oh piffle

[helen99]

One of my favorite journals got deleted. It's always my favorite things that go away first. I believe it's the world's fault. Hear that world? Yer not good enough for them.

Oh, and WHFS decided that a Spanish-speaking, salsa-blaring format would make more money than a prog format would. At first I thought it was maybe an hour-long program that HFS had included in its format - nope, the whole thing has gone Spanish.

A student-run station in Baltimore has taken over playing prog where HFS left off (and doing a far better job of it - HFS had deteriorated), but my car radio won't pick it up. This morning they were playing some wonderful music that I hadn't heard in a while. I changed the button setting to that station anyway. I can hear it for about a half a block during the drive to work, if I catch it at just the right time...

I can see it now - I get a satellite dish on my car just to pick up a prog station. Apparently the Spanish station conglomerate (Infiniti?) is Clearchannel's only competition. I wonder if it's really a branch of Clearchannel, pretending to be in competition with itself. I wouldn't be at all surprised.

Dag Frakking Durnit.

So lost a favorite journal and a station all in the same day. Lyra with a satellite dish would be kind of funny...

Comments

[helen99.livejournal.com]

Point of interest - in other cities, the "spanish" conglomerate (which I think is really clearchannel) seems to also be targeting the prog stations. I wonder what's going on...

[vashti.livejournal.com]

I saw someone mentioning this elsewhere. They thought it might be some kind of prank.

[helen99.livejournal.com]

Nope, I thought it was a joke too, but it didn't go away for 2 days, then I heard it on the news. WAHHHH!!!!! :*( :*( :*( :*(

[dogemperor.livejournal.com]

Just be glad:

a) pretty much *every* station other than a few religious broadcasters and one or two other non-public-broadcast stations isn't owned by Clear Channel (this IS the case in Louisville, unfortunately; fortunately, there IS the one small group of non-religious non-Clear Channel stations that are keeping the CC affiliates honest)

b) that you even had a prog station (Louisville, to my knowledge, has *never* had any sort of prog-rock or prog-metal station; the closest we ever came was the late, lamented Rock 102 which got changed to an easy-listening station...the folks who formerly worked at/ran Rock 102 pretty much went with another company (I don't think they're an Infinity affiliate, I don't think we HAVE any Infinity network stations in Louisville) and started it back up, but it's mostly "new rock" type stuff).

As for CC and Spanish stations--Clear Channel *did* recently buy out one of the large Spanish broadcast networks (can't remember if it was Univision or Telemundo, off the top of my head) and they *are* aggressively targeting stations to change to Spanish formats so as to target the Hispanic population. This has included radio buyouts, so it's possible...it's also possible Infinity has started to do the same crap to compete with Clear Channel :P

[helen99.livejournal.com]

Yes, I am very appreciative we had one. This is just really the final nail in the coffin - HFS has been dead for a while, since it got bought out by a large company. It was a very good station as long as its founders owned it and retained its original vision, which was to play local artists who wouldn't get airtime. Many bands would have never sold CDs at all without them.

Well, at least Viacom/infinit doesn't have (overt) religious and political affiliation (I hope). In any case, I'm sure they'll succumb to whoever gives them the best advertising deal, and the marriage of large corporations with religious interests is pretty tight...

There are still good stations about, but it's difficult for me to pick them up without adding power to my antennae...

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

WHFS is gone? I hadn't listened to it in a while due to radio problems, but... wow. My world is all askew.

At noon yesterday, the station behind the HFStival, a popular annual concert, broadcast the late Jeff Buckley's 1995 hit, "Last Goodbye." And then came something that WHFS listeners hadn't heard before in the station's 36-year history as the arbiter of cutting-edge rock:

"WHFS transmitiendo desde la ciudad capital de America:

"Esta! Es! Tu! Nueva! Radio!"

"Transmitting from America's Capital City: This! Is! Your! New! Radio!"

[helen99.livejournal.com]

Yeah. That's exactly what happened.

[heliwood.livejournal.com]

Augh, my dad told me about what happened with HFS. I seriously cannot wrap my brain around this, honestly. It used to be one of my favorite stations.

Its always the good things that never stay around.

[helen99.livejournal.com]

I will let you know the number of the Balt station that's taking over. You can probably get it better than I can up there. Unfatherstabbingbelievable.

Infinity Broadcast Corporation

[gleef.livejournal.com]

Infinity Broadcast Corporation hasn't added WHBF to its list of radio stations its insatiable corporate appetitite has eaten, but they probably just haven't gotten around to updating their webpage yet.

Infinity Broadcasting is owned by Viacom, and in turn it also owns the Westwood One Radio Network and CBS Radio.

As far as the incorporated tapeworms that are taking over the media of the world, I find Viacom marginally less objectionable. They are greedy corporate pigdogs, but they don't seem to care what faith I am, what my politics are or how I live my life.

WHFS

[gleef.livejournal.com]

Ack, I missread the callsign. Yes, WHFS is the list, under Washington DC. They're listed as an "Alternative" station, which I guess is shorthand for "The general manager described the station to us in Spanish so we have no idea what he's playing".

The station's website is similarly unhelpful.

Re: WHFS

[dogemperor.livejournal.com]

What with the recent change in format, that could well be just because they've simply not gotten around to changing things yet :P

Re: WHFS

[helen99.livejournal.com]

It used to be considered "alternative" (using the term loosely - Viacom or other owners had just about destroyed it a few years ago). They just haven't changed the listing to Spanish Speaking yet.

Re: Infinity Broadcast Corporation

[helen99.livejournal.com]

They may not have it on that list (they only have Baltimore listings for MD on that page) but they do list it here: http://infinityradio.com/station/station.php?sub_section=northeast&station=199

It could be that they bought it a while back and they just decided to change the format. At least it's not Clearchannel (good), but I hate all of them. They eat and ruin wonderful small businesses, which are the part of free enterprise that I like. They go to other countries and exploit people and drive them off their lands. That's not the purpose of a company. The purpose is to be owned by and serve the local population and give them the goods they want (and be monitored by them for hanky panky). Don't get me started (too late).