[Kzyxtalk] Announcing: KZYX has a new general manager.

[Marco McClean]

Here's what I wrote to comment on the Anderson Valley Advertiser's 
story* about KZYX's having just hired Terry Green, its fifth manager in 
two years. They really chew them up. *That story and photo: 
http://theava.com/archives/62511/comment-page-1#5


Sexy Nights With Vala.


Re: the photo of KZYX' new GM


It's Wally Shawn. "Never go up against a Sicilian when death is on the 
line!" "Inconceivable!" And so on. Perhaps Mr. Green isn't so Wally 
Shawnish in front view, but from the side, there he is.


I know I'm in the minority about this, but I didn't appreciate the movie 
version of Princess Bride; I was horrified at how they ruined an 
unruinable book, chiefly by casting. Mandy Patinkin and Billy Crystal, 
okay; everyone else, feh.


Wally played a number of small, much less well-known parts in his 
career, including an alien (human) scientist who offered to help the 
tenth-season Stargate SG-1 pair of Daniel and Vala be released from 
their unwanted techno-psychic bond with each other in return for the 
replacement of a stolen necklace. Wally's creepy-comic reverie, in his 
patented smarmy, arch, frog-lipped vocal fry, about sexy nights with 
Vala (actress Claudia Black) sticks in the mind. /That's/ casting.


It might be too much to hope for, but when Terry Green introduces 
himself to KZYX listeners, if he can nail that Wallace Shawn voice and 
inflection, that'll be great. Or, better, if it just comes naturally. I 
don't know; I've never heard him. We'll see.


Here's a cartoon from the Santa Cruz Sentinel involving Terry Green and 
KUSP. Grab it while it's still there:
http://kuspforward.weebly.com/uploads/2/6/7/8/26785631/2747766.jpeg


Apparently he managed KUSP for twelve years. By the time he was fired, a 
year ago, the station had been hemorrhaging at least $100,000 per year 
(his own salary?) on a budget of $1,000,000 (!), and had accrued, let's 
see, AllAccess reported, "$280,000 in loan debt and $435,000 in debt to 
NPR." /Debt to NPR/? By the time KUSP filed for bankruptcy, its 
"$843,000 debt included $56,000 to American Public Media, $12,000 to 
CPB, and $10,000 to the Pacifica Foundation."


So, Bruce, when you say he'll be perfect for KZYX, I have to assume you 
mean he's their kind of combination fox-in-henhouse/potential scapegoat.


It's physically not possible for a radio station to cost that much to 
run, nor even a quarter that much, even if you're paying the airpeople 
what they're worth, which KZYX doesn't at all. The people running KUSP 
(R.I.P.) and KZYX (close to R.I.P) must have been something more than 
merely incompetent all along. Incompetent squared. Stupidly demonstrably 
incompetent. Not adorably naively well-meaningly mildly careless.


I know never to attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by 
stupidity. But stupidity alone just doesn't go far enough here.


If you have a 4,000 watt transmitter and electricity costs 15 cents per 
kilowatt-hour, it costs sixty cents an hour to keep a local airperson on 
the air. That's not 60 cents per listener, but a /total/ of 60 cents an 
hour. Add tower fees for a couple of translator stations, music 
publisher fees, lights, phone, internet and misc., pay all the airpeople 
$15 per hour of airtime and an hour extra for prep-- hell, add a whole 
brand new house on a fresh quarter-acre of land every year with a pony 
in the garage of each one and it still doesn't come anywhere close to a 
million dollars.


And here, you may be familiar with this cartoon. It was originally meant 
to describe software development, I think, but consider the recognizable 
tire swing at the end as radio:
http://tinyurl.com/TireSwingAnalogyForRadio


--
Marco McClean
memo at mcn.org
http://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com