Philadelphia Charter Change Question - School Reform Commission

[BumRushDaShow]

I hate to say, the best kept secret seems to be this one of the four ballot questions for the upcoming May 19th primary -

PROPOSED CHARTER CHANGE QUESTION #1
(Bill No. 140514-A)

"Shall The Philadelphia Home Rule Charter be amended
to call upon the Pennsylvania General Assembly and the
Governor to abolish the School Reform Commission
and return local control of Philadelphia's schools?"

I rarely get over to this forum but anyone who does hang out here and lives in Philly - take note! The state law that went into effect in 2001 that created the SRC and imposed it on Philadelphia, DID have a provision (that I looked up and found last year) that allows the city to revoke this idiocy and present its own plan for running the schools once more, as has always been done for over a century pre-2001. The SRC does nothing for the education piece of the school system, but essentially only looks at the "costs" (using the bullshit "business model" mode of operating), and to hell with obtaining the resources that are really needed (in a state with no funding-formula, and obscene differences between school districts in the state on how much per child is allocated while taking into account the cost of living in these areas). And the critical piece is that the city school infrastructure - much of it built in the late '20s/early '30s, is crumbling daily.

[certainot]

1. they locked hat thread and wanted to respond to your response

Do young folk even listen to "radio" anymore? Let alone AM radio. Most that I know stream with Pandora or some other music subscription service. Those AM "Limbaugh stations" are maybe "talking to" the faculty and other older staff, but students? They get their news from elsewhere.

that's why it works - the people it most negatively effects don't give a shit about what's kicking their internet ass - on things like student debt, public ed funding, global warming denial, racism, and everything republican.

do you know that prominent climate scientist michael mann, who got death threats due to limbaugh calling him a traitor (for trying to sabotage capitalism) works at penn state, a uni that helps 11 limbaugh stations pay rent and salaries so they can deny global warming for the kochs all day long.

how fucking absurd is that?

that is why trump is where he is.

here's some math:

at a cheap $1000/hr x 15hrs/day x 1200 stations, rw talk radio is worth 4.68 BIL$/ year or 390MIL$ /month FREE for coordinated global warming denial, pro republican wall st think tank propaganda, free market deregulation bullshit, swiftboating, and the hate and fear used to get people to vote republican.

and below are the stations by state that shoot-themselves-in-the-foot unis like pitt and penn pay rent and salaries for in exchange for a few grand every year :

and at an avg of $75,000/wk per station in pro trump anti hillary shit that's been accumulating for 25 years because the dem party and the prog orgs have been too dumb to do anything about it - that's a lot

all dems have to do and still have time to do to get congress too is for dems at these campuses to start a discussion on campus. a discussion merely for the unis to consider looking for apolitical alts would freak the local gop out (screaming FREE SPEECH!!!), get media attention, and send advertisers scurrying. the stations would have to decide between paycheck and limbaugh - the guy who's destroying their party.

ALABAMA 8 Auburn 3, Alabama 2, Southern Alabama 2, Troy 1
ARIZONA 1 Arizona St. 1
ARKANSAS 3 Arkansas 3
CALIFORNIA 5 San Jose State 2, USC 2, Fresno St. 1
COLORADO 4 Air Force 2, Colorado 1, Colorado State 1
CONNECTICUT 1 Connecticut 1
FLORIDA 20 Florida 10, Florida St. 4 Miami 2, South Florida 2, Central Florida 2
GEORGIA 14 Georgia 7, Georgia Tech 5, Georgia Southern 2
IDAHO 7 Boise St. 4, Idaho 3
ILLINOIS 7 Illinois 7
INDIANA 11 Notre Dame 6, Purdue 4, Indiana 1
IOWA 5 Iowa 4, Iowa St. 1
KANSAS 4 Kansas St. 2, Kansas 1, Wichita St. 1
KENTUCKY 3 Louisville 2, Kentucky 1
LOUSIANA 3 LSU 2, La.-Monroe 1
MARYLAND 2 Maryland 2
MASSACHUSETTS 1 Boston College 1
MICHIGAN 19 Michigan St. 11, Michigan 7, Western Michigan 1
MINNESOTA 4 Minnesota 4
MISSISSIPPI 6 Mississippi St. 3, Mississippi 2, Southern Miss 1
MISSOURI 6 Missouri 6
NEBRASKA 6 Nebraska 6
NEVADA 1 Nevada 1
NEW JERSEY 2 Rutgers 1, Seton Hall 1
NEW MEXICO 3 New Mexico 2, New Mexico St. 1
NEW YORK 7 Syracuse 6, Army 1
NORTH CAROLINA 16 North Carolina 8, North Carolina State 3, Duke 3, East Carolina 2
OHIO 10 Ohio St. 6, Toledo 1, Dayton 1, Bowling Green 1, Xavier 1
OKLAHOMA 5 Oklahoma St. 3, Oklahoma 1, Oral Roberts 1
OREGON 12 Oregon St. 7, Oregon 5
PENNSYLVANIA 14 Penn St. 11, Pittsburgh 2, Temple 1
SOUTH CAROLINA 4 South Carolina 2, Clemson 2
TENNESSEE 7 Tennessee 4, Memphis 3
TEXAS 16 Texas A&M 9, Texas Tech 4, Texas 1, Texas Christian 1, Baylor 1
UTAH 1 Utah St. 1
VIRGINIA 6 Virginia Tech 5, Virginia 1
WASHINGTON 6 Washington 5, Washington St. 1
WEST VIRGINIA 2 West Virginia 1, Marshall 1
WISCONSIN 3 Wisconsin 3

