IT WAS A VERY WEIRD YEAR: It was a wreck of a year for CBS Radio. The company formerly known as Infinity had an infinite number of problems, beginning with the loss of Howard Stern to satellite radio. The company named a former rock star, a comic and a couple of DJs to replace him at various affiliates, stamped those stations "Free FM," and almost immediately began hearing the sound of backfires. The rocker -- David Lee Roth -- was soon gone, while the San Francisco affiliate, KIFR (106.9 FM), would've been executed by now, if radio had a three-strikes law. They hired three high-profile acts, only to dismiss two of them (Darian O'Toole and John London) within months. The Doghouse team of Elvis and JV, a temp fill-in while the station awaited the start of Adam Carolla's morning show, took a gig in New York. (By the way, Elvis recently checked in by e-mail: "We have tons of people listening online from the Bay Area! The site got 650,000 hits during a 3 day period last week! Crazy!") "Free FM" still hasn't gained traction in the ratings. Other CBS stations, KCBS, KITS ("Live 105") and KLLC ("Alice") are doing fine. But KYCY, offering podcasts as "KYOU Radio," is doing zip; KNEW does not have KGO or KSFO shaking in their Prada boots, and KFRC upset thousands of listeners by abandoning '70s and '80s music and dropping such personalities as Cammy Blackstone, Dean Goss and Sue Hall to go after younger, booty-shakin' women, with the new moniker, "Movin'."
IN THE NEWS: When Mexican immigration became a hot-button topic in April and May, radio did what it was born to do: It bound a community together and provided it with information on the National Day Without Immigrants general strike and boycott. On KRZZ (93.3 FM), Renán Almendárez Coello ("El Cucuy") encouraged listeners to "struggle in a dignified way ... Go to work and go to school." On KSOL (98.9 FM), Eddie "Piolin" Sotelo also encouraged listeners to join marches -- after work -- and register to vote.
Payola, which has been around since the earliest days of radio (and, before that, in the days of music sheets and jukeboxes), will never go away. These days, it's certainly paying off for New York Attorney General Elliot Spitzer, who has extracted some $30 million in settlements with major record companies that Spitzer's office has been investigating and suing. He also persuaded CBS Radio to tighten its payola policies and add $2 million to various New York charities to settle a lawsuit by his office. This year, he got $12 million from Universal Music and $3.7 million from the EMI Group, which admitted that employees had arranged a concert in exchange for airplay, and had staged fake requests to radio station call-in lines. Which reminds me of a story Ray Manzarek, keyboardist of the Doors, told me for my book, "The Doors by the Doors." When their first single, "Break on Through," came out in 1966, they dutifully showed up at the offices of Elektra Records. "All four of us were dialing the radio stations," he said. "And you'd raise the pitch of your voice a little. 'Hi! I wanna hear that boss song from the Doors!' And eventually the girl or the DJ or whoever was taking the calls would say, 'All right, just stop calling. We know you're with the band or they're paying you to do it, so just stop.' " "Break on Through" never did break through, but the second single was a little number called "Light My Fire."
Clear Channel, radio's 800-pound gorilla , continued to grow and prosper in a tough year for commercial radio, as listeners spent more time on their computers, cell phones, iPods, videogames or at the mall, and time spent listening dipped about 14 percent from last year. Other deserters gave up on radio's love of 10-minute commercial clusters and signed up for satellite, or discovered Internet radio. Of course, Clear Channel isn't populated by chimps; the company has a stake in satellite radio and launched the Format Lab, offering a variety of programming for rival stations to use online or for their HD Radio side channels. Clear Channel also cut deals to provide content to two phone companies. Then, late in the year, the Texas-based monolith was sold for $18.7 billion to an investment group ... Meantime, the FCC is weighing the possibility of relaxing, even further, its regulations on ownership of media outlets. Similar efforts in 2003 were overturned by a federal court. But here comes Big Media again. For some, 800 pounds just ain't heavy enough.
Satellite radio continued to grow at an impressive rate. Sirius, off the Howard Stern launch, is now at 5.1 million subscribers, up from 2.1 million last year at the same point (Sept. 30), while XM, which went into orbit first, has some 7.2 million in the fold, compared with some 5 million last September. But are those 12.3 million (at $12.95 a month) enough? Neither XM nor Sirius has hit black, and rivals, both in terrestrial and Internet radio, still expect (or hope for) two big crashes.
