***Post corrected! The new time for The Nicole Sandler Show, beginning Monday Jan. 25, is 6-8pm ET. You can find the links to watch/listen right here at RadioOrNot.com ***
It’s been a really rough week.
It started last Sunday, when my boyfriend and I realized it was time to put his dog down. Orion was 12 years old, and had suffered for the last year from oral melanoma. Despite David’s superhuman efforts, love and ridiculous amount of money spent, Orion closed his eyes for the last time Sunday afternoon.
On Tuesday, Scott Brown won the Senate seat held by Ted Kennedy for the last 46 years, and killing the supposed filibuster-proof majority (not that it did the Dems much good, anyway).
Thursday started off badly enough, with the Supreme Court ruling that effectively gutted democracy in the USA. No, I’m not exaggerating. The laws that limited corporate campaign contributions that have stood for over 100 years were overturned by five activist members of SCOTUS.
While I was scrambling Thursday afternoon to bring you a show to spell out how serious an event that was for our country, I got the news that Air America radio had closed its doors.
No, it was not a good week at all.
I still had to do a show Thursday night. As a radio lifer, it’s what I do.
I had gone through a similar situation in 2000-2001. The station I was working for at the time, Channel 103.1 in Los Angeles, was sold. It had been owned by Clear Channel but, due to a merger with another broadcasting behemoth, had to be divested.
The internet boom was in full swing, and we were a unique format– a type of music station that wasn’t in every city. Clear Channel had recently launched their internet department, and I made the case to my boss (the wonderful Charlie Rahilly) that we could make history as the first radio station to go from a terrestrial signal to internet only.
You can read my account of the transition, the Chicago Tribune’s coverage, Washington Post, NY Times… You get the idea. We were the first. We were revolutionary. We made news.
We were too early! The dot com bust happened less than a year after the transition, and the door was shut on worldclassrock.com in August 2001.
Then 9/11 happened, and I found myself without a microphone. It was tough to sit by that day and watch the world change and not be able to interact with people on the air.
So, when our world changed on Thursday via the Supreme Court decision and, albeit in a smaller way, though the loss of Air America, I knew I had to keep talking.
Thankfully, I had started webcasting my show recently using ustream. Though this website, Facebook and twitter, and my email list, I was able to spread the word that I would do my show Thursday night.
By scrolling down to the right blog entry, clicking the link to your left or clicking here, you can watch the show I did Thursday night. And if you just want the audio, click here to listen.
You can also subscribe to my podcasts via iTunes here.
In the days and weeks ahead, I’ll be figuring out the best way to bring you the show live via audio and video streams, as well as a podcasting model. I hope you’ll bear with me as I get all the pieces of the puzzle placed. But I want to keep the show going uninterrupted while I do all of that.
Beginning tomorrow-Monday- I’ll move the show to a more reasonable hour. I’ll be live from 6-8pm, Monday thru Thursday, for now anyway. I hope you’ll join me!
All you need to do is come here to www.radioornot.com for all the links you’ll need to watch or listen. And please spread the word to your friends and other interested people.
Thanks for your continued support. It means more to me than you know!
