Results tagged “radio”

She's that familiar voice--love it or hate it--that appears every six month at KCRW pledge drives asking you to subscribe. First a consultant, but quickly hired as KCRW's General Manager, Ruth Seymour has seen KCRW grow tremendously over the past 32 years. Yet all good things comes to an end. Last night she announced that she's moving on, with plans to retire in February.

Jesse Thorn has a wonderful nationally syndicated public radio show called The Sound of Young America. Unfortunately it's not on local public radio, but the weekly program is available via podcast. Current thought a television version of the interview program would be a great idea, but they ended up changing formats, and the show was never green-lit. This pilot was shot in Koreatown, which was where TSOYA used to be recorded. The radio show's studio, Thorn's domicile, is now Silverlake.

Pacifica Radio KPFK, the Cahuenga Pass-based progressive radio station (also 98.7 FM Santa Barbara), today announced some big changes to stay relevant to to L.A. and Southern California audiences. Morning, noontime and afternoons will now carry daily shows with news shows covering local to international topics as well as economic and environmental ones.

This week was a bleak one for those who love "see food"--as in the words and images of the 60-year-old magazine Gourmet, which will serve up its last meal in the November issue following a death notice from publisher Conde Nast.

Colored lights flared and strobes flashed. Dozens of exotic dancers gyrated and jiggled as music suited for getting undressed pulsed through Las Vegas’ Spearmint Rhino. Thirty year-old Bryan Bishop, or “Bald Bryan” as he’s known to listeners of The Adam Carolla Show, and now The Adam Carolla Podcast, opened a tiny plastic baggy and slushed back a pill with his ice-cold vodka and Red Bull. A glittery stripper expressed her curiosity for what she assumed was Bishop kicking his Bachelor Party revelry up a notch.

Local television news, so quick to cut into programming for car chases, and often repetitive non-stop coverage of celebrity-involved incidents (i.e. the death of Michael Jackson) has been eerily quiet this weekend as the Station Fire--one of three current blazes raging in Southern California--has prompted the evacuation of more than 6,600 homes, threatens 12,000 structures, and has blazed through 35,000 acres and is growing with 5% containment.

Raise your hand if you've been a long time KCRW member who keeps on forgetting to use their Fringe Benefits card? Yeah, that's us, too. We keep on imagining the money that could have been saved--from airport parking to a plethora of restaurants and yoga studios--all over the region. After launching three iPhone apps earlier this summer, KCRW this week announced a free GPS-enabled Fringe Benefits app that lets you know where discounts are in relation to your current location. The application does, however, require you to be upgraded to 3.0 software. And speaking of discounts and good deals... did you read this week's Recession Obsession on breakfast sandwiches?

Although the original source of the controversial Obama poster appears to be a student in Chicago (he made the joker face and posted it on Flickr. Then someone apparently mashed it up with the word "socialism"), a conservative radio talk show has exploited the posters further making a contest out of it. The posters were first noted in Los Angeles back in April and received widespread attention beginning August 3rd. Seeing an opportunity, talk show host Alex Jones began a contest encouraging people to put up more posters. The poster had "Democrats and Obamanoids going ballistic," his website said. Some of Jones' posters--with his website address on one version--have appeared in San Francisco, but around 500 appeared in a Florida town leading to the questioning of at least one teenager. Previously: Shepard Fairey Opines on Obama Socialism Posters.

KCRW today officially launched three iPhone apps connecting listeners with live streams, calendars, videos and archived shows. Each cost 99-cents, which "will help offset costs for future iterations of this app and future apps," says a station spokesperson.

At a ceremony held last night at the Sheraton Universal hotel in Universal City, media luminaries gathered to fete local reporters, photographers, broadcasters, and even bloggers at the LA Press Club's 51st Annual Southern California Journalism Awards. Presenters included on screen personnel from NBC4 and ABC7, as well as WSJ and KCRW film critic Joe Morgenstern and columnist Gustavo Arellano, who handed honors to journos including David Evans of Bloomberg, Brad Greenberg of the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, Frank Stoltze of KPCC, Warren Olney of KCRW, Alex Pham of the Los Angeles Times, and more. Blogging nods went to Ted Johnson of Variety/Wilshire & Washington, with 2nd Place going to Pat Saperstein of Eating L.A. A full list of awardees and honorable mentions is available here. Congrats to all!

