Access Atlanta > Entertainment > Radio Talk > Archives > 2008 > January
January 2008
1/31: Lost is back!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“Lost” has been fascinating and infuriarating, exhilirating and exasperating, fantastical and frustrating. And that’s why we still watch. The last half dozen episodes last season led up to the show-stopping finale in May that many arguably say was the best episode ever.
Finally, after eight months, in the midst of a writers’ strike, “Lost” feeds us a satisfactory return episode with a fair share of drama and pathos. It by no means compares to the finale but provides just enough revelations to keep fans hungry for more. (I also got to see the second episode, which is even better!)
We learn that there is such a thing as the “Oceanic Six,” implying that six of the islanders make it back to the mainland. The writers appear to have ditched flashbacks and will continue with the flashforwards they sprung on us in May. That’s definitely a good thing and will drive the story forward to its conclusion 48 episodes from now. It appears the time frame of Hurley’s fast forward is not long after they got back but before Jack’s flashfloward last May, before Jack grows his beard and becomes addicted to OxyContin. So we know Jack and Kate made it back, and Hurley, too. Plus, an unknown dead person from the May episode.
With Hurley running from the ghost of Charlie at a convenience store, he becomes the target of a huge 10 cop car chase. I’m still not clear why his departure from that store merited a cop car chase, though. But it got him back into a mental institution, a sanctuary he seemed to crave. Jack seems okay at this point (though he’s already drinking) and he even visits Hurley but things turn dark quickly when he asks, “What are you really doing here Jack? You were seeing if I went nuts, whether I was going to tell.” “Are you?” Jack asks. We of course have no clue what they’re hiding.
Charlie’s ghost pops in for a visit: “Now you have to do something but you’re hiding from me. That’s the real reason you ran when you saw me in the store. You knew I was here to tell you…” We don’t find out what he has to do — yet. Hurley seems to yearn for a return back to the island before Jack is ready to accept it. And that mysterious visitor pretending to be part of the Oceanic Airlines seems to be connected with Naomi and the “rescuers.”
Speaking of Naomi, she somehow not only got away from Jack and Kate (and creating a dummy trail) despite the fact Locke last season gutted her with a knife. How that happened, I have no clue! Then she manages to climb a tree, get the phone away from Kate, fix it and then die. That seemed a bit script convenient and not terribly organic.
The best scene is when Locke splits the group between those who believe the “rescuers” will truly rescue them and Locke’s belief that they are evil. Ironically, he’s now on the side of Ben, who shot him. Locke, who is pretty convincing, manages to get Hurley, Claire and Sawyer to join him and go to the barracks on the belief it’s better on the island than off of it. (The Sawyer/Kate fans can’t be happy about that!) Jack and most of the group stay overnight in the fuselage. The rescue helicopter arrives and Farraday parachutes down. The “rescuers” have arrived. It’s game on!
Well, what did you think? Worth the wait?
1/31: Reax to Regular Guys return
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I’m sure a lot of you are psyched to have the Regular Guys back and I’ve already spilled a fair amount of cyber-ink on them. But here is my last entry of the week about them— just reactions from various folks around town:
WSB-AM’s Clark Howard, via email: “I think you know that I like both Eric and Larry. I was so bummed when the two of them said they could never work together again because they are definitely a pair that the sum is better than the parts. They are extremely bright and love, love, love radio. This is such a puzzle though. Here you have a start-up station with a well known morning show vs. well known radio stations with people no one has ever heard of. My money is on the Regular Guys. But then again, I hope the Giants beat New England.”
Dick Wybrow, now at CNN Radio and formerly part of 96rock’s “Dick & Justice” afternoon team from 2002-2004 or so: “I love those guys. I really do. Some of their stuff, though, might be feeling a bit passe. But they bring a lot to the table and have really bright players. Tim Andrews is great. I had him on our show a couple of times. A very funny guy. And he can be dark. It’s also great to have ‘Southside’ Steve back. There was always so much tension between Larry and Eric. Every time they hit him, all that pressure would be released from the room. They need him.”
JImmy Baron, formerly of 99X.: “If Cumulus leaves them alone and let them do the show they know how to do, I think they’ll be enormous. It was a hiring coup.”
Marshall Chiles, runs the Funny Farm Comedy Club: “I had no idea how good they were until I had to listen to other shows while they were gone. It’s quality entertainment. I disagree with them politically but I still find them entertaining. Funny is funny.”
Fred Toucher, who used to compete against the Regular Guys at 99X but is now at WBCN-FM in Boston: “The Regular Guys were the best show in Atlanta when I lived there. I am friendly with Eric and Rich [Shertenlieb, former 99Xer and his co-host in Boston] is with Larry. However, I fear that they may have a nervous breakdown if they get sat on by whatever ‘programming genius’ Cumulus has let limp into the building. However, the owners of Cumulus are in Atlanta so everything will be fine.”
Jamie Bendall, co-owner of the Punchline Comedy Club: “I’m a big fan. I’m glad they’re back. It sounds like everybody is loose and enjoying themselves.”
Tim Rhodes, former Regular Guys member, now at Bulldog 103.7 in Athens, in an email: “I think the RG’s sounded strong. Sure didn’t seem like they’ve been off the air for 15 months. I think that Steve adds so much to the show. He is such a great 3rd mic. No one pulls off the one liners like he does. His line about “Throwing away his cowboy hat” when Eric got pissed was a classic. With the RG’s in the morning, Axel in afternoons, the only thing missing is me in middays. :) I would love to get the call but if it doesn’t happen I’ll keep working. I’m very grateful to Kevin Steele at Bulldog for giving me a radio avenue.”
MIke Rose, who worked with the Dickeys at 1340 as a program director and is now in mortgage banking: “I think it’s a very smart move by Cumulus and the Dickeys. They will take audience away from 96 and with 99.7, they’ll go after Star. It’s a good strategy. They’ve always been very perceptive in that way. 99X was well beyond its prime. The Regular Guys believe in what they are doing. The Dickeys will have to grin and bear it.”
1/30: On Ryan Cameron, Tom Joyner, Clark Howard
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
With all the brouhaha over the Regular Guys, I’ve left other radio tidbits on the wayside. But here’s stuff for folks who are sick of reading about them:
— V-103’s Ryan Cameron has a new talk show on Starz debuting on Feb. 4. I’ll be talking to him and his producer later this week and will provide more details closer to launch date. He produced, hosted and taped the shows back last fall and had a bunch of big stars including Big Boi and Ne-Yo on.
— Kiss syndicated star Tom Joyner was in town last night at Morehouse to promote PBS’s “African American Lives 2,” the sequel to the 2006 special in which Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. (sponsored by Atlanta’s Coca Cola) explores the genealogy of African Americans and finds out interesting family stories and the breakdown of where their family came from. He joins the likes of Morgan Freeman, Tina Turner, Don Cheadle and Chris Rock.
I asked him a completely off-topic question. Why is his daily soap show “It’s Your World” off the air? Apparently, the show was financed via sponsors and they had lost their sponsor. So it’s basically on hiatus until new sponsors can be found. The show is produced by 15 people in Los Angeles and it’s a fairly elaborate affair for radio, very old school that way. The feature has been with the Joyner’s syndicated show for 13 years and has been a beloved component.
— A reader asked what happened to Joanie, who had been part of Clark Howard’s team for many many years. Here’s Clark’s answer, which includes his current personal odds on quitting radio in a couple of years to run for political office:
Joni decided to retire last September (2007) after 16 years with me. We wanted to do a big “to do” for her on the air and with a party off air, but she insisted that she wanted to go out quietly. I guess that she wanted to keep her options open so if she wanted to she could come back which she did once before in the mid 90’s. She and Hal bought a house in the mountains of North Carolina and coming back to Atlanta for the show became a drag for her.
Kevin went to graduate school and got a masters degree so he could teach. I think he wants to teach at the college level or teach and coach at the high school level, but isn’t teaching right now as far as I know. He has a promotional products company and I think that is what he is doing. He has been gone since October of 2006 and I did announce it at that time.
Kellie McMaster, our webmaster, who was with the show for 6 years, left to go to graduate school at UGA to get a masters and then a doctorate in Psych.
Laura Reed, my TV producer, left me last summer after four years to go to work as a senior producer at Channel 2.
If I were to guess, people have headed to the exit as they figure I am going to run for office and thus am a short termer in radio. It is such a unique experience for me because my team is traditionally more stable than of late.
By the way, I would say there is only about a 33% chance that I am going to run for anything except dessert. I look at my kids and have trouble picturing not seeing them much.
1/29: Analyzing the Regular Guys
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Regular Guys — led by Larry Wachs and Eric Von Haessler — bring a complicated history for Rock 100.5. They still possess brand equity in this market and a past history of success. But over the past four years, they’ve been taken off the air twice for infractions. It’s amazing they have even been given a third chance. It’s amazing they are even back together.
The good points of this move:
The Regular Guys brings Rock 100.5 a drawing card, unlike the new Dave FM show with Zakk Tyler or the Morning Mess over at Star 94, which are fresh to the market.
They built a hugely popular show from 1998 to 2004, becoming one of the top shows among a broad men ages 18 to 54. Their formula, the closest to Howard Stern in Stern-less town, worked well and brought in huge bucks for 96rock. Wachs’ irascible nature and Von Haessler’s bemused observations off the news, on top of regular characters such as DUI lawyer George Stein and marble-mouth Ben the Bunnyman, provided an amusing tableau of male-friendly gab with no music. They became the face of the station and Cumulus is counting on the same situation here at a likely reduced price.
“Southside” Steve Rickman, who recently quit Eagle 106.7, is part of the team again. He was not included in Regular Guys 2.0 in 2005-06 and his absence hurt the show. The ponytailed Atlanta native was the Southern voice, the man of the people willing to make eight to 10 appearances a week at bars, car dealerships and strip clubs. He was the unmarried ladies man, the glad-hander and the one guy willing to be tortured by Wachs. And it’s nice to see the talented Tim Andrews land on his feet. He had landed a minor job at 99X, biding his time, and it worked to his advantage. (Listeners might remember him as “Porn Czar” on the Regular Guys but he may not use that moniker for the new incarnation.)
They are filling a void left by their own departure. There has been no real successful new male-oriented rock morning show in the Regular Guys’ absence. Dave FM had been in a holding pattern itself since it took Steve Barnes off the air in September 2006. The River has opted for a benign more music morning show with Lexie Kaye. And Project 9-6-1 just launched its new show in October with two unknowns, Giant Briant and Shaffee. Ironically, it was the failure of the second incarnation of 99X’s Morning X that paved the way for this change (as well as the massive success of the Bert Show at 100.5 which led to the signal swap.)
And after being off the air for 15 months, they could be hungry and willing to go the extra mile to ensure the show hits the ground running.
The potential sticking points:
Of the four rock stations, the Regular Guys will now be on the weakest signal, placing them at an instant disadvantage, especially for fans in Gwinnett County and the outer edges of the metro area.
Can the Wachs/Von Haessler coupling work again? The pair have had trouble finding radio jobs on their own and are back together despite the fact they aren’t exactly buddy buddy. In fact, after they lost their jobs the first two times, they both vowed never to work together again. But it’s safe to say this is all about the benjamins as the pair are more valuable together than separate.
Diminishing returns: the ratings when they first came back to 96rock in 2005-06 were only about two-thirds what they were getting during their peak days of 2001 to 2004. You could say if the Janet Jackson Super Bowl incident hadn’t happened, 96rock might still exist instead of Project 9-6-1. Wachs in March of 2004, just a few weeks after the FCC began clamping down on sexually-explicit talk, decided to mock that by taping a porn star talking dirty, then airing it backwards. But a technical snafu led to the talk airing over an ad and the ensuing bad publicity forced Clear Channel’s hand. (Despite a few complaints, the FCC never fined 96rock.) The company yanked the Guys off the air, but paid out their contracts. Once the dust settled in 2005, the Regular Guys returned, briefly, to WGST-AM (a bad fit), then quietly stuck them back on 96rock. At that point, the show had to dispense with virtually anything sexual. In one sense, the show had already backed off on the stripper aspects even before 2004, but they still felt a bit neutered. They also failed to find a good replacement for Rickman, who had been working afternoons but lost his job at 96rock in the summer of 2006. In September, Wachs was wooing Rickman back but then the show hit another unforeseen snag: Wachs taped and aired sister station Viva’s morning team Yogi & Panda in the bathroom stalls at the station. The Hispanic comedy duo didn’t find this funny and sued Wachs and 96rock, demanding the Regular Guys be fired. This worked. Clear Channel fired them with cause and nixed their contracts. Oddly, this incident didn’t even have to do with an FCC violation. And lax management failed to nip what could have been an easily solvable problem in the bud.
Ultimately, Cumulus is going to have to make sure it has the right program director to delicately guide the Regular Guys. They can’t be too hands off or another Yogi & Panda incident could happen. But if they are hands on and don’t treat the pair with kid gloves, sparks could fly behind closed doors and possibly stifle the on-air product.
1/28: Booted from the Regular Guys studio! (UPDATED)
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I’m sorry that I end up having to insert myself into the story but the Powers That Be at Q100/Rock 100.5 seem to have a knack for this:
Tim Andrews and the Regular Guys invited me to the radio studio this morning on the first day of the show’s third incarnation so I came up at about 8:30 a.m. I took a few pictures (below), then got kicked out by Cumulus Atlanta Market Manager Gary Lewis.
ABOVE: Eric, with a hat to hide his thinning hair.
ABOVE: “Southside” Steve, happy to be back home after a year at the Eagle.
ABOVE: Larry, wearing a wig.
The bosses decided it would be too distracting for me to be there - or something like that. In fact, I can’t even talk to Larry & Eric until they deem it okay. Eric was peeved and got into Gary’s face but Larry decided to play referee, apologized about misunderstanding Gary’s original missive and I was gone. (Larry said he only thought he wasn’t supposed to talk to me Sunday night.)
The first few songs on Rock 100.5 after the Regular Guys ended, by the way, were the Who’s “Baba O’Riley,” the first song when 96rock launched more than 30 years ago. That was followed by “Sweet Emotion” by Aerosmith, “Paradise City” by Guns ‘n Roses, “Panama” by Van Halen and “Shine” by Collective Soul. In other words, the format is pretty much the old 96rock, no surprise there. They are playing four decades of music, from Jimi Hendrix in 1968 to 2007 hit by Daughtry “It’s Not Over.”
Gary Lewis (right) used to run Z93 from 1996 til around 2000. He was the man who dumped the Greaseman, and brought in Gary McKee and Charlie & Company. When I asked why he never brought in Howard Stern, he said Mel Karmizan simply told him no and he doesn’t really know why. (Conspiracy theorists have at it!)
Since I was the cause of the first tiff between management and the Regular Guys, I asked how they were going to manage the Regular Guys, who have been taken off the air twice already with Clear Channel. His response: “They are radio professionals. I believe there’s a definite understanding. We’ll give them all the latitude they need to make great radio.”
