They changed their format. Almost everybody was fired. Tillem, Burns, Taliaferro, Greggains, Gross, LL Young. They are going to a near all news format.

goto
www.facebook.com/nomorekgo

Wow ... this is a real loss for the Bay Area, radio, and Liberal talk radio that they say there was no market for ... ha.

This seems to me to be shutting down a voice that has nothing to do with popularity or money, this is pure censorship.

Maybe I should not be talking before I hear the facts, but as irritating as KGO was sometimes they allowed people to express their points of views.

Thank you for the information Sonny, I don't know how I did not hear about this? Is there any effort to fix it or replace it, this is just BS in my opinion.

I am not a fan of Facebook, but there are several ... groups or whatever they are that maybe people want to comment on or like ...

Web Link

Web Link

Does anyone have more information or some ideas about how to protest this? Was the station doing badly financially, or was this just to stop the biggest longest talk radio station? What is going on here?

There were just not enough of you prolies to justify that pack of radicals any more. I hope that Wattenberg is still around. Tillem, Burns and Taliaferro [portion removed by Palo Alto Online staff] are welcome to the unemployment office.

> There were just not enough of you prolies to justify that pack of radicals any more

Well, guess our brief agreement on the recent police raid in Menlo Park is short-lived Walter. What is a "prolie" anyway.

It apprears that the most "progressive" of the hosts, Pat Thurston has been given a very prominent talk show time of Sat/Sun 8am to 11am on the weekends.

Wattenburg, the disrespectful and disingenuous hosts has been sacked as with many of the others.

I will really miss Gene Burns, and I used to really like john Rothmann until his inner Republican began to bleed out into his show and he got repetetive as well. Speaking of repetetive, Ray Taliafero was the posterboy for repetition, though I often agreed with Ray's politics, I could not listen to his show and the foolish way he used to yell at and berate his callers. Gil Gross never really offended me, but I was not crazy about.

I just do not know how much news we can hear ... repetitive canned corporate mainstream media over and over on AM radio, the same everywhere.

I am glad Thurston is on the air and promoted. I am glad that KGO is not going to be like all the other right wing radio dishonest loudmouths too. How they did this was not very good or very nice.

Walter

you would get less blowback if you restricted your comments to topics that you know something about. Len Tillem was a legal aid show. He helped people with trusts and estates and navigating the legal system. It was not political, there was none of content that you claim.

Taliaferro...Ha Ha Ha!

Long past time that these lefties awoke to reality. Made my day!!!

>> Long past time that these lefties awoke to reality. Made my day!!!

If that made your day you must be pretty miserable.

"If that made your day you must be pretty miserable."

Oh, not at all...I am quite happy, day to day, some a little better than others, of course, but no misery. It just tickles me to see the lefties getting the axe that the market, finally, demanded.

> It just tickles me to see the lefties getting the axe that the market, finally, demanded.

You sound so unhappy that you have to "tickle" yourself to laugh. That is hardly what happened, the first show this morning 8am-12pm was the Pat Thurston show, and if you ever listen to KGO in addition to being quite good, Pat Thurston is probably the most "leftie" host they have, including Taliafero. So, why would someone have to jump to conclusions and create a story so that seeing other people lose their favorite radio hosts would bring pleasure to them? Gary, you should get that depression treated, it might just open up a whole new world that you do not have to be so scared of.

Anon-right on.gary is pretty miserable.always whining about lefties. But as his alert ego, sharon, he spouts racist comments.

Wattenberg was pretty far right. Gene burns was a libitarian candidate for president once. Gil gross was pretty much in the center. Tillem was not political. Ray was pretty far left, I'll give you him, he was not my cup of tea either, but I'm not sure you got as many "leftees" as you think.

They were all to the left of me.

Here's my long term take on KGO.

KGO is a Bay Area institution that should be respected ... at least a little bit. I first heard KGO in the 70's when talk radio was basically what is mostly is still in the rest of the country, old men pushing the status quo with insult and bullying. I never listened to it, especially because I was a kid and there were actual English radio stations that played good rock music on back then! Woooo!

