, so he'll ride the hog as long as he can. They'll all ride the hog as long as they can. Being a loser and being a fool are two different things. Reimers is a loser, not a fool.
SDL
Yes, there are other good music programs. And a few public affairs programs too - Off the Hook comes to mind. I was painting with too broader brush.
ReplyDeleteI have always liked Ivan Hametz's and Chris Whent's shows, as well as Irsay's and Bochan's. The rest, really, are no different from what you can hear on commercial station.
ReplyDeleteCall me a retro-grouch, but most of the still-worthwhile hosts--like the ones I've mentioned--are holdovers from earlier and better times at BAI. I think of David Rothenberg's and Michio Kaku's shows, as well as "Off the Hook." Probably the only relatively-recent addition who's worth your time is Rebecca Myles.
And I enjoy listening to Max Schmid.
I started listening in the late '70's. Perhaps it wasn't, then, the station Chris Albert headed (I was a wee tyke in those days, stranded in a community where nobody listened, or probably even heard of, BAI!), but compared to today, it was "the golden age of radio."
Joyce Jones can deliver a good show and she clearly puts a lot of work into "Sugar in My Bowl." BTW, that was a song Nina Simone added to her repertoire when there was serious talk of a Columbia Pictures film based on my biography.
DeleteNina's agent called me in 1974, with a message from Nina: She wanted to play Bessie in the film (and she wanted the male lead to be James Earl Jones), so, if I came to her concert at Philharmonic Hall, she would perform a few Bessie Songs. Being a long-time admirer of Nina (the singer, not the person), I accepted the invitation and was messengered two passes to a box that could only be accessed from backstage, almost hovered over the stage, and may well have been the best seat in the house. I took a friend with me and we shared the box with an elderly gentleman who had known Nina since she was a little girl named Eunice Waymon. During intermission, we stood in the immediate backstage area and were having a nice talk when this guy came rushing towards me, shouting in a very rude manner that "Miss Simone does not allow any strangers backstage!" Nina's old friend told the man that I was invited by Nina to attend the concert..
The agent's face turned red (he was very white) and he became excessively apologetic. "Nina," he explained, "is very private when she performs." Having known her somewhat in Philadelphia, back when she worked in an Atlantic City gay bar, I knew the man was lying. "She hopes you liked the Bessie Smith songs," he continued, "and would like you to come to her dressing room after the concert."
I told him I had better plans, made my excuses to the gentleman from N. Carolina, and walked out.
________
Sorry to have gone off on a tangent! Nina was a wonderful artist, but she had mental problems.
@ Justine; I guess I am a retro-grouch, also. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who started listening to WBAI in the post Guzman/Kosof fiasco comeback days. I always found people to either have started listening before 1977 or started in the 1980s.
DeleteYes, the few shows I listen to tend to be the long lasting ones, The only newer shows I listen to are Off The Hook, The Personal Computer Show and - believe it or not - Letters & Politics (when it deals with old historical subjects, it can be very insightful).
Anything else is pretty much like watching a bad movie for a few laughs.
@Chris: Love that story! If you ever have a bit of time, could you relate some good goofball stories about your time at WBAI? I'm a big real life (aka road) stories fan of things
SDL
Yo, dude. What about Bruva Imhotep?
ReplyDeleteI guess a Byrd in hand is better than two at BLS, but, although he has the intellect and professionalism WBAI needs, I think his show is a better fit for WBLS.
DeleteDoes anybody know the real name of Nurse Pickles of the North? I already know it's Mrs. R. Paul Martin.
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