BlatherWatch

Mike webb: broadcast pioneer, liberal martyr, pathological jerk, SHOUTS OUT!

Mike Webb, General Manager, Mike Webb Media, and former KIRO talk host fired in December after being arrested and charged with felony insurance fraud, has written a sad but amazing letter to the bloggers over at NW Progressive, Tuesday. 

In a convoluted, delusional message, he blames NPI (the home of some of the most active liberal activists in the state) for not supporting him when he was fired from KIRO; thus causing not only his problems, but obstructing the great progressive movement.

"Well, I hope you're happy. Instead of relying on the tried and true American concept of innocent til proved guilty, your blog was joyful over my departure. Now, I have added 5 stations to my nightly network show and can only hope that more like-minded people will get there (sic) heads out of the sand and SUPPORT liberal voices who DO make it to MSM."

He fails to mention the dark legal cloud over his head caused by his very public arrest; and the crisis of credibility it caused in his professional life as an opinion maker.

Nor does he mention how embarrassed progressives have always been with his angry, reactive style so vulnerable to right-wing scorn. His exasperating blabbing over even friendly prime time guests he worked so hard to get on his show.

We, for the life of us can't find Mike's "nightly network show" on even one station, let alone 5. We'd be anxious to hear that show, if anyone could direct us to it or show us a program schedule that lists it. Mike?

Thursday oddems: vinnie kicks dave ross's ass, talkcheck rocks, bryan suits sox suck, kiro gets bloggy, talk host caught with his wife, joy at KTTH? bambi reasons with godzilla

~~Loyal reader Rich noticed it- "When I load 710kiro.com in Firefox on one particular computer, I see the attached image for a 10th of a second. Did some more poking around. Look- there's no question the image is real: looks like it loads just before the flash file does. The header on the image is dated Jan 25th - so maybe this is an idea they had, but decided against."  Wow. A picture of Dave with the 7-10 pm underneath it found like a picture of The Virgin in a slice of pizza. Did the Entercom geniuses really consider putting Our Dave in the 7-10p slot? Wouldn't put it past 'em-maybe he and New York Vinnie competed and Vinnie just beat him out of the job...view the Image of Mystery here.

~~Theresa Joy, Theresa Joy, Theresa Joy. She's all we hear about in our mailbox about KTTH these days...she apparently does the news for Buttman and Bows (m-f, 5-9a) and apparently she's a tempering influence on the mad puppies of 770. Who is she anyway? Is she really Carleen Johnson?

~~We gotta apologize to Rabbi Lapin. O we of little faith- his new show will indeed start on Sunday, Mar. 26th from 1- 4p PST on KSFO San Francisco, 560 on the AM dial. We had thought maybe he was lying. If you miss him (as we do) since he left the Seattle market, the show will be carried live on the Internet click on “listen now.” Wonder if "Baghdad by the Bay" is ready for the rabid rabbi?

~~You know that talk host schtupping the producer we've been reporting about for months? Bofem married and all? (they're not at KIRO, btw) Well, get this: she (the producer) caught him (the talk host) going to a motel (their motel!) with his own wife. The whole thing is off, we hear. Motel? wife?  that's against basic adultery ethics, isn't it?

~~Boyoboy, do we love Talkcheck Starting in January Seňor Talkcheck started making digital recordings of Carlson, Kirby, The Commentators, Bryan Suits, and Dori. His idea is to be a Media Matters for local talk radio. He had a big score which hit national blogs with his audio of McCain on Carlson last week being surprised by a caller asking him about his senior aide Terry Nelson's dirty tricking past. He again hit pay dirt by catching Carlson in a little obfuscation when he claimed falsely that there was a spike in NW crime because of more Mexican laborers. There has, in fact, been no such crime increase; and there is no causal relationship between immigration and crime. Talkcheck needs your help listening-  he implores us all, Have you heard something outrageous? Drop me a line and I'll go find the details and make a post. With audio if needed.

Payment due at KUOW

We know how boring this is, but it's the best talk radio station in Seattle's Spring pledge drive and you need to call 'em up and give 'em some dough.

