state of KPOJ
Enough shifts have taken place in the perpetually shifting line-up — largely out of their control — that it is worthwhile for me to take stock of the state of KPOJ 610 — “Portland’s Progressive Talk”. We are awasy from their original incarnation five years ago — a bastion of rank radio amateurs, British voice-overs, and advertisements hawking bad commercial projects, and a certain flavor of over-done insurgent rebellion that didn’t quite match. Notable today is that KPOJ didn’t float that commerical campaign regarding their anniversary — “They said we wouldn’t make it, etc., but we’re still here” — but perhaps that’s just because KPOJ’s hired voice talent recently passed away. (Note, for instance, that their new 3 pm program is introduced with a generic introduction that does not mention the name Nancy Skinard.) Also apparently gone is the most recent incarnation where they seemed to stuff every syndicated liberal programming out there somewhere in the line-up — notably Stephanie Miller is now back on 970 AM weekdays 6 am to 9 am, her Saturday slot here replaced by 3 hours of Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC rejiggled to radio program — a good freeing for both of them, I suggest.
So, to blast through this. Bill Press is on at 3 am to 6 am. Like him? Not particularly, but it’s 3 in the goddamned morning. 6 am to 9 am: Carl Wolfson. I do not like the woman who replaced Heidi Tauber — annoying yes – cheerlead “yay”s that to hear makes one cringe. Other than that, decent bastion for a variety of media editors and politicans — hence, worth flicking past, turning on and off, changing the station around, and etc.Â
Thom Hartmann… Ed Schultz is still on 12 pm to 3 pm… the last man standing from the original line-up. As terrible as ever, I presume. Does this guy blow or what. Well, anyway, he’s got himself an MSNBC program — the cable network’s Fox News counter-program prime-time line-up of Keither Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, and I guess Chris Matthews counts if you must.
Nancy Skinner replaces Randi Rhodes, and — OHMYGOSH — Randi Rhodes has been blotted away and thrown off like a bad fungi infection! Though, I guess, that’s a bad thing… she was a stablizer here, for all my negatives opinions of her. Nancy Skinner, I have no strong opinion toward. Competent enough, and preferrable to 6 pm to 8 pm’s Ron Reagan — and I gather you get slotted to the front of the line if you’re the sone of the former president and want a talk show gig. I find him only slightly tedious.
Mike Malloy remains a god-send… 8 pm to 11 pm. Air America kicked him off, Nova M busted apart, something replaced Nova M for roughly 15 minutes and then fell apart too. Mike Malloy is the personality that would bravely self-distribute where your Randi Rhodes wouldn’t. Actually, Malloy veers toward a bizarro- Glen Beck, but I guess that’s a necessary antidote.
There’s some guy named Jon Elliot who sort of tells the story: this is all beginning to be trangely indistinguishable.
Peter B Collins used to be on weekends at 4 pm , but has disappeared — I assume his show no longer exists because I doubt re-runs of Ron Reagan count for much. But anything you can get from Peter B Collins you can get from a few websites, so I don’t suppose I’m missing much from him. Lionel followed at 7 pm and remains, and he’s either great or horrible depending on the moment. I think they were trying to farm him out to other radio stations, unsuccessfully. They’ve slotted a Ron Kuby on Sunday mornings at 10 AM, and he is pretty horrible.
How much of it can be placed on the background? Much of it. How much of it is worth tuning in on? A lot less than much of it. How much should be shunned at all costs? Not too much of it. What I want to know is: Who should be the next voice-over, and how uncomfortable a transition would that re-imaging have to be? (The voice-over was there for 2 formats ago, for Pete’s sake.)  The general manager is shifting through the tapes now, I guess.