Where do you go after you're fired from talk radio job in Seattle?
The answer, apparently, is Port Orchard if you want to stay anywhere near the Seattle market.
Those regularly scheduled Seattle newstalk spots are coveted ... seems you gotta leave town or get a gig selling cars.
It's the dilemma faced by the recently fired Bryan Suits, and Dan Sytman but also faced by such as Allan Prell, Mike Webb, Mike Siegel, New York Vinnie, Erin Hart, Lou Pate, Fred Ebert, Peter Weissbach, Brian Maloney, and Bryan Styble.
(Prell, Pate, Maloney,and Ebert moved to the East coast (although Ebert does an hour in drivetime remote from his home in Bolivia on tiny KITZ in Port Orchard; Weissbach lives in Seattle but does national fill-ins and a brokered financial show on XM Satellite radio; according to his Wikipedia entry, Siegel is "doing a one-hour local issues radio show from 5-7 PM on KITZ" (!) New York Vinnie does post-game Seahawk talk on Channel 13. Maloney does something besides radio (we're not sure what) but he runs two rightie radio blogs in Massachusetts. Hart stayed in Seattle, does fill-ins nationally, public speaking and has reportedly gone back to school. Lou Pate lives in Miami and does national fill-in. Styble is a tutor in Seattle and does one silly weekend show once a week on KIRO).
Suits was replaced on KVI by syndicated national blabbermeister, Dr.Laura. The megatrend of media consolidation, the outsourcing of local radio jobs to syndication is a root problem.
KIRO with all its live and local talk is an anachronism- the only syndication on the station is the weekend money talker Bob Brinker.
KVI had three slots filled by living and [fire] breathing hosts, but now just have two- morning and afternoon drives. It's a major step backward.
Suits and Sytman have few choices in news talk radio unless they leave town. (Wouldn't it be interesting to know if these libertarian Republicans are taking the unemployment compensation offered by the nanny state they abhor? On the employemtn front, Suits is rumored to be talking to KIRO; and Sytman could be hammering a deal with Bonneville to reappear on KTTH. On the other hand, for all we know, they could be hammering Grey Goose marys and leaving blurry messages on Chuck OIson's machine, and picking up their checks every other week).
Satellites, boosted into the stratosphere by the thousands in the 1970's and 80's, enabled local programming directors to download and broadcast national shows like Limbaugh's with neither the expense of in-house talent nor the messiness of the care and feeding of radio talent, some of the most arrogant and neediest humans on the planet.
In the next decade, with the relaxation of the media consolidation rules, large media companies like Clear Channel, CBS, ABC, and Entercom started buying up radio stations in local markets.
Stations like KTTH, and KPTK are run by humming bots who converse with the orbiting "birds" who beam down Limbaugh and Hannity and Medved; they're tried and true talent; nationally marketed, who, like the robots, don't need a bathroom, much less a health plan.
Stations like these dot the American soundscape because they pencil. Costs for the syndicated voices are nominal to the stations- their syndicators take varying but hefty percentages of the ads sold locally, and are given the time for the national ads they sell themselves.
Local programming essentially eliminates middle men; fetches more money for ads, and builds more buzz and community around a station, but the reduced risk in the automated stations running syndicated "product" only make them attractive as a volume business- big media buys up as many little stations as they can, and fires all the humans.
Radio saved itself from the threat of TV by going personal with superheated Top 40 deejays and developing close communities of its listeners. When music went to FM, radio again saved itself by staying personal with talk by hosts that became familiar as family.
To abandon that tried and true strategy fof live and local or stations run by robots off satellites owned by faceless and faraway corporate entities will surely spell the end of radio as we know it.
Or maybe it already has.
Superstar broadcasters like Limbaugh, Hannity, Savage, Medved, Beck and Dr. Laura are more talented and more compelling than any bunch of local yokels radio stations can put on the air. That is why they are nationally syndicated and the Alan Prells of the world are drawing unemployment checks.