We speak of course of National Public Radio affiliate KUOW, "Nearly 95" at 94.9 FM. Make an on-line pledge here and get a Steve Scher wife-beater 't', a Bob Edwards Mr. Microphone, or Ken Vincent giving your message machine greeting as a free gift.

NPR doesn't have traditional advertising, so it depends on the kindness of corporations (30 percent), and foundations (12 percent) but almost half of its operating budget comes from member stations based on formulas tied to their listenership and dredged up on these semi-annual pledge drives.

(Contrary to the crap you hear on right-wing radio, no more than 2% of NPR's budget comes from federal grants. This has insulated it from Congressional battles over programming.)

In 2003, Joan Kroc, (widow of Hamburglar Ray of MacDonald's) bequeathed NPR $230 million- an amount so generous to the constantly panhandling national non-profit, the interest alone has paid for a large expansion in the newsroom- nearly 70 jobs- while other news organizations are cutting back across the board.

NPR is a great continent of hope for the future of real scratch journalism in an age when marketers and bean-counters are either drying up newsrooms or pushing them around.

(After the Kroc gift, you might ask, why do we have to give at these infernal pledge drives? Because half the operating budget is raised from listeners, that's why- so get out your damn wallet! Besides, the sooner you do it, the sooner they'll shut up and we can get back to "All Things Considered" and Vaughn Palmer).

Who pays off blatherWatch?

We've been told that the conventional wisdom around KIRO is that BlatherWatch is paid for by Fisher Broadcasting (KOMO, KVI).

The myth is that the owner of this blog is related to someone who works for Fisher and that's why we're so nice to KVI, and so mean to KIRO.

While it's true, Blathering Man has a relative at KOMO TV; and we can't deny that KOMO radio execs love every minute of our chronicling of the missteps and peccadilloes of the Entercom stations; we have to sadly say, no one has even offered us a mug or a tote bag, much less a check.

As a matter of fact, KOMO execs have ignored our annoying e-mails like anyone at KIRO.

The truth of the matter is, this blog is news-driven, and no one can deny how much news the former top-dog talker, KIRO and its little sister KTTH has generated in the scant year or so we've been posting- such as:

Mike webb ex-attorney faces disbarment proceedings

The on-going investigative series and resulting law suits by The Seattle Times demanding that many of the 420 civil suits sealed by judges since 1990 be opened, are bearing fruit.

The Times maintains they were sealed improperly. Last week the paper won its first decision and a judge ordered opened the sexual harassment case of prominent Seattle civil-rights attorney Bradley Marshall; infamous to BlatherWatchers as the celeb lawyer of Mike Webb, the former KIRO talk show host arrested in December for felony insurance fraud.

(Webb says Marshall no longer represents him because he's a civil, not a criminal, lawyer. Webb's current attorney is Mark Larrafiaga of Walsh & Larrafiaga).

Marshall was being sued for sexual harassment by a young, female former employee. They cut a deal: He wrote a check, and she agreed to let the entire file be sealed. It was a quid pro quo- amounting to Marshall buying court-sanctioned secrecy.

Friday oddems: mike webb sheds shyster, KIRO tapes its parts, bare-naked wimmen flop on the buzz, mccain takes it in the shorts, ron & bomb suffer gastritis, toe tent city invades eastlake, bill o'reilly steps into it, pat o'day rocks the blogosphere

~~Mike Webb update: he fired his fancy celebrity lawyer, Bradley Marshall who was probably too darned expensive for what he needs him for. We still expect him to cop a plea- besides what we've already reported, the charging papers say that the Geico Insurance (the company he's accused of ripping off) policy numbers are issued by computer in sequential order. Mike's policy number falls between two others bounded on the day after the accident; even though Mike claims he took out the policy the month before the accident. We predict a plea bargain will be negotiated, and Mike will plead guilty to something lesser; but will never not claim he's innocent. He's that kind of guy...His current attorney appears to be one Mark Larrafiaga of Walsh & Larrafiaga.

~~Worst radio commercial nominee, 2006: "The Toe-Tent is a totally new and unique product that solves an age old problem. The problem of twisted feet has been going on since the first caveman covered himself with the first animal skin. This problem predates writing, it predates music, it predates speech, it predates every problem except the battle of the sexes (which also involves being in bed). To finally be able to sleep on your back and not have your toes jammed down by the bedding is GREAT! It's like a blessed relief from heaven!!"

