October 7, 2022 News and Notes

• In a stunning mid-morning cessation, KGO of San Francisco was taken off the air permanently by Cumulus Media, their owners on Monday.
• In a stunningly STUPID move (failing to read the room at all), KGO will become a THIRD sports-talk radio station in the San Francisco AM market -- and will specialize in sports gambling as "The Spread" 810, according to at least one report.  Think "VSIN" outside of Vegas.
• How stupid is this?  Two constitutional amendments on the ballot next month in the state of California to legalize some form of sports gambling in the state both appear to be failing by well over double-digit margins.  You'd THINK that they would wait for at least one of those propositions to win before launching the station and eradicating 80 years of news and news-talk history.
• "Coming Monday, it's the biggest gamble in Bay Area radio history." were the first words heard after the news-talk was terminated Monday morning.  You can say that again!  Both propositions are slated to fail and fail HARD.
• So I can't see that format lasting much more than a few weeks, especially after the results of the November 8th election come in and California roundly rejects sports gambling.
• Which isn't as much a surprise as you might, at first, think.  I certainly wouldn't have minded, except for one thing:  Californians do not care about their sports, except as bandwagon entertainment.  Maybe baseball...   
• And not helping matters was another complete primetime dud on Amazon this week.  12-9 in overtime, not a touchdown to be found in almost 70 minutes -- and Denver losing at home when a fourth and 1 at the Indianapolis 5 gets turned back.
• The game was so bad, the ABC station in Denver (local markets air the game over the air) literally apologized for the abomination of a contest last night.
• Friday is the first day of the new MLB wild-card series, using the same format of the 2020 first round:  All games at the park of the higher seed, best of three.
• We have lost both Loretta Lynn and Judy Tenuta this week so far.
• Another tragic soccer story.  An Argentinian soccer match between Gimnasia and Boca Juniors was abandoned after nine minutes after outside crowd unrest forced police to use tear gas.  For some time now, away fans are no longer allowed at Argentinian league matches, so Boca Juniors fans and Gimnasia fans clashed outside the stadium.  At least one person inside the stadium was killed in the chaos.
• You may now added rigged competitions in group Irish dancing (the "Riverdance" phenomenon) to the chess, fishing, and poker scandals surfacing in the last couple of weeks.