GOing, GOing, GOne

 It seems like this day has been coming for a long time. 

We learned on Dec. 1 that the Pohlad family's radio stations are being sold, and their formats are expected to die with the completion of the sale next month. 

Nobody is shocked. 

I was surprised to learn that the Pohlad brain trust has been shopping their two FM frequencies since giving up the dream of retaining the broadcast rights to their baseball team's games. (They own the Minnesota Twins, I'm sure you know.)

It seems like the Pohlad radio empire will be remembered as an extravagant failure. 

Let's see how accurately I can remember the history. Full disclosure, I refreshed my memory six hours ago with a perusal of the 96.3 Wikipedia page.  

The Pohlads got into the biz more than a decade ago, buying the local hip hop station B96. They didn't immediately dump the format, but eventually softened the playlist. On the old Red and Nater discussion forum, the programming genius that announced the switch was the butt of jokes for his claim that the new 96.3 Now wasn't going to play Disney pop in sanitizing the play list, yet the new era launched with the Miley Cyrus "Party in the U.S.A." song. 

The sanitized playlist didn't win over billions of listeners, so the Pohlads flipped it to K-TWIN, making it some sort of alternative station. I never listened religiously, but I'd flip to it occasionally, and remember hearing an old song I hadn't heard on the radio in many years. 

I don't remember what the difference was, but when it became GO 96.3, it seemed the main idea was to abandon older alternative. They use to like to claim the station was where modern music was going, or something like that. 

I think the "modern music is going" angle was dropped along the way, but I never got a sense the station ever fascinated the masses, no matter how they tweaked the playlist. 

The Pohlads eventually added 95.3 to their holdings, and turned some sort of Jesus frequency into a hip hop station, perhaps a lot like the B96 station they killed off years earlier. 

And at some point the Pohlads bought the gimmicky Bring Me the News. Buying a former weekend TV anchor's online news aggregator was an odd move, I thought, and I'm hard pressed to cite any value that acquisition brought to the Pohlad media empire. The whole thing seemed to die on the vine, although we have a bastard child of Bring Me the News available via the internet, which throws a few peanuts to Sven Sungaard, somehow. Weird world we live in, isn't it?

The Pohlads famously tried to broadcast Twins games on 96.3 for a couple of years. I don't get why that was a failure. Perhaps it wasn't, as far as baseball broadcasting goes. I can't imagine it helped build listenership for that modern music they were dedicated to. But it was an odd pairing, for sure, and the Pohlads abandoned their dream of owning their broadcast rights and started pimping them to WCCO-AM. 

I never sensed the Pohlads made a dent in Twin Cities radio ratings. It wasn't for a lack of trying. They promoted their stations in traditional ways, as you'd expect, had concerts at Target Field, driven by the alternative station, and made a point of connecting their stations to the local music scenes they served. 

I read a few online comments  after the death announcement. They're what you expect. The small audience 96.3 attracted is mourning the loss of that station as if it was the greatest, most important station in the history of Twin Cities radio. I get that. 

I can't say how important the GO stations were to local music, but their demise seems to be a loss to the local music scenes they served, if you believe what you read. I have no reason to doubt that. 

For all the effort the Pohlads put into building a modern/alternative music station for eight years, 96.3 never seemed to be more than a blip on the radar when it came to ratings. They seemed to do better, not surprisingly, with their 95.3 hip hop. Ironic since they killed what seemed to be a reasonably successful B96 years earlier. 

As I said, the death of the Pohlad media empire ain't a shock, or a surprise. Critics of the Pohlads, when it comes to their baseball team for the past 25 years, have been underwhelmed by the financial moves the team has made. I suspect the Pohlads are making money in Major League Baseball, because it seems like they're afraid to spend it and go the extra mile to bring a championship to Minnesota. Yes, the Pohlad regime, under the old man, won two World Series. MLB is a very different animal today than it was in 1987 and 1991, and the Pohlads have underwhelmed as owners, even with that spiffy new stadium they said was essential in order for the team to compete in the 2000s. 

The fact that the Pohlads have underwhelmed as owners of a radio/media conglomerate, and are bailing out of a hemorrhaging industry during a pandemic that is only exacerbating terrestrial radio's decline, should be a shock to nobody. 

Alix Kendall, Rena Sarigianopoulos and Elizabeth Ries walk into a bar

I want to write about too many things, and I don't want to write 10 blog posts in the next year, so here are thoughts on a variety of topics, rolled into one package.