The first good host I heard on KGO was Michael Krasny. I was amazed that someone could actually hold a decent intelligent conversation with callers ... when the callers who called in had some brains. Michael was really intelligent and knowledgeable and I learned something every time I listened to his show ... and he was the first host I would go out of the way to hear his show.

I got to know all the hosts, and in some way like and dislike most of them. Wattenburg is a very smart man, but he is dishonest in his arguments, mean, insulting, bullying and despite being a smart guy I stopped listening to his show ... and I am glad he is gone.

Similar story with Ray Taliafero. Ray is not the brightest bulb in the bunch ... but he has lived a pretty amazing life and has a lot to say. Sadly, he rarely exhibits that, preferring instead to go on for hours about how brilliant he is and how his audience is the smartest group that will save the world ... except of course when they call in he insults them and hangs up on them. Ray and Dr. Bill are very similar, interesting accomplished people that just should not be talk show hosts.

Gene Burns is the one who can have an intelligent thoughtful conversation with about anyone and have the llisteners be able to get something out of it. Gene is astute, clever, funny, and likeable. Over time many of these hosts burn out, but Gene has actually aged well like the wines he talks about on Dining Around.

Similar with John Rothman. What I liked about John is that he had civilized discussions with callers, and educated them with facts. I really liked his show when he started, but I think he changed or began to burn out several years ago. I found it peculiar that he used to open his show with the same nonsense line about his friend Shirley ... there is just something a bit too goofy about Rothman, and he always had to make corny banter with the news people that was more uncomfortable and irritating than it was funny. Rothman was not a comedian at all.

There is Karel who is still on ... and I wonder why. He had a guest tonight, Pat Vitucci the financial planner and this guy just absolutely cannot let anyone else on his show talk - caller or guests. He constantly interrupts for no other reason than to shut down the possiblity of any actual information being transmitted or expressed. I really dislike Karel and cannot understand why he works at KGO except it is SF and he is gay.

Christine Craft is another one who just loves to be delibeately unpleasant. I often agree with her, but she expresses herself in a manner that just rubs me the wrong way.

The one I like now is Pat Thurston. Pat is leftist I suppose, but I just think she asks questions. The reason I suppose I am Democrat, leftist, Liberal, Progressive, whatever is that when all you have to is to ask questions that are too embarassing to answer to be called a lefist ... then the problem is not with the leftists its with the status quo. Pat knows the facts, but when she is not sure, she does not make them up like some hosts. She is very bright and honest, and this country needs people like that and a media like that in my opinion. We need to clone Pat Thurston.

Gil Gross, and some of the other hosts were OK, but I will not miss their absense so much or cheer their demise, none of them deserved to be treated like this and I think it is a shame. 50% of the problems of KGO could have been fixed by retiring Wattenburg and Taliafero, and letting some new people try out in those spaces. it would have really served the public too. KGO has had some very weird people in that middle of the night slot. One guy Chris Clarke many years ago seemed to have a nervous breakdown on the air every weekend.

Let's not jump to conclusions about what will happen with KGO, but it would be nice to have some input as customers of the radio station that they might consider people's wishes. I'd really like to see Gene Burns continue, and Karel gone, but otherwise I am OK with the changes I have seen.

Now, what they have put on there in the last day has not been overly interesting or inspiring, in fact it has been pretty bad, and irrelevent - syndicated nonsense.

In my many years as a listener of radio I have gone from listening mostly to music to mostly to talk. If KGO goes away from that towards more news, it will mean a loss for the audience and less diversity and value in local programming - because we already have enough of AM News ... and news is not really the core competence of AM Radio now is it?

Good luck to the former KGO hosts, good luck to the station and good luck to the listeners ... I hope we get improvement of some kind out of all of this.

I cannot stand Pat Thurston. Awful woman.
I used to like listening to John Rothmann, Gene Burns to an extent, Dr. Bill. I love Christine Craft -a real pro. At least Ronn Owens appears to be continuing, but with the radio biz, one never knows what tomorrow will bring...

Disgusted, damn right Hitler was to my left. His National SOCIALIST party said it all.
Anon, was your disagreement with Wattenburg that he was almost always right? While he came down a bit too hard on coal, his overall analysis of energy was right on. Energy is critical to our nation's future, and politicians have done everything they could to double and redouble the cost of that energy. One hundred thousand pages of regulations cannot do a better job of allotment that simple cost. Of course those regulations DO provide lots of enforcer jobs in the public sector.

