KVI's 'mouthing off' is one year old

It's the most recent live and local talk show live in the dead radio world mostly inhabited by zombies beamed-in from outer space.

And now it's a year old. While that's a sad commentary on local radio - a wasteland once a boiling crucible of creativity - that this little petunia in the onion patch of KVI weekend brokered shows and infomercials has survived and thrived, should be celebrated.

The show is Mouthing Off, with Dave Carson, Kevin Dodrill, and Mustard the (hot) dog. It's a half hour of smart, manly madness from 6:30-7p Sundays leading into the execrable Bill Cunningham show. (If there were real programming going on, and not bean-punting, they'd be replacing Cunningham).

They describe it thus on their Facebook page:

With a combined 25 years in the trenches of talk, news and sports radio – Kevin and Carson bring to the airways a fast-paced, irreverent look at life. As today’s hosts march ever closer to their days of Viagra™ and Matlock re-runs, and with stations continually targeting the 25-34 age-range, these two not only talk about the issues facing radio's most sought-after demographic, but with an average age of 30 -- they're living it.

You can't get all that much into a half-hour, but it's a tight, well-produced show- it should be: both these guys have other jobs at Fisher. Carson produces and plays resident liberal for Kirby Wilbur (m-f, 5-6a) Kevin once produced for Bryan Suits, but now does we're-not-sure-what-else around Fisher Plaza.

The show has gone through incredible stresses: two of the original hosts, Matt Haver, and Dave Carson were fired from the station over the year, then Carson was rehired for reasons unknown (breaking all radio rules Haver has re-appeared as a guest on the show.) Despite that the boyz rounded up their own ads, half the show was cut and given to Purity Products, the chastity belt folks with the ubiquitous infomercials.

But these guys are getting paid extra for coming in Sundays.... the show gets little or no station promotion -- no web page, and they podcast the show themselves.

Kevin and Dave along with the TBTL crew (KIROFM m-f, 7-10p) are the only on-air talk hosts in town under 35. The young (in radio) are a dying breed, if that makes any sense.

They''ve built an avid audience, and have developed some chops over the year.

Nobody seems to know exactly why they've survived... the show is good, but that can't be the reason. Maybe management forgot that they're there...

 Carson says, "I'm thrilled, amazed, and happy."

We're just glad Fisher has allowed them thechance to do what radio used to do: give over weekends time to young talent to develop.

Comments

[tds]

Don't forget, Luke Burbank got his start in radio w/ Kirby.

[mrogi]

KVI is smart. Right wing talk is a booming industry. All ten of the Top 10 highest rated cable new shows are on the Fox News Network. Olbermann sucks exhaust fumes at MSNBC.
O'REILLY 3,191,000
HANNITY 2,345,000
BECK 2,053,000
GRETA 1,950,000
BRET BAIER 1,889,000
SHEP SMITH (Studio B) 1,783,000
O'REILLY(Rerun) 1,579,000
MEGYN KELLY 1,399,000
EIL CAVUTO 1,389,000
SHEP SMITH 1,169,000