KSCO-Santa Cruz

Santa Cruz has sort of funny reception qualities. At my residence on the westside, I can't pick up 94.1FM Pacifica, and there is no cell phone reception. At work, 101.1FM doesn't always penetrate the building, and with both of these stations, there are sometimes hours you don't want to listen to. Listening to the radio continuously can really fragment your thought processes anyway.

Al Franken's show used to be good, and isn't quite as good now that his co-host left, although David Brock of Media Matters is great. The Majority Report is often really good. Randi Rhodes is verbally talented but her show is three hours of "I hate Bush SO much!".

Anyway, what is the story with KSCO. First, they sometimes have gaps where the sound goes away for 5 minutes as though someone fell asleep and hit a button. Then they only have about a dozen ads that they play in rotation, so you're constantly hearing a public service announcement about staying in school that thrusts an image into your mind of a black teen who doesn't want to leave the house in the morning. Can they really sell no local ads in this county of 230,000. I have friends who sold advertisements for small run newspapers, and they would cold call all sorts of businesses. My old landlord advertises her bar on Berkeley Air America. So are they pricing their ads high or don't have staff? In Portland, Air America got the 2nd highest ratings in 18-54 daytime. They also have opinion editorials by the owner that sound like a frazzled caller to Rush Limbaugh. Is this a proposition 13 situation where they just have the station but have low property taxes and are retired so there is no pressure to earn money?