~~Taped dayparts on KIRO? Well yes. Thoughtful reader Tom reports and we've now heard it too- Ron & Bomb, (m-f, 9p-1a) the shock jocks filling in Mike Webb's old slot, actually play old tapes of themselves presumably so they can get home early. Tom sez: "I’d never heard tape in any daypart [on KIRO] before, always live guest hosts when the regulars are absent. Poor show. They’re not even playing tapes from actual hires – it was tape of fill-ins. (I’d rather hear Dori tapes!) There goes 'live and local'.” We're betting KIRO has no idea that's happening- this is the station who does no airchecks- we hear it over and over from talent, "It's obvious," one told us recently, "they've never heard my show."

Focus, KIRO, focus...

Desperation rules at KIRO- and it must be getting burdensome. Last night they made a giant gesture at actually soliciting listeners views on their programming.

Program Director Tom Clendening led a focus group attended by our spy, and he got an earful.

(And it's SO fucking about time! Entercom's off-with-their-heads management style is just one reason they've taken such a brilliant leap head-first into the tundra. We're not so sure this focus group stuff is so great- after all, it was a hastily assembled star chamber "focus group" that offed Allan Prell so prematurely and weirdly (Resident Corporate Big Jerry McKenna played King Edward).

Focus groping around Eastlake is done in lieu of authoritative or insightful management).

Two groups of about 20 each were recruited from the Gold Club, an email club you can join by signing up on the website. (Oddly, BlatherWatch has been signed up for a year and we never get invited to anything).

For participating, the gang got $25, dinner (which was, we're told, old MoonPies, Little Debbie® snack cakes and Rockstar, all confiscated from Mike Webb's locker), a goodie bag with Dave Delackey refrigerator magnets, Jim French coffee mugs, and T-shirts that read, ""Taser Dori Again!"

Talk radio: how long will it be a man's world?

Is talk radio for men?

It's obvious that, at the moment, it mostly is. The trade Talkers Magazine claims in its (always somewhat suspect) Talk Radio Research Project that males listening to talk radio outnumber females 54% to 46%. Others have reported an even larger spread.

Washington Post columnist Marc Fisher opined in Slate a few years go that the gap on the radio isn't between liberal and conservative, it's between men and women. Liberal talk might make it if execs could figure out how to attract women, who tend to be more liberal. Older, conservative men listen to AM talk, he says, younger, liberal men listen to FM shock talk like Howard Stern or Tom Leykis. "Dr. Laura and a handful of other advice yakkers pick up some middle-aged women," Fisher writes, "and NPR skims off the high-end demographic. But the vast majority of American women still use the radio for music and a bit of news. Put your money into cultivating new forms of talk for women, and you're far more likely to hit pay dirt than with this cockeyed liberal [talk radio] notion."

Bill Virgin in his "Radio Beat" column in the Post Intelligencer, reported last week that a new Seattle company not only agrees with Fisher, but has put some dough and energy into bridging that gap.

GreenStone Media, the creation of some veteran radio folks and high profile women, has a lined up some shows it hopes peddle to program directors around the country to create a "mass appeal format for FM radio- expressly for women, by women," in the 25-54 demographic.

It's the creation of president and chief executive Susan Ness, a former Federal Communications Commission member; and Edie Hilliard, a former Jones Radio executive.

According to the Washington Business Journal, investors include Billie Jean King, Jane Fonda, Gloria Steinem, Rosie O'Donnell;  Marta Kauffman, the creator of "Friends"; Jamie McCourt, president of the Los Angeles Dodgers; and Wallis Annenberg, vice president of the Annenberg Foundation.

Virgin writes:

It's not that women haven't made it nationally as talk hosts. Relationship consultants Laura Schlessinger and Joy Browne, political commentators including Stephanie Miller, Randi Rhodes and Laura Ingraham, sports-talker Nanci "the Fabulous Sports Babe" Donnellan and technology-show host Kim Komando come to mind.

But what GreenStone believes is lacking, and the niche it hopes to fill, is a single source of 24-hour programming with a perspective provided by female hosts and aimed at female listeners.

