It was recently announced that WBCN, "the Rock of Boston," will soon be changing formats to all sports radio where it will be airing Bruins and Patriots games. CBS, which owns the station, is moving Mix 98.5 over to BCN's 104.1 while instituting all sports on 98.5. BCN has become one of the most celebrated stations in Boston, being credited with launching many large acts such as U2 as well as many local bands like the Pixies.
Greater Boston has a very good interview with Oedipus, the renowned former BCN DJ, as well as Brett Milano, the author of "The Sound of Our Town," a book chronicling the careers of many local Boston bands. The Station blames a decline in listeners as well as the shift to digital formats in the music industry for the change in content. Although the station will be going off the airwaves, you can still listen in on the BCN site where live programming will continue.
In the past several weeks, there have been a slew of celebrity deaths, along with the usual accompanying tributes to these fallen icons. It seems natural for people to mourn the deaths of well known celebrities, considering their strong influence in the public sphere. However, these days it seems like the over the top tributes and the media coverage are becoming overwhelming.
The most shocking of these celebrity deaths, Michael Jackson's, seems to be the most overblown, with new stories on his tragic demise popping up every ten minutes. Jackson's death has been so engulfed in the media frenzy that anyone making a comment about him is blinded by the spotlight. For instance, New York Representative Peter King recently stated that "[Jackson] was a child molester. He was a pedophile. And to be giving this much coverage to him day in and day out, what does it say about us as a country." Immediately after these comments were made, articles started popping up on well-known news sites about Rep King's comments. Last Thursday Gene Simmons from Kiss said that he wanted to hear from the children who accused Jackson of molestation.
A graph comparing spikes in Google searches for recently deceased celebs
Overall, it seems anyone can get give minutes of fame just by making a comment about Jackson. There is also money to be made on the King of Pop's death; this article on the tech site engadget for instance shows off a "Pocket Cemetery" App for the iPhone which has a gravestone and prayer to commemorate Jackson.
According to Google, "The spike in searches related to Michael Jackson was so big that Google News initially mistook it for an automated attack. As a result, for about 25 minutes yesterday, when some people searched Google News they saw a "We're sorry" page before finding the articles they were looking for."
Jon Stewart probably had the best things to say about the recent obitutainment, as he so aptly put it on Monday night's episode of the Daily Show. In the end, I think that everyone can agree that the fanfare around these high profile deaths should be reduce.
Update: Does anyone else think that Paris Jackson's statement at the memorial service was a little weird? She was obviously really upset and yet all of the Jackson family was crowded around her positioning the mic and touching her to make sure that she could be heard properly. Am I the only one who thinks all of her relatives are forcing her to make that statement?
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