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Showing posts from August, 2023

Breaking news: Don Barrett in his own words

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If you have not yet heard, LARadio.com , which stopped publishing new material but has continued to reprint stories from the archives, will go dark in a few days. In his own words, Don Barrett offered the following on social media: An amazing two loves for the founder of LARadio.com as an era comes to an end.  I discovered the writings of Joan Didion late in life. She coined the phrase, ordinary instant. Perhaps the phrase leaped off the page because death comes in such a rushing finality. She wrote: Life changes fast/Life changes in the instant/You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends. Joan’s husband was robbed of 3,500 days. In an ordinary instant. For the past two months, I have been in constant pain. Doctors, hospitals and ERs. Yesterday I was in the San Luis Obispo ER for more tests. And there it was in an ordinary instant – advanced stages of liver cancer that had spread. The doctor was sorry to pass on the news and couldn’t hold back tears. Cherie and I looked at each

Simulcast or not? AM or not? And other short takes

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  When is a simulcast not a simulcast?: It began with a story on the NewsBreak app and quoted on Reddit , claiming that all-news KNX was no longer simulcast on both 97.1 FM and AM 1070. This triggered several responses mourning the loss of the 50,000 watt non-directional AM signal, allowing the station to reach a wide area up and down the Pacific Coast and helping cover areas where their FM signal is lacking. The posting prompted a quick response from Alex Silverman , the station’s Director of News and Programming. He corrected the posting, stating the simulcast continues except for weekend mornings where the station runs “paid and specialty programs. “ KNX towers off Hawthorne Bl in Torrance dailybreeze.com We did get a lot of response when KNX surprised their listeners with an FM simulcast and a new handle (“KNX News 97-1 FM”) over two years ago. Still, it’s estimated 40 percent of their listeners, generally an older audience, will continue listening to the AM option of a simu