Will there be diminishing returns for a show that didn’t quite get back its ratings when it came back a second time at 96rock? He said the show, with “Southside” Steve back, is much better for it and he expects ratings will do as well as they did on the stronger 96.1 signal. “The whole signal issue gets overplayed,” he said.
The Regular Guys modus operandi is to mock the bosses. “I’m willing to take it,” Lewis said. How much leeway will they really have to do that? “This is not a show to be micromanaged,” he said. “From an artistic standpoint, we brought them in because we like what they do.”
Ben the Bunnyman is back. So is homeless karaoke and the FU line. DUI lawyer George Stein will return, too, later in the week.
The Regular Guys are in Bert’s old studios while Bert is over at 99X’s studios.
I just spoke with John Dickey. He said he’ll make Larry & Eric available next week once they get settled down and get used to their surroundings. Whatever.
He did say there is a new mid-day person coming from outside of Atlanta but he wouldn’t say who. Axel will do afternoons and Matt C & Lewis evenings. “This station is picking up where 96rock left off,” he said. Then Dickey mocked rival Clear Channel after asked what he felt when 96rock was killed in late 2006 in favor of Project. “I was shocked, disappointed, saddened. And just puzzled. It just spiraled from there. They blew up Peach [Lite]. They disemboweled GST. They proved they can destroy brands and quite frankly, disenfranchise listeners.”
As for the Regular Guys, Dickey is on the top of th e world: “They’re excited to be back. I don’t anticipate anything but great radio out of these guys — and a great run for the next 10, 15 years.”
1/28: Regular Guys 3.0 back again, this time on Rock 100.5
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
So much for my alarm clock. I missed the first five minutes of the Regular Guys. I’m sure someone at www.radio-info.com will have it to soon on MP3. Someone in fact has made the 6 a.m. launch available for download here.
But in what Eric Von Haessler said was the “fake veil of secrecy,” the quartet of Eric, Larry Wachs, Tim “don’t call me Porn Czar anymore” Andrews and “Southside” Steve Rickman are indeed back this morning. Mark Owens is doing traffic. They are on the new Rock 100.5. (That’s where Q100 was for seven years. In case you were wondering, Q100 is now at 99.7, with the Bert Show on the stronger signal. 99X has now been relegated to the Web only - oh, and HD radio for the seven of you who own HD radios.)
Larry early on told about the time he went to court and prison after being arrested for that radio bit in which he taped Viva’s then morning team Yogi & Panda in the bathroom and mocked them. The two Hispanic men sued and 96rock fired the Regular Guys in October 2006. The pair have not found a radio job until Cumulus saved them from unemployment last month and gave them a third chance. (They were taken off the air the first time after that backwards porn bit went all awry back in 2004.)
Wachs called the Dickey brothers, who run Cumulus, the “Schindlers.” “They have resued us from a holocaust of bad radio vibes,” Wachs said.
“Stop kissing up,” Von Haessler said.
“I spilled the beans,” Wachs said. “And I lied to Rodney Ho to cover it up.”
Yes, two weeks ago, that’s what happened. But I figured it was true a few hours later and that’s what we’ve been assuming ever since. Wachs had no choice but cover up. The bosses told him to do so. Read that January 11 blog entry if you want the full details of the amusing cat-and-mouse game that occurred that evening.
Oh, by the way: the FU line is back. “That’s the ‘faith and understanding’ line,” Larry said. But while it was called the “Foo” line the second time around. Larry is able to say “F U” again. And, the Web site is www.atlantasrockstation.com. As of 7:30 a.m., it’s just a photo of the Regular Guys, with Larry wearing a wig, but there is a button to listen to them live online.
The first caller is Joe. He mocked Giant Brian over at Project 9-6-1, saying he looks like he has Down’s Syndrome.
Larry quickly gave his old employer’s replacement station a new monker: “Project 9-Sucks-One.”
“I know people who work there. They’re cutting budgets to the bone” at Clear Channel, Wachs said. “They’re down to retards.”
And who knows how long the Regular Guys will last this time around.
As Wachs noted, “What is Wachs going to do to screw it up?”
“Every show could be out last,” Eric said.
They had to use the “dump” button for a caller saying something FCC-unfriendly at 7:49 a.m. “Come on people,” Larry groaned. “Don’t blow it for us. We can do it ourselves, thank you.”
“We don’t need a caller to get us kicked off the air,” Eric said.
They do sound thrilled to be back. And surely, a lot of their fans are, too.
If you want to hear how I was summarily booted out of the Regular Guys studio this morning by their new boss, it’s here.. Apparently, I wasn’t supposed to be there but Larry misunderstood the missive and had invited me in.
1/25: On the writers strike, Country Fair, Dylan Sprague, Sean Demery
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Good news for fans of AMC’s “Mad Men” and Showtime’s delectable comedy “Weeds.” Lionsgate, which produces both shows, signed an interim deal with the Writers Guild (similar to one that was given to David Letterman’s production company) so those two shows will now be able to move forward.
In the meantime, with the writers strike in its 12th week, the recent agreement between producers and directors strike some hope that the strike itself might nearing an end. The writers are now informally talking with the producers again, mostly about digital media residuals, after taking off the table an effort to unionize animated and reality-show writers. Most networks, to trim costs, are cutting development deals left and right and potential series are falling by the wayside.
And more scripted shows run out of episodes. Thursday night, for instance, featured the final original episodes of “Ugly Betty” and “Chuck.” There are still three “House” episodes. “Brothers and Sisters” has two. “CSI: NY” has one. Otherwise, most of the top 20 scripted shows are out of fresh episodes, including the two other CSIs, “Grey’s,” “Two & a Half Men,” “Desperate,” “Heroes,” “NCIS,” “Without a Trace,” “Criminal Minds” and “SVU.” TV Guide tracks the coundtown here..
“Price Is Right” ratings are down 9 percent with Drew Carey vs. Bob Barker. And poor Carey—his primetime game show “Power of 10” was yanked after two tries vs. “Idol” and horrible ratings results.
That fascinating History Channel two-hour doc “Life After People” about what the world would be like if we all just disappeared pulled in a network record 5.4 million viewers earlier this week.
“The Moment of Truth,” the show following “Idol” Wednesday featuring people being asked increasingly uncomfortable personal questions while tied to a lie detector for cash opened huge, hauling in 23 million viewers, the biggest new show of the year. It held more than 80 percent of the “Idol” audience. Personally, I thought the show was a bit slow and the first contestant irritatingly smarmy but the second contestant was a lot of fun to watch. Overall, the show wasn’t quite as good as I had hoped and it’ll be interesting to see if people stick around for by the 10th or 12th episode.
Star 94’s Morning Mess raised $13,100 for the DeKalb County Police Heroes’ Fund to help out the two cops shot to death last week. They did so by auctioning off tix to see the Jonas Brothers Saturday night.
The Kicks/Eagle Country Fair lineup has been announced. Friday May 16 will feature Luke Bryan, Miranda Lambert and Dierks Bentley. (Excellent!). And Saturday will feature Clay Walker, Pat Green, and hometown boy Travis Tritt (right). More info here. Tix go on sale tomorrow at 10 a.m. and you better buy them cos this show has sold out in recent years. Ticket prices range from $15 to $50 for each day. Last year, Luke Bryan was on the side stage while the lineup featured Billy Currington, Jason Aldean, Gary Allan, Eric Church, John Anderson, Gretchen Wilson and Trace Adkins. This will be at least the fourth appearance by Pat Green at Country Fair, Clay Walker’s second (1st time was 2002) and Tritt’s first appearance since 2000.
Dylan Sprague, let go last month by Q100 as late afternoon host and program director, has quickly gotten a job as PD at a Denver top 40 station named Alice. Congrats Dylan! Some dude from Jackson, Miss. named Johnny O (right) started today at 3 p.m., taking over for Dylan.
And if you’re a fan of Sean Demery, the man is in Utah snowboarding and chopping wood. He left 99X last month just before it was blown up. He finally got around to writing his memoirs on 99X here in his weblog..
It’s very comprehensive and he talks about how the station lost its footing in the 2000s.
Here’s an excerpt. And being a close friend of Fram’s, he defends her strongly:
By the mid 2000’s, at least three different consultants had their fingers in 99X’s pie. The result of this guidance from three converse advisors was something I call “programming by consensus”. By doing this you get a down the middle compromise which ends up not serving any one listener with anything they really want. I’m guessing that it drove Leslie Fram crazy. She’s a smart programmer who had to spend daunting hours in meetings and on conference calls listening to multiple pundits postulate about what the station needed to do. Leslie spent much of 2000’s having to deal with outside help that management wanted as a pacifier, help she didn’t need. What she needed was to be left alone in the same way as when she helped create the station in the first place.
The more unfocused the station became the more the station took on a defensive posture. Defensive posturing is boring. No one throws a punch they just hold their hands in front of their faces and wait for the fight to end… and it has.
He felt when Cumulus took over, they programmed the station older but still sought the younger audience.
Looking from a music stand point it seems like Cumulus couldn’t understand the fact that Bush, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and their ilk were the bands of yester year, and were not the building blocks for the current music generation. It felt like that they were trying to recreate the 90’s. The 90’s are gone. They couldn’t understand what bands like the Shins, Silversun Pickups, Band of Horses, Arcade Fire, The Bravery, Interpol, Spoon, Against Me, Rise Against, etc had to do with 99X. These are bands that sell out medium sized venues in Atlanta with little or no airplay; they have massive internet and magazine prominence.
And one more bit:
Pertaining to the frequency switch and demise of 99X, I had no idea of the events that were about to unfold when I left. I just figures that they would lumber along long after my exit. And contrary to the many e-mails I have received, I do not believe my leaving prompted Cumulus to give up on 99X. I made very little difference in the molding of 99X over the last year, and my appearance on the New Morning X was benign at best. I merely thought that my leaving would create a slot for someone new to infuse the team with a new spark into a smoldering fire.
1/25: 99X ends with Green Day
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I was being facetious when I suggested last week that 99X on FM should end with Green Day’s wistful “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” but that’s how the station indeed closed its doors at 5:30 a.m. Friday morning after 15 years and three months on the air.
“It’s such a cliche song,” Bert Weiss said now that 99X is Q100. True, but apropos. In the station’s honor, I am wearing my original “Resurrection Sunday 99X” T-shirt I won in 1994 at American Pie from Yvonne Monet after IDin’g the most ’80s music caricatures in a contest she held.
Officially, the once gloried station moves to 99x.com, which means most of its audience will disappear without the 100,000 watts on the FM dial.
“We got to cut the cord people!” Bert said, when told he was still on 100.5 at 5:38 a.m.
At 6 a.m., they did so. 100.5 began running a loop of Bert telling people to move to 99.7 while a bit of Beyonce’s “Irreplaceable” played (“To the left, to the left”)
From 5:30 a.m. to 6 a.m., 99x.com simulcast the Bert Show but at 6 a.m., it began the same loop playing on 100.5.
Axel Lowe ended his shift last night at 7 p.m. with another cynical song, R.E.M.’s “Radio Song.”
When I got to the show Yo ho ho I could tell that you had been crying, crying Its that same sing song, and the dj sucks It makes me sad I tried to turn it off To say goodbye my love That radio song Hey hey hey
At about 4:50 a.m., 99X’s final jock Doug Harding actually finished up his shift with “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” did a nice verbal goodbye to the station, nostalgically namechecking all the major players at the station over the years, then leading into U2’s “One.” Then the final 30 minutes of 99X, according to yes.com, before Green Day, included “Radio Song,” Stone Temple Pilot’s “Dead and Bloated,” Nirvana’s “All Apologies,” Soundgarden’s “Fell on Black Days,” Pearl Jam’s “Black” and Jeff Buckley’s “Last Goodbye.”
Meanwhile, the new 100.5 format will be introduced at 6 a.m. Monday. At 10 a.m., 100.5 began looping a fake contest offering eight format choices they want listeners to “vote” on, none of which will likely be the actual format. Most are redundant or not commercially viable anymore though a couple could possibly do fine in this market. The eight “formats” are “Trickle,” a soft soft rock station, an oldies station, yet another country station, a “death metal” station, an FM talk station, a comedy channel (cue satellite radio!), a “silence” channel and an all-sound effects channel. Somehow, polka and all-Elvis didn’t make the cut.
Seriously, the station will be a rock format on Monday. Realistically, Rock 100.5 could sound like the old 96rock and straddle between Project and the River. That would fit the Regular Guys the best. Or they could go classic alternative and go after Dave but that’s a long shot.
Dave, in fact, has been doing a tribute to 99X at the top of the hour, a very classy and smart marketing move, basically saying, “Hey, former 99X lovers, we’re here for ya!”
1/24: Dave’s Zakk Tyler mornings start 2/4, new WGKA early morning show
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The long-awaited Dave FM morning show featuring Zakk Tyler starts Feb. 4, according to a promo that aired at 12:35 p.m. after Mara Davis’ cheese. The show will air from 5 to 9 a.m. The station plans to focus more on a grassroots campaign rather than billboards the way Star is pushing the Morning Mess. “We’ll earn each listener one at a time,” Dave FM’s GM Rick Caffey said. “I think he’s going to be a great ambassador for Dave FM. He’ll spend as much time outside as he is inside the studio. I’m very excited to have an on-air personality who will be out and about.”
Obviously, this isn’t to say Holly Firfer wasn’t out and about. She was. But he might be alluding to some other past personality. Take your guess.
I’m set to talk to Zakk next week when his co-host Jane Monzures comes into town. They worked together at the Loop in Chicago.
Since the station went rock as Z93 in 1989, this would be WZGC’s 12th attempt at a morning show.
Here’s the complete list:
1989: Barry Chase.
1989-1992: Chase & Woodside. I spoke with Scott Woodside yesterday. He said the pair worked at Z93 when it was a top 40 station, the very first FM morning team in Atlanta back in 1974. Managemtent thought it would be cool to bring them back together as a team. He recalls that their ratings were moving up (No. 3 25-49 at one point) until management told them to pull back on talking about themselves and shortening bits and such. Ratings went down and they were soon goners.
1992-93: Slats. Does anybody remember him and what happened?
1993-96: The Greaseman (Above, WZGC’s only syndicated show) He was a grating, loudmouth shock jock type who often got in trouble. He split the audience. Some loved him; too many hated him.
1996-98: Gary McKee (right). After a long illustrious run in radio, he was at the tail end of his career and was burned out. He has since retired from the business.
1998-99: Charlie & Company. This was a comedy-oriented show that wasn’t quite ready for primetime.
1999-2002: Dave Marino. He’s a talented guy who was never utilized properly or given room to breath. He’s now doing imaging at 790/The Zone.
2002: Moby. After a long successful stint at Kicks, Moby simply didn’t fit well in the classic rock mode and lasted only a few months. Management shoved him to traffic to try to get him to leave but he stuck around for several months getting a big paycheck and doing traffic while the “Mission Impossible” theme played behind him. He’s now doing a syndicated morning show heard on country stations in Rome, Athens and Griffin.
