In what is no doubt the most anyone has ever talked about radio since…um…I don’t know…jesus radio metaphors are hard…probably because no one cares about radio. Except for the St. Louis sports media who still thinks its really really really really really important.

As first reported today on STLtoday.com, the team announced late this afternoon that it will return its radio broadcasts to KMOX next season after five years at KTRS, where they had been airing after a 51-year run at KMOX.

The Cardinals choose KMOX over the other options of staying at KTRS and moving to sports talk upstart WXOS, 101.1 FM saying “fan sentiment and feedback” was a major factor in the decision. Some would say they choose wrong, that AM radio, despite KMOX’s legendary signal, is somehow more dead than FM radio. True, but our initial guess is that the Cardinals asked that very question and KMOX’s owner CBS Radio had answer.

Our initial guess seems to be lining up with the rumors we have heard after talking to a few people after the news broke. Our guess? CBS promised the Cardinals that they too would be on the more robust FM signal soon. How? By killing KEZK and moving KMOX to 102.5 FM, leaving 112o AM to be a more sports-heavy talk sister station to KMOX, and of course, simulcast Cardinal games on both signals.

With that information in hand, the Cardinals had the perfect answer. Going to KMOX certainly wins by the old-folks crowd, and the move to FM nullifies any benefits that WOXS was offering. No brainer.

…you know what would be super cool though, is if someone could invent a device that also broadcasts video of the game along with the audio. That would really be something! You wouldn’t want Mike Shannon on there though, he gets a little sloppy. You’d want someone smooth, well spoken, but knows when to shut up and, of course, above reproach…eh, screw it. This guy will do:

via STLToday

Friday afternoon the word started trickling out that local group, Grand Slam Sports’ bid to buy the “other” sports talk radio station in town, KFNS (590 AM), became official. Not only that, Grand Slam Sports also announced they had purchased the local sports blog JoeSportsFanSTL.com. Their bid to buy the other other sports talk station you haven’t heard of KSLG (1380 AM) is still in the works.

Grand Slam Sports, which consists of a group of local investors, bought KFNS from Big League Broadcasting for $1.4 million.

Greene also announced Friday that Grand Slam Sports acquired JoeSportsFanSTL.com and will partner with site founders Josh Bacott and Matt Sebek to provide St. Louis sports content on a daily basis. The content from JoeSportsFanSTL.com will appear daily on KFNS.

The announcement was all but official about buying KFNS especially since the Atlanta-based group Big League Broadcasting has been trying to unload that property for some time now. Also, it was great to hear the guys from JoeSportsFanSTL.com getting some well-deserved jack to be officially apart of KFNS, but this development wasn’t shocking since Grand Slam Sports’ face-man Dave Greene has had a long-standing relationship with JoeSportsFan’s Josh Bacott and Matt Sebek.

What is surprising is the amount of money the Grand Slam Sports team is throwing around these days.

$1.4 million for KFNS…throw in a few grand for JoeSportsFanSTL.com…KSLG is in the crapper, sure, but even the price for the “stick” (the rights and hardware to broadcast) alone will be quite a bit, currently rumored to be in the $350k neighborhood. Throw in the STL Sports Magazine, and you’re looking at a lot of money invested in radio and magazines.  Two of the crappiest areas to have money in.  Anyone know if Greene has any interest in buying this steam engine factory I have for sale?

Kidding aside, his ventures must be doing well enough to fund his 1+ Million purchases last week, we just couldn’t ge comfortable being in that boat, even with one-third of the sports radio dog fight out of commission. 101 ESPN has clamped down on the sport radio market and their grip might tighten if they get the rights to co-broadcast Cardinal games next season. Greene has said all along though, that its money that is the measure, not ratings. Ratings may not matter today, but don’t they predict tomorrow? Greene’s efforts to get bloggers and the InsideSTL partnership aboard show he’s at least aware of the fact that radio and print alone don’t make much of an empire, a sinking radio ship (that can’t be heard come nightfall) needs more than just a couple of internet life vests.

…unless they wanna buy us. Then forget that crap. Go AM radio!

via St. Louis Business Journal

Starting Wednesday, the native son of St. Louis and rapper, will be the drive-time DJ on Hot 104.1 for anywhere from 10 to 16 weeks.

In a related, but up until now completely unreported, story Nelly has also invented a time machine. Probably. He must have. Why else would he think being a DJ is still cool?!

We talked to a scientist about this bizarre move and amazing technological discovery.

Punching Kitty: Dr. Scientist, do you think Nelly has successfully made a rift in the time-space continuum?

Dr. Scientist: Yes. He must have. There’s just not other reasonable way to explain it.

PK: That’s a pretty bold claim. Do you have any actual proof.

Dr. Scientist: To be under the assumption that being a DJ or Disk Jockey is still cool, Nelly must have traveled to the 70s, which is wear we started our research. Sure enough, after only initial research, we found this old still from the show WKRP in Cincinnati that clearly shows Nelly in the background soaking up the cool DJ vibes.

Nelly also managed to get in to the original version of “The Longest Yard”. No one seemed to notice however.

PK: Amazing! One question arrises though. If Nelly is now back in the “present” time, why hasn’t he realized this idea sucks yet?

Dr. Scientist: It appears a side-effect of time travel that although your body comes back right away, your brain can be “left behind” so to speak. This appears to be what is happening with Nelly. It’s really sad and only going to get sadder when the children of St. Louis hear this and just won’t be able to figure out how to get “104.1″ on their iPod.