YOUR LIFE IS NOT THAT FASCINATING

Why is it that TV stations insist on treating their employees like they're part of our family? I'm sure the anchors and reporters are complicit in this.

We all know Rena Sarigianopoulos got married and had a child during the past few years. It's hard to hide the pregnancy when a woman continues to work on camera, but honestly, did KARE-TV need to share pictures of Rena's wedding and pregnancy announcement on its social media channels?

It's one thing to note that an on-air "talent" has had a child. If you watch Rena on that news-fluff program she participates in you noticed the obvious, and were probably reminded of it plenty of times. (I don't watch, so I don't know.) When Rena disappears for weeks, it's understandable that the station will show a picture of the mother and child and note a baby was born.

But TV stations take it to another level these days thanks to social media. I'm not sure which station in the Twin Cities is most guilty, but damn, KARE-TV sure likes to exploit the personal lives of their talent. I have to assume the talent agrees to play along. It's sad, and it is trumped by the fact that people actually care. They will respond to those Facebook posts to congratulate Rena or whomever it is for their incredible accomplishment. Harmless, sure, but a sad indictment of both the stations pumping out the local news and the people watching it.

BRING ME A BARF BAG

I'm not a fan of that lame attempt at news chat that Rena and her pal are doling out at 6:30 p.m., although Rena doesn't seem that interested any more. I don't watch the show, but if I have the TV on at 6:30, I try to see who is hosting on any particular night, and Rena is absent more often than not, it seems.

Perhaps the show is better than it was a couple of years ago when I first watched it, but honestly, these people are not smart.

Did I ever mention Rena once lectured me on Twitter? I made a silly comment about the show, but instead of ignoring it, Rena lectured me for my negativity. Now keep in mind that I had watched the show three times in its opening few months. I was watching on one 2016 night and tweeted that I was going to change the channel because the windbags on #BTN11 were going to praise Chris Kluwe, who should need no introduction to you because he's a media whore. I never said I wouldn't turn the channel back in five minutes to watch the final segment of the show.

So Rena, in response to a snarky comment at the end of the show, "busted" me. And then she lectured me, and tried to flatter her own ego at the same time. How superficial. And so, so wrong. At this point I hadn't tweeted all that much about her show, but she really put me in my place!

I was a social bully for daring to criticize a crappy show and refusing to watch two women babble about Chris Kluwe? OK, honey.

She didn't block me, like she should have if she is so delusional as to think I tweet hate daily.

Ignore those who criticize your crappy show if your skin is so thin. But pretending I'm some social bully who is constantly tweeting about how awful the show is shows how petty she is. Some might suggest it's an indicator of intelligence, or lack thereof.

Rena's not the only person who lives in a fantasy world of self-importance. The show has a producer named Nikki Muehlhausen who once lectured me on Twitter. She's at least smart enough to have deleted her tweets about a day after she did so. But basically darling Nikki told me that I'm allowed to praise her lame show and offer a suggestion, but I'm not allowed to call a spade a spade. I was wrong for calling it like I see it. I can kiss #BTN11 ass, but I can't call out bad TV when I see it. I didn't screen capture it, so I can't share the sentiment exactly as it was expressed, but yes, she was that ridiculous.

There's a dufus named Chad Nelson who points a camera at stuff now and again for Ch. 11. He saw some of my tweets, particularly those simple, dopey ones I sent for a while, noting I wasn't watching #BTN11 daily, despite what Rena thinks. His life is no better than mine, evidently, as he tried to needle me a few times in response. I love dopes who like to fight fire with fire. I'm sure he thinks he's above that.

In its earliest days they had some stiff named Nick Petersen who was their social media genius. They'd turn to him to share with the viewers what they were talking about on social media while watching the show. The guy wasn't smooth. I didn't interact with him much, but I did note his segment was painful to watch. A couple of months later I tweeted something (probably snarky) and made my standard comment about how I hate every segment, every day. He didn't reply. He blocked me, and I'm guessing he did so simply because he wasn't interested in seeing my comments in his social media scouring for #BTN11.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is how it's done. Don't get high and mighty like Rena and Nikki, don't be a fool like Chad. Just ignore and move on. I'll have a lot more respect for you, even if you're not great on camera. (I flip to the show for a moment every once in a great while, and I haven't seen that guy on camera for a long, long time. I'm guessing Nikki saw the same thing I did.)

My favorite interaction came from Chris Hrapsky. He's a KARE reporter who has had to feed from the #BTN11 trough a lot, as far as I can tell. (He has my sympathy.) I'm not sure why he was compelled to engage me, but rather than get all high and mighty, he spent a few minutes to learn a thing or two and ask a question. I was impressed.