2003-04: Mara & Dunham; This was a quick fix after Moby. The pair was just starting to congeal as a team when CBS pulled the plug on Z93 and switched to Dave.
2004-06: Barnes & Firfer: Hoping to resurrect the magic of 99X, CBS hired Steve Barnes (right) but without Leslie & Jimmy, it wasn’t quite the same.
2006-07: Firfer & Orff: This was a stopgap show, which actually did as well, if not better, than the Barnes days.
2008: Zakk Tyler. We’ll learn soon enough about how this guy will connect with the Dave audience.
This will be the fourth new morning show in town over the past four months, following Project’s Giant Brian & Shaffee, the Morning Mess at Star and the Bull’s Cledus T. Judd show. I don’t think Atlanta has faced this much morning turmoil in ages.
And technically, there’s a fifth new morning show. WGKA-AM, which has relied on syndicated programming on weekdays since its inception, will debut its first local early early morning show which starts at 4:30 a.m. and runs through 6 a.m. starring Joel Aarom. The 27 year old has done their fun weekend “Hub” talk show, with a rotating crew of opinion makers. Bill Bennett will continue from 6 to 9 a.m. Joel’s show starts Monday January 28.
ABOVE: I took this shot of Joel last year for a story about the Hub Show.
“Joel hits the target demographics (males 25-54),” said Jeff Carter, WGKA program director. “We want to give him a daily live program and see what happens.” And if there’s breaking news, Joel can do cut-ins from 6 to 9 a.m.
WGKA’s strongest shows are Bennett and Laura Ingraham from 9 to noon. It’s good to see WGKA finally investing in some local weekday talent, even if it’s well before sunrise.
Project Runway: Denim Nation
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The high: High fashion takes on the working man’s brand.
The low: Sweet P’s dirty foot.
It doesn’t take a lot of thought to pull on jeans or a jean jacket in the morning, but it takes more than a little savvy to reinvent them for the runway.
This was the challenge that tripped up Victorya this week. Trying to reinterpret a classic denim jacket showed that some items that just can’t be reinterpreted successfully. When all was said and done, it was still a denim jacket.
Dana Legette-Traylor, dean of fashion marketing at Atlanta’s American InterContinental University, told us that because of Rami’s embellishments — he added zippers and a double row of buttons — his dress had the most potential to be turned into an actual collection. “This is a season for accessories,” Legette-Traylor said. “Zippers, labels, brass buttons … are an extension of the accessory, more so than a handbag or a shoe.”
So the designers who reshaped their denim into svelte little dresses and trendy skinny jeans were more successful … right?
Not quite. Innovation doesn’t automatically translate to retail success in this case, Legette-Traylor added.
Even though the super-fitted denim designs might have looked adorable on the runway, they probably have a limited audience. “Particularly in the United States, given the number of body types we have, I’m just not sure how the little denim dresses would sell,” especially without some Spandex stretch, she said.
In light of that, it’s even more impressive that Ricky could score a limited-edition deal to sell his winning design through Levi’s Web site. Not only does it give Ricky worldwide exposure, but it could help Levi’s rebrand itself in a retail environment where premium denim price tags are comfortably settled in the three figures.
Cheap or costly, denim is here to stay. This American classic, said Legette-Traylor, is still (relatively) inexpensive, it’s resourceful, and it wears well. Plus, workplaces are more accepting of denim throughout the week.
Even though Victorya went home, we thought that Jillian’s dress looked more muddled and unfinished. And while we were impressed by Sweet P’s workmanship, the patchwork called to mind some unfortunate fashion moments from the 1970s. All that was missing was the white bolero jacket and the espadrilles — and the Dorothy Hamill haircut.
The last word: Would you wear a “little blue dress” or Christian’s high-fashion motocross jeans?
Permalink | Comments (25) | Categories: Project Runway
1/23: Steak Shapiro rants about John Kincade
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This morning, 790/The Zone Steak Shapiro went on a rant against 680/The Fan’s John Kincade for dubbing the Zone as “an urban station” in a blog entry on the Fan’s Web site here.
Shapiro accused Kincade, without naming him directly, of being “racist” for using the term “urban,” which is a common euphemism radio professionals have used for years for “African American.”
Kincade was upset that the NHL is putting its promotion dollars with the Zone instead of the Fan, which is home to the Atlanta Thrashers. Here’s a key excerpt:
So the NHL brings the showcase event of the sport to Atlanta and decides to “partner” their marketing effort with a station that does not promote or discuss the sport on a regular basis. The NHL chooses to “partner” for the event with a station that has a majority urban audience. There are NHL fans all over, but the vast majority of the fans of the sport are not following it or getting their information from urban stations.
Kincade, in fact, is not even talking about the NHL All Star game at all as punishment. (The Fan is airing the play by play of the game itself Sunday.)
I have data from the spring of 2007 breaking down the racial audience of each station. The Zone had 48.1 percent black listeners, not quite a majority. The Fan had 15.9 percent in the spring. (David Dickey, who runs the Fan, said the fall 2007 Arbitron numbers indicated a 50% black listening audience for the Zone and 33 percent for the Fan. He noted that the Fan among all radio stations has a listenership most reflective of the racial makeup of the metro area.)
The Zone’s African American audience has flocked to the 2 Live Stews, the most successful black sports talk duo in the country. (Dickey said about 73 percent of the Stews audience was black in the fall vs. 26 percent for Mayhem in the AM and 23 percent for Buck & Kincade.) The bulk of the rest of the Zone’s current lineup is white.
The Zone for a period was regularly beating the Fan in ratings. But in the past year, the gap has disappeared. In fact, the Fan just had its best ratings book ever this past fall while the Zone struggled a bit. The station’s biggest winner was the 2 Live Stews, which edged out Buck & Kincade in the target demo ratings but it got creamed in other dayparts. The Fan ranked no. 6 among men 25-54 while the Zone ranked No. 17.
I got a hold of Steak at about 3:15 p.m. and he repeated what he said on air, with more specificity:
“680 the Fan characterizing us as an urban station is racist,” Steak told me. “The NHL chose us to promote the All Star game because we’re the promotional experts. We dominated the sports scene for 10 years… we are just better at partnerships than 680… Calling us an urban station is bringing race into it. You can have black talk show hosts without being urban. It’s disrespectful and racist… they pulled the race card. They are the NHL station and the NHL turned its back on them. That shows what kind of partner they are.”
The Zone does have about 50 percent black listeners so what’s wrong with being called “urban”? Steak: “We’re not an urban station. We’re a sport station with black hosts and white hosts. There’s nothing wrong with being urban. It’s a great format. If we could get 1/4 of V-103’s audience, we’d be thrilled.”
He saw Kincade’s blog comments as “irresponsible” and sour grapes. He acknowledged that the Fan had a great fall ratings book. “Our job is to be humble and deal with that,” Steak said. “We can deal with it. We can’t deal with lies and racist bull.”
Kincade was surprised by the vehemence of Shapiro’s comments, which he did not hear.
“I think when ratings slip and audience size goes down, people get a little tight under the collar,” Kincade said. “Him attacking me personally on the air or anyone is just childish. It’s sophomoric. It’s so Steak. And the funny thing is I really like him. He’s a really good guy… is he trying to do something to gain attention for his sagging morning show?”
“He’s a brilliant businessman as the success of 790 the Zone has shown. But he knows what urban is. What he’s counting on is his listenership won’t. He’s rabble rousing. He flat out deceives his audience… For him to besmirch me and my station is a desperate move from a desperate guy.”
I emailed an NHL publicist, who said he’ll try to find someone to explain why the league chose the Zone over the Fan. The Zone is helping promote an Usher concert at the Tabernacle and a post-game party at its restaurant Stats.
So is this much ado about nothing? What does the word “urban” mean to you and does it really matter? And should the NHL be marketing with a station that has less of a hockey-listening base as the Zone?
1/23: Top Chef Chicago features two Atlantans
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Last year, Bravo’s “Top Chef” came to Atlanta for the first time for a casting call and ultimately found two Atlantans. The fourth-season starts March 12.
Here are the bios provided by Bravo. Nimma’s bio is pretty thin compared to Richard’s so that makes you wonder who made it further. Hmmm…
NIMMA OSMAN, AGE: 26, HOMETOWN: Peachtree City, GA - currently resides in Atlanta, GA. PROFESSION: Chef at Repast, CULINARY EDUCATION: Culinary Institute Of America FAVORITE SPRING RECIPE: Grilled freshly caught fish with some amazing olive oil and sea salt
A native of Peachtree City, GA., Nimma earned her culinary degree from the Culinary Institute of America and is currently working as a chef at Repast restaurant in Atlanta. Her favorite thing to cook is pasta and she says she always has salt, pepper, green tea, coffee, and butter on hand.
ABOVE: Richard Blais back in 2005 when he worked at One Midtown Kitchen. CREDIT: Kimberly Smith
RICHARD BLAIS, AGE: 35. HOMETOWN: Uniondale, New York - currently resides in Atlanta, GA. PROFESSION: Chef, culinary designer, Trail-Blais. CULINARY EDUCATION: AOS Culinary Arts, CIA, FAVORITE SIMPLE SPRING RECIPE: Lamb meatballs with rhubarb & strawberry
Richard is not only a chef, but also a culinary designer, working all over the east coast. He and his wife reside in Atlanta, Georgia with their two weimaraners and are expecting their first child in the spring. He is known for his innovative and personal take on classical cuisine and has studied under luminaries such as Thomas Keller, Daniel Boulud and Ferran Adria. Richard believes cooking is an art and a craft and food is meant to stimulate on many levels. He incorporates global ingredients, modern cooking methods, wit and a sense of humor to all his food. He says if he were a food he would be an artichoke. “It’s tough, difficult to work with, even dangerous at its core; but when you come down to it, it’s simple, beautiful and delicious.”
Meredith Ford, our esteemed food critic, wrote a bit more about both of them on her Table Talk blog.. Check it out!
1/21: What rock format will 100.5 be?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
One of the astute readers of this blog found that 99X and Q100 owners Cumulus has recently registered several Web addresses including www.rock100atlanta.com, www.1005atlanta.com, www.rockatl100.com and www.rock1005.com. All those addresses temporily jump to a Cumulus station in Cincinnati.
This doesn’t really clarify what type of rock music will be played. With the Regular Guys as the opener (and they are generally averse to playing music at all), it won’t be soft rock, that’s for sure. The two most obvious formats would be one similar to Project 9-6-1, which is in the business called “active rock,” targeting males 18 to 34. It would rock harder than 99X. Or they could go older and try to go after the River with a harder sounding classic rock sound with a focus on the 70s and 80s. Less likely but certainly possible could be a format that guns after Dave FM with a “classic” alternative sound focused on 80s and 90s.
What type of rock music do you think this market needs? And would it make more sense to call it Rock 100 or Rock 100.5 since Q100 will remain the same even at the 99.7 frequency.
And it’s certainly not outside the realm of possibility that Cumulus set aside these Web site addresses as a feint and it could end up a completely different name. You can never tell in radio land!
And it’s not clear whether Cumulus will “stunt” with a silly format for a few days before going to their new “permanent” format or switch immediately on Friday morning. The switchover is supposedly going to happen at about 5:30 a.m. but that’s certainly not written in stone.
Some of you might be tired of 99X remembrances by now, but Jimmy Baron did one in today’s op-ed pages if you want to check it out.
I also spoke with Rick Caffey, GM for Dave and V-103. He said they should have an official launch date for the Zakk Tyler morning show by the end of the week. I expect an early February launch at this point. He said both stations are launching “e-mags” online, which are still in testing stages at www.edave.com and www.v103webmag.com. Both are interactcive, featuring videos, audio, games and advertising.
1/18: WSB’s Jovita Moore gets more anchor time
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Rising WSB-TV newscaster Jovita Moore will be taking over the 5 p.m. anchor desk from Monica Pearson. She already is handling the 5:30 p.m. duties. This is a clear indication that Moore is being positioned as Pearson’s heiress apparent. The move happens January 31. Pearson will continue to anchor 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts.
“It surprised me,” Moore told me Friday evening. “I didn’t think anything would be happening anytime soon. I thought it would be another good year or two.” She’ll continue to do reporting dayside and be Pearson’s primary sub at night. She said Monica uttered, jokingly, “Finally!” when the news came out. She also didn’t know when Justin Farmer would arrive from Dallas to possibly co-anchor with her at 5 p.m. but his contract in Dallas is up in August. “It’s a very exciting time,” she added. “This newsroom has great momentum internally and externally.”
Here’s part of the memo news director Marian Pittman sent out to staff:
I am very proud to announce Jovita Moore will now anchor the 5:00 hour. The move comes after years of hard work and tireless hours at public speaking engagements representing WSB. Jovita has been with us for almost 10 years and is ready for her next big step. Jovita has never said no to an assignment even if it was during her vacation, on the weekend or even early morning. She has proven herself over and over and this promotion is well deserved.
Monica was elated when I asked her if she was ready to pass the baton. She has been a true WSB soldier and has anchored the 5:00 show for 18 years. Monica has played a tremendous role in solidifying our ratings dominance at 5 p.m.
The plan was to groom Jovita and then promote from within the newsroom. It worked!
What do you think? Good move?
CREDIT: Kimberly Smith
Also, fetching Dagmar Midcap (above), morning meteorologist for “Better Mornings” on WGCL-TV may be taking Gene Norman’s job as he goes to Houston, according to newsblues.com.
1/18: Atlanta Fall Arbitron ratings
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The fall radio ratings reflect the calm before the storm of changes that have occurred in recent weeks.
Here are some of the notable trends:
A Christmas story: B98.5, without the Lite competition, had a holly jolly Christmas after its fall ranking jumped to 4th compared to 10th a year ago. Its cumulative weekly audience was 602,200 vs. 448,100 a year ago. Although the replacement for Lite, country station the Bull, also opted to go Christmas (albeit with a country twang), its ratings were virtually flat from the summer. Ratings for the Fish, which also went all Christmas, edged up slightly from the fall but was slightly worse than a year ago.
Gotta love Steve Harvey Talk/R&B station Grown Folks 102.5 is doing gangbusters, finishing 5th among 25 to 54 year old. This despite a relatively weak signal compared to most of its peers. And the station did well across all dayparts, including Steve Harvey in mornings and Michael Baisden in the afternoons.
Fanning the flames 680/The Fan kicked not only its rival sports station 790/The Zone in virtually every time period, but it also easily defeated once glorious 640/WGST-AM — even its strongest personality Rush Limbaugh. The Zone’s strongest show was the 2 Live Stews, who edged out Buck and Kincade at the Fan for the second book in a row. Both shows easily beat up on Dave Ramsey on GST. But the Fan’s Rude Awakening morning show ranked a solid 6th among men 25 to 54 compared to 17th a year ago. The Zone’s Mayhem in the AM struggled, tied for 20th. (The Zone recently moved its schedule around.)
The country wars rage on Eagle had one of its strongest books in ages despite the new Bull competition. The station, which recently lost “Southside” Steve Rickman, finished 15th among 25 to 54 year olds, up from 21st a year ago. Sister station Kicks was more or less flat and so was the year-old Bull, which hasn’t shown a lot of traction but recently added a new morning show with Cledus T. Judd.
