> It really should come as no surprise that David Lee Roth’s
> brief career in radio came to a screeching halt. Mr. Roth’s
> background is a musician, not a radio personality, where as
> Opie and Anthony have been in broadcasting for a number of
> years and have a proven track record.
This is further proof that someone who's a good guest on a show (as Roth usually was) doesn't always make a great host. A host is someone who knows when to step in and make his own personality front and center, and when to step back and draw out either his teammates on the show (if he has them) or his guests, or his callers if it's a listener participation show. A host also knows how to use all the elements to bring focus to the show and move it forward, making it easy for the listener to join in and follow along.
It takes time, and/or training, to figure all that out. It's a specialized skill. It doesn't come naturally, even to people who are bright and articulate in other venues (such as actors, musicians and politicians). It wasn't fair to Roth to plunge him into that without at least giving him some coaching and letting him get his feet wet with some weekend and/or guest-hosting appearances. He might have eventually become a really good performer on the air--he has a lot of the personality and smarts, just needs to establish a sense of how to control and direct a show like Howard used to do so well. But now, he's probably been burned by it, and most likely won't try again even if someone asks him.
> Even critics of Howard
> Stern have to admit that Stern was a tough act to follow, no
> matter who was selected to replace him. And that appears to
> be the bigger problem for those terrestrial radio stations
> that used to carry Stern’s show.
Some of those stations depended so totally on Stern to establish their brand identity that they never had other people on the bench ready to step in. Bad idea. Always program with the idea that you have not one, but a number of stars in different dayparts. Successful stations in varying formats, from 1960-80 WABC and the 1958-78 version of 'KB to today's 97 Rock and WBEN, have done that.
> Depending on the market,
> there are a number of stations carrying different morning
> hosts. So far, here in Rochester, “The Rover” on the “Nerve”
> hasn’t made much of an impression, at least according to the
> ratings I’ve seen and people that I’ve spoken with.
He's not making much impression anywhere except his former home market of Cleveland. He's been a bust in his new HQ market, Chicago, and virtually no one notices him in Rochester. The show sounds small-market and a lot less focused and directed than shows like Wease's or Larry Norton's, which rule the 25-54 morning hot-talk roost in their respective cities.
> Perhaps
> the CBS stations in Rochester should consider hiring local
> talent for their early morning show. But then they risk
> eroding Wease’s numbers, which is something Infinity
> managers do not want to happen.
Wease has shown he doesn't need protecting in Rochester because he actually knocked off Stern when they were going head to head, so Rover isn't enough to even make him break a sweat by comparison.
But the Zone 94.1 has bigger problems, including signal problems (it's arguably the poorest commercial FM signal in the city, coverage-wise). No English language programming format is likely to do much with that signal as of now. It's currently a marginal property for CBS' local cluster, and would be for anyone else operating it as an English language station, though it doesn't have to be. If I were in charge of the cluster I'd be thinking about doing something no one in the market's doing that super-serves a population within the city and inner-ring suburbs where the Zone's signal is good. The Hispanic population in the market, which lives largely within the city and inner suburban ring, is rapidly reaching the critical mass needed to support its own station (it's about where the market's black population was 35 years ago when WDKX was being planned). It currently has no one serving it fulltime. CBS should really consider making 94.1 the first 24/7 Spanish language outlet, programming it primarily for the local Hispanic population (which comes mainly from Puerto Rico and the Caribbean now). If they don't do it with that FM, someone else is going to do it with one of the market's AMs (Entercom's 950 signal would be a good candidate).
