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Matt Siegel & Lisa Donovan OUT @ KISS 108's Matty in the Morning?

AceBiscuits said:
I'm gonna put my tinfoil hat on to speculate for a bit: If it was on good terms, iHeart certainly would have done this differently; this send off only makes the station look bad. It is not as if Matty wasn't bringing in the ratings or what have you.

It is entirely possible that this could have less been iHeart's decision but more of Matty's decision, i.e. bad blood from the Demi Lovato incident last year resulting in him want to just get the f' out of the there.

Certainly an odd way to see a host with 40+ years of legacy retiring and departing this abruptly. Maybe he has another gig elsewhere lined up (think Scott Shannon & WCBS).
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I wonder if he has a non-compete. What a coup it would be if Magic or WROR snagged him. He’s been a proven winner for 40 years.
 
WMJX and WROR have decent morning shows and ratings now.

He could do Classic Country down there if he still needs radio.
It might be a better fit.
 
freqlost said:
He could do Classic Country down there if he still needs radio.
It might be a better fit.
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I like that line "if he still needs radio." My bet is he does. It doesn't matter how old you are, or even how rich you are (as Howard Stern proves). If you're a radio guy, there's no replacement for being on the radio. No amount of drinking will help you forget. It's like pro sports. Once you've had a taste of the big time, it's hard to walk away. (ask Tom Brady) So perhaps he already has a landing spot ready where the people are closer to his age and the music is more of his taste. Being old is one thing. Feeling old is another. And trying to do CHR radio in your 70s is like pitching for the Red Sox in your 50s.
 
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I’ll take a wild guess and say that Colton Bradford will be part of the solution in the morning at Kiss. He’s already with iHeart and he has a TV presence too.
 
If he really wants to stay in radio, and doesn't mind getting attacked, and he wants to stay in Boston, the right move might be to WRKO.

Talk radio is where some personalities go after they get sick of playing new music.
 
So we are supposed to believe that his co-host, Lisa Donovan, just happened to disappear at the exact same time as Matty and it’s unrelated?
 
TheBigA said:
If he really wants to stay in radio, and doesn't mind getting attacked, and he wants to stay in Boston, the right move might be to WRKO.

Talk radio is where some personalities go after they get sick of playing new music.
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Having listened to him off and on for 30 years or so, I can tell you that Matty’s no conservative. He wouldn’t fit in with Howie and the rest of that station’s ultra right wing lineup.
 
ScottBurns said:
Having listened to him off and on for 30 years or so, I can tell you that Matty’s no conservative. He wouldn’t fit in with Howie and the rest of that station’s ultra right wing lineup.
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What DJ playing current pop for a younger, largely female audience wants to come across as conservative on air? Most jocks keep out of political and social issues, but it would be far wiser for one who has the green light to get political and wants to come across as a friend to the majority of his/her listeners to lean liberal, even if it means faking it. I listened to Brad Davis do top 40 and AC in Hartford for years and never dreamed I was listening to a right winger, yet that's what he revealed himself to be when he transitioned from music to talk at WDRC. I doubt Rush Limbaugh's listeners during his Top 40 days ever heard any evidence of his conservative views.
 
TheBigA said:
If he really wants to stay in radio, and doesn't mind getting attacked, and he wants to stay in Boston, the right move might be to WRKO.
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Who gets top billing? Matty and K000ner in the Morning? Or K000ner and Matty in the Morning? Certainly that will go national!
 
My guess is that even though I wish Matty's replacement would be a locally-produced morning show, iHeart will probably force-feed Elvis Duran onto WXKS-107.9.

The reasons I think this will occur:

1. The Elvis Duran show is produced and distributed by Kiss 108 owner iHeart through Premiere Networks.

2. Boston is one more of the few major markets where Elvis Duran isn't yet heard.

3. Now that Matty Siegel has retired (and yes, I think his retirement is voluntary), the major stumbling block keeping Duran from Kiss 108 has been removed.