News/talk slippage WSB-AM, the city’s top news/talk station, has been losing some steam the past year across the board. The station used to beat V-103 among 25 to 54 year olds on occasion but hasn’t done so in awhile and has even slipped to third behind Kiss. Even among men in that demo, V-103 won. The station, which recently dumped Chris Krok in favor of Herman Cain at night, is probably hoping the Presidential elections will give it a boost in the winter.
Farewell 99X 99X’s pending departure shouldn’t be surprising given its ratings, which were the lowest overall among the 100,000 watt stations in town (Those would be Dave FM, Star 94, Project, the River, B98.5, 99X, Kicks and V-103). The alternative rock station, whose last day is Jan. 25 on the FM dial, ranked 20th among 25 to 54 and 11th in its target demo of 18 to 34. That latter ranking is actually its best in a year but a far cry from its peak in the late 1990s and early 2000s when it was regularly a top 5 18-34 performer.
If you follow particular companies, none of Clear Channel’s five stations landed in the top 12 among 25 to 54 year olds. Its top-rated station was Project, tied for 13th.
Top 10 morning shows, 25-54
1- Frank & Wanda, V-103
2- Scott Slade, WSB-AM
3- Tom Joyner, Kiss 104.1
4- Steve Harvey, Grown Folks 102.5
5- The Bert Show, Q100
6 (tie) Yolanda Adams, Praise 97.5
6 (tie) Kelly & Alpha, B98.5
8- Lexie Kaye, 97.1/The River
9 (tie) Cadilla Jack & Kristen, Kicks 101.5
9 (tie) Steve & Vikki//Nudge, Star 94 (They weren’t down much considering all the changes)
Top 10 morning shows 18-34
1- Frank & Wanda, V-103
2- The Bert Show, Q100
3- The “A” Team, Hot 107.9
4- Panda & Brenda, Viva 105.7
5- Cadillac & Kristen, Kicks 101.5 (Their numbers have bounced around quite a bit the year)
6- Scott Slade, WSB-AM
7- Giant Brian & Shaffee, Project 9-6-1
8- Steve Harvey, Grown Folks 102.5
9- Los Patrones in the Morning, El Patron 105.3
10- Tom Joyner, Kiss 104.1
SOURCE: Arbitron, Sept. 20-Dec. 12, 2007
If there’s a specific show you’d like rankings for, email me at rho@ajc.com. Because of rules from Arbitron, I can’t release actual ratings outside of 12-plus.
1/18: Dave’s new cohost, J. Anthony Brown in ATL, Leslie Fram update
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Dave FM’s new Zakk Tyler morning show has a new co-host, his former traffic gal from the Loop in Chicago, Jane Monzures (right, below), known as “Sweet Baby Jane,” according to the Chicago Sun Times.
Start date still hasn’t been announced.
Tom Joyner’s J. Anthony Brown will be at Ebenezer Baptist Church (407 Auburn Ave. Atlanta) from 6 to 10 a.m. Monday morning if you want to stop by for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday celebration. Joyner will be in Miami and other cast members will be in other Southeastern cities. Brown will also be at the Punchline for a special show that evening.
And yes, we have heard back from Leslie Fram. She chose not to speak to me but did offer her take on the situation with my colleague Rich Eldredge and he wrote this Peach Buzz item:
Leslie Fram called us to discuss her unexpected departure from the 99X airwaves. Cumulus Media, the owner of 99X, has announced upcoming changes in content and a frequency alteration.
On Thursday, Fram told us that Cumulus chose not to renew her contract “in its current state.” The veteran Atlanta program director and morning show co-host told Buzz she remains under contract to Cumulus through the end of March and is due to have a meeting with station execs to discuss a possible future role with the company.
Now off the air, Fram says she’s grateful to longtime listeners who have reached out to her about her 17 years on the air in Atlanta.
Fellow female broadcasters Vikki Locke and Mara Davis sent her flowers and well wishes, while concert promoter Peter Conlon phoned to thank her and to reminisce about the many concerts the two have helped bring to the city.
“The outpouring of support has been unbelievable,” Fram told Buzz in an exclusive chat. “Sometimes in radio, you don’t stop and have a chance to look back on what you’ve done. I realize, reading e-mails from 99X listeners, that we had a real impact on people’s lives, and that’s really nice to hear.”
While she sorts through her future in radio, Fram is staying plenty busy with her interests in the downtown boutiques Luxe and 1Five0 Atlanta and the monthly “Live at 1Five0” parties at the store that feature local musicians performing and creating apparel for fans (for details, go to 150atlanta.com).
And on Thursday night, she was busy primping Layla, her rescued cocker spaniel, for her debut as a fashion model at the “Doggies on the Catwalk” benefit at Grady High School.
Cracked Fram: “Being Layla’s stage mother may be my next job! I’m just hoping she doesn’t become a diva and start demanding [concert contract] riders.” If you’d like to e-mail Fram, you can reach her at lesliefram@mac.com.
1/17: Catching up with Holly Firfer
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Holly Firfer, who worked at Dave FM from summer of 2004 until the end of 2007, continues to be a cohost at WXIA’s “Atlanta and Company.” She said she enjoyed her time at Dave but has no bitterness about moving on. And she’s loving sleeping in.
She praised “Atlanta & Company” new cohost Tommy Sullivan, who recently left Star 94 after three decades.
For now, she’s sifting through unspecified opportunities and in fact, she only had a 30-day noncompete clause so she is free to join another radio station if she wants on Feb. 1. “It’s amazing how many people will come out and make offers,” she said. “I’m not ruling anything out.” She’s also helping her husband’s educational consultancy.
I have not heard a launch date yet for Zakk Tyler, the new morning guy at Dave.
Project Runway: Trench warfare
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The high: Christian gets another big win!
Note to self: Do not reach for hat on bad hair day; let it inspire avant-garde outfit.
Excited by last week’s prom action, we wanted to talk “Runway” with a longtime viewer – George Tolbert, president of Legends in Roswell, a store that specializes in va-va-voom prom, pageant and after-five dresses (and we’re pretty sure none of them are bubble-shaped with plastic jewels glued to the neckline).
We’ll revisit prom in a minute, but in the avant-garde challenge, Tolbert said he saw in Team Fierce – that is, Christian and Chris (who’s been playing his hand verrry cleverly ever since his ouster a few weeks ago) – a salute to the movies. The ready-to-wear look: “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” The avant-garde look: “La Cage aux Folles. A drag queen would kill for it,” he said brightly of Team Fierce’s multilayered masterpiece. So would Nina!
And what about that wildly sexy black trench coat by Victorya and Jillian? We loved its pink tartan lining and standup collar, and had a difficult time choosing between the trench and La Cage.
Because Tolbert designs and sells dresses every day, he has insight into the fashion industry, especially when it comes to time management. As on sitcoms and soap operas, “Runway” time seems to flow much faster than in real life. Two days isn’t enough to put together a dynamite design, Tolbert said: “No one can do this and be at their best.” In fact, he wondered if the designers’ bickering and grumpy attitudes could spring from poor time management and lack of sleep.
(Note to self: Must find out if poor time management and lack of sleep are causing my own grumpiness and bickering.)
And since we’re playing fast and loose with time, let’s travel back a week and briefly talk about prom again. Just for the record, Tolbert said teenage girls rarely ask for short prom dresses in Atlanta. “Prom girls want to look older. They don’t want to look like they’re 17. Their bodies are different, their attitudes … They’re more body-conscious, and they want to show that.” Of last week’s designs, only Sweet P’s languid sluice of charmeuse would have sold, Tolbert said.
“Project Runway has as much to do with fashion as Andy Griffith has to do with law enforcement,” he added.
Say it ain’t so! Please, Mr. Tolbert, a few words of wisdom as we near the final four.
All right, then. “You want to shock at Bryant Park,” he said.
Game on!
The last word: What’s it going to take for the designers to make it to Fashion Week? Will Rami need to master another technique besides draping? Can Sweet P move on without a single win? Does Christian need an attitude adjustment?
Permalink | Comments (15) | Categories: Project Runway
1/16: Toucher, Crash and Wally reax to the end of 99X
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
That’s Crash (l), Rich and Toucher above.
In the next few days, I’ll be posting a few reactions from past 99Xers about the pending demise of the station, at least as an FM entity. Here’s Fred Toucher’s thoughts. (The man is having a ball up at WBCN-FM in Boston with Crash Clark and Rich Shertenlieb.)
I knew it was bound to happen. I just think it is funny that they would fire two people that started the whole thing as if the failure of the station was their fault. It wasn’t. I’m glad I “got out” when I did. I have a hard enough time getting my head out of my own [butt] let alone others. By the way my “dirty show” that “people hate” seems to be working.
I still talk to Steve, Axel, Leslie, Jay Harren and Jimmy not to mention my current team of Rich and Crash. I love all those people and for that the experience at 99X was great.
Wally (above), his producer during that 2003-06 period, is now doing a surprisingly edgy, honest night-time syndicated Christian radio show called “Total Axxess.”. It’s on more than 100 stations and he said his audience is about 600,000. He’s been at it for 10 months and is enjoying the gig though he hasn’t been able to sell his home in Atlanta and his wife and daughter are still here so he has to do a weekly commute. That part, he said, is a grind.
“They haven’t made a single good decision since taking over the company,” Wally said, of Cumulus Media, which took over in 2006, about the time he was canned. “They killed a heritage station.” Sure, it’s self serving, but he thinks if they had kept Toucher and him, the ratings would have been a lot better than they were with Leslie, Jenners and Demery.
He does acknowledge that the return of the Regular Guys would be a good move for Cumulus and provide Project 9-6-1 some genuine competition. His thoughts on Leslie’s future: “She has a great reputation, deserved or not. She’ll get a job somewhere and be fine.”
And he remains a huge fan of Toucher and thinks he could be the next big “Howard Stern icon guy.”
Here’s the note I got from Crash Clark, part of the show with Toucher:
I feel for everyone I knew who worked there, when your life is suddenly and dramatically altered it’s not easy. Do you think I really wanted to move to Boston? Now that I’m here I look back and say, Thank you Fred and Rich for making me part of your highly successful show.
I never dealt with the Dickey’s so all I know about them is a reputation for bad business decisions. The Bert Show was huge and now it’ll be the biggest show on the planet. I wish all of them the best even though Bert won’t return my phone calls.
99X didn’t deserve to die the way it did though, that was wrong. Leslie, Steve and Axel are among the best talents in the country and despite being fired three times I wish Leslie all the best, she’s been more than a boss through the years. Steve should have a gig within days, he’s that good but no allowing him to say goodbye on the air was bush league.
The Regular guys should easily recapture their loyal audience, if they can be heard with the toaster signal. Southside Steve and I always had a good relationship so I truly wish him well.
Atlanta just doesn’t seem to be too stable right now, the radio industry in upside down, the real estate market sucks, owning a bar inside the perimeter is risky and they have no water. All in all, Boston seems to be a great place and I’m enjoying my bonus for our last ratings book.
Good luck ATL, let me know when you need Crash D back. Until then I’ll be here on WBCN 104.1 Toucher and Rich from 3p-7p.
Jimmy Baron is going to be writing something for the op-ed page about the legacy of 99X and I’ll post that link when it happens. He’s currently working on TV production deals for a possible reality show concept and a possible game show concept, both with major production companies.
The end of 99X on the 99.7 signal appears to be 5:30 a.m. on January 25. Some folks on radio-info.com are speculating over the final song. A Nirvana song? Green Day’s “Time of Our Life (Good Riddance)?” What would be apropos?
1/16: Strike takes its toll
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Finally, the 99X/Q100 brouhaha has settled a bit so here’s a quick TV update:
“American Idol” is back but the scripted well is drying up. Already, several key shows are out of episodes, including “CSI,” “NCIS,” “CSI: Miami,” “Heroes,” “The Office,” “Desperate Housewives” and “Grey’s Anatomy.” Others that are goners for the time being with the strike in its 10th week include “The Big Bang Theory,” “Two and a Half Men,” “How I Met Your Mother,” “Gossip Girl,” “Private Practice,” “Pushing Daisies” and “The Unit.”
This Friday will be the final original night for CBS’s drama lineup.
And sadly, neither side has made any move to re-start negotiations, which ended in acrimony just before Christmas.
Not only is this spring a potential goner but so is the summer and fall if things don’t get resolved soon.
Anyway, of the current crop of reality shows, Bravo’s “Wanna Be a Supermodel” has been a supreme bore so far, no tension, no quick-witted people, just lots of posing down catwalks. Yawn. NBC’s “American Gladiators” is a lot more fun than it deserves to be and it smartly sticks to the ’90s formula. ABC’s “Dance Wars” is somewhat in between. While some of the kids are talented, the so-called “war” between Bruno and Carrie Ann is so manufactured, there is truly no tension. Both have become more like Paula Abdul than they are on “Dancing With the Stars” and it sucks the life out of the competition. And while Bravo’s mainstay “Project Runway” is still fun, there is also a relative lack of breakout characters who burst through the screen, save for Christian and Chris. NBC’s gasping “Celebrity Apprentice” is fairly pointless, though Gene Simmons is always worth a laugh given how pseudo-serious he always is. Finally, I caught a few minutes of “Scott Baio is 46… and Pregnant” and it was a perfectly amusing way to waste a few minutes on the treadmill at the health club.
I am looking forward to CMT’s “Gone Country,” having seen the first episode (debuting January 25.) Dee Snider’s search for caffiene, an unlikely alliance between Bobby Brown and Maureen McCormick (Marcia Brady) and amusing commentary from Carnie Wilson make this one a keeper. And that Fox game show “The Moment of Truth” in which people are asked increasingly uncomfortable questions about their lives for money could be a delightful train wreck when it debuts after “Idol” on January 23.
And upcoming AMC series “Breaking Bad” (10 p.m., January 20) is worth checking out, too. It’s kind of like “Weeds” with a chemistry teacher dying of lung cancer deciding to raise some cash for his family by running a crystal meth lab. Some of the plotting is a bit lazy and predictable, but Bryan Cranston (“Malcolm in the Middle”) as the teacher shows he can truly act.
1/15: WAGA’s first 11 p.m telecast, bits on Eagle/Kicks, Vikki
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
WAGA-TV’s very first 11 p.m. telecast last night went smoothly. Tom Haynes (above) from Miami (he worked at CNN here in Atlanta before) was the lone anchor and he did it standing up, rather than sitting behind a desk. He had two live reporters, Ken Cook as meteorologist and Ken Rodriquez on sports. He referred viewers to his blog twice though it has not been updated since Friday.
Doug Evans opened with an “exclusive” hit-and-run case. Haynes did a quick review of an I-Team story about an archbishop’s perjury charge, a hiker update, a couple of MySpace stories, a terrorism suspect in Atlanta, then a live report from Denise Dillon about some car break ins in Alpharetta, weather, Pres. Bush in the Mideast, a suicide bombing in Afghanistan, a Marine wanted for murder of another Marine, a plane collision in San Francisco (“It’s a little unnerving as a passenger to hear all that,” he said) and video of a Texas cop pulling a woman out of a burning car. That’s a swift 12 stories and weather in eight minutes.
