Reflections of a Radio Talk Show Host (of AM1300 KAZN) -- Part III

This is part three of the memoir of my four-year tour of duty as a radio talk show host for AM1300 (KAZN).

Last time, I mentioned the weird way that the station is run, i.e., the radio station has its business model (to pay most of the employees minimum wage or no wage at all) and each employee has his (or her) separate business model to turn the radio fame into cash (as the station’s payment for their services).

From a marketing standpoint, the worth of the “radio fame” is highly questionable, as the time of producing a good radio show (which is significant to produce a good program) could be easily spent on actually improving services or reducing cost, which ultimately is the best form of marketing. For instance, the best way for restaurants, one of the major sources of advertising dollars for the station, to improve its marketing power is to improve the food quality, and of course, reduce cost. On both accounts, certainly on the latter, producing a radio show for the station is against the interests of the business. In fact, It is silly for a business owner, such as a restaurateur, to think that radio fame could contribute to their business clients. By splitting their focus away from their business, they put their businesses at a competitive disadvantage. Of course, for new restaurants, it may be worthwhile to advertise so people will try their food. But the radio fame could be bought easily, with a few advertising bucks. In the meantime, the owner could focus on running his business.

Those who run their own business models besides the station's model (of exploiting them), to put it mildly, never understand the concept of the social division of labor, which has been the key for our societies to become such highly charged wealth creating machines in the past couple of hundreds of years.

The most pathetic situation is probably with the full time employees of the station. For instance, my former boss, the programming director, hosts a daily one-hour show and takes care of all programming troubles, including abuse other hosts. Since he is in the station full time, he could not have a side business. So, what is his personal business model?

It took me no time to figure that one out. His fame was sold directly by the station's business department. Almost every weekend, he would go to a business establishment (what I had accidentally heard have all been restaurants), typically with other station's full-time employees, to do a live show, in which he would always highly praise the food. I didn't know whether it was his passion or the ambient noise, he always appeared emotionally charged, screaming into the microphone to call his listeners to join him in the supposed eating affairs. My guess was that, when he was yelling into the microphone, before his eyes, he saw his radio fame turning into the cool green cash.

In the meantime, other matters, such as his editorial responsibilities as a journalist, would be cast out of the window, together with those advertisement affairs masquerading as regular talk shows. All the exploitation he got from the higher management was finally made worthwhile to him at that moment when he yelled into the microphone. I was told by his daily talk show partner that he had a heart condition. He was the executioner of the station's exploitative business model and also a victim. Maybe his emotionally charged cry was his way to convince himself that he was on the right side of things and that his life is meaningful.

Many say that Mao Zedong was a monster as he killed tens of millions of the Chinese people, all in peace time. But I have always held the opinion that Mao himself has never killed anyone. In fact, as a purist, he even refused to touch money. The tens of millions were killed by other Chinese, who were also Mao's victims. In that sense, the station was an epitome of the great Chinese culture.

At the beginning, I did not know what was going on and asked about it. I was told that they were excited in the restaurants because that were where the money was. Obviously, even for the programming director, his hosting of the daily program and abusing (sorry, I mean managing) of other hosts were not money making opportunities for him. His money-making opportunities were the weekend live shows, where he got the chance to sell his radio fame. Besides weekend outings, he also let himself being used as additional attractions for the tours that the station organizes to far away countries.

When I heard him yelling: come, come, try out such-and-such wonderful food. I always felt sorry for him. But that could not diminish my recognition that he, as the programming director, was the implementer of such pathetic station policies. And I did not imagine that I needed to hold my breath for his response of a, say, food-safety story involving his clients.

After they worked in this mode day in and day out, editorial independence, or media responsibility to listeners, was no longer a concern to them. People got used to things rather quickly. As the situation becomes normalcy, everyone was busy in cashing in, cashing in, and cashing in, while the station exploited, exploited, and exploited. Any disturbing word is unwelcome, even by the exploited.

On top of that, the programming director often warned hosts not to use the programming to advertise their own businesses. For me, that was not my purpose because I did not think that the station was the best place for me to advertising my business (as I have given my opinion to other business lawyers).

Of course, all hosts were smart people. Cat and mouse games did take place. In such imbroglio, it was easy to imagine why I never listened to the station before I was asked to host the program, and why I have stopped listening to the station since I was fired. However, as long as the station had market monopoly, life went on undisturbed and wonderfully, for both the exploiting and the exploited.

