Ex-91Xer catches Internet wave

By RANDY DOTINGA - For the North County Times | Wednesday, May 28, 2008 9:06 AM PDT ∞

You can't hear him on your car stereo anymore, and his audience has dropped to the hundreds from the tens of thousands. But just months after his 11-year career at 91X's morning show came to an abrupt end, disc jockey Chris Cantore is having the time of his life at an online station hardly anyone has heard of.

For the first time in his career, Cantore can say whatever he wants, play whatever he wants and never shill for an advertiser unless he actually likes the product.

"It's given me the ability to come into my own," said Cantore at the snazzy X1FM.com studios in National City. "I just come into the studio and have fun every day."

While he's on the Internet instead of the terrestrial airwaves, Cantore, 38, isn't exactly reinventing alternative-rock radio. Much of Cantore's four-hour show sounds familiar, from the chatter about "American Idol" to the friendly mocking of a flamboyant local TV reporter and a prank phone call to a local dog wash. (Cantore asked about an intimate procedure involving canine behinds.)

But Cantore plays at least one "rock en espanol" song during every show, something that would send most radio programmers screaming into the night, and he gives plenty of airtime to obscure bands.

"I share music that I connect with personally," he said. "That's something that's been missing from terrestrial radio for years. Why not connect with the audience and share the music that means something to you?"

X1FM's listenership is small, at least for the moment, with listenership in the hundreds or low thousands. Unlike Internet stations that try for a global audience, it's tightly focused on San Diego, potentially limiting its reach.

But the station has a few things going for it. Its impressive Web site, full of videos and top-notch images, puts the sites of San Diego radio stations to shame. And, unlike many of its competitors on the FM dial, it's emphasizing live and local programming.

The key to the latter is Cantore, who spent most of his 30s as the morning host at 91X. A diehard rock fan ---- he named his 2-year-old son after Nico, a member of the Velvet Underground ---- he became unmoored from the music at his old job. As at most radio stations, 91X disc jockeys had little or no power over the music they played.

The station had other problems. After hitting high points of creativity and listener loyalty in the 1980s and 1990s, 91X began to falter during this decade. A competitor, FM 94/9, appeared and stole some of its mojo, while management decided to dump many of 91X's familiar DJs.

Cantore left last December.

His departure clearly rattled him, although Cantore doesn't like to talk about 91X and said he's recovered on a spiritual level from a tough transition.

He was poking around in the world of podcasting when X1FM came calling with the offer of a job. Now he hosts the station's morning show with two sidekicks, local radio veteran Jen Correia and rookie Andrew Wehrung.

The show is commercial-free for the moment, with sponsors preferring to advertise through the Web site. That leaves plenty more time for Cantore & Co. to talk, and they do.

(Listeners often say they want more music and less chatter on the radio, but the ratings reveal that talk-heavy morning shows are the most popular.)

Still, even the chatty segments are a bit different than those on old-fashioned radio stations, Cantore said. "I'm not so worried about keeping things tight and following the structure that's been set for morning shows."

Binational Broadcasting, which owns X1FM, is clearly putting a lot of money into the operation and hoping for a profit down the line. The company plans to create several more online stations in addition to X1FM and its sister station, which plays disco.

The success of the stations is far from guaranteed, and everyone involved is taking a risk that their jobs could evaporate. Despite all the talk about its impending demise, so-called terrestrial radio is still king of the hill. Its rivals, including satellite and Internet radio, continue to struggle.

On the other hand, it's possible that Internet radio will stop being a niche product for cubicle dwellers and become widely available in cars.

If Cantore's show starts offering traffic reports ---- it doesn't at the moment ---- you'll know that Internet radio's time has come.

---

Quickie: It's been a while since I've listened to radio's reigning Queen of Mean, "Dr. Laura." But I happened to tune in to the radio shrink on Memorial Day and heard her bashing an antiwar activist who wrote her an e-mail wishing death upon her son, who's serving as a soldier.

The anonymous message clearly came from a jerk, a mentally ill person or both. But left unsaid was the fact that one single critic of the war ---- however vicious ---- is hardly representative of an entire movement.

Randy Dotinga is about ready to give up on getting a marriage proposal from Dr. Laura. E-mail him at NCTimesRadio@aol.com.

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