Bryan Suits, 1999-2007 R.I.P

The Bryan Suits Show, afternoon drive (3-6p) was abruptly dropped from the KVI line-up Friday afternoon. His picture has been purged from the website like a bad dream.

One less live & local talk host in town, one less host to fry.

He'll be replaced by The Commentators with John Carlson and Ken Schram.

Dr. Laura will slither into the the 9-to-noon spot vacated by the The Commentators. (See Dr. Laura naked here).

Suits had been languishing in the ratings for over a year, and this move was much predicted, especially by us.

When Suits returned to his KVI talk job in March 2005 after a year's deployment in Iraq, P-I radio columnist Bill Virgin wrote, "When you've been on the front lines of a war, and history, talking about the latest outrage in Olympia or the Michael Jackson trial, Bryan Suits concedes, 'is going to seem mundane.'

Suits mastered the mundanities expected of him and striving for a dry, cynical wit, belabored a politically incorrect schtick. He made little ripple last month on the Interweb by calling Oprah a Nazi.

He'd write such indeciferables on the KVI blog as: "The sanctimonious, windbag “victims” of Christopher Columbus can kiss my Swiss, Estonian, Scottish written language, modern medicine, scientific tradition, scum of Europe booty."

But not even such fevered prose could save him from the inevitable accounting for the abominable ratings he'd enjoyed for so long.

With the across-the-board bad numbers (we haven't seen the Summer book yet)- KVI's been going through a gradual refurbishment; firing Suits, moving Carlson & Schram, and adding Schlessinger are the biggest changes yet. They'd plumped up the Kirby Wilbur Show over the summer by adding two sidekicks- Carleen Johnson and Matt Haver, and renaming it Kirby & Company.

Carlson always did better in afternoon drive and The Commentators, up against Dave Ross, Rush Limbaugh, Steve Scher, and Thom Hartmann were sucking in the mid-morning. The afternoon drive is dominated in local newstalk by Ron & Don (KIRO m-f,3-6p) a couple of asshats who talk about boogers and chicks. The Taters should do better against them.

Comments

[mark]

dr. laura? eck.

[sparky]

NO DR LAURA pictures! gawd Bla'M. Some of us would like to sleep tonight.

[slappy]

I've been counting the years til Bryan Suits was gone.

[Sclub]

KVI's problems are a lot bigger than Bryan Suits. This helps only a little.

[bink]

What took them so long? The man was a trainwreck. What's more, he mumbled. He was so constantly sarcastic, after a while, my husband and I never knew when he was serious. It was just boring. I'll give him one thing, we learned to love Ron and Don after a while.

[Tommy008]

And jus tuesday ,Suits, I was listening to you rationalize that water boarding isn't torture, and you don't give a crap even if it is.You're a sick pup, Brian. I'd go ahead and get that treatment for PTSD that the Army shrink reccomended you get. You told us you blew him off because he was a "lib". You're the kind of guy that always has to be right, and always has to get the last word. Like Dori, you're a hometown or home state guy that has overstayed his welcome on the Seattle airwaves. And like Dori, you'll find that the non-hometown citY stations won't put up with you. You'll have to get a job ib a gun store and Dori, when his ratings rapidly decline in the not too distant future will have to take that greeter job waiting for him at Smart and Final.

[DT]

Norman Mailer is dead. :)

[abob]

For a brief moment I thought Bryan Suits was literally dead. Dont play like that. Especially not after the Mike Webb episode.

Judging by those photos, Dr. Laura was an extremely attractive young woman. Unfortunately, hot chicks are blessed by Mother Nature and cursed by Father Time.

[PugetSound]

I am going to miss the Bryan Suits show. When he was fully engaged on a topic it was interesting and funny. But I do think B'lam hit on something in that at times Bryan Suits did seem to mail it in. Perhaps a man who has done three combat tours -with this last one the most intense- is going to find some of the crap we do here to be 'mundane' and 'maddening' on occassion. He sees through the crap of our city leaders who would not even deign to take serious questions from him preferring to go on other local shows that had 'comfortable' hosts. I did like the fact that he had a different take on things and did not toe the Christian/Conservative line.
I also recall how he use to go on the Daily Kos under the handle of 'respect dissent' and post cogent/smart questions that were difficult to answer/debate. So what did the Daily Kos do? Did they engage him? Nope they locked him out. You know, it is so 'troll-like' not to toe the party line over there.
He is also one of the funniest local people on the air.

[Duffman]

Wow, wish it w/have been Wilbur & the Christian crew instead of Suits. I enjoyed him at times and too thought his humor was good.
Hope you land on your feet, Brian - Good Luck to ya, and thanks for putting your life on the line so many times for this Country. You're a typical great American.

