Thursday, August 25, 2011

Stephen King's Maine radio station will "burn some feet"

Outstanding news:

BANGOR, Maine — Horror novelist and Bangor radio station owner Stephen King announced on Tuesday a new talk radio show featuring a former vice presidential candidate and a former Maine secretary of state’s communications director.

“We wanted to shake things up a little bit in the market,” King said.

King, the owner of Zone Radio Corp, said WZON 103.1 FM and 620 AM will launch “The Pulse Morning Show” on Sept. 12. The show will air 6-10 a.m. on weekdays and online at www.zoneradio.com. The station also is expanding its news department.

King said he was thrilled his station could grow at a time when others have had to cut staff and decrease the amount of programming and production.

Former journalist, Bangor Daily News columnist, and gubernatorial candidate Pat LaMarche will be joined on the show by Don Cookson, a former reporter and communications director under Secretary of State Matt Dunlap.

LaMarche was also the Green Party's vice-presidential candidate, with Ralph Nader at the top, in 2004.

LaMarche ... said the show would target politicians and public officials in Augusta and Washington, D.C., who push around Maine residents, especially those struggling with the welfare system.

“Nothing is more fun than standing up to a bully,” LaMarche said. “There’s an awful lot of bullying going on out there right now.”

What's great about this news -- besides King being a "job creator", that is -- is that the progressive media infrastructure continues to flourish, even at the local level.

Keith Olbermann and the new head of Current TV will be fleshing out the news division and filling the network with additional programming over the next year. Cenk Uygur left MSNBC and went back to his one-million-views-a-day online TV show "The Young Turks", and was replaced by the provocative Al Sharpton there permanently this week. Chris Hayes of The Nation has also picked up a weekend gig at MSNBC. The progressive blogosphere, which has always had the upper hand nationally and in Texas -- and even here in Houston -- is blossoming.

“We’d like to burn some feet once in a while — make some people a little bit angry,” King said. “There are some people who deserve to be taken to the woodshed from time to time.”

Yes, liberals who fight back simply enrage the Right even more. Judging solely from the responses I get here -- most of which, sadly, are so obnoxious that they never get published -- the pushback we perform has the same result.

Heh.

8 comments:

Greg said...

Let's be honest about Bangor -- it is a liberal community in a liberal state and is host to a particularly liberal seminary (my wife is a graduate). It is not typical "Main Street USA", and makes Austin, TX look downright conservative in comparison. Success, therefore, will tell you less about the appeal of liberal radio nationwide than you might hope -- and failure will tell you that there is no market for it anywhere in the country.

That said, I wish them success with the project. As conservative as I am, I'm always happy to see a new business succeed.

PDiddie said...

I have occasionally thought that your wife must be a saint on Earth for putting up with your miserable bullshit -- if it is in person just half of what it is in the comments you submit here, Greg.

I know her health has been challenged so please wish her the best from me.

Matt Bramanti said...

To make the case that "the progressive media infrastructure continues to flourish," you cite liberal programming on the 9th-largest radio station in a city of 35,000 people?

That's not very compelling.

PDiddie said...

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury: I present Exhibit 'B'...

Matt Bramanti said...

I can scarcely conceal my rage that, between the two stations, 3.9 percent of Bangor will hear the programming.

Really, I'm pissed. I'm trying to laugh at the absurdity of placing any significance on a couple hours of programming at two second-rate stations in a smaller market than Cedar Rapids.

But I can't laugh; I'm just too blinded with unadulterated wrath. If it can happen in Bangor, it might happen in much bigger markets close to home, like Laredo or Waco.

Yeeeaaarrrgggghhhh! 6,400 people will hear it! Smash! Smash!

PDiddie said...

I know a very good psychotherapist, Matt, but in your case I think you ought to just go straight on to Valium.

Matt Bramanti said...

Heh, thanks, Perry. Hey, would you mind dropping me an email? I have something you'll want to see (in good faith, I'm not messing with you, and it's better discussed privately.)

mattbramanti@gmail.com

PDiddie said...

If this is about Coby's drug trafficking conviction ... that's old news.

I'm really not at all interested in whatever dead bait this is you're dangling.

I would suggest that you have better things to do than search progressive bloggers' tax records, property records, criminal records, etc. but I don't really know you well enough to accurately say whether you DO have something better to do than that.