[BumRushDaShow]

2. I have been one of the biggest pushers

for the left to buy bundles of stations to put on syndicated programming. Yet I think many are still smarting after the fall of Air America and inability to sustain the format.

But I would disagree that the folks being impacted "don't give a shit" because they don't listen to AM radio.

My mother was a huge huge radio listener and would have been 86 this year and still listening if she were around. Her generation came through childhood into young adulthood without television (there was no such thing for the average consumers), so "radio" was the medium of choice that allowed for multitasking, where you could work and listen at the same time. I grew up with radio and am myself a big listener (whether AM/FM/satellite/shortwave/streaming), and was a television-watcher (but not so much anymore), and am in my mid-50s. But the next generation (my nieces and nephews who are in their 20s and 30s) are internet-fixated... where much of that programming from the radio can be streamed on the internet, and is often more "visual".

So if that is where they are, then that is where you need to be to reach them. The big transmitters of low-power radio stations are being supplanted by a server farm (or cloud) and a fast internet pipe. As a side note, I used to work at my college's radio station (for the 4 years I was there), doing news, public affairs (including occasional talk with callers), voice promos, and music, and have a 3rd class radiotelephone operator's permit (required to broadcast back in the late '70s early '80s, where I had to take a test that included shutting down the transmitter, etc, which I had to do multiple times when I worked over the summer and no one had the graveyard show after my show).

The modus operandi of RW talk radio is to promote negativity to exercise control, which attracts those who are prone to that state of mind and are willing to feed their anger and angst with an avalanche of CT, blaming everyone else that doesn't look like them or thinks like them, and denial of their own faults.

But the interesting distaff side that the left seems successful at in terms of programming, is the use of political satirists and comedians (e.g., Stewart, Colbert, Letterman, Noah, even back as far as the Smothers Brothers or George Carlin, etc.). You saw decades of listeners of Garrison Keillor with the PHC. In fact, comedy/satire was Al Franken's origins with his SNL stint, the creation of Air America, and eventual desire to have more direct impact for change by running for and winning election to the Senate.

So perhaps THAT is the "formula" for programming for the left to counter the hate/anger/"insults of 'other'" of the right.

However, as I noted before, the younger generations aren't listening to AM radio (which is mostly what those bundles of stations were), and as the generation who does listen to the ilk die off, the left could be ready for the internet streaming shows and syndicate those over those AM (and even FM) stations. Plus SiriusXM (which I have), has 2 Progressive channels with folks like Bill Press, Mark Thompson, Stephanie Miller, etc., that could feed into those stations (SiriusXM also sells streaming-only subscriptions). And additionally, the big programmers like Cumulus and Westwood, etc., have been operating more and more at a loss while the local cities and towns that host these stations have been complaining more and more about bringing back the non-political type talk (e.g., real estate, cars, medical, legal, home fix-its, sports, gardening, etc), so it's only a matter of time before they move on away from hate radio and more into a mix of programming. In an attempt to diversify, Cumulus has tried to capture that internet audience by use of Iheartradio's streaming (and the app for their stations).

I actually heard Rush Limbaugh's very first show on his flagship station WABC back in 1988 (which I pick up here pretty clearly in Philly). That 12 - 3 slot had originally belonged to Lynn Samuels (who is no longer with us) and she had been whining about him taking over her studio and whatnot, while she was moved down the hall. IMHO, his time is coming to an end, despite the quiet renewal of his contract for 4 years back in August -

The writer, Ethan Epstein, said on CNN's "Reliable Sources" that Limbaugh is "still the marquee name in talk radio," but that looming contract negotiations would lead to a pay cut. "The fact is, they simply will not be able to afford the same salary that they gave him" last time, Epstein said.

