Peoria Pundit

Steve Tarter takes a look at what Peoria-area radio stations follow what format. He makes this observation:

Although there’s only one talk station in this market (WMBD), talk is an extremely popular format around the country. Unfortunately, due to consolidation and other right-wing tendencies, all the talking is generally done by one person (and his first name rhymes with mush).

This is BS. Rush is on the station for three hours a day. Sean Hannity is on the air for two hours a day. Then there’s three hours each of Michael Savage and Jim Bohannon (not a right-winger, by any stretch). There’s a smattering of other syndicated programing. At night, they have the Coast-to-Coast program, which appeals to black-helicopter conspiracy theorists.

In the morning, there’s four hours of Dan Diorio and in the afternoon, they have two hours of Jamie Markley and Phil Luciano. None of these guys are right-wingers and these are local programs. Add the station’s news programs, and no commercial station in Peoria has as much local programming as WMBD. Smart radio listeners depend on the station, which is the place to go for breaking news coverage, like when that knucklehead fired a gun at Woodruff High School.

The facts don’t support Tarter’s snarky dismissal of the station as all-Rush, all-the-time.

Will somebody please send this robber baron to prison? I used to work for the b*st*rd when he owned American Publishing Company. He screwed all his workers out of overtime while he lined his pockets illegally. They send people to rape-you-in-the-rectum prison for stealing $20, so there’s nothing wrong with sending Lord Black to the same place. And there’s nothing more I’d like to see than his Queen Bitch thrown out on the street with nothing but her name. She wants to be a writer? Let he try to make a living freelancing, or working for the near starvation wages her Sugar Daddy hubby paid the people who made him filthy rich.

Not that I am bitter, or anything.

WMBD 1470 Radio has a new Website design.

I like the improved functionality of it. Individual news stories can now be permalinked. Frames — a Website design no-no — are gone.

These are good things.

But the actual color scheme — white lettering on a black background — leaves something to be desired.

The first page has two separate floating marquees and two different animated gif advertisements.

Ugh.

It’s an improvement in function — I would like to have seen reader comments — but is actually a little uglier than the previous version.

I trade-off, I suppose.

Ed Phelen was probably one of the most recognizable people in Peoria. He was was a member of practly ever labor organization there is in Peoria, although he was a Republican, which I always thought odd. The first time I saw the guy a meeting of the Peoria Labor Council, I though former U.S. House Speaker Tip O’Neill had walked into the room. The resemblance was uncanny.

He was past president of the Peoria Typographical Union Local 29, the union in which I was a member back when I worked for the Peoria LABOR Paper.

Upon learning of his death I turned to the obituary page to see if he had been afforded the lede position, as is the right of every Typo union member and Journal Star employee upon their death.

And there it was, in the upper left-hand corner of the page. As it should be.

WHOI sports guy Jason Koma is leaving the station. Jeff at Peoria Television Stations has the details. No word yet on where he is going.

The consolidation of the mainstream media continues:

Pulitzer Inc. has agreed to a $1.46 billion acquisition by Lee Enterprises Inc., that will create the seventh-largest U.S. newspaper chain in terms of circulation.

The deal, announced late Sunday, ended two months of speculation about the fate of Pulitzer, whose holdings include The Pantagraph and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
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Lee, which specializes in suburban and community newspapers, said it has no plans to sell off any of Pulitzer’s papers.
Lee operates 44 daily newspapers in 19 states. It had revenue of $683 million and profits of $86.1 million in its latest fiscal year. Pulitzer owns 14 dailies and more than 100 weekly newspapers and other publications. It had revenue of $444 million and profits of $44.1 million last year.

Lee’s deal for Pulitzer also includes a small stake in the St. Louis Cardinals. Pulitzer Inc. and Michael Pulitzer together own slightly less than four percent of the baseball team.

Lee doesn’t expect to make immediate or major changes in the business or editorial operations at Pulitzer, which will function as a Lee subsidiary, Junck said. Pulitzer employs 4,000 people, including about 300 employees at The Pantagraph.
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Lee owns a number of Illinois newspapers, including the Herald & Review in Decatur, the Southern Illinoisan in Carbondale, the Journal Gazette in Mattoon, and the Times-Courier in Charleston.

So, how is this a good thing for those who want to see newspapers compete against each other? Hrmph. It isn’t. I do not care what assurances the bosses have now, there is no way that this organization is going to pay to have two statehouse organizations. One reason newspapers in one geographic area consolidate is benefit from the economies of scale. Another is to reduce competition over ad rates. It makes good business sense, if one measures good business only by short terms cost cutting at the expense of product quality. They are banking on consumers not noticing or caring that quality is declining.

My advice to the good people of Bloomington and these other communities is this: Start micro-news blogs now. Start keeping track about how much local and state capitol reporting your papers perform now. It’s going to decline. The same thing happened at the Journal Star.

Another question: Will The Pantagraph’s relationship with WEEK as its “news partner” survice the change?

… over at Market 117. I used to have a bit of a crush on Yvonne. Don’t tell Greg.

PEORIA Television Stations has the details of the weatherman’s last broadcast. But no details on why he’s leaving or where he’s going. Meanwhile Market 117 has interesting critiques of stations’ news broadcasts.

Over in Chicago, it’s Sun-Times Watch, a new blog that keeps tabs on the Conrad Black-owned tabloid. It’s full of snarky goodness.

A tip of the hat to Eric Zorn (who should heed the advice at the bottom of this post):

[Plead to Mr. Zorn: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE get permalinks in your blog. We really love your "Notebook" but it ain't a blog if we can't link to individual posts.]

The oft-maligned Slate is carrying a good column on television sports punditry and the decline of quality sports columns.

Once upon a time, maybe five years ago, anyone filing a crucial column via a thumbs-only device would have been busted down to covering high-school cross-country meets. Being a columnist at a major daily paper was every sportswriter’s dream job. Legends like Jim Murray at the Los Angeles Times and Shirley Povich at the Washington Post were the most beloved guys at their papers. They’d write a cherished column for 30 years, and that was it. There was nothing else to do, no higher job to attain. Now, a sports column is nothing more than a springboard, a gig that starts you on your way to becoming a multimedia star.

It’s a matter of time. How do you do the reporting necessary for a great opinion column when most of your day if spent appearing or getting ready to appear on sports sports? Television and even radio makes it necessary to adjust your your schedule to be available for their broadcast schedule.

Phil Theobald — the now retired Journal Star columnist — used to appear on radio all the time. But it wasn’t daily.

But these shows in ESPN and FOXSports are more entertainment than informative. It’s all about attitude and shouting that the joy and drama of sports.

Via Romenesko.