After the first commercial break, Haynes did a two-minute piece on sewer workers building the updated sewer system for Atlanta. After the piece, he gabbed with Cook. “I was down there five, six hours and I was ready to get out. It was so cold and so wet. It was bone-chilling. I was petrified any moment it could collapse.” When Cook asked him what the guys were like, he said, “They’re amazing. They are salt-of-the-earth guys. One gy says it runs in his family. They are really really impressive. Like I said, they are true heroes.” There was more weather, some promos,t hen ads.
At 19 minutes after, there was a brief “American Idol” promo, some news on Britney, then more promos.
At 23 minutes, he did “Five Things You Need to Know,” which included the weather, oil prices rising, a ramp-up in Marines in Afghanistan, some health report about autism and the Michigan primary. Rodriguez finished with sports and he was out.
Do you think we need a fourth 11 p.m. newscast? Fox has done very well with its 10 p.m. version. The ratings on night No. 1 were good. They were a close third in households behind WGCL and leader WSB and a close second among 25-54. The telecast will probably do even better tonight with the “Idol” launch.
In radio news, long-time Eagle/Kicks General Manager Victor Sansone has been transferred to a Dallas country station. What that means for the future of either station is unknown but Sansone was hands on in programming decisions at both stations for years. At Kicks, he engineered the removal of Moby, the arrival (and departure) of Bandy & Bailey, the arrival (and very quick departure) of Craig Cornett and finally, the current Cadillac and Kristen show. He also helped gear Eagle older as a counterweight to Kicks and more recently, making Eagle younger.
No word from the Leslie Fram camp related to the call from her publicist Sunday.
Larry Wachs didn’t confirm anything in his latest blog entry about his upcoming foray with the Regular Guys on 100.5:
There have been endless amounts of speculation as to what is going on with my broadcasting career, and quite frankly, I’m a little weary of it all. Not that I don’t appreciate it. It’s just that all the phone calls and emails have been distracting from my life’s mission to entertain good, hard-working Americans such as you staring at the screen and interacting with that thing in your hand.
I don’t have the stomach for the gamesmanship that’s been going on, quite frankly. The cat and mouse with the media. The “punking” as one scribe recently put it with an unnecessary apostrophe added for good measure.
For those who missed it in Peach Buzz, my colleague Richard Eldredge reported last week that Vikki Locke’s blood clot problem is resolved, which means if she wants to -rejoin Steve McCoy and get back on the radio later this year once her noncompete clause is up in her Star 94 contract, she can:
Remember that scary lingering and traveling blood clot that hospitalized the radio personality in late 2006? Ongoing concerns about her health led Locke to depart Star earlier this year. “My blood clot is gone!” Locke reported Wednesday. “I just got word from the good doc [Tuesday] that things are looking good.”
And I wrote a print edition piece today about the second season debut of TBS’s “10 Items or Less.” Here it is if you want to catch up on the show, which is set in a supermarket and first aired in late 2006.. The first episode has some pretty funny moments and features a botched robbery/hostage attempt on the market.
1/15: Steve Craig’s farewell, English Nick in nasty accident
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Since former 99X guru and musical encyclopedic mid-day host Steve Craig didn’t get to say goodbye on the air Friday, he posted a note on his myspace page.. He references the end of his noontime show the Retroplex, one of the best features on 99X, and I recall how he tried to be a team player about it at the time and rationalized its departure. But he reveals his true feelings here:
WAVE GOODBYE TO AN ERA…
Current mood: sad
I really wanted to say goodbye.
I remember when Sean Demery got to say goodbye several years back. THAT was a great exit. Surrounded by the entire staff, he thanked, kudoed, wept and said goodbye. Today, the day that 99X ceased to exist, I was in the middle of my show, having been informed that my boss and longtime friend Leslie Fram and her morning show co-host (and a hell of a nice guy) Jenners were both fired. I was trying to keep it together and be the professional music presenter that I am, But you can only go so long wondering about your fate. Some other staff members were being told that they were OK, but no one knew what was going to happen. I wondered why the corporate guy wouldn’t come into the studio and say “Steve, don’t worry, you’re fine, and we’ll talk more after your show”… So I went to him and asked point blank. I was told right then that I would no longer be needed, and they called in Axel to finish my last hour.
After 15 years, all I wanted to do was say goodbye.
Because I loved being with you every day… I love what I do, and I loved what I did at 99X. Taking away the Retroplex was like lopping off a leg, and then being blamed for not being able to run. That really broke my heart. What really hurts, though, is that our corporate guys never really understood what 99X was. And they wouldn’t listen to those who did.
But what the “understanding few” accomplished here, I hope will never be forgotten. Because we did some pretty cool s*!
So I join the spirit of Wil Pendarvis, Leslie Fram, Fred Toucher, Crash Clark, Jimmy Baron, and my best friend of almost 30 years, Sean Demery… and say
I WAS 99X!
Veteran radio jock English Nick (currently on 99X) got in a nasty car accident last night and broke his hip. As a radio part timer, he had no benefits so his buds at Metalsome Mondays, the live band karaoke act he has hosted for nearly five years, is going to help him out with five benefit concerts at 10High. The first will be tomorrow, with four more the next two Sundays and two Tuesdays. He was supposed to sub for Craig in 99X’s waning days but obviously can’t do it for now, according to Curtis Clark, head of Metalsome Mondays. He will also continue to pay Nick until he gets back on his feet. English Nick also worked at 96rock. For whatever reason, he has never gotten a full-time jock post at any station here but has always been Mr. Fill In.
1/14: Southside Steve leaving Eagle (UPDATED)
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
CREDIT: Rodney Ho/AJC
After just a year at 106.7/The Eagle, the station announced “Southside” Steve Rickman is leaving for other, unspecified opportunities.
This graf updated after I spoke with Steve at 6 p.m. EST. Odds are good that other opportunity is 100.5 but Southside can’t say. He said he loved the country station, loved most of the people there, but wondered if upper management knew quite what to do with him. “I really fit country music. I love the country listener. I’m from the South. One thing — Dallas McCade is my soulmate on air. I have never worked with anybody like that.” Interestingly, because of the switch Eagle and Kicks had between owners, when he joined Eagle in late 2006, they paid him full time but did not give him a contract. So he had no noncompete clause and could go somewhere else at any time. He said Eagle was working on making him officially full time and giving him a raise, but he had a window of opportunity for a new job that gives him a multi-year contract and more security.
This is just more evidence that the Regular Guys are coming back. The other indications:
— Larry Wachs telling me that they’re coming back on Friday before claiming he was just joking.
— Tim Andrews, former producer, is still around at 99X, ready to take over as producer of the Regular Guys 3.0.
— The fact both Larry and Eric have not had a full-time radio gig in 15 months and are readily available.
— Larry was in St. Martin Friday on vacation. A person without full-time employment for 15 months probably wouldn’t be going on vacation unless he was about to gain full-time employment soon.
For context, “SouthSide” Steve, known for his line “yeah… come on!” was an integral part of the original Regular Guys incarnation, the hometown Southern punching bag to Larry. He worked as the afternoon guy at 96rock for a bit with Tim Rhodes after the Larry & Eric were taken off the air in 2004 and even after they came back in 2005-06. In mid-2006, Steve and Tim were canned from 96rock and replaced by Jennifer Reed (now at WYSP-FM in Philly). In the fall, he started doing guest spots on the Regular Guys and was working on getting back on the show. But then the Regular Guys were canned a second time in October. In December 2006, Southside nabbed a job at Eagle as part of the morning show with Rhubarb Jones and Dallas McCade. A few weeks ago, he was no longer in the studio on air at the same time as Rhubarb. He’d be with Dallas the early part of the show, then Rhubarb would come in later. But when the siren song of Larry & Eric played before him again, it looks like he couldn’t say no.
One fact I didn’t mention Friday: 99X will continue on as an online venture at 99x.com and as an HD2 option. Many other stations that have left the AM/FM dial have gone this route too. How much money or effort Cumulus will place on this online version of 99X is unknown at this point.
Q100’s Bert Show talked about its move to 99.7 January 25 a lot this morning. The show even has a list of cities on its Web site that will be able to get Q100 once its at 99.7. When a caller badmouthed Leslie Fram (who is no longer part of 99X), the Bert Show came to her defense:
“That is an amazing woman,” Bert said.
“We have the most uptmost respect for Leslie,” said Jen Hobby.
“I used to work with Leslie. It is bittersweet. It is what it is,” said Melissa Carter, who used to be the Morning X news reader before joining the Bert Show.
Bert: “It’s time we had 100,000 watts. We earned it. 99X is not going away. 99X.com should still be part of your bookmarks on the Internet.”
1/13: New Q100 afternoon guy, Jenners update, Jennifer Reed
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Q100, which is moving to the 99.7 frequency by the end of the month, let program director and afternoon jock Dylan Sprague go earlier for this year. On Friday, in the middle of all the news of the signal changes, the end of 99X and the Regular Guys brouhaha, I heard that Sprague’s replacement had been named. I decided to focus on the big stuff and hold that news until later. Anyway, some dude from a Jackson, Miss. top 40 station Y101 named Johnny O is taking Sprague’s place.
Here’s his page on Q100 and his MySpace page.. I don’t have a launch date for Johnny O. For now, Adam Bomb is covering afternoons but will go back to nights.
I got a note from former 99Xer Rob Jenners (above) Sunday. He was part of the re-jiggered Morning X, a man who took on an increasingly important role on the show, especially after Sean Demery left last month. He was let go Friday and given three weeks severance.
Hey man, sorry I didn’t get a chance to call you back, things have obviously been crazy. I want to catch up with you sometime next week, just a quick note to let you know that I’m still here. I’m obviously disappointed, but looking forward to getting into my next gig quickly. For anyone that wants to reach me (friends or fans) you can give out this email (robjenners@yahoo.com). We did everything we could to keep 99X going, I guess the time was just up and it’s unfortunate that I will not be a part of the new initiative. But again, looking forward to the future and getting into a new gig. Thanks man, we will get caught up next week.
And I got a call Sunday afternoon from Kitsy Rose, a local PR person, who used to work for a PR company that had 99X under retainer a few years back and has done some freelance work for the station such as the Mistletoe Jam concert last month. She said Leslie Fram, who I wasn’t able to reach Friday, was upset that our print edition used the word “fired” in a headline when technically, she is still under contract with Cumulus Media (owners of 99X) and may continue to do some work for them under an unknown different capacity. She demanded a correction, which will be dealt with Monday. I tend to avoid the word “fired” because people take that word badly but at least my last blog entry made it clear she was off the morning show but still under contract. Unfortunately, Kitsy wouldn’t make Leslie available to me to specifically clarify things. She said Leslie will release a statement Monday morning. I’ll post that as soon as I get it.
This drama isn’t over by any stretch!
And for the five of you who recall Jennifer Reed, who worked as the afternoon DJ at 96rock for a few months in 2006 before it became Project 9-6-1, the Philadelphia Daily News reports that she’s gotten a gig as afternoon jock at the rock station WYSP-FM..
1/11: Q100 moving to 99.7, Fram & Craig out at 99X, Regular Guys back?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
OUT: Leslie Fram and Steve Craig
IN? :Steve McCoy & Vikki Locke
OR IS IT ACTUALLY THESE GUYS?
This entry feels like it’s been updated more times than George W. Bush’s Wikipedia entry. But it’s because I feel like I’m trapped in Alice in Wonderland.
It’s now nearly 1 a.m. Saturday morning. FIrst, let’s review what’s definitely true and get to the absurdities next:
99X is going away. This we knew by mid afternoon. The more popular Q100 is going to move to the stronger 99.7 signal. The Bert Show, Q100’s franchise, will simulcast on both signals the week of January 21 before 100.5 changes format.
The bottom line is they want Bert on a stronger signal to take on Star 94. Cumulus wanted to buy the 100,000-watt signal Star 94 and stick the Bert Show there but couldn’t meet the price Lincoln Financial wanted. So moving the Bert Show to 99X was a perfect plan B.
This morning, Cumulus canned 99X’s morning show, including original 99X morning host Leslie Fram (under contract until July) and Rob Jenners (three weeks severance). They also ousted Steve Craig, the midday guy who has been there since 1992 as well. Afternoon jock Axel Lowe, Organic X guru Matt Jones and night-time team Matt C and Lewis appear to have survived so far. (Craig, under contract with Cumulus until July, said fans and friends can reach him at radioflyer99x@yahoo.com.)
99X has seen a steady decline in ratings and revenue since 2002, a victim of competition and the faltering fortunes of the alternative rock genre, plus an inability to put together a successful revamped morning show.
Fram was instrumental in developing the sound of 99X and was part of the successful Morning X with Jimmy Baron and Steve Barnes in the ’90s. Just this past November, she was rewarded a lifetime Achievement in Radio award at the March of Dimes annual radio banquet.
Okay, that’s the easy stuff. Now here’s the odd sequence of events:
I heard rumors throughout the afternoon that the Regular Guys were coming back to the Atlanta airwaves for a third time, this time to 100.5 in a revamped rock format. So when I got a hold of Larry Wachs at 5:45 p.m., vacationing in St. Martin, he told me yes, that’s true. He was reuniting with Eric Von Haessler a third time after being fired twice at 96rock. “It’s astonishing,” he said. “I’m feeling very good about it.” I asked him why they are getting back together considering the fact both guys vowed after each prior firing that they’d never work together again. “Here’s the funny thing about the future,” Wachs said. “You never know what’s going to happen.” Indeed, if they get back together, it’s financial expediency; they clearly understand their value as a team is far greater than as separate entities. And getting rid of Fram and Craig helped clear the budgets so they could pay for Larry & Eric.
I posted this at 6:15 p.m. here, got it on ajc.com and noticed the same info landed on allaccess.com, a radio trade Web site. And Radio & Records was about to write the same thing.
Then the situation got a bit warped.
At about 7 p.m., I got an email from John Dickey, executive vice president for Atlanta-based Cumulus Media. He wrote, “Larry is pranking you.”
Hmmm… okay. That wouldn’t be totally out of character. I called Dickey, who implied that Cumulus was actually chasing former Star 94 morning hosts Steve & Vikki (who are not technically able to go back on air in Atlanta until May or June because of a noncompete clause in their contracts), not the Regular Guys.
Larry confirmed that he had lied to me a few minutes later. “I got to get a job. I need publicity!” Wachs said at 7:15 p.m. “I got nothing to lose.”
So we pulled the info about the Regular Guys and I said I had been “punk’ed” by Larry. Allaccess changed their story, too, and R&R held off just before deadline.
But now, after a few hours of rumination, I think I’ve been double crossed. First of all, Cumulus still has former Regular Guys producer Tim “Porn Czar” Andrews around and he reportedly was not fired. Plus, the station did not get rid of all its rock jocks, which is odd if they are pondering a move to Lite-style Celine Dion/Michael Buble type radio station.