Some would argue that trying to get a grip on the scope of the Los Angeles music scene is an impossible task. By the time you finished listening to every single band in Los Angeles county, half of them would be broken up and like a cacophonous hydra, a whole new generation of music would have sprouted while your back was turned. Few people attempt this daunting feat, and those who do seem to possess crazy, masochistic tendencies (myself included). Fortunately for you, we have one such editor who undertakes that insane quest daily (namely Mr. Joshua Pressman) but should Tonight in Rock not fulfill all your needs, and you want a radio station that plays all local Los Angeles bands all the time...Jon Hershfield has the the website for you. Founder of IsGoodMusic.com, Hershfield has set out to find the diamonds in the rough that are lying right under our noses. The website provides a social networking site for bands, a radio station with interviews, and a up-to-date calendar on all the local gigs that are worth catching. We caught up with Jon Hershfield recently and asked him how it was going.

KCRW’s “Martini Shot” is TV writer/producer Rob Long's weekly peek into showbiz. Told from his experiences, Long's four-minute commentaries explore Hollywood's inherently humorous dualities, and eccentricities.

Last night, NPR's Hidden Kitchens mavens, the Kitchen Sisters, brought in a full house at the California Endowment for a talk exploring the way a desire to better our lives can bring people together and inspire tremendous change, as part of an evening called "Who Glues Your Community Together through Food?"

When KLSX 97.1 FM flipped to Top 40, "The Adam Carolla Show" sank along with the station's talk radio format. Since this February change, Carolla and co-host Teresa Strasser (we interviewed her a few months ago,) have been quite active.

Iconic L.A. radio personality Rick Dees is once again absent from the Southern California radio waves. Dees' departure came due to a change in ownership of his most recent employer Movin' 93.9 FM which took effect late last week. Regardless, many will always remember his many years of great work at KIIS-FM, especially during the 80's. L.A. radio won't be the same without him, but it is unlikely he is gone forever. While the news of the change is bad news for Movin'/Rick Dees fans (and Rick Dees), it may serve the local Spanish language radio market quite well, perhaps helping ignite some competition.

Beloved Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully will be inducted into the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame in a ceremony in Las Vegas tomorrow. The National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame honors one radio and one television broadcaster every year.

Indie 103.1 went Spanish. 97.1 FM went Top 40. And last week Michael Schneider broke the news that "Movin 93.9" KMVN-FM will also flip to a Spanish format. Back in 2006 when 93.9 was KZLA, the country's biggest radio station, the owner decided to change it "to target young women with a new rhythmic format" and with Rick Dees manning the morning show, notes Schneider. "The switch, however, was a big bust. Listeners rejected the station -- which eventually dropped current songs and focused on more of an adult contemporary approach." Now that failed and come April 14th, Grupo Radio Centro will take control. As Pop & Hiss blogger Autumn Brown says, "the mausoleum for L.A. radio stations is getting awfully crowded this year."

It seemed the writing was on the wall for Indie 103.1 FM when the plug was pulled on Joe Escalante’s “Last Of The Famous International Morning Shows.” Two months later Indie 103.1's plug was pulled.

Late night radio isn't typically where you'll find an energetic sportstalker -- much less one who would easily reference Brett Favre's retirement to the ‘80s movie “Can’t Buy Me Love.” ESPN radio host Jason Smith does that five nights a week (Sunday through Thursday.) Heard locally on 710AM, from 10:00 at night to 2:00, All Night with Jason Smith is high quality radio at an hour where most station's broadcast as though their audience is half-dead.

