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KNX Talk at Night?
- Thread starter david
- Start date
If you want, you can address the point instead of making thinly veiled insults to fellow posters.
I'll be happy to address yours. I am not a radio professional, I am a radio fan. I don't need to "do" anything to have a relevant opinion about the subject, just as a person who has never served in the army can have an opinion as to whether or not we should go to war.
Hey, Flip---I know John. Have for 30 years. He's not taking a shot at fellow posters, he's taking a shot at Lieberman, who has shown no discernable broadcast skills and rips the people doing the work apart---in a blog---on the internet.
If---big IF, given the source---it's true, it's not about whether there's demand. It's about what you can put on the air cheaply in timeslots that don't produce much revenue.
He did a different kind of talk show where the guests and the callers were the stars. It wasn't about what he said, but how he did it. Maybe you're right, and there's no market for that now. Not up to me. But what the OP was saying was that they were going to do non-partisan talk, and the way to do that easily is to hand off all the talk to guests and callers. Because at some point, people will find something political in whatever you as a host say.
Peoria, Hello!
Larry King, along with the talkers of that era (I'm thinking of Talknet et al) were primarily guest driven, and you'd hear lots of authors pushing books. Not really that different from today's overnight radio, except today's overnight radio is authors pushing books on conspiracy theories. King wasn't my cup of tea, either, although I heard enough of it because the EBS receiver at one station used to bleed into my headphones and I had to learn to ignore Larry and the bee-doops while doing my own breaks back in the day.
But there's room for a modern day show like that (or the late Jim Bohannon's) on the dial today. It's either that or infomercials...
I'm referring more to the blogger who started this whole thing.
Besides, if you've ever heard my show you'd probably think I can't do radio either, so I fit in well on the internet.
One of Larry's biggest affiliates was WTOP in DC. They were a successful all news station. They were willing to turn over their nights to Larry because they knew if big news happened during his show, there was a fully staffed network news department down the hall from him, and he would immediately call one of them in to help cover the story. That doesn't happen now with any similar night time talk show as far as I know.
Larry was on KOH in Reno when I got off the air at midnight at KOLO. I didn't think it was all that great, until he told the Carvel story.
And that's when, at age 22, I came to appreciate his ability to tell a story and to do 15 minutes without a phone call.
I'm not sure that the callers were the stars. In fact, I don't remember Larry King ever calling his callers by their proper names. We knew his callers only by the city they were calling from. However, I'm sure that "Traverse City" and the other callers were glad to have had an opportunity to talk to Larry directly.
That's one of the things I learned when Larry took over my headphones at KAMJ. The man could vamp and make it sound effortless.
I just wish I had the tape of Howard Hoffman calling Larry and playing the bee-doop down the phone to screw up everyone's automation. "What's that noise in the background?" Howard (firing cart) "Noise? I don't hear anything." (firing cart 3 times)
One of the things I learned in the automation business was that Mutual's MutuAlert system was designed to pass automation tones through telephone lines because they had one of my former clients in Guam as an affiliate, where the show would be downlinked in Honolulu and fed to Guam over a phone line because that was the only way to get the audio to the island as late as 1999. So unlike a 25/35 tone, you could play it down the phone and it would trip the relay every time. Westwood One kept the tones until they could reliably feed Guam over IP.
John, my apologies. since your post hit right after mine, I thought you were taking a shot at my "hot take". I see now you were referring to this Lieberman (whoever he is!) that seems to post a lot of unverified/incorrect rumors about bay area radio.
CF
God, I hadn't heard the Howard Hoffman story! Brilliant! Probably the best example of on-air sabotage I've ever heard. The runner-up, of course, was Ken Levine, who called KHJ during a contest under the assumed name "Marv Sexton"---and turned out to be the right number caller.
This was the contest:
Paul Drew was National Program Director of RKO (KHJ's owner) at the time. And here's what happened live on the air with Charlie Van Dyke:
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Well, not all of us, hopefully. (But I don't think guys like Lieberman are a credit to the profession at all.)
Occasionally the Larry King (and Bohannon) shows strayed into politics--callers tried to get the hosts into abortion or gun debates, etc.
IIRC, Larry started taking off in the late 70s/early 80s, around the same time Herb Jepko's career was winding down....
Since Audacy owns two news stations in New York (WCBS-880 and WINS-1010/92.3), could Audacy's proposed (likely) syndicated nighttime talk block be heard on WCBS (with WCBS perhaps being converted to 24/7 talk) and WINS remain 24/7 all-news?
In my opinion, Lieberman is one of those self-important bloggers who considers himself some kind of social media "influencer" , and who goes on hostile rants about absolutely nothing at all. Every blog he writes is a furious diatribe. There are so many people he doesn't like that all he appears to do is trash broadcast professionals. Now he's after Jeanne Seelig at KCBS, or Pat Thurston, or Pam Moore at KRON 4 ( she "looks tired and needs to retire"), or an entire list of people. I don't understand his personal hostility to people in broadcasting. What a strange guy.
He assumes that he has tremendous power and influence - which apparently he does not. -- Daryl
He assumes that he has tremendous power and influence - which apparently he does not. -- Daryl
As the OP here, this thread is about KNX and Audacy's purported plan to tinker with the 24/7 clock at its all-newsers. Note to Kat, John and Daryl... this is NOT a thread about Rich Lieberman's 415 Media, and frankly it is mean spirited to attack him here. Rich puts himself out there in his market to gather and report scoops and opinions. Many in the fourth estate in SFO (and other markets) appreciate the efforts he invests in producing 415 Media and feed him scoops of breaking and pending news he has then published over the years. His influence is evidenced in the efforts by some in the newsroom at KGO television in 2020 to deprive him of advertising revenue, and in the KCBS radio newsroom this week to block him from having any contact with employees there.
Rich puts himself out there far more prominently than any of us here on Radio Discussions... so let's stick to the news (pun intended) in this thread's subject line, and not to blogger shaming, so that one can feel "holier than thou".
Rich puts himself out there far more prominently than any of us here on Radio Discussions... so let's stick to the news (pun intended) in this thread's subject line, and not to blogger shaming, so that one can feel "holier than thou".
The problem is that our only basis of this comes from a tainted source. So far all we have is the hiring of a former talk show host as a part time anchor. Right? And from that, the story extrapolates a format change at all Audacy newsers. I'm not aware of any similar hirings at other Audacy newsers. I find it hard to come to the same conclusion as the blogger.
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