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WERE morning show host let go

J

johnbasalla

WERE let Basheer Jones go. He has been doing an inspirational and community service talk show during morning drive for a number of years.
Protesters marched in front of the station. I happened to have been driving by the site at the time and saw two parked police cars with lights flashing, and the people marching. Some protest signs read: "Teachers for Basheer Jones' freedom of speech". Channel 5 ran a story about it. WERE station manager or representative would only say that he respects Mr. Jones greatly, but couldn't talk about business decisions. By "business decisions", I take that to mean that they wanted to cut payroll. Since much of WERE's programming is brokered, I wonder if that's what they'd like to try to do in that slot? In the Channel 5 piece, a protester kind-of offered that as an option saying that the community needs a local voice on-the-air at that time, and there are many community activists who might be willing to donate their time to do it. Being a commercial operation, in tough economic times, I wouldn't think that giving free air time is at the top of the corporation's list, but that may depend on the effectiveness of the protest(s). Will they just pull something off the bird in the short term or long term?
 
Can I say I'm shocked? No. For one, Basheer was the ONLY live/local program on any of the Radio One stations in morning drive (WENZ now offers Ricky Smiley, WZAK has Tom Joyner and WJMO carries Yolanda Adams). Moreso given Radio One's serious money issues over the past few years, it makes this ever the bitter pill.

I don't think they'll pull an urban talk show off the bird - "Syndication One" only offers Warren Ballentine and Al Sharpton, and never offered any morning programming so not to cannibalize Joyner's show (even though his show is self-syndicated, he was/is a minor investor in Syndication One).

Honestly, I wouldn't know what Radio One's plans are for WERE at the moment. I do wish Basheer the very best. I have heard nothing but great things about him both personally and professionally.
 
A co-worker told me that his leaving had been "in the mix" for a while, as Mr. Jones has been posting about it on his Facebook page and suggesting people become involved in "Save the Basheer Jones show" activities.
 
For the record, they have been simulcasting "The Tom Joyner Morning Show" with their sister station, WZAK. Can we say "wasting electricity"?
 
johnbasalla said:
For the record, they have been simulcasting "The Tom Joyner Morning Show" with their sister station, WZAK. Can we say "wasting electricity"?
Click to expand...

I could think of worse situations of wasting electricity... ;)

IMHO, if urban talk can't be supported full time, WERE should go with an urban oldies format (a throwback to the old WJMO), with Ballantine and Sharpton rounding out the mix in the daytime hours. I know that will never happen, but it should.

As for Basheer, it looks like he's landed a new TV show on TV-20 in the Time Warner Cable - Cleveland system.
 
It seems that WERE only has consistent Urban talk until sometime during afternoon drive. Would the pre-recorded labor union backed show count as "Urban Talk"? That's on in afternoon drive, I believe. In the 8pm hour on Tuesday evening they had a local car-talk show. Then at 9pm it was old time radio. The old time radio show was pretty good. The first half hour was a 1950 "Life of Riley" show with some good jokes, I must say.
 
johnbasalla said:
It seems that WERE only has consistent Urban talk until sometime during afternoon drive. Would the pre-recorded labor union backed show count as "Urban Talk"? That's on in afternoon drive, I believe. In the 8pm hour on Tuesday evening they had a local car-talk show. Then at 9pm it was old time radio. The old time radio show was pretty good. The first half hour was a 1950 "Life of Riley" show with some good jokes, I must say.
Click to expand...

After the "2 Live Stews" was canceled by Radio One and picked up by Sporting News Radio, the "urban talk" format only has existed from 6a-9a, and from 10a-4p. The 4PM hour (with Ed "Flash" Ferenc) is sponsored by many of Cleveland's trade unions. It originated back on the old WERE back in the late 90s, and aired on WELW for a short time. I wouldn't consider it "urban talk" by my definition.

After 5PM, if no one sponsors an hour on WERE, the USA Radio Network satellite feed will air as filler. That's been the case ever since WERE/1300 went with brokered programming back in the mid-90s (around 2000, IIRC, PD columnist Dick Feagler noted how he tuned to WERE early on a Sunday morning, and heard a New York traffic report - from a straight-up relay of Bloomburg flagship WBBR/New York, and no sponsored program was scheduled).

"The Golden Age of Radio" with Victor Imes has been a USA Radio staple since the mid 90s.
 
"America's Workforce" is the pre-recorded labor union backed show.

Kind of as an addendum to Dick Feagler's experience, over the course of two days in the 5pm hour they've had a show on that clearly originates somewhere in morning drive as they keep saying "Good Morning" to each other and their guests. On Friday 11-19-10, they began with an interview with Country/Country-Rock music legend Charlie Daniels in which they talked a little bit about Bluegrass music. So, you must be correct when you say the Urban Talk ends at 4pm. As for "The Golden Age of Radio", I didn't hear a host's name, just an announcer saying quickly what the program would be. I have no idea if it was Victor Imes or not.
 
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