• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Media Bias: Bob Grant denied announced "Lifetime Achievement" Award

That may be, but to some, including Rush Limbaugh, Imus, Hannity and others "of the day," it's still current ... because Grant still is. This was never about anyone losing their job at R&R. It was just stupidity and unprofessionalism on their part to "over react" to whatever made them "review Bob Grant's complete body of work," while not judging others equally and fairly. And the point about who owns what is important in that in the "corporate" world ... things independently done do work their way through the ranks when a PR blip causes any question. Important to the public? Only as much as radio has made it ... but it gives pause for thought to lots of people in the business.

Kudos to Phil Boyce and WABC for stepping up with its own honor to recognize Grant's achievements. The honor to be presented on behalf of WABC at the Talkers seminar in June.

It even got into the top of the hour ID today on WABC in recognition of Bob Grant. Pretty classy thing to do.

If many other stations recognized their pasts with something as public and, really, as simple ... radio's image would improve. Tough to go into tomorrow when you don't know about the past.
 
Shoot from the Lip says:
If they thought the bestowing of this award might reduce the number of participants in TRS, or that perhaps a sponsor would pull out...THAT would play enough of a role to cause the retraction.
Click to expand...

Well if they thought that, what do they think NOW? I heard from 6 PD's today that are canceling. I know that a major syndicator is pulling out, removing his $60K in advertising, and having his 3 hosts stay home, who were all on panels. I am not advocating a boycott, I am just saying the attendance will suffer because they did this to Bob Grant, not the other way around. Nobody had even heard about the protests over Bob getting the award, at least nobody who was a participant. Now many of them will stay home. AND Bob will still get his award, only this time at Talkers Seminar in June, and this R+R seminar will seem irrelevant.

pb
 
I've been watching this story for the past few days, and one thing that has not been mentioned (except in Rush's transcript on his website), and that is the fact that while this whole Bob Grant/R&R fiasco was going down, R&R Publisher Erica Farber was in the hospital. From what I hear, it was not a decision made by the staff at R&R.

My name is Barry O'Brien, and I was VP of Sales in the Washington, DC office of R&R for 20 years, from 1981 thru 2000. Randall Bloomquist and I started the Talk Radio Seminar many years ago, and Erica was incredibly supportive. It saddens me tremendously to see all the good work that Randall and Al Peterson did to cultivate that end of the business become tainted by one very unprofessional decision.

When I hear comments from Phil Boyce (saying he's not calling for a boycott), and Rush (praising R&R and Erica), I know that there is still tremendous respect for this great publication that Bob Wilson started so long ago. I exchanged emails with Bob tonite, and I know he's disappointed to have his "baby" facing such a rough time.

I left R&R with many friends there, and I keep in touch with many of them. Most of the ones I worked with, however, are no longer at R&R. For 20 years, I sold advertising to ABC in R&R, and it was probably the best relationship I ever had with a client in my entire career. They treated me and R&R fairly, and I suspect they felt the same way about us. For me to see the events of the past few days is very painful for me personally.
 
I appreciate Jerry's support, but do not appreciate his opinion that talk radio listeners are stupid:

Too often -- not always -- these shows pander to the lowest common denominator -- the mentally challenged who believe every conspiracy, look for every opportunity to wave the flag and exhibit hatred toward people.
Click to expand...

These shows pander to listeners....the goal is to get as many as possible. Countless qualitative studies have shown the average talkradio listener to be educated, employed, with houses, cars, and disposal income. Not bad for a bunch of mentally challenged dummies. The biggest hatred I have ever witnessed is coming from the LEFT wing blogs directed toward talkradio. The same people who got Bob Grant's award taken away, got Don Imus fired, and tried to do the same to Rush but he was just too big for them. Those people are exhibiting hatred. Not the other way around.

But again, Jerry, thanks for your support. I had no idea where you went.

pb
 
Mr. Boyce (we've never met and where I come from you don't get to use someone's first name until you get permission) makes an excellent point about talkradio "pandering" to listeners....people who are educated with houses, cars, disposable income, etc..