Posted by: abob | November 26, 2007 at 03:40 AM
It is a puzzle. I hope we never lose our local programming because I rely on it to stay informed about local politics. AA never gives me that. That's why I am a dual listener: I listen to AA for the national stuff and KIRO (Dave Ross; Goldstein) for the local stuff. I need both.
I even listen to Dori until his mouth forces me away which is most of the time. He has good guests when he's talking local politics and projects. And he asks hard questions when he's on a rant about something local. I like those questions. Somebody needs to ask them. If he could clean up his mouth and act like an adult when the interviews are over, I'd listen more often and longer.
Oh well. I hope we never have to find out what a lack of local programming looks like. Maybe Howard Schultz will buy Seattle a radio station that operates at a loss . . . don't these guys have enough money so that they can do something without thinking profit...
Posted by: joanie | November 26, 2007 at 03:57 AM
"don't these guys have enough money so that they can do something without thinking profit..."
That's what NPR is for.
Posted by: hpf13 | November 26, 2007 at 06:57 AM
The idea of being a career talk radio host seems like a horror story. You don't get payed crap and you have to move all the time. If you're lucky enough to find a wife that will follow you around and still somehow find employment of their own, imagine the disservice you'd be doing to your kids, transplanting them from one city to the next. Or don't have a family, don't have a family and get payed little while polishing an otherwise useless skill. How those people can sleep easy at night is beyond me.
Posted by: Andrew | November 26, 2007 at 08:53 AM
...you mean like Dave Ross...and Dori Monson? :)
Posted by: Duffman | November 26, 2007 at 08:57 AM
For every Dave Ross there are twenty Bryan Suits.
Posted by: Andrew | November 26, 2007 at 09:22 AM
B'lam, these TV/radio satellites number perhap a dozen at the max over North America at any given time. They all share a geosyncronous orbit over the equator - very crowded real estate in space shared with comm birds, weather sats and the like.
Posted by: mark | November 26, 2007 at 09:34 AM
Not to be picky but KIRO claims to give away four iPhones away each day but presumably not everyone calls within sixty minutes to receive the prize so it's highly unlikely they actualy give away four iPhones a day. For all we know days at a time go by without them having to give up a single phone.
Posted by: Andrew | November 26, 2007 at 10:06 AM
OMG!!!...and here we're worried 'bout the war in Iraq..when THIS is apparently going on!!!
Posted by: Duffman | November 26, 2007 at 10:33 AM
Dr Laura is "compelling"? Sure, if your idea of good radio is listening to some rag, bitch at losers calling in with their personal problems.
Posted by: Upton | November 26, 2007 at 10:53 AM
Dr. Laura is KVI's Ron & Don, a move borne of sheer desperation. KVI is on life support. However, KIRO is in little better shape aside from Ross and Dori.
I don't dispute that the economics don't favor local talk, but there must be more to it than that. It doesn't explain why KIRO can't find somebody better than Ron 'n Don, for example. It doesn't explain why KIRO and KVI have so often had to recycle each other's failed hosts (Maloney, Gary Ryan, etc).
What they need is a Bird and Magic infusion. Remember how the NBA was moribund before Bird & Magic came along to revitalize things.
Posted by: wutitiz | November 26, 2007 at 11:53 AM
If KIRO were to replace Ron and Don with Jim Althoff they would probably get me back. Until then I'm mostly over at AA.
Posted by: blarsen | November 26, 2007 at 01:29 PM
Interesting, Siegel's "one-hour" show from 5-7 p.m. Fill, baby!
Posted by: GPS | November 26, 2007 at 03:14 PM
"Wouldn't it be interesting to know if these libertarian Republicans are taking the unemployment compensation offered by the nanny state they abhor?"
Pappekak.
UI is insurance. Not welfare.
Posted by: BHC | November 26, 2007 at 03:26 PM
Agreed, BHC, but you wouldn't know it to hear conservative hosts decry it on the radio. I think Blather is pointing out the hypocrisy of these entertainers who pretend to have these noble "values".