Did Wachs accidentally leak the info to me about his return at 5:45 p.m. before Cumulus was ready to release the info to the world? (Cumulus may not want to tip its hand too early and give competitors a chance to re-tool.) If this was so, did Dickey then call Wachs between 6:15 and 7 p.m. when “The Regular Guys are back!” headlines had hit the Web and convince Wachs to tell me that he was just making up the story to get publicity?
Sources now tell me that the Regular Guys return is true, that Dickey was using the Steve & Vikki gambit to make people think they’re going the female-friendly soft rock route instead of sticking with male-oriented rock.
The Regular Guys were a huge hit earlier this decade with men 18 to 54, a broad appeal that brought in huge bucks for Clear Channel and 96rock at the time. But in 2004, a few weeks after the Janet Jackson Super Bowl imbroglio, Wachs wanted to mock the whole situation by playing a porn star talking dirty backwards. But they taped it and it accidentally aired over a Honda ad. (I heard it!). Given the toxic atmosphere at the time, the Regular Guys were canned. But once the dust settled, 96rock hired them back a year later. Unfortunately, the pair were neutered by tougher FCC regulations which cut out the sex-related talk. Ratings never quite got back to the heights of 2002 to 2004. In October, 2006, Wachs taped sister station Viva 105.7’s Yogi & Panda in the bathroom and aired it, mocking them incessantly. The embarrassed Yogi & Panda sued Larry & Eric and soon, they were out of a job again.
Neither Larry nor Eric have gotten full-time radio jobs since then, a long 15 months.
Ultimately, bringing the Regular Guys back would be great for many fans who deeply miss their sardonic brand of humor. Nobody seems to know exactly what type of rock music Cumulus will use at 100.5 later this month, but a logical pick would be classic rock although Atlanta already has “active” rock at Project 9-6-1 (mostly harder-sounding songs from the past decade with a smattering of Guns ‘n Roses and Led Zeppelin cuts) and “classic hits” at the River, a tight list of rock favorites by the likes of Aerosmith, Boston and Fleetwood Mac.
I’ll do more fishing over the weekend and Monday and see if I can get more clarification. As you are seeing, this is sometimes how the sausage is made and it isn’t pretty.
1/10: Ryan Stewart hitched, more on Herman Cain
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
ABOVE: A shot from 2005. CREDIT: T. Levette Bagwell
Things have been so busy I forgot to mention that 790/The Zone’s Ryan Stewart is no longer available, ladies. He got married December 22.
“I’ve had more fun than most people will get to” as a single guy, Stewart said. “I’m very excited about the next phase in my life.”
He and his family man brother Doug recently moved to the 1 to 4 p.m. slot to accommodate their new Sporting News syndicated deal, which officially starts next week. They are airing only on the Zone at the moment, doing basically a dry run for the national show.
And if you are interested in who Herman Cain is, here’s a story I wrote for the print edition:
Atlanta native Herman Cain has possessed many titles over the years: Morehouse College graduate, mathematician, businessman, motivational speaker, author, senatorial candidate.
Now at age 62, he’s WSB-AM’s new weekday evening radio show host. Or as he calls himself, “the Dean of the University of Common Sense!”
“I feel energized!” he said Wednesday, a week into his gig. “The timing of my start was great with the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primaries. I’m having fun, I really am!”
Here are seven interesting facts about Cain:
As a staunch conservative with modest name recognition and no political experience, he came in second behind Sen. Johnny Isakson in the 2004 Republican primary.
His dad, Luther, was chauffeur and personal valet to Coke’s Chairman and CEO Robert W. Woodruff for 25 years.
At the age of 12, one of his first jobs was assistant to the janitor (a job his dad held at one time) at a Pillsbury Corp. biscuit-making plant in Atlanta. Twenty-two years later, he became vice president of Pillsbury’s corporate systems and services.
Cain turned around the Godfather’s Pizza chain, lifting it out of financial trouble, and led its buyout for $40 million in 1988. (They now have 600 restaurants nationwide but only two in Georgia.)
He subs for fellow WSB-AM talker Neal Boortz because the two have similar political viewpoints, especially on economic issues such as the national sales tax, which he and Boortz dub the “fair tax.”
Cain is on several corporate boards of directors. Based on Securities and Exchange Commission filings, he earned at least $374,000 in 2006 from three publicly traded companies: Duluth agricultural equipment company AGCO Corp., utility company Aquila and home appliance maker Whirlpool Corp.
He fought a battle with colon and liver cancer in 2006, undergoing chemo and surgery. Doctors declared him cancer-free in 2007.
Project Runway: Prom night horror
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The high: Sweet P’s groovy, pigtailed prom picture.
The low: Christian’s dramatic pity party.
If you heard an uproar Wednesday night around 10:58 p.m., it was probably the cry of outrage that rose from Mary’s in East Atlanta Village. We returned for its weekly “Project Runway” viewing party and heard the wrath of the part-time fashion critics who hang out there. Disgruntled viewers, it seems, hated Victorya’s dress, the blue Easter egg.
“What the [expletive]! We’re appalled,” said Trevor Porche, an employee of the Cheetah, when she won.
“Victorya’s dress was sick,” said Tim Alman, a software designer, and he didn’t mean in the good way.
Meanwhile, patrons of Mary’s (who yelled out “Bye Ricky!” and “Crybaby!” as that designer’s Catholic schoolgirl strode down the catwalk) complained that his watery confection should have been his ticket out of the New Gotham apartments and the “PR” contest.
Prom: Fraught with drama and arguably the melodramatic centerpiece of high school, it can still confound well into adulthood. The proof? Episode 7’s dresses fell as flat as an updo without Aqua Net.
But really, are we surprised? Since November, we’ve sliced the cast in half with nary a spark to ignite an incendiary temper. Viewers, at least those who frequent Mary’s on a rainy Wednesday, are similarly blasé.
Porche said he was “pretty disappointed” in Season 4 so far and cited its lack of personalities.
Alman said Season 4 was unimpressive as compared to other years.
And Trevor Howell, a waiter who says he’s seen every episode of every “PR” season as well as the entire season of “Project Runway Canada,” said, “Everybody’s really boring except Chris and Christian.” Howell good-naturedly let us hang around and bug him with questions — he’s rooting for the underdog Chris to win — and thought the episode would have been spicier if the “PR” contestants had instead dressed some of the overprivileged princesses from MTV’s “My Super Sweet 16.” Competing networks, but still a clever idea.
Howell is high on “PR Canada”: The flawless Iman hosts, and Nina Garcia is replaced by Rita Silvan, ELLE Canada’s editor. We haven’t heard of the other judges, but who cares? It’s got Iman!
When Victorya’s bejeweled bubble triumphed and Kevin got the stiletto rather than Ricky, Howell turned to us in disbelief. “This is officially the worst episode of ‘Project Runway,’” he said glumly.
Nonetheless, Season 4 still has its devotees. Jeffrey Andrews, a financial analyst who may or may not be part of Cult Christian, summed it up. “It’s one word: fierce.”
What do you think “Project Runway” needs to liven it up?
The last word: Check out “PR Canada” on YouTube.com or www.slice.ca/Shows/ProjectRunwayCanada/. The season is over, so watch out for spoilers.
Permalink | Comments (21) | Categories: Project Runway
1/10: Bert’s take on the hiker’s boyfriend interview
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Those 33 minutes Wednesday morning with the Bert Show and Steve Segars, the boyfriend of the murdered hiker Meredith Emerson, was incredible radio. Check it out here if you haven’t already.. I called Bert Weiss later that afternoon for his reaction.
After the interview with Segars ended at about 8:30 a.m., Bert said, “I didn’t want to do the rest of the show. It felt like anything we talked about was so small and insignificant. We all wanted to just leave.”
The station re-played the interview with a self-defense instructor from Tuesday, took some calls, then finally got around to trivial entertainment matters by 9:30 a.m. (That’s when I caught Jeff Dauler doing his deliberately bad British accent related to a discussion about fake British accents.)
Weiss said he has only had a situation once before where he felt this emotional. He recalls interview Brad Cunard. Back in 2003, a 100-year-old oak tree toppled during storm in Virginia Highland on top of Cunard’s, killing his wife and two kids but sparing him. It was a heartrending, random tragedy. “These were the two toughest conversations we’ve ever had on the air,” he said, thinking back seven years.
He said Q100 learned earlier from a listener that she had been instrumental in helping them out with the Big Thank You letters for the overseas troops this past Thanksgiving. The show’s producer Tracey even found an email from Emerson from that time period. “It made it more real,” he said. “There was this connection.” His call today humanized the situation more so than any TV report or news article.
And as Bert said on the air, he deliberately let Segars ramble. “What can you say? Anything that comes out of your mouth sounds stupid and forced. He just sounded like he needed to talk.”
The show cancelled an interview with Drew Carey for 8:40 a.m. about his game show “Power to 10.” “How do you break out of that and have Drew Carey be funny for 10 minutes?” Weiss said. CBS, he said, was understanding.
He said he got a voicemail later that day from his boss, Lew Dickey, who runs Atlanta-based Cumulus Media, one of the largest radio companies in the nation, thanking him for representing the station and the company as well as he did.
1/9: Zone pub crawl, Q100 hiker boyfriend interview, 99X “Iron My Shirt” bit redux
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
To welcome the new “Afternoon Saloon” at the Zone with Mike Bell, Chuck Oliver and “Hometeam” Brandon Leak, the trio are going to be in a horse-drawn carriage pub crawl through Midtown Atlanta Friday following the live broadcast of the show at Stats downtown. The bars include Marlows, Shout, TAP, Cosmo, Lava and Twisted Taco over about four hours.
The murdered hiker’s boyfriend Steve Segars called into Q100 this morning and they did a spontaneous interview for nearly an hour. It was heartfelt, very compelling. Meredith Emerson was apparently a big Bert Show fan and even wrote letters to the troops for this past Thanksgiving. Here’s the audio.. “This has been the single most paralyzing crushing thing,” he said. “She was my world… then she’s gone. She vanished.” The station is offering free self-defense classes for women. More info here.
In 2003, 99X’s former stunt guy Rich Shertenlieb did a hilarious bit where he infiltrated a rally feminist Martha Burk was holding to protest the Masters not allowing women into the club. He held a sign that said “Make Me Dinner/Iron My Shirt” and got tons of press since many journalists fell for it.
Well, Rich is now at WBCN-FM in Boston with former 99Xers Fred Toucher and Crash Clark. He resurrected the bit by having stunt guy Adolfo attend a Hillary Clinton rally and yell “Iron my shirt!” over and over again. “Sexism is alive and well,” Clinton cracked as he was escorted out. (See video below). Many bloggers thought he might have been a plant when in fact, he was just a radio stunt guy.
In TV land, “The Two Coreys” will be back on A&E, “Dirt” is back on FX on March 2, and “The Mole” is back on ABC. And is anybody sad to see the Golden Globes obliterated by the writers’ strike/ Anybody?
1/8: Top Design casting call in Atlanta
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sure, Bravo’s “Top Design” was a ratings disappointment the first season, averaging about 1.2 million viewers compared to more than 2 million for “Top Chef” and 3 million-plus for “Project Runway.”
But the network is giving the show a second chance and is doing its first casting call in Atlanta January 11 from 1 to 5 p.m.
Atlanta Decorative Arts Center 351 Peachtree Hills Avenue, NE The Designer Lounge / Presentation Room, First Floor Atrium Atlanta, GA 30305
Here’s the pitch:
This is your chance to battle for a coveted spread in ELLE DECOR, $100,000 and the momentum to achieve your dream career!
FOR MORE INFO & TO APPLY, go to www.BravoTV.com/casting.
FOR ATLANTA OPEN CALL, you’d be ahead of the game if you downloaded the application and brought it filled out to meet us.
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1/7: Cledus T. Judd’s first day, part two
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I stopped by the Cledus T. Judd “T Party” morning show and took some photos:
ABOVE: Jamie Massey, sidekick and news reader (left), Slam Duncan (middle) and Cledus by the window.
ABOVE: Cledus posing with Jamie
ABOVE: Slam Duncan, from WSIX-FM in Nashville, who will also do the 9 a.m. to noon shift solo.
ABOVE: Paul Koffy handles the boards.
ABOVE: Some of Cledus’ reference books, including family-friendly joke books.
Cledus actually booted the Viva morning show from this studio because he needed a window view. “I’m claustrophobic,” he said. Paul Koffy isn’t used to the boards and had some technical difficulties. One moment, a clip of former morning show Big D. and Bubba snuck in because it was mislabeled.
Clay Hunnicutt, who handles country programming for Clear Channel and runs the Bull, said the station will also air a voicetracked 4 to 6 p.m. version of the Cledus T. Judd morning show. This is a way to get Cledus’ name out there and expand his presence so listeners will get to know him faster, though he’s already a familiar name to country music fans and viewers of “Celebrity Fit Club.” The station also plans to do billboards and promote them with the Braves.
Cledus did a bit in the final hour in which he had promoted an exclusive interview with Roger Clemens, who denied using steroids on “60 Minutes” last night. Instead, it was Massey pretending to be Clemens. “I’m still the Rocket,” she said, as Clemens. “I can still pitch faster than you can drive. In the meantime, I have a souffle in the oven. And I have to pee.”
“If that’s the top of entertainment we’ll deliver on a daily basis, that is sad,” said Cledus, who was self-deprecating all morning.
Then he had a character called “Uncle Judd” which did a really bad joke in which a farmer was milking a cow. A bug flew into the cow’s ear and came out in the milk. So he said, “I reckon it went out of one ear and into the udder.”
Silence.
“Uncle Judd will be here all weekend,” Koffy said.
“Try the buffet. We’ll be right back,” Duncan cracked.
“Not funny at all,” Jamie said.
Cledus said that was deliberately unfunny.
In closing at 9 a.m., Cledus said to listeners: “We want to be part of the community, find our little niche. We want to help you get to work in the morning and help you get home in the afternoons. There are great radio stations in the market. We have great friends here. It’s all good.”
After the show, Cledus said, “Except for glitches in the equipment, Slam eating a biscuit and Paul being aloof, I think it’s been awesome!” Then he left to go house hunting, probably in Acworth. (Currently, he’s staying with his mom in Cartersville.)
Later, I stopped by the Project 9-6-1 studios and listened to a very funny call Brian Carothers had done with his mom. He had lost a bet predicting the NFL playoff games over the weekend so he had to confess something to her—his confession: he had made out with a good friend of his mom’s when he was 18 (and the friend was 40-something.). She was not amused. Then Giant Brian and Shaffee saw me in the production studio with Lopez, their producer, and shepherded me on the air and we talked for 20 minutes off the cuff. I doubt that will go down as great radio but it was 9:40 p.m. so no harm, no foul.
1/7: Cledus T. Judd’s first day, part one
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I’m stopping by the the new Cledus T. Judd morning show at 94.9/The Bull at 8 a.m. but I did listen to the first couple of hours to get a quick feel.