My argument is not with Mr. Boyce but with "us." We look for simple answers to complex questions. Illegal aliens? Build a wall and bus out the ones herre illegally. Simple math will indicate there aren't enough buses and planes to do that. As this is a board about radio I will not spend a lifetime on issues that need much more thought. You get the idea. But talkradio doesn't have....and maybe shouldn't have the time to delve into serious issues and come up with serious solutions. Talk radio is about pushing an adjective and verb against a noun and getting a reaction.

I used to listen to Bob Grant when he was on WMCA. My recollection is that he was conservative WAAY back then. Grant was on 10-2 (I think) and a fellow by the name of Alex Bennett was on after 6p. They were polar opposites but it made for interesting radio.

Grant deserves a "lifetime achievment award" as much as anyone. More than anyone currently on the radio he typifies NY...straight, honest and in your face.That is not a bad thing. He is a New Yorker's New Yorker. In a world of light cigarettes and 15 different coffee bean lattes.....he is a camel non filter and black coffee. You may not like everything you hear, but you know where you stand.

WABC need not give him an award. A lifetime of listerners already have. I've spent 40 years in this business and can tell you it is not the stuff on the wall...it is the stuff you know you have done.
 
I'm outta here, it's been beaten to death. O'Brien said it best and his source is confirmed. Erica Farber (R&R's able publisher) was in the hospital. Had no clue what her bosses at VNU/Nielson were doing until it was done.

But now she and her staff are left with the mess.

I too worked at R&R through a couple of regime changes. It was, for the most part, a great place to work.

The deed came from above. Result of an activist complaint and a response that was not well-thought out. Don't take it out on the hard-working, loyal and radio-dedicated staff of R&R. Point your ire... higher.

Those who have threatened to pull out, perhaps, after the long weekend, cooler heads will prevail and some of you will rethink your decision. I hope so. The TRS shouldn't be destroyed because someone with no clue took it upon him or herself to make a decision without consulting the people who should have been consulted.

Go in peace.
 
NamJock says:
The TRS shouldn't be destroyed because someone with no clue took it upon him or herself to make a decision without consulting the people who should have been consulted.
Click to expand...

I agree, and nobody that I have heard from who is now staying home wants to destroy it or to hurt the good people at R+R. Erica is a great publisher and her staff is strong. But how can programmers who really know what is going on attend and listen to Al Sharpton rail about what radio should be doing, while Bob is being banned and sitting at home? What is it about Sharpton's body of work that allows him to continue to attend, but Grant's body of work makes him bannable? How much has Al done for radio, compared to what Bob has done? Actually, Al has done more to HURT radio than Bob did to help it.

What does it say to the industry, when one of the industry trade magazines takes it upon itself to become judge and jury of what is to be condemned on the radio? Keep in mind that NOT A SOUL from R+R bothered to call me and ask about the statements that Bob made that were apparently the basis of his removal from the program. For years there has been an attempt to ratchet Bob's comments into something worse than they are. Any host in America could be smeared like this if their quotes were taken out of context. It is all too easy to do. Bob said things before I worked at WABC that I will not defend. But those who have attacked him make it sound worse than what he really said. Too bad I did not get a chance to explain that to R+R. They never asked.

R+R has a right to publish a trade magazine, that is certain. They have a right to hold a talk radio seminar. Hosts and PD's will attend if they find it useful and valuable. If they find it sickening and repulsive to attend, they will just stay home. I am not advocating a boycott. Radio fights those all the time. I am just telling you what I have heard. Many will simply not go this year, if this is what R+R thinks is an appropriate way to treat an industry pioneer. How odd that after years of reporting on radio station crisis moments where PD's have to fire hosts for content, they find themselves embroiled in exactly the same thing and risk losing half their "audience" because of it.

In 1996 I fired Bob Grant. I lost half my audience on WABC overnight. It took 5 years to rebuild the station. In 2007, some 11 years later, I hired him back. It was one of my proudest moments. I wish R+R could correct this wrong, but I doubt that they can pull that one off.

pb
 
Very well said, Mr. Boyce.

Bob Grant is, fortunately, duly recognized for his Lifetime Achievements ... in the very history of talk radio. And to see the personal decisions you have on being on both the firing and re-hiring side of the matter says a lot for you. So many talents today only see one side, especially from the same station. So many are carelessly tossed on the compost heap of "something old is not new again." Good to see someone who feels and acts differently.
 
oaktree said:
If many other stations recognized their pasts with something as public and, really, as simple ... radio's image would improve. Tough to go into tomorrow when you don't know about the past.
Click to expand...

