Off the Air

On Thursday, April 21, 2005, at exactly 2:00 pm PST, Entercom Broadcasting, in its infinite retardation, unceremoniously switched radio formats on a Portland, Oregon AM radio station known as Max 910 station during the nationally syndicated Don and Mike Show which had been airing in its regular spot since 12 noon. However, when D and M had gone to a commercial break, the plug was pulled on not only their show but Tom Leykis, Phil Hendrie, Don Imus and local shows hosted by Rick Emerson and Clyde Lewis. Like thieves in the night, Entercom struck without warning immediately switching to an all-oldies music format, now calling themselves KISN: The Music of Your Life (or is it The Best Music Ever Made? I forget). Not minutes before, KISN occupied a spot on the FM dial but that is now called 97.1 Charlie FM. Charlie is based on a "new" musical format that's sweeping the nation originally called "Jack", a conglomeration of songs without rhyme, reason or even era. From what I can gather, without an on-air personality as well. The Human Factor is missing. That includes you, the listener. They don't care about you, no matter what they say.

When the monster conglomerates were buying up all the air space, we all sat back and let them because it just didn't seem that important. I remember Howard Stern himself saying at the time, "Big companies have always taken care of me." That was before the Clear Channel debacle occurred and forced him to satellite radio. Maybe that's another one of their goals. Suppose they are purposely phasing our their holdings, giving them losing formats (oldies on an AM station in the year 2005?) in order to force us into a transition to satellite radio so that we have to pay for something that has always been free...just like television. Do you know anyone who has neither cable nor satellite television? Air isn't even free at the gas station anymore.

Slowly but surely our choices are being taken away from us. Freedom used to be just another word for nothing left to lose, but that may no longer be the case. One thing's for sure, nothing ain't nothing but it's free.

I didn't make that up myself. I heard it on the radio.