4. With Elvis Duran's syndicated show in the morning, Kiss 108 may actually get less revenue but more profit. If WXKS's ratings go down (and rates for commercial spots correspondingly go down), remember that the huge salaries of Matty and most of the rest of the morning team (I suspect Billy Costa will stay with iHeart Boston in some other capacity) would be eliminated. The morning show probably accounted for a large amount of the station's budget. With a syndicated morning show, Kiss 108 might get less money but make a larger profit.

5. And with Boston, a major market, added to Elvis Duran's "network", the cost of national ad spots on his show would go up.

All in all, I would be extremely surprised if Elvis Duran's show doesn't take over the morning drive slot on Kiss-108.

The major idea of syndicated morning shows is to get stations to pick them up in lieu of producing their own local morning shows. By convincing a station to pick up a syndicated morning show, it eliminates a large part of the station's personnel budget and the station might make more profit.

I wouldn't be surprised if iHeart hasn't already begun the process to get Duran on Kiss-108.
 
I can't see iHeart walk away from Too-40/CHR from Kiss-108, nor anyone else try to program that format.

The failure of what was then Amp 103.3 shows that there's not enough of an audience in Boston to support more than one Top-40/CHR format.
 
I see Joseph's point. The only rebuttal I have: If Duran was the plan, why wouldn't they have got that set up during Matty's two week absence?
 
Someone else gets credit for this, but it was suggested KISS get hold of TJ Taormina and maybe Lauren Raye from the old AMP103.3 morning show. Matt Shearer was their producer, and I'll bet he'd be thrilled to be back doing that. Heck, he wouldn't even have to leave iHeart, because he's currently doing fluff pieces for 'BZ.

Elvis Duran? Don't know what his show his like but they can stick him on 'JMN if they want him to be heard in Boston.

Just my $0.02-worth.
 
CTListener said:
What DJ playing current pop for a younger, largely female audience wants to come across as conservative on air? Most jocks keep out of political and social issues, but it would be far wiser for one who has the green light to get political and wants to come across as a friend to the majority of his/her listeners to lean liberal, even if it means faking it. I listened to Brad Davis do top 40 and AC in Hartford for years and never dreamed I was listening to a right winger, yet that's what he revealed himself to be when he transitioned from music to talk at WDRC. I doubt Rush Limbaugh's listeners during his Top 40 days ever heard any evidence of his conservative views.
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Matty was always straightforward about his politics. In the ‘90s, he talked about voting for Bill Clinton. He hardly covered up that he supported Hillary in 2016. While he might have some conservative views here and there, he wouldn’t fit with WRKO’s format. In fact, Matty has taken swings at Howie over the years.
 
Joseph_Gallant said:
My guess is that even though I wish Matty's replacement would be a locally-produced morning show, iHeart will probably force-feed Elvis Duran onto WXKS-107.9.

The reasons I think this will occur:

1. The Elvis Duran show is produced and distributed by Kiss 108 owner iHeart through Premiere Networks.

2. Boston is one more of the few major markets where Elvis Duran isn't yet heard.

3. Now that Matty Siegel has retired (and yes, I think his retirement is voluntary), the major stumbling block keeping Duran from Kiss 108 has been removed.

4. With Elvis Duran's syndicated show in the morning, Kiss 108 may actually get less revenue but more profit. If WXKS's ratings go down (and rates for commercial spots correspondingly go down), remember that the huge salaries of Matty and most of the rest of the morning team (I suspect Billy Costa will stay with iHeart Boston in some other capacity) would be eliminated. The morning show probably accounted for a large amount of the station's budget. With a syndicated morning show, Kiss 108 might get less money but make a larger profit.

5. And with Boston, a major market, added to Elvis Duran's "network", the cost of national ad spots on his show would go up.

All in all, I would be extremely surprised if Elvis Duran's show doesn't take over the morning drive slot on Kiss-108.

The major idea of syndicated morning shows is to get stations to pick them up in lieu of producing their own local morning shows. By convincing a station to pick up a syndicated morning show, it eliminates a large part of the station's personnel budget and the station might make more profit.

I wouldn't be surprised if iHeart hasn't already begun the process to get Duran on Kiss-108.
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You make excellent points. I just don’t think the audience would take well to Elvis Duran replacing not only Matty, but Billy and the rest of the crew. Boston seems like one of the markets in which being local matters.
 
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