That's because Premiere has suffered from an advertiser boycott of Limbaugh's show that started back in 2012. Liberal activists and other Limbaugh critics persuaded scores of advertisers to shun the show after Limbaugh attacked Sandra Fluke, a law student and supporter of Obama administration contraception policy. The sponsors "never came back, for the most part, and that has had a seriously deleterious effect on his business."

More broadly, radio profits are not what they used to be. Digital forms of distribution have overtaken the analog radio world, forcing talk shows like "The Rush Limbaugh Show" to adapt or fade away.

Radio industry expert Michael Harrison, the publisher of Talkers magazine, said Tuesday that Limbaugh surely did take a pay cut, but said it's irrelevant: "Everybody in the broadcasting business has taken a hit since their last deal, except maybe some of the CEOs on their way out."

http://money.cnn.com/2016/08/02/media/rush-limbaugh-renews-talk-radio-contract/

The lesson here is that RW sponsors and owners are willing to take a loss over an extended period of time (see the Washington Times as an example in addition to what was quoted above about Premiere and Limbaugh) to get their hateful messages out. The left need to consider doing the same if they want to "compete" in that space. However one should note that although Trump has made it this far, it was because of this medium, and the result has essentially been the almost total destruction of the Republican party, and it may take awhile for them to recover (at least at the national level).

[certainot]

3. i used to listen to alan berg in colorado

he was pegged to go national and would have been a direct competitor with limbaugh's national sponsored PSYOPS expansion before he was assassinated. (like this )

i agree with what you say and agree talk radio is destroying talk radio

i don't believe it's a productive strategy to try to buy into talk radio - it would be like ma and pa vs wall mart - it's a well protected and subsidized monopoly that is clearly not responding to market forces. the oft repeated meme that americans prefer rw talk suggests 95% of americans who would listen to talk radio, which dominates many of the loudest stations in the country and in most parts of the country is the only free easy source for current events or politics, prefer the lies and ignorance and hate of limbaugh and sons.

i also don't think it's good strategy to ignore that $5BIL/year pounding out the lies and hate and attacks on good candidates and ideas. and we can't wait on global warming.

it's their best weapon and waiting for it to fade away is not good strategy. it will continue to reach 40- 50 mil a week because it's where people go for sports weather and traffic at least. and those are the stations that will be screaming "ELECTION FRAUD!!!!" soon, as they are gearing up for. the young folks may not listen to it but it's kicking their internet ass and destroying their futures. those 90 universities are places to protest anything progressive and dem as long as they keep renting their logos to 270 limbaugh stations. even just a discussion of those absurd relationships will cause enough advertising loss to finally put rw radio out of it's misery.

as long as a few hundred blowhards can scream their think tank coordinated messaging all over the country they're going to win elections and be close in others that should be no brainers. we need majorities in both houses or we're back to same old, with no major reform. i think the best way to get that is to do something different and destroy rw radio with the university angle. there is no real democracy as long as a few hundred coordinated blowhards can push the country 10-20 points right on any major issue.

[BumRushDaShow]

4. The one thing to note

from the links I provided, was that Limbaugh was renewed through the funding by an internet entity, and this is why the internet cannot be ignored in terms of messaging. I agree the broadcast stations that are out there could be targeted by the colleges - but then you might as well include American Forces Radio too (previously called Armed Forces Radio) that runs Limbaugh overseas to the bases - with our taxpayer money.

The issue with elections and propaganda is to find something to motivate folks to go to the polls every single year. Not every 4 years or every 2 years. Every year.

The lunatics of the right, who naturally possess a certain temperament that responds to fear (and who tend to flock together to reinforce that fear), do vote at every election, and that is where RW radio fills in as the reinforcement magnifier. But for everyone else, you need to find some other method - including perhaps one that could even get children involved so they learn it is a civic duty to vote when they come of age and have pride in being part of society. Otherwise, regardless of what you try to do to halt the tactics of the other side, most people are tuning it all out.... period. And that is why the state/local governments shift to those who promote fear and hate because those are the voters who turn out. And this cascades to the national level, further frustrating people and causing them to really tune out, after which they explode and suddenly decide to vote, and will vote in someone the "opposite" of whoever is currently in - with a complete lack comprehension as to what was going on and why.

[certainot]

5. it's over for him if he goes digital because

there will be competition there

the only reason he became king with that lying and ignorance and being wrong about everything, and his wannabes succeed, is that they enjoy aggressive monopoly protection to the point where there are no free easy alts, they have call screeners, paid callers, dump buttons, etc.

he loses the advantage of being the only guy available