Chris could be an egomaniac for all I know. He could have the IQ of a diseased cat. But in comparison to all those from KARE who engaged me regarding #BTN11, he appears to be the only person whose elevator goes to the top floor. I can barely watch KARE's newscasts these days, for a myriad of reasons, but I respect a guy who doesn't need to come off as holier than thou.

IT'S HARD TO KARE

I'm no expert or insider, I've said that before. But Ch. 11 has really gone down the toilet when it comes to overall quality of their news and newscasts, and I don't need to be an expert in order to see that. I don't have the time or patience to list all the ways the station has lost my viewership. I watch on a rare occasion just because I like torturing myself. The single best example of how the once-mighty NBC affiliate has gone in the dumper? Weekend sports kid Ryan Shaver.

CAN I GET A BARF BAG WITH JASON MATHESON'S FACE ON IT?

I have mocked the fact that TV viewers find the opinions of the local talking heads to be entertaining, interesting and/or important. It was enough to have the goofballs at Ch. 9 doing it every weekday at 9 a.m., but it must have been too lucrative, as Ch. 4 decided they needed to get in on the action, too. I won't rehash my previous rants about that.

Of all the talking bobos on local TV, nobody is more nauseating than Jason Matheson.

I use to respect the guy. He worked long hours and did whatever it took to land two seemingly decent jobs in the Twin Cities. And with all that effort, he has become intolerable.

I occasionally watch a few minutes of his TV chat fest on Ch. 9, airing weekdays at 10 a.m. and a dozen other times each week at any odd time the local Fox affiliate has time to fill on either of its stations.

First off, God bless Jason for playing up the gay stereotype of being fascinated with pop culture. I don't know if he gushes over the usual gay icons -- Cher, Barbra Streisand and Rosie O'Donnell -- but he gushes over a few people, I've learned over the years. Katie Couric immediately comes to mind. It sells, buddy, so keep it up, I suppose.

Why are people so fascinated about a gay man who will tell you how interesting a "Real Housewives" episode is? I'll never understand people.

A dude working in Minneapolis, talking about pop culture. Big fucking deal. But Jesus, Jason will try to convince you he has his fingers on the pulse of Hollywood, and connections you just won't get anywhere else. Maybe he does, I don't know, but every time I sample his schtick, he's making fairly obvious observations. He's like a poor woman's Wendy Williams. You want a window into the world of mindless sheep, watch Wendy's audience go nuts for her banal observations. Then get a local version of it by watching Matheson gab on Fox 9.

For whatever reason, his two-bit show has been given two summer tryouts as a national talker. I'm stunned that there's nothing better to consider. There can't be if his show is being given a tryout.

I tried to congratulate him for the opportunity. But I didn't simply kiss his ass, which seems to be the way you have to treat him nowadays.

I noted via Twitter to Matheson that it was a tough road to national stardom he was about to navigate, as proven by bigger names who have had summer tryouts in limited markets, but it was impressive nonetheless that he had been given the opportunity. Princess took that as an insult, of course, and had to self-stimulate his ego in responding to me. You'll have to take my word for it, I'm not in the mood to create Twitter images to illustrate it.

I don't read his tweets regularly, but he once bitched about the cost of an Uber ride from the local airport. I get that you don't make millions of dollars per year in local broadcasting, but it seemed silly to me. Perhaps he was trying to appear relatable to all the housewives who adore their gal pal.

I mocked him for his silly bitching, and of course his response was quite Sarigianopoulos-like, pretending that he's constantly under attack by me, somebody who rarely pays attention to his silliness.

He's a great success story whose ego can no longer be contained by his Buzz Boy frame.

I haven't listened to 10 minutes of his chick talk on morning drive radio, so I can't comment about how brilliant, or brutal, his long-form fawning over Shania Twain is.

And last, but not least: Jason, please convince those cheap bastards at Fox 9 to spend some cash on a theme song for your daily parade. Please don't tell me that the garbage you're using now is original, commissioned music. It sounds like royalty-free crap that would be used as filler during some lame children's show.

DID THEY HAVE A PRENUP? 

It's not nice to laugh at the failures of others, but I'll admit that the implosion of Paul Lambert's fairy tale marriage warms my heart a little.

Lambert, known as "Meatsauce" on 100.3 FM's morning show, is a great rags to riches story. He plays his part well, and as I've said before, he's The Fan's replacement for Jeff Dubay.

