Media Watch

MICHAELS, LEE LAUNCH PODCAST

Tucson radio veteran Alan Michaels and his longtime
morning-show co-host, Joan Lee, are teaming up again, this time
for a weekly podcast at radioexiles.com.

For nearly three decades, Michaels was one of the most well-known
radio personalities in the market. He was a morning-show mainstay at
oldies station KOOL (KWFM) FM 92.9 and later at KOOL (KWFM)
AM 1450 when Clear Channel pulled the format from the FM dial.

Lee is a well-known media personality as well. She left her position
as Michaels’ morning sidekick for a stint as the local face of KWBA
Channel 58/Cable Channel 8 during its fledgling days as a WB
affiliate, and for a brief time when it transitioned to the CW network,
before she returned to radio aside Michaels. Both were victims of
Clear Channel‘s layoffs in January.

“He’s my favorite person. I have a good time with him,” Lee said of
Michaels. “I think Alan doesn’t mind me making fun of him. He’s a great
personality. People love him in town. We know each other well enough
that I can poke fun at him. We’ll bounce ideas off each other.”

The Michaels-Lee team joins Tucson veteran morning-show tandems
Jonas Hunter and Andy Taylor, and Mike Rapp and
Betsy Bruce at radioexiles.com. Carrie Moten,
currently a part of Clear Channel‘s syndicated Johnjay and
Rich morning show, hosts the most popular show on the Web site,
which is designed as an outlet for radio hosts without gigs on
traditional radio stations, although that’s clearly a lax distinction
in Moten’s case.

The same holds true for me. I co-host a pair of shows online with
Brad Allis, my radio partner for UA football and basketball
pregame and postgame broadcasts on KCUB AM 1290.

“Jonas Hunter and Andy Taylor, Mike Rapp and Betsy Bruce, now Alan
Michaels and Joan Lee. Imagine a local radio station with that lineup.
They’d be No. 1 in a heartbeat,” said radioexiles.com founder Brian
Baltosiewich via e-mail. “Add the other talent we’ve been able to
assemble, and we now have eight podcasts a week, all brand-new, edgy
and hugely entertaining. Kenn Hayes and Bob Cady joined
us a few weeks ago out of New York City; they love the format, and the
listeners love them. We’re developing other shows with other talent
from across the country, and I fully expect by this fall to be in a
position to offer a minimum of two or three new podcasts every day of
the week—something for everybody.”

Lee said she hopes Michaels can make the jump to the medium’s new
wave.

“It’s hard to get him on a computer. He has e-mail (and) barely uses
it. He knows how to text, but it’s hard. He’s just coming around to the
whole this-is-the-future thing, the social networking and podcasts and
things like that,” Lee said. “He was on for 28 1/2 years at the same
formatted radio station. He’s been out of the business since January,
and I think he’s going stir-crazy. It’s kind of like the kids in the
summertime. He’s starting to wonder, ‘What am I going to do tomorrow?’
It’s a great outlet for him. He’s got a lot of opinions about a lot of
things.”

LEE VOTES AGAINST REVERSE SPLIT

The board of directors of Lee Enterprises, owner of the
Arizona Daily Star, voted against a reverse stock split
at a meeting late last month.

A reverse stock split usually happens to keep a struggling stock
above the New York Stock Exchange’s $1-per-share requirement.

Lee was notified of noncompliance in late December, but has until
this December to get the stock above a dollar on a consistent basis.
Because of the market downturn, NYSE has suspended the dollar
requirement through July.

“Despite recent volatility in Lee’s share price, owing in part to
index rebalancing, we believe our long-term prospects remain strong and
will become apparent to more investors as the recession begins to
recede,” said Lee chairman and CEO Mary Junck in a news release.
“We believe our recent debt refinancing has given us ample flexibility
to manage through the downturn.

“Our newspapers and their Web sites continue to reach, by far, the
vast majority of adults in our markets, with growing strength across
all age groups. We remain, hands-down, the leading provider of local
news, information and advertising in our markets. As the recession
drags on, we are staying focused on building further on these strengths
and increasing our lion’s share of local advertising spending.”

Since Junck issued that optimistic outlook late last month, Lee
stock has slipped by about 15 percent. It was selling for 53 cents per
share at the close of business on Monday, July 13.

KSMB: IT’S NEVER TOO EARLY FOR A COUNTDOWN

Despite lingering economic uncertainty, the good folks at KMSB
Channel 11 are keeping the faith. They believe so much in Arizona’s
future that they’re counting down the 1,000 days until Arizona’s
centennial in 2012.

This small but vital feature, broadcast on the station’s nightly 9
p.m. newscast, coincides with a sort of this-date-in-Arizona history
tidbit.

And Feb. 14, 2012, gets ever closer. Perhaps sometime in 2010, the
KMSB newscast can say that on this date in 2009, Fox News at 9 started
its 1,000-day centennial celebration. That’s certainly historic.

So what if Arizona hasn’t actually bothered to actually fund a
celebration yet?

Hopefully, on Feb. 15, 2012, KMSB will start its bicentennial
countdown.

TRAFFIC SHOULD FLOW AGAIN SOON AT KOLD

CBS affiliate KOLD Channel 13 is expected to fill its morning
traffic position at anytime. The on-air position is actually funded
through Metro Networks, a traffic-update service, but KOLD
agreed to assist in the hiring process. The station’s morning show has
been without a traffic reporter (meteorologist Erin Jordan often
steps in to handle updates) since Dee Cortez‘s departure in
June.

This article appears in Jul 16-22, 2009.