Smiley Attacks WBEZ Chicago for Dropping Show

[Mark Jeffries]

WBEZ dropped "Smiley and West" because management believed that Tavis and Cornel were engaging in "Democracy Now!"-style "advocacy," particularly in their criticism of President Obama (of course, for not being far enough left, despite what the right says)--Smiley responded, calling Chicago Public Media boss Torey Malatia "demeaning, derogatory and dead wrong":

http://timeoutchicago.com/arts-culture/chicago-media-blog/15781616/smiley-to-wbez-%E2%80%98demeaning-derogatory-and-dead-wrong%E2%80%99

Despite increasing listenership and revenues, getting the station out of its decrepit Loop studios and into a rent-free state-of-the-art facility on Navy Pier and having three national programs on the air (two of them--"Wait, Wait..." and "This American Life", among public radio's most popular), Malatia, like so many successful pubradio bosses, has come under criticism for most of his two decades running WBEZ, a lot of it for dropping music programming for news/pubaffairs (including dropping the nighttime jazz programs in 2007), the continually-problematic Vocalo project on sister station WBEW (one of the attempts to get non-white young demos listening to public radio that have not been totally successful) and calls from the far left activist group Chicago Media Action to make the station more Pacifica-ish, most notably an unsuccessful attempt to get the station to carry "DN!" (which is presently not on a Chicago radio station, as WLUW and WRTE--recently acquired by CPM--dropped the program and WZRD is not airing while the station remains automated and its student staff locked out).  Between Malatia, Laura Walker, Ruth Seymour, Bill Kling and other GMs and bosses who are continually pilloried by activist groups and pro-music programming groups, I wonder--are there any public radio GMs who almost everyone likes?

[Scott Fybush]

Between Malatia, Laura Walker, Ruth Seymour, Bill Kling and other GMs and bosses who are continually pilloried by activist groups and pro-music programming groups, I wonder--are there any public radio GMs who almost everyone likes?

Paul LaCamera and his successor Charlie Kravetz at WBUR seem to be quite well-liked (though they had the advantage of replacing one of the most polarizing GMs in the history of the industry.)

I never heard a bad word about Scott Hanley during his time at WDUQ in Pittsburgh.

[aaronread]

My own boss, Joe O'Connor at RIPR, seems pretty popular.  I'm not surprised, he's a pretty nice guy in general.   I never heard anything bad about Mary Olsen at KCLU in my year out there, and I did see a lot of nice things said about her.  OTOH, I'm having a hard time thinking of any Top 20 Market station's GM's who haven't had some nasty language used about them in one context or another.

That said, I don't think it's possible to be a GM of a media outlet for any length of time without having some passionate detractors.  It's the nature of the business; when it's a radio station, it inherently affects enough people that no matter what decisions you make, SOMEONE will be unhappy.  In a Top 20 market, it's bound to be quite a few someones...although presumably the total of people who like what you're doing will far outnumber the unhappy someones.

Interestingly, I showed this article about Smiley & WBEZ to our Ops Director today.  He noted that last week Smiley had Revolutionary Communist Party chairman Bob Avakian as a guest.   Oops.  Whether substantive or just stylistic, that was not a good way to counter Malatia's claims that the show's gotten "too political".

[TheBigA]

I recall Smiley's departure from NPR was a bit contentious.

[Mark Jeffries]

I recall Smiley's departure from NPR was a bit contentious.

Yeah, it was.

And he tends to get people worked up--when WBEZ first started carrying the NPR show (dropping "Talk of the Nation," IIRC), the angry message board comments were coming fast and furious, some of them complaining on Smiley's speech and the fact that he had R&B singers on his show regularly.  Of course, if there was an Internet in 1987, there would the complaints about "those two laughing jackasses talking about evil polluting cars" and "that awful inane quiz show from Wisconsin."  No public radio program is welcomed initially with open arms, or so it seems.

[aaronread]

No public radio program is welcomed initially with open arms, or so it seems.

Indeed.  The only one that comes to mind is Snap Judgment.  Maybe Sound Opinions.  Both are still pretty small, though...but they've gotten decent pickup remarkably fast, and the feedback on both of them is usually positive.