The hype and publicity he garnered for losing a few pounds and marrying Falen, a sidekick on the KDWB morning show, was a bit nauseating. Two people working for Clear Channel morning shows start dating, get married and live happily ever after. Congrats. More power to you.

It's inevitable that it's going to come up on the morning shows they work for. I assume it was discussed on KDWB. I rarely listen to morning radio, and when I do, I never listen to Dave Ryan. Ever.

But the nuptials got a lot of steam in the Twin Cities. There was at least one feature story in the local media profiling the love affair of these two "celebrities," and the duo didn't hesitate to market themselves as some sort of "Beauty and the Beast" duo. They'd find ways to use their marriage for promotion of themselves and/or their radio stations. I never watched the videos, but they had cooking videos that were shared on the radio station websites, if I recall correctly.

These clowns were nauseating, but that's what you have to be if you want to make money as a "personality." And of course the fairy tale marriage came crashing to the ground within a couple of years. I've read comments about why, but I've never heard or read a reliable explanation, and I don't care.

I don't revel in the failure of these fools, but it brings a wry smile to my face, knowing that their personal lives have been shown to be as fraudulent as their on-air personas.

QUICK HITS

To close out this Twin Cities roundup, here are random thoughts.

It's great that you get to sit on a WCCO couch once a week and give us your insightful movie reviews, Dennis "Rusty" Gatenby, but it's time to put your name to use as some mediocre communications coordinator for a local company and quit trying to hold onto the local TV limelight you lost so long ago.

It has been more than 18 months since I last published on this blog, and the last time I did, I noted what a waste of flesh Cheryl Johnson is. She's better known by her initials, B.J., and since she got in trouble for her idiocy back in 2016 she has been severely neutered by the Strib, which published the garbage she produced. The only reason they don't shitcan her, I'm guessing, is that she'll sue for discrimination. There ain't no way she's worth whatever they're paying her, and there ain't no way she's getting a better paying gig if she's kicked to the curb by the Strib. But it's nice to see the Strib has stopped publishing the garbage she use to produce, which seemed to lack any sort of editorial scrutiny.

I never, in my wildest dreams, would have guessed we'd still have sports talk on AM 1500. I don't know how that low-rated station survives, but kudos to all of you who looked to be out of a job more than a year ago.

And Kudos to the Pohlad family for proving that underachievement isn't limited to the MLB franchise you own. The inability of the Pohlads, whichever brother(s) run the radio/media conglomerate they built, to succeed in running a radio station is a fitting testament to the business savvy the family has demonstrated during the past 25 years.

Brian Oake is still an asshole. It just needs to be said more often than it is.

Last, and certainly least, is the namesake of this blog. I've predicted before that it's going to end on a very sour note for Dubay. His most recent run-in with the law ended with a plea agreement he made. He claimed that he couldn't risk going to jail for years as a result of the lies of a vindictive housemate he may or may not have been having sex with. Even if Dubay's hands were clean, the circumstances of it all show how hard it is to pick up the pieces after you've flushed your career and reputation down the toilet. And we know Dubay hasn't been able to walk the straight and narrow in the years since it all came crashing down around him. Unless Dubay comes to Jesus and makes peace with what's left of his life -- the dude is 50 years old, it's unlikely his life is ever going to be as cool as it was in his 30s -- it's not a matter of what ugliness will befall his life, it's simply a question of when does the next shoe drop. Good luck, Puffy, you're going to need it far more than most degenerate gamblers.

AND FINALLY

It's easy to throw stones at the local media. When pompous script readers like Jason DeRusha lecture the world on how precious his time is, and how great of a human he is for giving of his time, it's hard to avoid vomiting. Oh yeah, he's a culinary genius who eats and writes. He's multi-faceted!

When local "talent" is asked to fill an hour talking about the news and water cooler topics, you'll end up cringing at some point, assuming you're not lapping it up like a Pavlovian dog. (I'll never forget the excitement the recently departed Kylie Bearse expressed about the fascinating hour of chat they were about to launch at 9 a.m. a couple of years ago.)

It's too easy to throw stones because too many of the folks producing news or inane chat are mediocre at best, not nearly as well compensated as you might think. As I've noted before, plenty of folks get out of the biz for jobs that seem far less prestigious, and I'd bet my last $5 that income is a major factor in why former reporters find their way to communications positions with corporations or governmental agencies. Or, if you're fortunate enough to be a trophy wife, a la Natalie Nyhus, you can afford to stay home with your child. Why pass your paycheck onto a day care provider when you can spend those formative years with your child? Good gig if you can get it.

