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JIM BOHANNON TO RETIRE FROM SYNDICATED TALK SHOW; RICH VALDES TO TAKE OVER

Y2kTheNewOldies

Y2kTheNewOldies

radioinsight.com

Jim Bohannon To Retire From Syndicated Talk Show; Rich Valdes To Take Over - RadioInsight

After nearly thirty years hosting a late-night syndicated talk show, Westwood One's Jim Bohannon will retire from his 10pm-1am eastern show at the end of this week. The 78-year-old Bohannon has been off the air for most of the summer due to unnamed health reasons, which is being stated as the...
radioinsight.com radioinsight.com

Jim Bohannon will retire on October 14th according to the article.

After nearly thirty years hosting a late-night syndicated talk show, Westwood One’s Jim Bohannon will retire from his 10pm-1am eastern show at the end of this week.

The 78-year-old Bohannon has been off the air for most of the summer due to unnamed health reasons, which is being stated as the reason for his retirement from the show. He will host his final program on Friday, October 14.
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Here's the problem with Bohannon's retirement and Valdes' hire. While Bohannon sometimes delved into politics, his show was mostly non-political. Interviews with authors, lower-ranked celebrities, people who had been on popular TV shows or had hit records. As such, stations that didn't want to deal with right-wing politics often included Bohannon on their late-night schedules. They include WGN Chicago and KNWN-AM-FM Seattle (formerly KOMO). Bohannon was WGN's only syndicated show. Same with all-news KNWN. The reason these stations carried Bohannon was for non-controversial talk.

I don't think Valdes plans to follow that route. His background is in conservative talk. When I tuned in one night, he had a right-wing commentator as a guest. Valdes was lobbing soft balls and the commentator was hitting them over the fence. Everything Democrats do is bad. Everything Republicans do is great. And there were no objections from Valdes, no follow ups questioning his facts.

Does Valdes know much about classic TV shows or the pop hits of the 1980s or an author who writes about Route 66's place in America history? I'm not sure. I think we're just going to add Rich Valdes to the 60 or 70-odd syndicated conservative talk shows that a station can run.

Westwood One Conservative Talk line up:
 
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Gregg. said:
[*]First Light with Michael Toscano (5-6am, yes Westwood One has two morning magazine shows, nearly the same)
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Note below:

On June 30, 2022, Westwood One informed affiliates that it would discontinue First Light at the end of July, with America in the Morning being offered to stations as a replacement. In an interview with affiliate WPHM, Toscano noted that it was a business decision by parent company Cumulus Media an not a reflection on the show's performance.
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Gregg. said:
As such, stations that didn't want to deal with right-wing politics often included Bohannon on their late-night schedules. They include WGN Chicago and KNWN-AM-FM Seattle (formerly KOMO). Bohannon was WGN's only syndicated show. Same with all-news KNWN. The reason these stations carried Bohannon was for non-controversial talk.
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I would imagine 90% or more of Mr. Valdez's affiliates are happy to have another generic conservative talk show in the late evening/overnight hours. I bet most of the affiliates who carried Bohannon didn't have him as their first choice, but the marketplace for live talk that late at night is limited.
 
Does Valdes know much about classic TV shows or the pop hits of the 1980s or an author who writes about Route 66's place in America history?
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Honestly, who cares? That was 40 years ago.

Valdes talks about current issues, not just politics. He's upbeat and doesn't yell or berate callers. This is a big upgrade, IMO. I hope his show succeeds, especially with younger demos.

Well done, Westwood One!
 
wadio said:
Honestly, who cares? That was 40 years ago.

Valdes talks about current issues, not just politics. He's upbeat and doesn't yell or berate callers. This is a big upgrade, IMO. I hope his show succeeds, especially with younger demos.

Well done, Westwood One!
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We'll see. If it's more "Donald Trump is Jesus Christ Himself and all Democrats are grooming minions of Satan", we've heard it all before
 
gr8oldies said:
We'll see. If it's more "Donald Trump is Jesus Christ Himself and all Democrats are grooming minions of Satan", we've heard it all before
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See, you're making assumptions. I've actually been listening to Valdes , and I haven't heard any of that.
 
Best wishes to Jim Bohannon. He reminded me a bunch of John Batchelor. A host who often kept politics away from his discussions and had some interesting guests.
Attention spans have gone down so much, that we can't even have a talk show with interesting guests anymore. Politics 24/7...unless it's Coast to Coast. Bohannon, Larry King, and others made AM radio fun when the music transitioned to FM.
 
crainbebo said:
Best wishes to Jim Bohannon. He reminded me a bunch of John Batchelor. A host who often kept politics away from his discussions and had some interesting guests.
Attention spans have gone down so much, that we can't even have a talk show with interesting guests anymore. Politics 24/7...unless it's Coast to Coast. Bohannon, Larry King, and others made AM radio fun when the music transitioned to FM.
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I don't disagree. You might also put Lars Larson in the category of hosts who still do non-political interviews.

Talk radio used to include hosts like Dr. Dean Edell, Clark Howard, Ric Edelman before his show became an infomercial, and KFI's "Handel on the Law" before that became pretty much an infomercial. There's certainly room for those kinds of shows and maybe they'll come around again.

That said, I find that Rich Valdes does a good job of not being overly political. He listens to callers with opposing views, and doesn't shout them down or cut them off with, "Thank you for your call," and then rant for the next few minutes like so many talk show hosts do. The show is only one week old. Lets see if he works at broadening the topics.
 
wadio said:
I don't disagree. You might also put Lars Larson in the category of hosts who still do non-political interviews.

Talk radio used to include hosts like Dr. Dean Edell, Clark Howard, Ric Edelman before his show became an infomercial, and KFI's "Handel on the Law" before that became pretty much an infomercial. There's certainly room for those kinds of shows and maybe they'll come around again.

That said, I find that Rich Valdes does a good job of not being overly political. He listens to callers with opposing views, and doesn't shout them down or cut them off with, "Thank you for your call," and then rant for the next few minutes like so many talk show hosts do. The show is only one week old. Lets see if he works at broadening the topics.
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Even with a somewhat dry presentation, I enjoyed Clark Howard much more than Dave Ramsey, and appreciated that he didn't do endorsements and had nothing to sell other than his (I believe non-profit) website.

I remember talk radio in the 90s where there were slogans like "we talk about your life". We had hosts who could talk about the news of the day, and subjects like divorce, and just fun. I miss that.
 
Lars Larson may not be as political as let's say, Sean Hannity, but his show still revolves around conservative/political topics. He is respectful with all his guests and even talks to callers who disagree with his viewpoints. (This is regarding the Pacific Northwest version of the show via KXL-FM Portland, not the national version.)
 
wadio said:
The same was true with Jim Bohannon.
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Except that Jim was better prepared to deal with false information. I head one of Rich's interviews talking about the national debt, and it was filled with inaccuracies that Rich agreed with. I don't think Jim would have taken that approach. He had a way of correcting the information without being rude, and then going to commercial.
 
The end of era for sure, and least for some Jim was at least a reasonable alternative to hearing people go off the rails on Coast to Coast.
 
I've wondered if these talkers got their goal of the Republicans having absolute one-party rule with no opposition, what would be the reason for their continued existence, except as house organs? Rush was almost never funny when the Republicans were in power.
 
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