But yeah, This American Life, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, and Car Talk all struggled for years to find an audience.

[Mark Jeffries]

No public radio program is welcomed initially with open arms, or so it seems.

Indeed.  The only one that comes to mind is Snap Judgment.  Maybe Sound Opinions.  Both are still pretty small, though...but they've gotten decent pickup remarkably fast, and the feedback on both of them is usually positive.

But yeah, This American Life, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, and Car Talk all struggled for years to find an audience.

Not in Chicago (yes, "Sound Opinions"' home town).  Since it had come from a commercial rock station and was about rock music (and considering that WBEZ was about to drop jazz), the complaints were fast and furious (and there are some who get pissed whenever Greg and DeRo do a show about a pop star instead of an obscure indie band, invoking the "public radio should be what is not on other radio stations" mantra).  And people were screaming "TAL ripoff" when "Snap Judgment" started (although "WireTap" seems to get more of the vitriol).  And of course, they claim that Torey Malatia has an agenda that he's trying to cram down the listeners' throats and call for listener voting on new programming and a listener-elected board (conveniently forgetting how unsuccessful Pacifica has been with the latter).  Of course, the music fans are the ones who've been listening a lot longer than the news junkies, but the news junkies seem to be the ones contributing the money.

[aaronread]

Heh.  Snap Judgment definitely sounds like a "This American Life" ripoff...that's what most people seem to like about it.      It's also harder to attack SJ since it came about through a fairly democratic and meritorious process: the Public Radio Talent Quest.

I think wherever a station has eliminated music programming in favor of more news/talk, you're going to have a lot of people that will attack the station (and all its programming) with a lot of vitriol and for a long time.   That's sort-of an unfair comparison in the sense that in that environment, people aren't attacking the show itself, they're attacking the situation...and the show gets caught in the crossfire.

BTW, IIRC, The Connection with Christopher Lydon was popular from very early on, if not the very beginning.   Chris was already well-known in Boston from his time as an anchor at WGBH TV and as a mayoral candidate.  He VERY quickly developed a hefty and loyal audience.  I don't recall a lot of people complaining.  In fact, when the show was taken national, the biggest complaints were from Bostonians lamenting the loss of the local-ness to the show, but they still liked it (at least according to the ratings), and it played pretty well nationally.

[Mark Jeffries]

I think wherever a station has eliminated music programming in favor of more news/talk, you're going to have a lot of people that will attack the station (and all its programming) with a lot of vitriol and for a long time.   That's sort-of an unfair comparison in the sense that in that environment, people aren't attacking the show itself, they're attacking the situation...and the show gets caught in the crossfire.

I think Laura Walker has been a victim of that.  When she took over after WNYC was spun off from the city, the classical programming seemed to some of its audience to become "lite" (like what they believed WQXR was) and then the station dropped the Saturday afternoon opera broadcast for Jonathan Schwartz (even if the Met was on QXR at the same time), so by the time daytime classical music was dropped to simulcast the AM station shows, the anger was already high--and they were ready to go at her for taking Steve Post out of the 9 a..m. slot (although there seemed to be no protests when his Saturday show crashed and burned), "Satellite Sisters," "The Takeaway" and acquiring QXR and moving it up the dial to the weaker signal (and some even for when the nighttime classical shows became more contemporary and less "lite"--because they were playing "noise" instead of Beethoven).  But everything seems to work eventually (except, of course, "The Takeaway"--and "Satellite Sisters").

[Mark Jeffries]

I'm bumping this to report that as of today, Chicago commercial prog talker WCPT has picked up both "Smiley and West" and the hour known as "The Tavis Smiley Show" as they're airing on Sundays starting at 2 p.m., in the time slot where, ironically, the station was carrying another PRI public radio show, "Michael Feldman's Whad'ya Know?" (which they picked up when WBEZ dropped it completely some years after first moving it to a one-hour delay to accommodate "Wait, Wait..." and then to the Saturday night after-Kellior slot).  Feldman is now on Saturday nights in essentially that same after-Kellior slot and not heard on WCPT's FM stations at 92.5 DeKalb/92.7 Arlington Heights/99.9 South Side due to those stations running a brokered dance music every night after 8 p.m.