389...Michael Jackson Died Thursday

Ladies and gentlemen, Michael Jackson died Thursday.

Radio died right along with him. Most radio stations just kept John Tesh rolling, Ryan Seacrest babbling and voice tracking mindlessly ploughing through the playlist.

When John Lennon and Elvis Presley died, decades before consolidation, national program directors and big chains controlling everything from Toronto, Montreal, New York and Los Angeles most stations were immediately broadcasting on-air tributes, news accounts and playing wall-to-wall dead guy music.

In my town the only station that I heard going wall to wall Michael was the station that I am with, 93.1CKCU, which has, and this is a positive, a laissez faire attitude towards programming. Although the hit stations in town, TAG FM, KISS and HOT did talk about Michael Jackson they also played the songs that were programmed weeks, days, months ago. If anything, CFRA, the local right wing news talker and CBC ONE, the lefty news talker, were more on the story than the contemporary stations.

Not hating, just stating.

Score one for local TV, like Local4 in Detroit, stations that were out on the street in their towns and a big one for the Internet.

WFDS