Posted by: Sparling | November 26, 2007 at 03:50 PM
I'm sorry, but I go to local radio to get something I can't get on TV or even NPR, e.g. hearing my neighbors report and talk about local news. Having everything corporate whether it is Air America, Rush Limbaugh, CBS, or NPR is just a narrowing of the perspectives available for financial advantage of large out of town interests. It's like going to the mall and having nothing to choose from to eat but those franchises that can be found in every town everywhere in America. Sure national talent is always better in a critical way, but radio has always been more than just tight, professional entertainment. It has been something that held us together in communities. Radio's days are probably done, and one of the reasons that has happened is because these economics rule.
the internet is what's happening now for communities, wonder how long it will take them to corporatize and homogenize that too.
Posted by: AskAndy | November 26, 2007 at 04:08 PM
You libs won't like this but without local talk radio, there would be no Tim Eyman or his tax reforms, we would still be stuck with affirmative action, there would be no 3 Strikes Your Out, etc. Republicans and conservatives would have no way to get heard in Washington. Rush doesn't address these local issues. Sean Hannity doesn't care about our property taxes. Michael Medved won't put Dino Rossi on to tell his side of the story. Without local programming, we are cooked around here.
The Piper
Posted by: Piper Scott | November 26, 2007 at 04:16 PM
I stopped listening when Allan Prell was manhandled from Pensylvania. NPR is where I am nowadays. Once over there, you get used to the peace and quiet fin a commercial free zone. AM radio can go the way of Wunda Wunda for all I care. Let the Republicans have it
Posted by: sig | November 26, 2007 at 04:47 PM
"peace and quiet" gets boring after a while. And Piper, libs and conservatives want local. I've never shot the messenger just because I didn't like the message. I might go after them for how they delivery it - 710DORI - but not for the message itself.
You are like most conservatives, Piper, you think we think like you think, it has to be our way or the highway. Not at all.
Also, didn't I read somewhere that NPR was doing quite nicely in the 'profit" department? Or was that just KUOW?
And, I think Ross paid his dues in the early years or am I wrong about that? Monson has never left Seattle and it shows.
Posted by: joanie | November 26, 2007 at 06:24 PM
I just realized the best thing about the KTTH change is Phil Hendrie is now on early in the morning!
Posted by: slugworth | November 27, 2007 at 12:22 PM
Phil Hendrie is a one trick pony. Every night he conducts phony interviews and does all the voices. We get it. Yawn.
Posted by: abob | November 27, 2007 at 02:12 PM
>>For every Dave Ross there are twenty Bryan Suits.<<
Judging by the recent picture posted here of Sgt. Suits, you'd NEED 20 Dave Rosses to equal one Bryan Suits.
Didn't it take him something like 5 or 10 years to make lieutenant?
Posted by: Janet Morrow | November 27, 2007 at 05:33 PM
Phil Hendrie is more than a one-trick pony. His phony interviews, where he plays the interviewer and does all the voices- often pointing up the absurdity of the media/culture and the special interest types. He is irreverent and has a unique political bent - He is a Democrat who seems to support the war in Iraq. Seems like he has done some comedy gigs and admittedly is an entertainer - like many of the talk show hosts really are.
Posted by: KS | November 27, 2007 at 08:27 PM
You do realize that Brian Suits is a mustang. He started out as an enlisted man. I have the hightest regard for the man and will deeply miss him at KVI
Posted by: Mark | November 27, 2007 at 09:27 PM
Once again we see KVI digging it's own demise. Atleast Suits was entertaining. Over the years KVI has lost Rush, Medved, and Savage. Although these are not local hosts, it shows that KVI just doesn't understand its listeners. Their only bright light is the Commentators. Let's see how long it takes for them to screw that up.
KTTH must be dancing in the street over KVI's continuous blunders.
Posted by: Wayne | December 03, 2007 at 12:32 AM