The Next Best Thing to HOSTing Newstalk Radio?

As I type these keystrokes, it's precisely 10:55 pm Pacific Time on a certain momentous Sunday night. Like you perhaps, right now I'm struggling to digest the conclusion, some four hours ago, of one the most memorable sporting spectacles in history--the New England Patriots losing their grasp on an undefeated season in the waning seconds of Super Bowl XLII.

This particular point in time would have fallen near the end of the first hour of the February 3, 2008 edition of The Bryan Styble Program on KIRO, the largest newstalk radio outlet west of Chicago and north of San Francisco. But the program didn't make air tonight, because my long-running local open-line broadcast was cancelled last week. This happened en masse, with the brooming of the rest of the station's local newstalk weekend lineup, and of course was the decision of KIRO's new ownership regime, Bonneville Broadcasting. (Management claimed, first privately to me and then publicly in the media, that the decision was purely budgetary.)

I could sit and rue that unfortunate--but long-anticipated, at least by me--development, while continuing to post on BlatherWatch to set the record straight about my somewhat controversial run at the most-respected talk radio operation in the Pacific Northwest...or I could vent my various talk-radio ideas herein.

I'm electing the second option. Accordingly, henceforth you can check Radioactive Seattle for almost daily updates regarding everything heard over Seattle's various newstalk radio stations. (These items, mostly in the form of critiques of hosts and their broadcast styles, shall be posted amid my occasional "radioactive" takes on everything from astronomy to zoology.)

This town's rich variety of hosts are mostly ignored by both of Seattle's dailies, but there's an added reason why there's room for an additional blog monitoring the wide range of commercial newstalk radio bombarding ears around the Sound is warranted, whether or not its author happens to be a longtime host himself. BlatherWatch's leftist proprietor, whose fascination with the genre has always seemed pointedly ideological, of late is said to have largely lost his interest in newstalk radio. Many BW posters have noted the popular blog's recent drift toward politics and away from the magical aural medium.

Radioactive Seattle shall endeavor to help fill this cyber-niche with incisive commentary on the wide range of commercial newstalk radio programming reaching Puget Sound audiences. Behind-the-scenes maneuvering by the typically strong personalities which dominate the genre is generally less interesting than the things these people say on their shows, thus I have no inclination toward (nor any aptitude for, anyway) the sort of aggressive (and sometimes reckless) industry reporting BW has engaged in.

The off-air activities of talk radio professionals are just that, off the air, and thus are presumably irrelevant to an audience seeking information and analysis of the news and the culture. They also happen to be the sole aspect of this arcane end of show business which I shan't miss throughout the months or even years ahead until I'm again "propagating conversation at the speed of light" somewhere.

That's of course assuming that KIRO doesn't end up being the final stage in my 19-year career in commercial newstalk radio. So though I'm no longer one of the privileged few hosting broadcasts at the highest level of what is arguably the most interesting advent of the media age, at least I'll instead be able to freely discuss the genre herein. And in the process cover some matters which, for one or another reason, it was inappropriate for me to discuss on the air, at least over KIRO.

I hope you'll find the musings on newstalk radio in Radioactive Seattle worth reading, and even responding to.

BRYAN STYBLE/Seattle


The Bryan Styble Program featuring Open Lines for Open Minds
KIRO Newstalk Radio 2005-2008