Now, revisiting the fact that 80% of the Chinese voted for Obama and big government in 2012, we might be compelled to ask this question: What is the image of free enterprise in the mind of an average Chinese person, or, to be statistically more correct, the medium Chinese person? Since most academicians do not bother with the Chinese population (largely because the data on the Chinese people do not help them reaching their desired conclusions), and the Chinese communities do not have their own NGOs to study these issues, we don't know the answer. But a group of people whose income is higher than the white so overwhelmingly votes for big government, heavier regulation, and higher tax, is in itself a clear indication of a problem.

Incidentally, many academic studies take care of the Chinese problem (or Asian problem) by classify Asians as “others,” so the Chinese data could be disgarded. For instance, a recent study concluded that income was directly related to the level of six graders in public schools. The data on the Chinese directly contradicted the conclusion. In Arcadia (medium family income of $85,000), the six graders are 2.5 grade levels above national average, while Walnut Valley Unified School District (medium income $96,000) was only 1.7 grade levels above average. Loudoun Co. Public Schools in Virginia (medium income $134,000), with a heavy Asian presence, is only 0.9 grade levels above. The background frame of reference is probably the LAUSD, with the medium income of $41,000, it is 1.4 grade levels below. For a six grader, a grade level and a half is significant. Of course, all this data is swiped under the rug by classifying the Chinese as “others.”

Although we don't have solid studies, one explanation could be that such exploitation is happening not just the radio station KAZN. How many and for how much people are been exploited are the dirty secret that we don't know. The Chinese mentality against the management, and thus the free enterprise, may be similar to the people's attitude toward the big oil during Teddy Roosevelt's presidency. People wanted the government to defeat the monopolies, and did not care that in the meantime, they created a bigger monopoly, the government itself.

Once I told a friend that the Republicans could win some minds of the Chinese by entering the Chinese field to push for unions. Certainly, Obama (or local Democrats) could not be bothered with this problem, as they don't want to mess with something this good for them. Anyone who is not sure whether Obama is for big government or for the exploited people needs to go no further.

If anyone cares to put a study to the field, I would not be surprised that the free enterprise carries a better name among the African Americans and Hispanic Americans, but, of course, I am not expecting any of such studies any time soon, because nobody (i.e., Democrats, Republicans, and academicians) has anything to gain with such a study. So, they practice their academic freedom to be ignorant.

To me at least, this is the sorry reality of the Chinese community. In fact, if reasonable independent (i.e., independent of China's state media, Taiwan's media, and the U.S. government propaganda apparatus) investment can come in, it is not only possible, but highly probable to set up a profitable media operation, because the number of Chinese eyeballs, and the sum of the total spending power, obviously, has hit that critical mass, which turned the Spanish media several decades ago.

Now, in the Chinese community, with everyone practicing the convoluted thinking, the public information function of the station is missing. For outside investments, it is also a business opportunity lost.

As of now, without the independent capital to compete with these media joints which are ultimately rooted in either China or Taiwan, confusion is the typical state of mind of the Chinese people, demonstrated by their voting records. Under-the-table deals are the normal state of business. As AM 1300 co-produces programs with the Chinese state media, I have asked about the deals and never got the answer. The business dealings between the station and the Chinese state media, i.e., the Chinese government, is a closely held secret. Although I have learned about that through other channels, it was not what one would call rock solid information.

In the meantime, the station, with its monopoly in the area, is happy to burn time for the audience whose English is not good enough to access the English media. And the Chinese-speaking public, which brought all its psychological and cultural problems from China, never get the chance to hear any independent voice in Chinese. Soon after I started hosting the program, listeners called in and asked why what my voice could not be heard elsewhere. I have forgot what I said, but the point could not be clearer.

If the station is not profitable, there may be excuses, but the station is fabulously profitable, by selling advertisement to the local community as a monopoly. Since I practice law in the station's coverage area, I was approached by the station's sales for advertisement, so I know the advertisement prices, which are much higher than any other forms of advertisement. For my hour, I routinely got between 35 to 38 minutes of programming time, with the rest of the time taken by commercials. Since my program is a one-man affair, it is easy to calculate the station's profit.

What the station get from those weekend affairs and bus tours may be harder to calculate, but we can still get it a close estimate. What is difficult to calculate is the other income the station gets, such as for the co-production of shows with the Chinese state media. It is a widely known fact that the Chinese government has been spending heavily in its “big foreign propaganda” campaigns (or 大外宣 in Chinese), targeted to influence public opinions. When I started the program, the programming director specifically told me to hold back on my criticism of the Chinese government, because my criticism may put those joint projects in jeopardy. Since the contents are more-or-less China is now a rich country with happy people, there was no reason for him to be afraid of losing the content. He was talking about money. As AM1300 has the monopoly in the southern California market, the amount could be significant for the Chinese government to pay to put its voice to the biggest Chinese community in the U.S. In fact, there has been rumors of astronomical money offered to buy out the station by the Chinese state media. The station refused to take what I considered the money that it could not refuse.