“Good morning Atlanta!” he said at 5 a.m. today. “I have waited so long in my career to say that. I have waited 15 years to come back home. There may even be a tear or two shed. I barely got my intro out, I’m so excited.”
Hometown boy Judd, who has the strongest Southern accent on Atlanta radio this side of Rhubarb Jones, is clearly happy to be here. Sure, he’s been gone so long, he doesn’t know what “top of the Perimeter” means, but he’ll learn. He told stories about his mom losing her TV remote in her top. He noted he’s single and was placed on match.com in Tampa as a stunt. He explained how his 3 year old daughter Caitlyn, who lives in Ashland, Kentucky with her mom, wanted him to be closer to home so he came back to Atlanta from Tampa, where he had worked for just over two years at a country station with country artist Chad Brock.
When former 99X/Q100 traffic gal Jamie Massey, bumped up to sidekick and news reader on Cledus’ show, noted how strong his accent was while talking to a caller with an even stronger one, he said:
“We’re a bunch of rednecks! This is a country radio station. We’ll talk like a country radio station. We’ll come armed with an accent!”
At 5:30 a.m., he noted, “We’ve only been on for 30 minutes and we’re already synchronizing. That’s the biggest word I’ve used since mayonnaise.”
After the first hour, he joked: “I’m wore out. I’m going to go smoke me a cigarette. You go to mama’s house. It’s like a Def Leppard concert. You have to wear a miner’s helmet to see if she’s home.”
He’s not above namedropping his celebrity friends, including Billy Ray Cyrus and Gary Levox, lead singer of Rascal Flatts. “Gary is my daughter’s godparent. The simple reason, he assures she will never have to go to diesel mechanic’s school.”
And he claims to be tech-deficient: “I don’t know how to receive e-mail. If you send me one, there’s a 1,000 percent chance you won’t get a response.”
More later.
1/4: Let’s review the past month’s changes
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The past few weeks have seen an exceptional number of comings and goings. Let’s summarize it all in one blog entry for folks who don’t want to sift through 30 prior entries:
WSB-AM: Chris Krok (above) was let go last month, replaced by businessman and primary Neal Boortz sub Herman Cain, whose show is on from 7 to 10 p.m. weekdays. He started January 2. Michael Savage, the syndicated host, shifts to 10 p.m. to 1 a.m., the time when Krok aired for two years.
790/The Zone: Mike Bell (above) leaves “Mayhem in the AM” and joins the “Afternoon Saloon” from 4 to 7 p.m. with Chuck Oliver and “Hometeam” Brandon Leak. Brandon Adams and Jeff Woolverton, weekend talk show hosts, get a new mid-day show “Brandon and Woolvie” from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. The 2 Live Stews, newly syndicated, move to 1 to 4 from 3 to 7. It appears the Stews will no longer do a local hour anymore. All these changes happen Monday.
Star 94: Steve & Vikki left November 2 after 17 years. Traffic gal Shannon Holly and veteran sidekick Tommy Sullivan ended their stints at the station at the end of 2007. So did Wendy Threatt (above), afternoon traffic gal. The Morning Mess, featuring Superphat Mikey, Shannon Murphy and Mac “Marco” Orem (with traffic guy Dan-o Blankowski), started December 31.
94.9/The Bull: The new show starts Monday January 7 with country star Cledus T. Judd (above), former 99X/Q100 traffic gal Jamie Massey as his female sidekick, Slam Duncan (WSIX-FM in Nashville) as producer and existing Bull jock Paul Koffy.
99X: Dekker, who was the night jock for a couple of years, was given an online “AV Room” job, but he left at the end of the year to move to New York, according to John Dickey, Cumulus vice president. Sean Demery (above), the morning host for the Morning X, quit last month and moved to Utah to be with his wife. Dickey said they are working on a replacement for Demery and should have one soon. He said they will also have a replacement for Massey.
Q100: While Massey did traffic for both 99X and Q100, Dickey said he’ll have separate traffic readers now. Also, the station didn’t renew the contract of Dylan Sprague, afternoon jock and program director. Rob Roberts, current operations manager, is now program director. Adam Bomb is temporarily taking over the afternoon 3 to 7 p.m. job while the station fishes for a replacement. Bomb will go back to evenings with Wendy when the new person comes aboard.
Dave FM, in the meantime, is still seeking to fill the rest of the team to help out new guy Zakk Tyler on the morning show. Launch date for that team has not been announced.
Over on TV land, Cari Champion (above), weekend anchor at WGCL-TV, comes back next week after protesting her firing for saying a possible curse word (or “mothersucka.”).
WXIA’s Karyn Greer is doing mornings now with Jill Becker and former morning co-anchor Clarence Reynolds goes to weekend evening anchoring as well as reporting three days a week.
Over at WAGA, a new 11 p.m. morning show starts Jan. 14 with a new anchor Tom Haynes (above). The station is also adding morning weekend news shows from 7 to 9 a.m. Saturdays and 6 to 8:30 a.m. on Sundays. Denise Dillon will anchor the weekend morning shows.
Finally, WSB-TV today confirmed the hire of Justin Farmer, Don Farmer’s son, today without a specific start date. He wil be an anchor/reporter. Carol Sbarge, a weekend anchor, will also take over for Pam Martin early morning as anchor. Martin will continue to do the noon anchor but wiill add daily reports as a reporter in the 5 to 7 p.m. telecasts.
1/4: Jamie Massey joining Cledus T. Judd’s new Bull show
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jamie Massey, traffic gal for Q100 and 99X, has nabbed a sidekick job with country parody man Cledus T. Judd on his new 94.9/The Bull morning show starting January 7.
Massey, who also worked traffic at Star 94, has never gotten that big break until she met with Cledus.
“She’s definitely a country girl at heart,” Cledus told me Thursday night. “I was telling her stories about Keith Urban and Toby [Keith] and she had genuine wonderment in her eyes.”
“She holds her own with the guys, she’s strong, she’s funny when she needs to be,” Cledus added.
“Country music has always been my favorite music,” Massey said, who met the team Wednesday and closed the deal almost immediately. (She was not under contract with Q100 and 99X at that moment.) “I have a horse. I drive a truck. Cledus has a great reputation in country music. I hung out with him all yesterday. We talked several times on the phone. He makes me laugh every time.”
As for her friends at Q and 99X, “I’m really going to miss those people. I made so many friends there. Working for the Bert Show and 99X was awesome.” As for her inability to procure a bigger role on either show, she said it was simply because of the talent already there, including Leslie Fram at 99X. “She’s my hero,” she said.
Bert sent me this email:
In all honesty, Rodney, I’m totally happy for her. Working a split shift zaps you of your life. Any woman that would actually try and start a relationship with a guy that, literally, called her 22 times within the first twelve hours he met her is seriously in need of a life, right? Ha. And she’s leaving the show for a better position for herself. She’ll be co-hosting on format that she really has passion for. She’s excited and I’m excited for her. How could I NOT be happy for her? It’s going to be hard to find someone willing to expose her personal life the way Jamie did on the Bert Show. Actually, she really wasn’t willing- I always had to either trick or strong arm her. But we’ll totally miss that side of her, nontheless.
Cledus’ other two team members are existing Bull jock Paul Koffy. Cledus said the current format of the Bull with more music hasn’t enabled Koffy to show off his personality, something he’ll be able to do more on Cledus’ show.
And he brought in an old friend named Slam Duncan from WSIX-FM in Nashville to be the producer.
The show will air from 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. beginning Monday.
And if you miss Massey’s former traffic cohort and ex-99Xer Christopher “Crash” Clark, here’s a link to a hilarious video from a Boston TV station about last-second Christmas shoppers.. Yes, Crash is the star. (He now works with Fred Toucher and Rich Shertenlieb at WBZN-FM in Boston.) 99xwatch.org caught it.
1/4: Don Farmer’s son joining WSB-TV
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I heard from a good source that former WSB-TV anchor Don Farmer’s son Justin (above) may be joining the station sometime later this year.
Justin Farmer’s contract at fellow ABC affiliate WFAA-TV in Dallas is up in August 2008. Farmer came from Denver and has been a morning anchor at WFAA for just over two years. The station invested plenty of promotional dollars into Justin and he helped it improve its ratings.
But WSB-TV came calling this fall and offered Farmer a deal which includes the 5 p.m. anchor job, paving the way for him to possibly replace veteran anchor John Pruitt sometime down the road. WSB-TV is expected to make an official announcement later today.
Don Farmer, who is now retired but still writes newspaper columns in Naples, Fla. worked both at CNN and WSB-TV until he retired in 1997. (You can see Farmer in this 1980s era promo below)
And here’s a 6 p.m WSB-TV opening with Don Farmer and Monica Kaufman (Yes, that’s her name back then):
The tricky question is: when will Justin be able to join WSB-TV since his contract with the Dallas station isn’t up for another eight months?
WFAA-TV General Manager Mike Devlin declined to comment beyond the following statement: “We’re aware of the situation and our expectation is that Justin Farmer will fulfill the obligations of his contract.”
Here’s info from his bio on the WFAA web site:
Before coming to WFAA, Farmer worked for the FOX O&O station in Denver. While in Denver, he helped launch morning broadcast, Good Day Colorado. He was also Denver’s only anchor to cover the 2004 Presidential election live from Washington D.C.
Prior to Denver, Farmer worked for the market-leading CBS affiliate (KWTV) in Oklahoma City. Early in his career, Justin covered Super Bowls, PGA Tour stops, World Series, among other events, as he was a sportscaster for CNN and CNN/Sports Illustrated in Atlanta and for affiliates in Salt Lake City, Utah and West Palm Beach, Florida. Justin started his career in Albany, Georgia.
Justin is an Atlanta native who earned a political science degree from Boston College.
And I just caught the first episode of NBC’s “Celebrity Apprentice” featuring the likes of Gene Simmons, Stephen Baldwin and Omarosa, as well as former Miss Georgia and Atlanta Falcon cheerleader (and 2005 Playmate of the Year) Tiffany Fallon. Since this is for charity, there is no real “apprentice” and the competitions are perverted by the presence of celebrity. All Gene Simmons had to do was call up some buddies to give to charity and a hotdog selling contest became utterly pointless. Yeesh. I even felt bad for Omarosa for trying to sell hotdogs legitimately and then getting trumped by Simmons’ buddies on the guy’s side. Skip this turd if you haven’t already.
Fortunately, Fallon was ousted the first day, which makes it easier for me to skip the rest. “She’s a nice person and unfortunately, the nicest person is going home. Often in business, that’s the way it works, sadly.” Fallon really didn’t step up and lacked that eye of the tiger. “It’s incredibly disappointing and frustrating to be the first one fired out of the boardroom,” she said. “I did what was asked of me… I enjoyed it. It was an honor. Onward.” Heck, she was pregnant anyway so this made it easy for her anyway.
1/3: Morning Mess story
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I wrote a story about the Morning Mess in the print edition Thursday, which provides some more context about the show itself than my prior blog entries. A photo gallery is available here.. Here is the story in full:
Mess gets ATL crash course
By RODNEY HO/ The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 01/03/2008
Top 40 station Star 94 hired its new morning team Dec. 1, but rather than stick the young trio from Indianapolis on the air immediately, general manager Mark Kanov kept them off the air for a month.
“I wanted them to get a feel for the city and the traffic and really hit the ground running when they came on air,” he said.
So Kanov had them meet advertisers, hit the bars and restaurants and learn the local vernacular, from the names of local sports teams to the proper pronunciation of Ponce de Leon.
About two weeks ago, their new boss squashed them into the back of his Jaguar for a field trip, driving them to a Waffle House in Alpharetta for a little smothered and covered, then down 400, across I-285 and southbound I-85 for a taste of Atlanta traffic.
The threesome, dubbed the Morning Mess, started this week. They replaced Steve McCoy and Vikki Locke, who helmed Star 94’s mornings for 17 years until early November. Though McCoy and Locke were still pulling in decent ratings, Locke’s decision to leave for health reasons gave Kanov an opening to find a younger, hipper crew that could take Q100’s Bert Show head on.
“As a business, you always have to reinvent yourself or you risk wearing yourself out,” Kanov said.
The stakes are high for Kanov, who’s nearing retirement after 40 years at the radio station. He’s hoping the Morning Mess will be his legacy, a team who can keep Star 94 a financially viable station in a very competitive market for years to come.
Here are the key players of the new show:
• Marc Orem, 30, who goes by Marco, is unmarried but has an infant with his “baby’s mama,” as he calls her. He’s the leader of the show and has the most experience. Orem — a Jimmy Buffett fan who brags he never reads books — approaches life “like a fraternity party,” said Indianapolis Star music writer David Lindquist, in an e-mail.
• Shannon Murphy, 24, is the cute, petite, organized one, a pop culture junkie who does the hourly entertainment report. She also dates Matthew Thiessen, lead singer of Christian rock band Relient K. The bosses in Indianapolis loved her voice and vivacious personality.
• “Superphat” Mikey, 28, who declined to give his full name, is the sidekick and stunt guy willing to do anything. A Chris Farley-like dude, he tips the scale at about 270 pounds. Marco came up with the nickname, and the “phat” part facetiously stands for “pretty hot and tasty.”
The Morning Mess had a successful three-year run at Radio Now, a top 40 station in Indianapolis. They do phone pranks (Orem’s specialty), re-enact goofy stories off the news and sound distinctly younger than predecessors Steve & Vikki.
Orem said everything they do is real, that they don’t hire actors for bits. And he doesn’t shy away from his own errs. After he was arrested on a drunken driving charge in early 2007, he told listeners about it on the air. To spread awareness, he also named other people with DUI arrests. (Orem said he got probation.)
Like most morning shows, the trio came together by happenstance. Orem arrived in Indianapolis in 2004 from Nashville as part of a two-man crew. But his co-host, Billy Breeze, was fired a few months later. According to news accounts, Breeze gave out the phone number of a teenager he had slept with, then offered a prize to listeners who harassed her the best. The teen sued, and the station settled.
Radio Now kept Orem and hooked him up with Mikey and Shannon, both relative neophytes hungry for airtime.
“The three just jelled,” said David Edgar, operations manager at the time.
An early bit that got them on the map emanated from rumors that the Indianapolis Colts would bolt if they didn’t get a new stadium. So the Morning Mess hired Mayflower moving trucks and planted them in front of the old stadium, giving the impression the football team was about to leave.
“People freaked. It really snowballed,” Orem said. “Helicopters were flying around. ESPN was on it.” (The Colts ended up getting their stadium.)
Over three years, the Mess built a sizable audience, especially among 18-to-34 year olds, finishing No. 3 in spring 2007 in that demographic and No. 4 over the summer.
But Emmis Communications changed Radio Now’s format in October, and the trio were let go.
They quickly fielded feelers from Austin, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Chicago and Atlanta’s Star 94, according to their new agent, Atlanta’s Norm Schrutt, who also represents V-103’s Ryan Cameron, Dave FM’s Mara Davis and Star 94’s afternoon team Cindy & Ray, among others.