And, in 2006, a Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame surfaced. About time. With about a 70-year backlog of greats who deserve induction, the first class, of 37 people, stirred up a lot of fuss from those who didn't get in. But everyone should be satisfied ... in 20 years or so.
WEIRD YEAR, PART 2: In New York in May, I dropped in on Stern's show, strictly as an observer. Within minutes, I was dragged onto the satellite air and peppered with questions about which female rock stars I might or might not have, as he so delicately put it, "banged" during my years at Rolling Stone. I never answered but managed to plug my book, "Becoming Almost Famous." I don't think he'll have me on again any time soon.
CH-CH-CH-CHANGES: This year, the owners of KPIG, the lovable free-form station in Freedom, Calif. (and airing locally on 1510 AM), decided to bring home more bacon by automating the all-night shift, saving a whopping $10 an hour ... Willie L. Brown, the former mayor, and Will Durst, the acerbic political comedian, teamed up on a morning show on KQKE ("The Quake"). Good as they were, they were canceled after nine months ... Strawberry had a similarly short stint doing wake-up duty at KYLD (Wild 94.9) ... Whoopi Goldberg landed her syndicated morning show on KKSF, in the process bumping Kim Dooley ... KNBR, under new ownership, saw the departures of Rick Barry (replaced by Bob Fitzgerald), Tim Liotta (supplanted by Paul McCaffrey), John Schrader and Bruce McGowan ... Larry Krueger, ex-of KNBR, joined KGO after Joe Starkey left to follow the 49ers to KNBR. But, by December, Krueger was gone, too ... Sterling James left Alice but quickly popped up at two stations, KNGY ("Energy") and KBLX , "The Quiet Storm" ... "Max" (KMAX) ditched all of its announcers. The station's main voice is pretaped, and belongs to John O'Hurley, best known for his J. Peterman role in "Seinfeld." However, don't be surprised if a familiar voice from another local station -- one that went "Movin' " -- shows up soon ... KGO has added Chronicle columnist David Lazarus to its weekend lineup, Saturdays 4-7 p.m. Lazarus has filled in for Gene Burns and Pete Wilson. "I guess I haven't screwed up too badly," he says ... Dogged by sexual harassment charges from eight employees, KPFA fired Roy Campanella, who'd been general manager for two years. He continues to deny the charges, and one supporter said, "Roy made some mistakes, but he got run over by the bad politics inside the station."
DJ OF THE YEAR: Bob Dylan on XM.
WEDDING PARTY-POOPER OF THE YEAR: Pete Wilson of KGO.
NANCY GRACE AWARD: Melanie Morgan, who said that Bill Keller, a top editor at the evil New York Times, should be executed.
MICHAEL RICHARDS AWARD: We have two winners. First, to Adam Carolla, who sing-songed "Ching Chong" all over a report about the Asian Excellence Awards. And the award also goes to Dave Lenihan, host of a talk show in St. Louis, who was praising Condoleezza Rice as a potential NFL commissioner, and babbled, "She loves football. She's African American, which would kind of be a big coon. A big coon. Oh my God. I am totally, totally ... sorry for that." Lenihan said he meant to say "coup," but it was too late. He was immediately fired.
A STAR IS BORN: Brian Copeland, comedian and a staple on KGO, landed his one-man show, "Not a Genuine Black Man," in New York, just slightly off Broadway, and earned rave reviews. He also turned the show into a book. Sure beats hecklers and crank calls.
SIGNOFFS: Del Courtney ... Hap Harper ... Knowles Robertson ... Bwana Johnny (real name Rick Johnson) ... Dick Sainte (real name Richard Middleton) ... Mike Phillips ... Phil Elwood.
GAVIN, A PARTY: On one of his regular visits to Dave Morey's morning show on KFOG, Mayor Gavin Newsom got a question from a listener: How many of the city job cuts were of Willie Brown's girlfriends? Over raucous laughter from traffic reporter Renee Richardson and news director Peter Finch, Newsom responded, "Honestly, I don't want to belittle this, but that's going to take more than a few years. I mean, I'm not sure I can do that in the first term." Over more laughter, he added, "Willie Brown, I love you."