PK: Yes, that will be sad. Thank  you Dr. Scientist.

Dr. Scientist: You’re welcome. Also you are awesome.

PK: Thanks, we know.

Dr. Scientist: You are way cooler than STLToday. Those asshats steal ideas and never source anything.

PK: Totally.

via STLToday

If you’ve even listen to 101 ESPN, the city’s leading sports talk station, you’ve no doubt heard their promos.

“Randy Karraker rides his bike to work…”

“D’Marco Farr is blah blah…”

“Bob Ramsey something…”

How do they do it?! How do they make such great promos that never* want to make you bash your head against the dashboard and then hit the dial so hard you break your radio? Well we took the promos the lab and tried to figure out their secret. It took a lot of work, at least three beakers with blue liquid bubbling over, at least one of those twirly drippy things, and two lab coats, but we got it!

The secret formula to the 101 ESPN promo is…

[Personality Name] is/does [something wacky] but that just [something awesome] + [rarely audible movie quote] + Hear [name] on 101 ESPN!

The key here is the inaudible movie quote in the middle. That’s what takes this normal promo and makes its special enough that we never* hear them and then make eye-contact with the car next to us and realize he’s also contemplating suicide and make a mental pact to drive in to one another hopefully either killing us or at least destroying our radios in the crash.

Look, we know you are the sports talk “leader” and you don’t have to try at this point with the other guy buying up crap like old lady at an antique store, but these promos have to stop. Enough with the horrible movie quotes!

* By never, we mean always.

We now hear that both morning and the afternoon shift has been filled at St. Louis’ newest music station, 100.3 The Sound.

So, um….there you go. Pretty. Exciting. Stuff.

In a related story, I found that pushing on your eye for 2 minutes produces a little squiggly color line show that is just as good as or better than NCIS.

Oh shit I’m sorry. I forgot that school is out and we have more young readers throughout the day!

ra·di·o

[rey-dee-oh] noun, plural -di·os,adjective, verb, -di·oed, -di·o·ing.

–noun
1. wireless telegraphy or telephony: speeches broadcast by radio.
2. an apparatus for receiving or transmitting radio broadcasts.
3. a message transmitted by radio.

Despite persistent rumors, no major changes have been made at The Sound and apparently they are going to stick with the most generic station name possible. Other options on the table were 100.3 The Station, 100.3 The Commercials, and 100.3 Hello? …Anyone?!

St. Louis’ newest station 100.3 The Sound, owned by ClearChannel might be gone before it ever really got started according to a source of STLMedia.net:

Clear Channel is very close to selling/donating 100.3 to one of the groups that tried to stop the KFUO transfer. Its a double win for Clear Channel, triple if you consider that The Sound is a complete failure. All of this is being done with San Antonio because of the complex nature of the deal, but it could be done by July 4th.

You can think music radio has a future all you want, but there’s no denying that it’s damn near impossible to make any money at it.

We didn’t actually mind The Sound all that much, but did we listen to it? No, not really. Only when we forgot to bring our iPod in the car.

After Jill Devine’s departure from the ClearChannel owned 93.7 The Bull, the word was that her sucessor was to be Jim Doyle, as reported by STLMedia.net. We’ve heard this isn’t the case.

As soon as today, Devine’s, now vacant, morning shift will be filled by a two-man out-of-town morning show, not Jim Doyle. [Editor's Note: Is that was she said? ...hmm. Maybe.]

We don’t know the names of the gentlemen running St. Louis’ newest morning show but we can take a pretty strong guess that they probably work cheap.

Already scraped from the website, Jill Devine, already a veteran of the St. Louis radio wars, is out at ClearChannel’s 93.7 the Bull. Devine has been at the Bull since leaving Bonneville’s 101.1 Movin, which soon after turned to 101 ESPN.  Devine pitched in on the Bull’s morning show and then moved to mid-days and then back to mornings.

No details as of yet, but it’s not much of a guess to postulate that ClearChannel is continuing to hemorrhage money like most other radio outlets. Their newest station, 100.3 The Sound has, thus far, only hired one jock for the station and we hear he isn’t even located in the St. Louis area, but actually records his work out of town to be played in the St. Louis market.

Even with the current crappy radio landscape that leaves places like ClearChannel about six months from just using that Steven Hawking voice all day on the radio, we aren’t worried about Jill. She’ll be picked up and working again as a personality in no time.

It’s for the best Jill! We hear your brain starts to melt after too many years of country music and you devolve down in to driving a truck covered with yellow ribbons and flag bummer stickers with a giant bald eagle painted on the back window. Seriously, is there some connection between being super “patriotic” and not having to ever look out the back of your vehicle?

We have learned friend-of-the-site Trish Gazall is leaving her post on 550AM as John Brown’s sidekick on the midday show The Mindset.

Efforts to get a comment from Trish have returned nothing so far, but we do know that she is leaving on her terms and it was believed she is leaving because she was looking for a job a bit more musically inclined rather than the talk-focused KTRS job.

Which 106.5 The Arch jock did we hear recently opined on the internet about how much they hate the company they shill for?

If you sons of bitches were not paying me to say that I liked u I would switch providers in a heart beat. ASSWHOLES [sic]

Service provider huh?  We’re guessing they are compaining about what everyone complains about: Charter  …or it could be that anal wart cream delivery service.  Bastards are always late.

Wait wait wait.  Are you telling me that when an on-air personality says something is awesome, they are sometimes just doing it for the money?!  Say it ain’t so!  The Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, massages with happy endings and Mark McGwire’s home run records are real though right?