The Mess was drawn to the size of the Atlanta market and Star 94’s track record for nurturing talent. After meeting Kanov and program director Dan Bowen at Pricci, they quickly sealed the deal.
Orem said he doesn’t expect to please all the former Steve & Vikki fans or make an immediate ratings splash. (Q100’s 7-year-old Bert Show took a couple years to build momentum; it now ranks second among 18-to-34 year olds and fifth among 25-to-54 year olds.)
“You have to be patient,” Orem said. “There’s a steep learning curve. Some listeners will go away. You hope to bring in enough new people seeking something fresh and different.”
So far, he’s been happy with the reception from callers and was flattered a few came from online listeners in Indianapolis.
This week, the trio offered some parent-friendly topics, such as a contest Wednesday in which parents had to pretend be their daughters begging to go see the Jonas Brothers. The prize was tickets to see them. In the end, a dad beat out several desperate moms.
BEST OF THE MESS
Among the bits the Morning Mess did in Indianapolis:
• To win “High School Musical” tickets, a woman was willing to have “Superphat” Mikey take an axe to her car. (This bit can be seen at youtube.com/watch?v=3CLVJSRYWRc.)
• They pretended to read from the last Harry Potter book in advance of its release, claiming it was leaked from a nearby printing plant. The stunt resulted in the FBI calling the station.
• Marco would place something disgusting (such as “reindeer poop” or a used diaper) in a mystery box, and Shannon would have to feel it and guess what it was.
• The trio lived together for three months in a house with cameras, “Real World” style.
• “War of the Roses,” in which they pretend to be a florist offering free roses to a man who may send them to his mistress instead of his wife or girlfriend. (This bit won’t be repeated in Atlanta because Q100’s Bert Show did it for years.)
Also, veteran traffic gal Wendy Threatt for Cindy & Ray was let go last month but was given a nice severance for those of you wondering what happened to her.
1/3: Late night world is back, slightly skewed
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I sampled David Letterman, Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien to see how they handled returning in the middle of a writers strike. Jay and Conan are hamstrung without writers while Letterman’s Worldwide Pants negotiated a separate deal with the Writers Guild allowing their writers to work.
This also gave Letterman an edge in getting guests, including Robin Williams and a cameo by Hillary Clinton. “Dave has been off the air for eight long weeks because of the writers’ strike,” she said, via video. “Tonight he’s back. Oh, well. All good things come to an end.”
Letterman’s show focused heavily on the strike. Leno addressed it, too, saying he supports the writers. But he did his usual monologue (written by himself, he said, which may or may not have broken Writers Guild rules). Conan struggled a bit but he isn’t a bad improv guy.
With Rockettes holding strike signs, Letterman entered sporting a thick gray beard, making him look impressively grizzled. (“Man you’ve aged!” Robin Williams said. “Happy New Year, grandpa! Be careful, someone might try to assassinate you!”)
Here are some jokes he reeled off, some mildly funny:
“I know what your’e thinking. Geez. Dave looks like a cattle drive cook.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, two long months but I’m finally out of rehab.”
“There’s a writers strike going on. We were out two months. I hear you at home thinking to yourself: this crap is written?”
And here are some items from his signature Top 10 list. Demands of the striking writers, read by actual striking writers:
5- I’d like a date with a woman
4- Hazard pay for breaking up fights on “The View”
3- I’m no accountant, but instead of us getting 4 cents for a $20 DVD, how about we get $20 for a 4 cent DVD?
2- I don’t have a joke. I just want to remind everyone we’re on strike. So none of us are responsible for this lame list.
1- Producers must immediately remove their heads from their a**.
The Screen Actors Guild is discouraging actors from showing up on his show so Leno, Conan and Kimmel will likely have to rely on non actors, meaning politicians, remarkable citizens, singers, reality show folks and standup comics. Leno’s first night guest slate: Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee (who played a bit of guitar), rapper Chingy and chef Emeril Lagasse.
Here’s a sampling of his jokes during his self-written monologue:
“A Jew, a Christian and a Muslim walk into a bar. The Jew says to the Muslim… see, I have no idea what they say because there’s a writers strike… it’s cost the town a half billion dollars or as Paul McCartney says, a divorce… there are now more people picketing NBC than watching NBC.”
“We have to go up against the CBS machine. One man vs. the monolith,” he joked, referencing David’s advantages.
He even made some pallid political jokes, which have been absent for eight weeks. “It was so cold in Iowa, Hillary could see Barack’s breath breathing down her neck.”
Huckabee “has reached the top tier of Republican candidates. That means during debates, he doesn’t have to wear a name tag.”
Leno took some unscripted questions from the audience, too.
I then caught a gleeful Craig Ferguson joking around, courtesy of WGA-approved writers (his show is owned by Letterman’s company so he falls under that deal.) “Some celebrities have calmed down the strike. Lindsay Lohan was very quiet during the strike… maybe her dealer is on strike.” Pause. “That joke brought to you by the WGA.” Another pause and a grin. “I will now blame the WGA for every piece of lame crap I do.” He chose to have no guests the first night. “It is all comedy,” he said.
Conan, bearded like Letterman in solidarity with the writers and proof he said he has testosterone, managed to convince Bob Saget to show up despite the fact Saget is a Writers Guild member (but he’s also host of an NBC game show “1 vs. 100”). He said he supports the strike though the Guild probably isn’t too happy he’s there. Conan also had some comic named Dwayne Perkins and some musicians I’ve never heard of.
“Welcome to our show tonight,” Conan said. “You look like just as I remember you. Let’s talk about the situation… Two months ago, the Writers Guild of America went on strike and we took the show off the air in support of the writers… Good people right now are out of work. With all the late-night shows off the air, people have been forced to read books and even talk to each other. Horrifying. We don’t have the writers with us. I support their cause. They are very talented people who work extremely hard. I believe what they are asking for is fair… We desperately need them.”
He discussed his beard quite extensively. He danced around to the song “Magnificent Seven.” He spun his wedding ring and timed it (36 seconds first try, 28 seconds a second try). He showed a video doing a tour of his office, strumming his guitar and a sampling his Christmas cards from the likes of Hugh Hefner and Cheap Trick. He sings Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage” as Edith Bunker using “Rock Band,” which was pretty funny.
There’s more info here in this AP story..
Project Runway: That dress is sweet!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The high: Hearing Tim Gunn say, “It looks like a coffee filter, or a maxi pad.”
The low: During commercial breaks, I dismantled my own kitchen looking for a KitKat, a malted milk ball, anything chocolate.
St. John the Baptist wore a hairshirt, Scarlett O’Hara sported a drapery dress, and now “Project Runway” has the candy-wrapper collection.
Just a few weeks ago, I complained that “Runway’s” designs tended toward cutesy more than fashion forward — fine, in my opinion, for the average shopper but not for the runway itself. So imagine how I excited I was to see Episode 6’s wild designs — made out of candy and candy wrappers! Tim Gunn says he gets extra stressed during the outrageous challenges, but maybe they give the designers the kick in the pants they need. (Still, I when hear judges extol the “sense of joy” of candy fashion, I roll my eyes. Were they really attempting to challenge fashion convention, such as it is, or were they looking for another gimmick?)
At any rate, in a Bravo TV promotion, PR viewers voted this episode, “Eye Candy,” their favorite so far, and I enthusiastically agree. I loved Rami’s miniskirted halter dress, accessorized with a Good & Plenty purse; Chris’ nibble of a Hershey dress on a model as slim as the bar itself; Ricky’s pouf of a silver tulip skirt; and my favorite, Kit’s tough-girl outfit that combined a pleated skirt with a Rolo bandolero. Love. It.
Given that they had one day to sew and no budget (and, apparently, no calorie limit, either) I was excited to see these designs to come together so quickly with so much success — even though at least two serious “meltdowns” brought Elisa and Sweet P to the elimination round.
But there’s no point in waiting for Rami’s dramatic crash-and-burn — the fella always thinks on his feet. At this point I would be surprised if he didn’t win, but maybe more of the unusual challenges will bring out some innovation in the other remaining designers. Recyclables, plants and flowers, grocery store bags, old CDs — what would you like to see future challenges use? Or should they stick with plain old fabric?
The last word: Reese’s, anyone? Anyone?
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1/3: Three more years of Alton Brown on Food Network
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Atlanta’s busy food maven Alton Brown recently signed a three-year contract renewal with the Food Network, guaranteeing fresh episodes of “Good Eats” at least through 2010.
Brown’s signature show, produced here in Atlanta, will soon exceed 200 episodes, having been on air for nearly a decade. Production starts again in mid February, according to his line producer Dana Popoff. “Good Eats” was given the coveted 8 p.m. primetime weekday slot this past fall, bumping “Emeril Live!” which ended production last month.
She said he will also continue to co-host “Iron Chef America” and is in talks to do a third season of “Feasting on Asphalt,” his show in which he hits mom-and-pop eateries via motorcycle.
Another local TV personality, designer Vern Yip, has also been given the greenlight for a second season of his show “Deserving Design,” seen on HGTV at 9 p.m. Wednesdays. Most of his show is shot here in Atlanta, too. And he’s a judge on “Design Star,” the popular reality show which is taping its third incarnation.
1/2: Anchor swaps at WXIA-TV & a WSB-TV rumor
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
WXIA-TV has switched around some of its anchors. Weekend anchor/reporter Karyn Greer (above) is now going to be doing the morning and noon anchoring with Jill Becker.
Clarence Reynolds (above), who had been working with Becker the past two years, will now become the evening weekend co-anchor with Valerie Hoff. Hoff, who had anchored weekend mornings, will be replaced by Keith Whitney.
WXIA-TV is also adding an hour-long 7 a.m. newscast over at sister station WATL-TV starting next week while the “Today” show airs on WXIA. That’s the same day WAGA-TV is adding an 11 p.m. newscast on top of its 10 p.m.
Obviously, for the local broadcast stations, adding more news is a good (and economical) thing.
I also heard an interesting rumor that WSB-TV is farming for a new 5 p.m. male anchor, someone to eventually don John Pruitt’s shoes, just in time as Pruitt nears retirement. I might know for sure by Friday. Currently, WSB-TV, with Pruitt and Monica Pearson, pulls in “Dallas”-sized ratings vs. its competitors.
1/2: Dylan Sprague out at Q100
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Q100’s Dylan Sprague is out after six years. The radio station didn’t renew his contract Dec. 31. night-time jock Adam Bomb takes over the 3 to 7 p.m. slot and Wendy handles nights.
Although the Atlanta radio business was flat or down at most stations, Sprague said Q100 did better than most. Still, economics and corporate structure knocked Dylan out of the picture.
He said he was the last person with a contract under the former owners Susquehanna, who sold out in 2006 to Atlanta’s Cumulus Media. Under Cumulus, Sprague’s PD position became redundant because they already had an operations manager, Rob Roberts (who also oversees 99X) and Cumulus senior VP of programming Jan Jeffries handled a lot of the music programing. When they started renegotiations in November, Cumulus made it clear to him that they’d have to pay him a lot less money on his next contract. Instead, he decided to seek greener pastures.
“It was a good run with Susquehanna,” Sprague said. “Once we got our bigger signal and had that marketing campaign, things got better.” Overall, “it’s a fun battle” with Star 94. “Both radio stations have great personalities and exciting facets to them.”
Indeed, Q100 under Sprague, with the Bert Show as its engine, has been growing audience and revenue steadily, stealing from competitor Star 94. Among younger listeners (18-34), Q100 now beats Star 94 in ratings in many dayparts, especially mornings and has started having an impact in the broader 25-54 demographic.
1/1: A sampling of Star 94’s Morning Mess
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Although Star 94’s Morning Mess officially starts Wednesday, the trio decided to get a head start to shake out the rust after two months off and get used to the studio equipment by opening Monday. I only caught a smidgen of that day’s show so I listened to some of the New Year’s Day show.
Yes, they are working on New Year’s Day morning. If they make dopey mistakes, this is probably the best time to make them.
Based on the first two hours or so, I didn’t catch any major gaffes. If anything, they definitely have a comfortable sibling-like chemistry. And in general, they appear to do longer gab segments than Steve & Vikki did. They didn’t reveal that much personal information about themselves, but that will dribble out a little at a time.
From a technical standpoint the first hour, from 6 to 7 a.m., there was a five-second silent pause after a song but otherwise, they sounded fine. There was only one caller that first hour. The woman complained she had to go to work at Petsmart when most folks were still nursing hangovers. Marco noted that bird owners start looking like their birds.
During hour one, they talked about Dick Clark’s Rockin’ Eve and Shannon said she felt “uncomfortable” hearing him slur his words since Clark has had his stroke. “I had to change the channel,” she said.
Marco also reads 10 things people may not know about their health clubs, a story culled from a 2007 Smart Money article.
Marco, the lead guy, does prank calls “on the 20s,” which means he’ll have one aired 20 minutes after every hour. (He repeats the same prank every hour in the morning.) Marco’s prank call featured a guy from some DMV-type place telling a woman her weight was outdated on her license and needs to be updated. (The pranks will be available at www.star94.com later in the day.) Shannon does her entertainment report at 40 minutes after the hour. (On Wednesday, she started doing it at 30 minutes after the hour, calling it “Hollywood Dirty at the 30s.”) I also heard Mikey do “a phone poll,” taking calls about hidden pregnancies in the wake of Jamie Lynn Spears. On caller, Alicia, at 8:30 a.m., talked about her teen pregnancy she hid from her parents until she was eight months and used constipation as an excuse for her size. “I was wearing a sweatshirt in July,” she said.
In hour two, the trio took more than a dozen calls on the topic of the mom who had her six-year-old daughter pretend he daddy had died in Iraq to win Hannah Montana tickets. Naturally, they all said this move was outrageous on multiple levels. “She thought outside the box,” Mikey said, playing devil’s advocate.
Considering it was just seven hours after the Peach dropped, they actually got quite a few calls. They talked about this topic virtually the entire 7 a.m. hour. At 7:38 a.m., they finally found a caller defending the mother, saying lying is a way of life and you can’t succeed in life without it. Then they found another person, who noted that the rules didn’t say the essay had to be true to win the contest per se. “If mom’s whole point is to get into creative writing, they could have picked something else to write about,” Shannon said. “She won the tickets for being creative,” Mikey said. “Then she got it yanked away from her,” Marco noted.
Interestingly, Shannon at one point says she’s 25 at one point when in fact, she is only 24 and Marco called her on that. She justified it by saying she will be 25 in a couple of weeks.
While Steve & Vikki relied on Rob Stadler to do the news every 30 minutes, the Morning Mess has chosen not to include a regular newscast at all. Stadler has been diverted to do other things, including Sunday morning public affairs shows for the station, boss Mark Kanov said. Dan “Dano” Blankowski will be doing traffic, though there was no traffic reports on New Year’s Day. (He uses the Trio song “Da Da Da” as the background to his traffic updates.) And while they do play four to six songs an hour, they don’t really talk about the music specifically.
Also, here’s an interesting New York Times story about Arbitron’s struggles to find willing participants for its portable meters among younger people.