[Jimmy Kowalski]

So he did 3 tours and the local politics got to Suits? That is some heavy crack you're smoking PS. Can't you just say he was fired for a really mundane show?

[furthermore]

Bryan Suits...locked out by the dailykos. That is so like being on freerepublic and they wouldn't post my comments. wahhhh!

[abob]

I'm shocked KOMO did not replace Bryan Suits with Lou Pate.

[DT]

I like Bryan, but I didn't like tuning him in, because he talked too much about the war for my taste. Even if I agreed with him about the Iraq war, which I don't, I thought he overdid it. I like variety. I think Suits would be good on KIRO, but only if he cut back on the all the military/war talk, and talked about a greater variety of subjects.

[Leslie]

When Mr. Suits was on KIRO he used to call up people in foreign countries, for the express reason of mocking them. What a classy guy.

[blathering michael]

abob: sorry to startle you, but the R.I.P. for freshly-offed talk hosts is a tradition at Blatherwatch that started way back when Mike Siegel bit the dust at KTTH; the big wheel keeps on turnin' and I'm afraid it has way too much momentum to stop now. We're all about tradition around here, you know. We're also all about more bad right-wingers getting fired off the AM radio they monopolize.

[sartoon]

Yes, Leslie, Mr. Suits KIRO career was less than stellar. His time at KVI would have probably been shorter if he'd not gone to Iraq which seemed to make him relevant for a while.

[DT]

And Mike Webb dry-fired his gun at a caller. Classy guy.

Hey BM, who are the good local right-wingers you want to see stay on the air, and who are the bad one's? And why?

[Dana]

Boy, he sure got fat!

[Fremont]

Hey, DT, read the archives. You have to do your own homework (as Sparks once said.)

abob claims: " Unfortunately, hot chicks are blessed by Mother Nature and cursed by Father Time."
Hot chicks retain their heat. The only curse cast by Father Time is on men who are unable to stoke the fire. Alas!

Love the tune accompanying Dr.L's pix, BTW...

[Burk]

Suits was like Percodan, I couldn't listen to him while operating machinery.

[sparky]

Freemont you are a treasure.

[katzjamr]

to fremont regarding stoking the fire in middle age, viagra fixed that problem for most people, in additon to working out and taking the fork out of your mouth. regarding ron and don, i dont know their ratings, however they are far from 'asshats'... their realworld view of katrina, helping raise money for victims there, and other serious topics make them more of an asset to the community

[bink]

Hey katzjamr, Promotional charity drives of radio stations or talk hosts has nothing to do with whether the content of their programming has any weight or depth. Charitable they may be, but R & D have dumbed down a station. It may work for KIRO and bring in a bigger, and dumber audience, but so many of us who used to never touch the dial, turn off KIRO right after Dave. With Carlson back on in the afternoon, we'll sure give him more time than we ever did when he and Shram were up against Dave Ross.

[sparky]

Katz, if you think that "stoking the fire" is all about your poker on viagra, you have been missing a lot.

[DT]

I turn ON KIRO right after Dave. Good voice, silly ideas.

[sparky]

oh my...much angst at (Un)SoundPolitics over the demise of Mr. Suits. Some are even saying that John Carlson is STODGEY! Not very loyal, are they?

http://soundpolitics.com/archives/009624.html

[Sclub]

Suits never got ratings anywhere. Keeping him around was charity.

[abob]

How come no Seattle radio station can find a slot for Erin Hart? This an outrage. Erin is a feisty, delightful, political talk show host. Seattle Needs More Hart. Hmm...nice slogan

[Beryl]

That's right, sclub, he was still one of Chris's "works in progress," when he left KIRO. The only bump he ever got was when he got back from the war.

[Oscar]

Liberals don't sell on Seattle radio, that's why there are so few of them. They don't listen even when there people who like to hear repetitious bumper sticker politics they agree with.

[21 dem]

I miss Hart too, wonder if she still has my number?

[boink]

She's got your number alright, pal.

[abob]

Erin's got your number. That's why she dont call. Tee-Hee.

[Dr. No Comments]

At www.kvi.com/onair/schedule/ - "Dr. Laura holds a Ph.D. in psychology" (physiology actually), is a "Black Belt in partial arts," and designs jewelry for "chairtable causes."

At www.drlaura.com/faq/ - "The On-Air phone lines are for personal questions.... There is no phone line to make comments."

[sparky]

21 Dem was the creator and techie for Erin's personal webpage, back in the day.

[Gusto]

Yes vg Sparky. We (meaning me) were never fans of Erin because she is not One of Us. We (meaning me) were glad when KIRO came to their senses and canceled her like a stamp.