LaMarca says the idea is to move talk radio back to what it was before politics swamped the format, to more general-interest discussions. Those interests, for women listeners, range from relationships to entertainment to personal finances to current events. Women "want to talk about news, but not from a political point of view," he says. The television equivalents would be "Oprah" or "The View," although as LaMarca says with those programs "you can't really talk back" to the hosts, as listeners can with talk radio.

Music, they're saying, has lost its "uniqueness on the air" after the "advent of satellite radio, the iPod and streaming."

So far GreenStone's programming lineup (the shows will be produced in New York and Los Angeles) includes a morning show hosted by comics Maureen Langan, Cory Kahaney and Nelsie Spencer. The midmorning show will be hosted by Lisa Birnbach, a writer perhaps best known for "The Official Preppy Handbook." Comedian Mo Gaffney heads "The Mo & Friends Radio Show" in the afternoons. GreenStone hopes to add a fourth show by midyear.

We don't know if this will work, but it certainly has the potential of not only winning women back to talk, but perhaps plumping up talk radio in general which has been flaccid for a year or so.

We're all old white guys around BlatherWatch, so as long as we can get our ears on a radio format swamped with politics, we certainly don't mind women getting what they want, which is something we famously have never been able to determine.

MIKE WEBB HEARINGS DATES

We're not sure how we got this information wrong, but the omnibus hearing for former KIRO talk host Mike Webb will be April 21, and his court date will be May 4. (Not March 21, and April 4 as we reported).

Webb, a progressive evening talker was arrested and charged with felony insurance fraud in December then almost immediately stripped of his longtime show shortly thereafter by Entercom bigs. He has pleaded not guilty. Read our Mike Webb files:

BREAKING: KIRO TALK HOST MIKE WEBB CHARGED WITH INSURANCE FRAUD
A tangled webb: the seattle police's case against mike webb 
Hackers? police conspiracy? yeah, that's it...
Mike webb's attorney no stranger to "dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation."
Mike webb, 1995-2005 R.I.P.
Mike webb speaks
Ten easy things mike webb can do to keep from going postal

Lou pate: friend to children and other animals...

You know how we've always considered Lou Pate, the conservative dirty biter of KIRO overnight who recently quit himself of the floundering station. The Latenight Bronxsaurus hated Seattle or professed to on-air, and was what we call a "fuck-you conservative."  He was (is) a libertarian from the Bronx who regularly gave the raspberry to what he'd call the Seattle liberal establishment; mocked political correctness and religiosity equally; and pissed off not only any progressive who might have listened in, but also any religious right-wingers up that late (they mostly go to bed early, we're told, and not in any biblical sense).

We read this recently on the trade site, All Access.com.

Pate Filling In At KOA/Denver
Veteran talker LOU PATE is filling in SUNDAY morning 10a-12:30p MT on CLEAR CHANNEL Talk KOA-A/DENVER, leading into ROCKIES preseason baseball. PATE, most recently night host at KIRO-A/SEATTLE, can be reached at [email protected].

That's not all that interesting, but we received a letter that might give some insight into the weightlifting blabberjockey or... maybe not. We know for sure that Lou didn't write this; and we also know that exposing this side of him could permanently damage his career, that's why we're running it. If this is true, and this gets out, he's done. (Pate certainly had his detractors on the KIRO overnight, but fillins, Frank "snide ride" Shiers and Byron Struble the overheated brain with the frigorific voice are driving overnight regulars to KGO and Randi Rhodes re-runs).

This from a reader who calls himself "joey1971":

This blog is hilarious. Let me just give you some insight to the REAL Lou Pate... I know him because he is my neighbor and over the years has become my friend.

Off the air, he is one of the nicest and kindest guys that you'd ever want to meet. Always quick with a friendly hello and a funny comment. In fact, when I learned what he had done for a living and I tuned into his show, I was really surprised at how different his "on-air" personality was. In real life, he's incredibly polite and couteous to others. He's still very outgoing, but completely non-offensive.

His girlfriend is NOT anyone that is on the air or even in the media business. She's a girl that he met in San Diego and they've been together for years.

It is true that his car is a piece of junk. I once had to help him push it to the auto mechanic that's a few blocks away - lol. And, it is true that he exercises almost obsessively. At least once per day... sometimes more.