Gone from KLSX 97.1 FM, Adam Carolla has taken to the Internet. The North Hollywood-native’s first podcast was released today. It spanned a commercial-free 37 minutes. This begins Carolla's promised Monday - Friday daily podcast.

Despite KLSX 97.1's recent format change to Top 40, morning-talker Adam Carolla promises to keep his gums moving. Long-time staple of LA radio (he hosted Loveline for ten years with Dr. Drew Pinsky,) Carolla will launch a daily podcast on Monday via his new website. The Aceman says --

And so it goes in local radio...another station is shutting down and re-emerging as something the consumers apparently want more. In the wake of Indie 103.1's demise comes word that 97.1 FM, where folks like Adam Carolla, Tom Leykis, Danny Bonaduce, and Sam Phillips take the mic, will be no more as of this Friday, according to Defamer. News spread when Phillips made mention of the shutdown in a Facebook status update. Word has it the station will revamp and roll out again as an AMP Radio affiliate, playing such current faves as Katy Perry, Britney Spears, and Rihanna. And if it's happening on the airwaves, the proof is on the internet: "According to Radio Insight, someone recently, quietly registered the web domains AmpRadioLA.com, Amp971.com, and Amp971fm.com" a few days ago. And what of 97.1's chatterboxes? "A Howard Stern Show news board is reporting Carolla, who replaced Stern after Stern left for Sirius, has been fired." LAist recently interviewed Carolla's co-hostess, Teresa Strasser.

LetIndieLive.com, an unadorned and particularly self-aware website, acts as the conduit for transmitting the input of the public. The slate gray site, emblazoned with the Tennysonian maxim "It is better to do something, rather than nothing," is an extraordinary mixture of harsh reality and lofty ideals.

The internet just let out a big sigh of relief at 5:02 p.m. when KROQ updated their twitter saying that they will announce Coachella's lineup tomorrow morning sometime during Kevin & Bean. Safe to say, it's been a long week for those who were expecting the announcement on Monday or Tuesday.

The world thought Coachella promoter Golvenvoice was going to release the long-awaited line up for this year's Coachella festival. In fact, it seems that was the plan, but come this morning, there no line up, no buzz--just disappointment. Idolator got to the bottom of it and e-mailed Kevin and Bean at KROQ while they were on air. Surprisingly, Bean responded:

If you turned your radio dials to Indie 103 this morning and overheard a stern, visceral message of immediate termination between each song, then you’re already aware of the fate of one of LA’s most popular alternative stations.

If you're not into watching the Rose Bowl parade or game and are more of the 20th Century classical music type, KCRW 89.9 FM has been airing a marathon broadcast and live webstream simulcast of an 11-hour documentary series, Leonard Bernstein: An American Life. It started at 9 a.m. and goes 'til 5 p.m., then continues for two hours at 7 p.m. Bernstein is one of America's iconic composers--you might recognize his work from West Side Story, Candide or On The Town. Today's schedule is below...

From automakers, to the industry which creates programming for the radios in those autos, the cold pinch of hard times is quite evident this holiday season. Westwood One, taking NPR’s lead, is slashing programming, giving the axe to popular syndicated daytime talk show Dr. Drew Live.

No the Lakers aren't physically moving anywhere, however their radio broadcasts will. Beginning next season the Lakers will be moving their radio broadcasts to 710 ESPN. Since the station will be moving their studios to the new LA Live complex next to the Staples Center, the move does make sense. However it is a bittersweet one since AM 570 KLAC has been the Lakers radio home since the 1976-1977 season.

Jason Bentley began his journey at KCRW 89.9 FM in 1988 as a volunteer. Today he takes the helm with the one of the most important jobs at the radio station: Music Director. He succeeds Nic Hartcourt who announced that he was stepping down earlier this month. That means Bentley leaves his weeknight show, Metropolis, for the popular Morning Becomes Eclectic, which airs this morning at 9 a.m. We shot over a handful questions, thanks to LAist staff and readers, to ask him about the changes, local bands and more.