I have occasionally lavished praise, or simple observations, about developments in the local media. But more often than anything, I've chosen the low hanging fruit: Criticizing the mediocrity and mindlessness of the local media. The Twin Cities may be a top 20 market nationally, but our products are weak, and we're not unique. Media companies don't have the exclusivity and license to print money they once held, and they're not interested in being nonprofit entities.

I am pretty much guaranteed years of fodder, should I chose to accept it. But not so long ago, I listened as a motivational speaker discussed the merits of creating, regardless of the audience for your product. Sure, this blog is a creative outlet, and one that finds an audience. With little promotion these days I've found that plenty of people find their way to the blog. Not hundreds per day, but more than most "mommy" bloggers get, I'd wager.

This blog is a creative endeavor, but it's not the most satisfying creative outlet. A few months ago I finally started a new creative project that has nothing to do with writing, and I'm enjoying it. I'm going to keep at it.

I won't suggest that I'm never going to record another thought at this blog, but it hasn't been a priority for more than a year, and since the start of 2018, I've finally found a replacement for that creative expression this blog has provided, even if it is at Keith Leventhal's expense. (As his biggest fan, I had to work a backhanded compliment in one more time.)

Until something changes, I'm putting the blog on indefinite hiatus. Now, if we could just get Fox 9 to do the same thing with Ian Leonard....

Where music is going?

It has been too long since I put thoughts into words, and I need to rectify that in the waning months of a Minnesota winter. So I'll start with a short and sweet submission.

The mighty Pohlad family has done it again. They own a radio station in the Twin Cities, 96.3 FM, and they use it to broadcast Minnesota Twins games, a team the family happens to own. The Pohlad geniuses have tried a few different formats while owning the frequency, and each time they change the format, they do worse. It doesn't help that they interrupt the music 160+ times per season for nine innings of baseball play-by-play, as well as pre- and post-game commentary.

In typical Pohlad fashion they botched the "flip" of their station to the new format at the beginning of the year. For about five days they broadcast an automated feed counting down the time until the station debuts. The automated feed also quoted memorable lines from movies, songs and commercials. There were other assorted comments in the mix as well.

I read that at one point the automated program started playing tunes late one evening. I can't vouch for that, but 24 hours before the promised debut of the new station the automated voice went into a prolonged loop of "welcome to the new format." Can the Pohlads do anything right?

The new station is called Go 96.3, or something like that. It's where modern music is going, allegedly. You can verify it for yourself on their slick website.

Radio is a fraudulent industry, that's not a secret. And 96.3 is proof of it, in case you doubt it.

The station was playing a lot of classic rock in 2014. They'd mix a few different decades of music together, but mostly it sounded like a classic rock station. It was dull and unimaginative.

Now this station, with many of the same clowns in place, is really really really excited about modern music, local music and where music is going. Weeks ago they didn't give a minute to such music, now they can't get enough of it.

It's not a crime to like more than one genre of music, and most of us do. Programmers and jocks need paychecks, so they'll play and promote whatever they're told, and they might not be fraudulent in doing so. But it rarely plays well when a station changes formats and the people in charge of the music are suddenly as excited about modern music as they were about classic rock. That's why you see air staffs dismissed when the format shifts dramatically.

This wasn't a dramatic enough shift at 96.3, evidently. Sure, they casually disassembled portions of their old staff prior to and after the flip to modern music, and they have brought in some new blood. They were fortunate enough to pick up a castoff from 89.3 The Current, the nauseating public radio station that 96.3 is now trying to emulate. But they kept key pieces of the on-air staff in place for whatever reason, which serves as a reminder that the new 96.3 isn't about where music is going, it's about chasing after the precious few dollars that are out there in commercial broadcasting.

Five years ago the Minnesota Twins moved into Target Field with a solid franchise that succeeded in spite of its pitiful stadium. They got their new ballpark, funded in large part by the taxpayers, and have quickly watched the wheels come off the franchise wagon. That boosted payroll the new stadium would permit the team to spend on players each season? Thanks for the laugh. The Twins are back to doing things on the cheap and finding out that there is a limit to how cheap you can be. Hard to catch a decade worth of lightning in a bottle twice in a row.

I have no idea if the Pohlads are as cheap when it comes to running a radio station. But they've proven one thing, they're equally inept.

When old man Pohlad died several years ago I joked that we'd finally learn whether or not you can take it with you. (Carl was notoriously cheap as the owner of an MLB franchise.) I think we learned that he couldn't take it with him, but apparently his sons have yet to figure that out. The irony is that they keep dumping good money after bad in an effort to become radio kingpins in this market.