Los Angeles & Southern California - Andrea Schulte-Peevers [24]
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In the LA market, four of the top 10 radio stations broadcast in Spanish. In San Diego, only one does.
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LA radio stations are among the nation’s most influential, particularly National Public Radio’s KCRW (89.9FM) and the alt-rock KROQ (106.7FM). Both are famous for breaking new musicians on the American scene, from Blondie and Hole to Norah Jones and Coldplay. DJs such as Rodney Bingenheimer (KROQ) and Jason Bentley, Nic Harcourt and Tom Schnabel (KCRW) are local legends. The New York Times has called Harcourt ‘the country’s most important disc jockey.’
These days, the top-rated TV shows in the LA market tend to be Spanish-language broadcast on Spanish-language networks Univision, Telemundo, Telefutura and Azteca. The region’s large Spanish-speaking population and the relative scarcity of channels explain this phenomenon. A watershed for Spanish-language media was the 2006 demonstrations for immigrants’ rights; LA morning radio personality Eddie ‘Piolín’ Sotero (KSCA, 101.9FM) is credited with encouraging over 1 million marchers to fill LA’s streets.
In the entertainment industry, reading the ‘trades’ (Variety, the Hollywood Reporter and Backstage West, the latter for actors) is an important everyday ritual.
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In San Diego, radio stations whose call letters begin with X instead of the traditional K are broadcasting from Mexico.
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RELIGION
LA is one of the world’s most religiously diverse communities. It’s the nation’s largest Roman Catholic archdiocese, and Bahais, Buddhists, Hare Krishnas, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs and members of every imaginable Christian denomination are well represented. LA is home to the world’s second-largest Mormon temple, with another spectacular temple off the I-5 in San Diego.
Southern California has also long been famous for high-profile offshoots of mainstream traditions. The yogic Self-Realization Fellowship is headquartered in LA, with large centers in Pacific Palisades and the San Diego suburb Encinitas, and West LA’s Kabbalah Center has seen many celebrity converts, most notably Madonna, Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher.
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ARTS
LA is the earth’s undisputed entertainment capital. Few cities in the US can match its artistic diversity, and no other city can claim the cultural influence – both highbrow and low – that LA exerts worldwide.
It’s no news that LA dominates mass media, but it also topped a recent survey of major American tourist destinations for the percentage of visitors to museums and concerts, from world-renowned venues like the Getty Center and Walt Disney Concert Hall to tiny galleries in Chinatown and 99-seat theaters in North Hollywood. Orange and San Diego Counties also have thriving art scenes.
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The world’s first broadcast preacher, Aimee Semple McPherson, opened her own radio station to spread the word from LA’s Angelus Temple back in 1924, pioneering the way for televangelists including the Schullers of Orange County’s Crystal Cathedral.
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Cinema & TV
Look back on your life and try to imagine a living in a world without Orson Welles whispering ‘Rosebud,’ Judy Garland clicking her heels together three times, John Travolta dancing in his white suit or the Terminator informing us that he’ll ‘be back.’ LA is where these iconic images are hatched, nurtured and set to fly.
But it’s more than the movies. It seems like every other car commercial is shot in Downtown LA, and fashion photographers are common on Santa Monica beach. The upshot: few people come to LA without seeing something or someone they recognize.
Volumes have been written about the films of Hollywood, so we’re not going to attempt to cover them here. Instead, here’s a sampling of movies that feature the city of Los Angeles, in some cases, almost as a character in itself.
CLASSICS
Perhaps the greatest LA film is Roman Polanski’s Chinatown (1974), which is about early-20th-century water wars. Vincente Minelli’s The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) takes a hard look