That is all we (meaning me) have to say.

[joanie]

I miss Erin.

[Gusto]

I don't.

[drool]

I don't either.

[PugetSound]

Erin had a great theme song and some loyal 'Erinistas' for sure. But other than that, IMFO (In My Feeble Opinion) I gave up on her when she hung up on not one, not two, but four callers in a row. Thus burning through all her callers for the hour she had to fill. One of the callers was a bit of a jerk but the others made the mistake of disagreeing with with her on the topic of Elian Gonzales. Even at 11 pm that wasn't good radio and had me at ESPN radio.
Whenever they had the battle of the Talkshow Hosts she was excluded. Wonder why? I do recall her filling in for Dori and maybe it was because Phil the Producer was there or that Management actually listened in the afternoon but she couldn't pull the old 'Rant and Dump' the call act. She got pinned a couple of times by callers and had to resort to the timeworn 'well, I have the right to my opinion' which -while true- is a little on the lightweight side from a talkshow host.
I love to hear the counter argument from someone I disagree with to be a little more than that. Give me some facts/rationale as to why you have a take on something.

[sparky]

Don't forget the 2 hour discussion of her dryer cord.
Her groupies in the KIRO chat room invited her to a Mariner's game once. She didn't go, but sent an assistant to pass out KIRO bookmarks to make them feel better.

[coiler]

I see nothing on the "Radio Equalizer" blog about Suits dismissal. Baloney is quick to predict other hosts demises. He did update today about the Whoopi Goldberg show losing ratings fast, as if anyone knew, but nothing about the 19 year 2LT.

[PugetSound]

Sparky LOL. I didn't hear it but I heard about it. And Erin was a big baseball fan so it wasn't like she didn't care about a good game. So I was surprised that she would stand up her fans. Those 'Erinistas' as Mike Webb use to call 'em were a loyal bunch.

[KS]

I don't miss Erin at all. KVI has a wierd way of letting go of people. Suits had a wit and different perspective. Dr. Laura in his place - no thanks. There is no one station that has the corner on talkers. KIRO - Dave Ross has talent and the others are OK. KKOL and KTTH probably have stronger ratings than KVI for conservative talk stations.

[KS]

I don't miss Erin at all. KVI has a wierd way of letting go of people. Suits had a wit and different perspective. Dr. Laura in his place - no thanks. There is no one station that has the corner on talkers. KIRO - Dave Ross has talent and the others are OK. KKOL and KTTH probably have stronger ratings than KVI for conservative talk stations.

[Lex Medlin]

Suits is a unique and entertaining host. I enjoyed him the most on KIRO, because he is knowledgeable on a variety of subjects, including the military.

I especially enjoyed his movie segment with Warren Ethredge.

At KVI though, he seemed like more of a shill, especially for the Iraq War in its runup. There was that "Mohammed" call that just so happened to come up during a segment with a peace activist that a blogger speculated might have been a plant. Whatever it was, he kept calling the activist "little girl," and Suits kept bullying her with "when did you stop beating your wife questions." KVI played the clip as a pro-war promo for months after. Not a proud moment.

Nevertheless, Suits is bright and very talented, and he should land on his feet soon.

At

[joanie]

You guys keep referring to Erin when she had the chat room and that was a couple of years before I started listening to her. I never heard her hang up on anyone. I thought her after-show (dumb battle of the talks show hosts) with Shiers was pretty good.

She was passionate and very able to listen to callers when I finally came on board. I emailed her a couple of times and she answered on air . . . once I told her she needed to drop the "reality is" constant refrain and she even commented on that. That drove me nuts and it does even today when Carl Jeffers does it.

Well, Dave, the reality is . . . the reality is . . . the reality is . . . the reality is . . . the reality is . . . the reality is . . . the reality is . . . the reality is ...

almost as bad as Klueless' redundancy.

[coiler]

She went nuts after 9/11, like Dori. I think she could have found a niche like Webb. Webb was great, Hart sucked up to Bushler right after 9/11 until her fan base was gone, so was her ratings. She tried to bring it back but most had wisely moved on. We took great delight in bringing that to her attention in the chat. Kiro had no more use for her.

[abob]

I thought KVI made a bad move hiring Dr. Laura until I read that she has 8 million listeners. It's astonishing, but only Limbaugh and Hannity attract a bigger audience in radio. I had no idea Laura Schlessinger enjoyed that kind of massive spectacular success in the broadcasting business. I just saw a recent picture of Laura. I hate to admit it but she is quite an attractive older woman.