How can there not be a market for KGO's broad spectrum of hosts, from Ray T to "Dr" Bill?

There are far more liberals in KGO's market than conservatives. The smaller conservative market is already shared by 3 or 4 deeply red stations, mostly rebroadcasting national shows - Rush, Sean and the lesser crazies like Levine, etc...

Is it that the few conservatives in the area are mostly shut-ins and more likely to listen to radio than the generally higher educated local liberals?

Must be.

Walter,

My one run-in with the self-proclaimed "smartest man in the world", Dr. Willard Wattenburg was when I called into his show and he hung up on me after yelling me down with the claim that there were more "wetlands" in California today than there were 100 years ago based on the fact that we farm rice in California today and that race paddies were the same as wetlands. I studied engineering at university in Chico, so I have seen rice paddies and smelled them being burnt off, they are not the same as wetlands. It was a flat out bold-face lie and he had to hang up to keep from being exposed the cowardly SOB.

There were all kinds of other things that Wattenburg was "disinformationalizing" on like the volume and toxcity of "high-level" nuclear waste, or in some cases he flatly ridiculed the idea that there was a vast garbage dump plastic in the ocean that was a threat to anyone or anything.

The problem with Wattenburg is that he used his considerable smarts to bully people, not to inform them. I am not saying he did nothing right or was evil, he was just not a good talk show host in my opinion, except that he gave loonies like you a big stiffie about coal and when he called someone an eco-freak. On some things he said he was absolutely right and on target, but even then he treated his callers like dirt. While I respect his accomplishments and intellect, I dislike him personally for his egotistical and intellectual dishonesty.

I am just happy I will never turn on my radio and hear that gasbag bloviating his bovine flatulence any longer! What a relief!

The new schedule for the Pat Thurston show are weekends (Sat&Sun) 8-11am.
Today is an exception, her show is from 11am-2pm.
Give Pat a listen she is really great.

"I am just happy I will never turn on my radio and hear that gasbag bloviating his bovine flatulence any longer! "

Rush Hudson Limbaugh III is off the air also?!? More rehab?

Wattenburg is opposed to burning coal, while I found not burning coal to be much more damaging to public health.
Anon, much of our rice growing land is, by definition, wetland. Rice paddies in Asia use "night soil" for fertilizer and so smell that way. Much of the Central Valley was, before Shasta, classifiable as wetland. I am not a frequent listener of Bill's, because I need my sleep, but I would take Bill's word against any Chico Commando about nuclear waste. Bill does not suffer idiots well, and for that I thank him.

Walter, you are so predictable you hardly need to post.

I have never perceived any evidence of any interest or any understanding or the public health in any of your posts, instead just a bee-line to provacative snarky comments that are aimed to tweak people just not enough so they get deleted, and that try to wave a fact or two in the reader's noses to justify such boorish behavior.

You are kind of like Wattenburg in that way, but i've never seen or heard of anything you have done that was actually helpful such as Wattenberg's championing the Headwaters Forest, or trying to build emergency bridges or disable land mines.

Even if some of the facts you claim were true it still does not back up that there are more wetlands now that 100 years ago and that in itself is a pretty meaningless statement from wattenburg to be provocative.

The funny thing is, Wattenburg was hardly civil to anyone, save people who he could get something from, like say, Clint Eastwood. I'd bet you did call him, and I bet he slapped you down like he does everyone, because as alike you might want to think you are to Wattenburg he would have sussed you out in a second for just what you are. You do not measure up to your hero in any way.

I did not say Bill and I were anything alike, except sometimes in opinion. Bill's championing of the Headwaters Forest helped put the kibosh on the Northern California lumber industry. His assault on Smart Meters was antediluvian and his greenyness is impractical. Bill's Electrical Engineering is second to mine, [split phasing transformers] but he gets attention for some of his good ideas.

Why is any intelligent person being removed from KGO radio - I can't believe that My last vestiges of knowing that there are some radio personalities with more than a two digit IQ really exist.