Sadly enough, additionally, the Chinese media market is further squeezed by the U.S. government propaganda machine (i.e., the Voice of America). In the old days, the Voice of America was a good content provider to China, where people live under mind control and brainwashing policies. But today, the value of programming produced by a government agency is highly questionable. The tens of millions of dollars that the federal government spend each year to support this 100-plus people operation, in contrast with my one person operation at AM1300, running everything from advertisement to phone lines, is a waste.

If the U.S. government want to produce content, it could simply launch cooperative projects by having content produced by the private enterprises and using the government fund to buy satellite time to bring the content to China. In fact, when I checked the views of a one-hour weekly discussion show of the Voice of America, it has more than 450 videos with 1.2 million views over YouTube. I have 231 videos with 518,000 views. The eyeball attraction power of my one-man part-time show (with a black screen and audio) is far stronger than the operation of 100-plus full-time people (with professionally set-up taping studios).

The U.S. Congress, a body with only one capability left in recent years other than infighting, i.e., to increase the power of the government, passed a law to exempt the Voice of America from the legal restrictions against the government propaganda machine broadcasting in the U.S. That has resulted in many Chinese people, with no other choice left, being forced to listen to the Voice of America.

The Voice of America's dominance is clear if we take a look at the YouTube views. After I was fired, and with my program, which is the number one independent (i.e., no government funding from the U.S. or China) show produced in the U.S. over the YouTube, gone, independent voices were hard to come by. Due to poor programming quality, many Chinese people have reverted back to watch the Chinese state media, a sad event for America.

The fact that my one-man affair, with a blank screen over YouTube, gets the top viewership is itself an indication of the problem, as the program was often produced when I was burned out by my day job, especially during litigations.

A listener commented that my comment about the Voice of America is to bring pain to friend and happiness to enemies (亲者痛，仇者快 in Chinese). First, the comment reflected the scarcity of voice in Chinese now present. The listener was afraid of the disappearance of the Voice of America. Second, the commentator did not count the suppressive effect of the Voice of America to the independent voices. Third, as the Voice of America focuses on the Chinese news, it does not help the Chinese people already in the U.S. to understand the U.S. Without understanding of the U.S., the unreasonableness in the voting records is easily understandable. And fourth, the commentator automatically put me in the U.S. side against China, while I was against both governmental propaganda directly to a supposedly free people.

With so many forces involved in the community, and each force has its business model, as the radio station and its employees each has their own business model; and both the Chinese and U.S. governments have their business model, i.e., spending taxpayers' money to spread the government's words. All these forces interact and devoid the Chinese of any easily accessible channel for necessary civil discourse.

Easy solutions do exist. As I have mentioned above, the U.S. government could outsource the content to independent stations. With competition, the same amount money could certainly produce much more content, both in volume and attractiveness. In fact, the power of bureaucratic drag inside the Voice of America is well-known.

If the independent organization (i.e., without China or Taiwan roots and controls) could get the money to produce programs for the U.S. government to deliver to China, such organizations could also produce programs for the local community. So the government effort may foster an environment for the independent media, carrying out the duty of informing the public, and providing the much needed channel for civil discourse.

A sign for monopoly, including (probably especially) the government monopoly, is that vested-interests talk and reasons walk in all decision-making. In the meantime, the brainwashed Chinese people are left alone on the American soil, devoid of opportunities to know their rights, let alone exercise their rights. That might have been the reason that generations of Chinese, after residing in the U.S. for decades, still think that they are Chinese Chinese, not Chinese Americans. Many would choose to retire in China, which is the only please dear to them.

Once, I was asked by a Chinese journalist in one of the joint-projects, whether I would be the falling leaf returning to roots (a Chinese saying describing the phenomenon of retiring in China). I told her that I was an American and the latest events in China had changed a country with which I was familiar into something beyond my recognition. At the end of the recording, the interviewer in China asked to record for five additional minutes. She volunteered the reason: She needed to do some cutting. The amount of , and her matter-of-fact attitude on cutting, was amazing.

The degree of Chinese media's self-sensor is certainly amazing. Once, a Chinese station director told me that there was no censor in China, as he could put whatever on the air. I immediately suggested that he invite whoever he want to debate me on his station, on the topic of whether China was a democratic country, as it claimed, or a dictatorship. He immediately laughed and gave in. That is pathetic, but the Chinese people's inability to access information, on the American soil, is probably more pathetic.

(... to be continued)

First published on June 22, 2016

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