All-Christmas radio wasn’t invented at KOST, but KOST helped turn it into a massive major-market ratings winner after 9/11. Rob traces the format from its early days in Phoenix through its national expansion—and the new KKGO-HD3 Christmas service that launched in Los Angeles before Labor Day.

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Americans may hate changing their clocks, but making daylight saving time permanent could create even bigger problems—from dark winter school mornings to lost morning-drive hours for some AM radio stations.

The United States tried year-round daylight saving time in 1974. Public support quickly collapsed. In this edition of Archer’s Line, I explain why ending the clock changes is still a good idea—but permanent standard time is the smarter, healthier way to do it.

Mentioned in this edition:

Senator Tom Cotton’s interview on The Hugh Hewitt Show

John Oliver’s daylight saving time segment

The 1974 permanent-DST experiment

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine’s support for permanent standard time

The effect of later winter sunrises on daytime-only AM stations

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Ronnie and I have a home to sell, boxes to pack, two cars to drive from Los Angeles to Atlanta, temporary housing to find—and, somewhere in there, I’m starting a new job.

Naturally, my brain has decided this is the perfect time to contemplate consciousness.

As ChatGPT helps organize the move, I start wondering whether AI could ever become conscious, whether consciousness requires self-awareness, and how we can be certain that anyone—or anything—has an inner experience at all.

Plus: biological prediction machines, anesthesia, the problem of other minds, cosmic video games, and a cautious welcome for our new AI overlords.

Read more and subscribe to Archer’s Line at therobarcher.com.

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I thought my on-air radio career was over.

After being caught in staff reductions at KNX in June 2025, I stayed busy with Archer’s Line, podcasts, voiceover work and newscasts for stations around the country. But I had begun to accept that my full-time radio days were probably behind me.

Then Loki bopped me on the head.

A text from one of my former KNX bosses led to an opportunity I never expected: I’ve accepted an anchor/reporter position at WSB Atlanta, starting next month.

In this personal update, I talk about the unexpected return to the business I’ve loved all my life, leaving Los Angeles after 27 years, what the move means for my podcasts and Archer’s Line—and why my radio memoir will have to wait.

It turns out I’ve got some more story left.

Subscribe to Archer’s Line and come along for the next chapter.

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YouTube is changing what counts as a view. Starting August 24, a video will register a view from the moment it begins playing — even if the viewer leaves almost immediately.

That should produce some impressive numbers. But what will those numbers actually mean?

In this Archer’s Line, Rob Archer looks at YouTube’s new measurement standard, how it compares with Nielsen’s measurement of radio listening, and the larger problem facing advertisers and media companies when every platform gets to define “engagement” for itself.

Because when the numbers get bigger while the meaning gets smaller, eventually we have to ask what we’re measuring at all.

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AI-generated music is getting plenty of pushback — and some of it is deserved. But musicians have always used technology to create sounds they couldn’t make on their own.

I’ve been experimenting with Suno using something AI didn’t create: my own music, compositions, playing, poetry and ideas.

In this Archer’s Line, I look at what happened when I gave AI something that came out of my own head — and why the line between using technology and surrendering creativity to it may not be as clear as we think.

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Change is always coming. Sometimes it’s good. Sometimes it’s bad. And sometimes we desperately want everything to just stay put for a while.

In this Archer’s Line, Rob Archer considers our uneasy relationship with change and routine — and what Genesis, Rush, David Bowie and Mr. Spock understood about the one thing in life that never seems to change:

Everything changes.

The River of Constant Change

Archer’s Line at TheRobArcher.com

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KNX News has lost nearly 41% of its cume in a year, with another decline in July after the station left 97.1 FM and returned solely to AM 1070.

Meanwhile, the new sports format on 97.1 The Fan remains at a 0.2 share, even as Los Angeles gets a massive sports story: Bob Iger and Josh Kushner’s agreement to buy the Lakers.

Rob looks beyond the topline ratings and asks what the changes at KNX — including fewer reporters, fewer two-anchor shifts and a shared overnight newscast — may tell us about the future of all-news radio.

Read Archer’s Line at therobarcher.com.

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Your Car Has a Radio. Now Try to Find It.

The fight to keep AM radio in new cars matters, especially when broadcast radio may be the last source of emergency information. But keeping a receiver in the vehicle isn’t enough if drivers have to dig through two or three screens to find it.

In this edition of Archer’s Line, Rob looks at the electrical interference problem facing AM radio in electric vehicles, Australia’s effort to keep local broadcasters visible on connected devices, and why American broadcasters may need to demand a one-touch radio button on the digital dashboard.

When seconds count and flames are visible in the rearview mirror, finding the radio shouldn’t require a search through the dashboard.

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What happens when the Big One strikes Los Angeles after America has lost its news media?

In this hypothetical scenario, broadcast and cable news are gone. Major news websites have closed. Americans now depend on social media influencers, fringe websites, conspiracy theorists and government accounts they cannot trust.

Minute by minute, a devastating earthquake becomes several different disasters. Some people call it a hoax. Others believe the government caused it. Fake warnings block emergency crews. Political rumors slow federal aid. President Trump remains out of sight while official accounts speak in his name.

The earthquake lasts a little more than two minutes. The fight over what happened lasts for months.

Read more from Archer’s Line at therobarcher.com.

Content note: This fictional scenario includes descriptions of earthquake destruction, deaths and political disinformation.

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