Are you sure? I think what we're perhaps somewhat accidentally and reflexively facing here is that a public recognition of the reality of radio's past might actually, at this point, be *less* than flattering. That is, whatever one thinks of Al Sharpton, you can't polish a turd like Bob Grant. And through the ineptitude of the industry and of R&R, we're finding that out the hard way--maybe as a kind of divine retribution. When your *only* vaguely "credible" outside defenders are from the hard right, maybe it's not such a good thing?

Again: the paradox of an industry so apparently all-American and Capitalist looking as lunkheaded, philistine, delusional and hapless as true-believing Soviet Bloc Communists circa 1989....
 
Adma says:
When your *only* vaguely "credible" outside defenders are from the hard right, maybe it's not such a good thing?
Click to expand...

Your not paying attention. Jay Marvin who is the morning guy on the progressive station in Denver has come out here on this message board strongly in support of Bob Grant. Lionel did the same on the air, and he is the 9am to noon host on Air America.

They are hardly far right. They know, as all intelligent hosts know, that to allow special interest groups to decide for us who gets a lifetime achievement award is threatening to all hosts, right or left.

pb
 
But you're speaking of, and from, within the profession. Under the circumstances, such defenders are scarcely "outside"--ideologically, maybe, but professionally, not.

I think what you're *really* facing not only parallels, but might be deeper than, what the music and other entertainment industry subsets have been facing--that is, it's less a matter of Bob Grant being a hatemonger, than of Bob Grant being a cultural dinosaur, as much of a punchline as 70s leisure suits and polyester. Where defending his sort of "intelligent" entertainment is like defending Vegas-bordello aesthetics as the embodiment of "good taste".

Even in the case of the hardly-far-right Don Imus, the end result is that a lot of people who'd at most only marginally considered him before, or just took him for granted, caught wind of how much of a prepostrously obsolete joke this sort of pushing-70 big-voiced radio windbaggery was.

The tragedy (such as it is) might not be that this "entertainment" genre is being threatened by Sharpton-spurred cultural chill; it's that, through its inherent vulgar delusion, it's such an easy sitting duck--much as Soviet regimes were at the precipice of Perestroika...
 
I get it, so Talkradio is just a big dinosaur, long since passed over by the cultural elite:

The tragedy (such as it is) might not be that this "entertainment" genre is being threatened by Sharpton-spurred cultural chill;
Click to expand...

Look, this is not a tragedy. Nobody said it was. And the entertainment genre of talkradio is not remotely threatened by Sharpton or cultural chill (whatever that is). In case you didn't notice, Don Imus got hired back on a bigger better radio station. And Bob Grant got hired back too, by the same station and PD that fired him 11 years before.

it's less a matter of Bob Grant being a hatemonger, than of Bob Grant being a cultural dinosaur
Click to expand...

Bob Grant is 78. When you give somebody a lifetime achievement award, you usually have to have spent a lifetime doing something. Bob has been on talkradio for nearly 60 years. There should be an award for longevity, if nothing else. Calling a 78 year old man who has already retired once and been brought back a dinosaur is just silly. He's old...I get that.

But Grant's accomplishments will not be lessened by R+R's faux paux. Talkers Magazine will step up and see to that. This too shall pass and life will go on, even if the TRS put on by R+R has a few empty seats at their seminars this year.


pb
 
Phil Boyce said:
But Grant's accomplishments will not be lessened by R+R's faux paux. Talkers Magazine will step up and see to that. This too shall pass and life will go on, even if the TRS put on by R+R has a few empty seats at their seminars this year.
Click to expand...

And that's a narrower and narrower aperture you're talking about. Like, Talkers Magazine? C'mon. Basically, that's like responding to accusations of ugly philistinism by factoring out everyone who isn't ugly or philistine--though maybe in our niche-culture'd world, that's perfectly logical...
 
Huh??? Yes, the philistines. I get it. ??? I think you have now made two references to philistines in two different posts. One more will get you banned off this board, so be careful.

And perestroika. Man, you don't hear that in your everyday water cooler conversation.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom