Houston.BloggersPub

We now know one casualty of the Clear Channel layoffs:

Although most of the Clear Channel cuts reportedly were in the sales and promotions areas, sports stations nationwide took hits as well.

In Houston, KBME lost its program director, Tim Collins, who spent 20 years with Clear Channel, helped launch the all-sports format and served as liaison with the Astros and other teams and schools that aired games on the station. MORE

OK I’ll bite, what does this mean for the future of the Sports Animal on 790 KBME?

I don’t want to pretend I am a total saint on Twitter, but there are a lot of Twitters acting worse than me.

Yeah, and there is a site that tracks it. It is called cursebird.com. Cursebird actually tracks all tweets full of foul language. (Thanks SerenaSays!) Oh yeah, this site is considered NSFW!!!!

If you think letting four letter words fly on Twitter is bad, you might want to help people stop being jerks overall on the social networking service. Read this:

Writing My Twitter Etiquette Article: 14 Ways to Use Twitter Politely (thanks Twitter_Tips)

There I did my good deed for the day.

Looks like the rumor about Dean and Rog of 93.7 The Arrow KKRW leaving is true. FMQB says they are moving to 107.5 K-Hits KHTC:

Popular Houston radio duo Dean and Rog will move their morning show from Clear Channel’s KKRW to Cox Radio’s KHTC-FM, effective June 1. READ THE REST

Guess that Scott Sparks is out on the morning show.

I was torn when I read the news that NBC Universal was hiring New York bloggers to cover news for WNBC’s web site. The renegade blogger in me liked the idea. It’s knocking down the MSM a notch and admitting this platform has some legs.

Then you have to consider it from a the corporate TV side of things. I can’t imagine a lot of TV professionals liking the idea.

What if the blogger:
- Takes the snark too far?
- Libels someone and gets you in legal trouble?
- Stops writing after you set up the blog and promote them?
- Ends up just sucking?

I imagine this concept will grow.  It’s already actually working out well in this case.

No word on the pay or amount of posts required.

Is it possible to fall in love with a picture frame? Because I think I’ve fallen head over heels for the Kodak Easyshare W1020 Wi-Fi picture frame.

The love affair started out innocently enough. It was simply a Christmas gift for my wife. Then I took it into the back bedroom/office and started configuring it. Yes it is sleek and pleasant to look at, but it also is Wi-Fi enabled. That means I don’t have to hook it up to a PC to get photos inside (it does accept USB and memory cards though). It is all wireless. I can also view the latest news and weather through the frame.  One more thing that is trying to put me out of business.

Heck, I don’t even have to look at my crummy old photos . Although I am not joking when the W1020 makes my photos look like someone who knows what they are doing took them! If you get sick of your own stuff, just wirelessly grab stuff of Flickr or any other RSS enabled site.

It’s gotten to the point that I show off the touch screen operated frame to guests. I’m blushing just thinking about it.

SEE MORE

Radio industry site FMQB interviewed Hot 95.7 KKHH’s program director Mark Adams about his new gig in Houston. The article reveals some info on the birth of the new station. It also lets us know CBS is happy about waving goodbye to smooth jazz on that frequency:

On the station making an immediate impact…
Our December was very gratifying. We broke 1.1 million cume 6+ which puts Hot Top 5 in the market. We continued to post solid gains P18-34 and P18-49, beating KRBE W18-34 and tying them W18-49. Obviously that’s a big deal and we were all very happy about it. All of that said, I’m very much aware this is a marathon and not a sprint. Houston is a very competitive market and we face multiple direct competitors and some good radio stations. We’ve laid some solid groundwork and need to continue to build on that in 2009. READ THE REST

If you regularly read this blog at all you know I like rock music. However I find myself checking out Hot 95.7 because CBS seems to do a nice job with its stations. It feels like a fun radio station.

This is a great site to track which television stations arcross the country are on Twitter!

http://www.tvontwitter.com

You’ll want to pay the most attention to @KTRKHouston though. Yeah, I’m a little biased though.

I’ve made it my thing on this blog to track Sam Malone. I’ve interviewed him about his career and he was nice enough to email me about his next gig…television. It’s no surprise really. Sam has always dabbled in television while focusing on radio. Now he has swapped that a bit with a new show on KHOU Channel 11. Watch out Tom Bergeron:

Malone at 7:30 p.m. Saturday on KHOU (Channel 11) will host Sam Malone’s Cell Phone Theatre, a 30-minute look at the fun and occasionally bizarre things that Houstonians do with their mobile-phone cameras.

It’s the first of what could become a continuing series on Channel 11 and Malone’s first full-scale venture back into Houston media since he was let go by KHMX (96.5 FM) late last year as Clear Channel Houston was preparing to transfer ownership of the station to CBS Radio. READ THE REST 

I had the pleasure of taking photos of the Houston Auto Show Sunday at Reliant Center. It’s always fun seeing the new car, concept and classic cars that fill the massive floor.

I was shocked to see a new Hummer pickup truck called the H3T Crew Cab. Then I was on the floor after seeing the price tag of the Mercedes SL63.

SEE PHOTOS OF THE HOUSTON AUTO SHOW

I thought I went to Baylor, but I found my son in burnt orange the other day! James wishes you a good weekend!