Are rod & don on life support?

Ron & Don, (KIRO m-f, 3-7p) the vapid drive-time hosts everyone loves to hate but who get the best ratings on KIRO (!) have been missing of late, and that's further got staffers cryin', waitin', and hopin'.

(photo: Can Ron be resucitated?)

Ron & Don have been “on vacation,” since last week and filled-in for by such as John Curley, and Marty Reamer. Both are comedians, and more talented than Ron & Don, but are they really being tried out? If so, for whom? Neither would be much of an escalation in pithiness for the struggling news station, but that’s a hope we’ve dropped from our prayer list.

A KIRO source tells us that last week’s BlatherWatch-stoked attention around Gregg Hersholt’s firing took management by surprise and that they’re letting stuff die down before continuing on their revamp of the entire Bonneville cluster.

Others say KIRO management simply doesn’t have their shit together yet. One thing's for sure: the hammer will come down. Stay tuned.

Comments

[Duffman]

'..happens upon..'

So study, hard work, diligence, public persona and balls-out effort had nothing to do with it.
What a fricken dolt!

[Andrew]

TBTL is a good radio show. It's clever, spontaneous and fresh. It's lack of ratings on terestrial radio was due to the fact that the target audience couldn't have known to look for such a show on a station like KIRO, whose hosts are all over fifty. Just because you can't sell a Smart Car to a Samoan doesn't mean the Smart Car is a bad car, it's simply a wrong fit.

Dori is the opposite. It's predictable, one note and juvenile. His ratings are not a function of quality, but rather the healthy supply of angry white men who happen to be driving around town in the afternoon, most likely blue collar and self employed men who want to blame all their problems on the "lazy people" they perceive to be all around them.

Make no mistake, quality radio and good ratings are not one and the same, in the same way that food that tastes good isn't always the most nutritious.

[Andrew]

I've seen scant evidence that Dori studies anything, works hard at anything, or that his public persona is any different from his private one. You constantly imagine Dori to be someone he may or may not be...do you have a man crush on him?

[Jo]

Ron and Don are still out this time replaced by John Curly. I am beginning to think they are already out the door and it should hasn't been announced yet. I actually kinda liked Ron and Don.

[Puget Sound]

I've seen scant evidence that Dori studies anything, works hard at anything, or that his public persona is any different from his private one. You constantly imagine Dori to be someone he may or may not be...do you have a man crush on him?

Posted by: Andrew | June 03, 2010 at 03:04 PM

Wow Andy, it sure reads like you have a man hate on Dori.
You really think that a radio show is soooo easy that one can just pop in 15 minutes before show time and then leave at the end of the show?

I would love to see you sit behind the mike and talk for an hour. Ask Goldie how hard it was for him to do a show.

All becuase he sounds at ease behind the radio doesn't mean that it is easy to do. I think Randi's viewpoints are off base but I don't disparage her work ethic. She studies the issues, goes through show prep, etc and then plays to a narrow niche. Try to do that for 3 hours a day, 5 days a week.

[Tommy008]

Nancy Grace today- looks like party boy/killer Juran van der Sloot is headed to the big Peruvian prison where they provide a hole in the floorboards for their guests' bathroom needs...yeeha! life is good! If Dori was on top of the big, big stories like Nancy is, and had her delivery skills, he might have a shot at the success of a Nancy Grace - but he spends his time rehashing crap over and over again- "little local angry man" stories.

[Coiler]

He snitches on his colleagues too, from what I hear.

[Tommy008]

I heard he used to go to KIRO management with airchecks of Mike Webb's more outrageous rants , in hopes of gettign him fired. Mike Webb called him "this idiot, Dori Monson",- heard it with my own ears. Anyone? Buehler?

[joanie]

if a person happens upon a good salary, but doesn't have the ability to reproduce that salary either on their own or with another company, then it was luck...

Yes, luck. Falling onto the selling of high margin items like RVs is luck. Sure doesn't take brains, hard work or education. And when you're done, you collect an excessive unemployment check for all that luck.

That's the American Way.

Dori is profiting because he attracts low-information knuckle-draggers. Someone said earlier - I can read the blog from school but can't post - that Dori is entertainment. Well, he wasn't speaking for me. Entertainment is in the eye of the beholder. Dori is a cartoon. Beck is a cartoon. Coulter is a cartoon. If that's your level of entertainment, there's plenty of it out there. Ninety percent of all talk radio sounds like Dori. He's very replaceable.

Now for a dose of reality, go here.

[sparky]

The pictures break my heart. That picture is greed personified. Greed that makes people take shortcuts to safety. These are the pictures BP did not want us to see.

[joanie]

And multiply them hundreds of times.

It is tragic. I heard today that the first thing they should have done was keep the fire alive and it would burn much of the oil if not all of it. They can't use it the way it is and they've killed the Gulf.

Sparky, is the whole rightwing in this country sociopathic? I'm beginning to think Malloy is right.

Greed.

[Puget Sound]

As the oil continues to wash up on shore it re-enforces the perception of incompetence.
Pres Obama better correct this or the perception will continue to grow that he is an ineffective President and get bounced ala Jimmy Carter. You all remember Jimmy Carter. One of the worst Presidents of the 20th Century. Recall how ineffective he was in the face of national problems. Hostage crisis ring a bell...for 444 days the Iranians held our people hostage. 20 minutes after Reagan was sworn in as President, those 52 American hostages were released by Iran into U.S. custody.
Pres Obama...a one term President?

[joanie]

Yes, so speaketh the superficial one. That's why we don't take anything you say very seriously. Sound bites and headlines. That's you.

And unfortunately there are many people who are low-information voters just like you. Your prediction may come to pass. And the ruin we currently live with will get even worse.

Thank you.

[joanie]

In addition, if Obama can't get the job done, he should be gone. Even though I know the superficial and stupid candidate on the right will do an even worse job.

Ever since Reagan, it has been a choice between worse and worser. Well, keep voting for the worser. At least the endgame will come sooner and this tragedy will end - one way or another.

[Tommy008]

Earlier this week Monson kept playing this clip from Mathews show where some Dems were putting the blame on G.W.Bush for the basis of this disaster...he played it as if he were playing the nonsensical babblings of loons and really yukked it up, with apparently no idea of the things they were talking about. The main thing they were referring to was the sweetheart deal Cheney and Bush gave big oil allowing them to get out of putting in the " dead man switch" or backup, second switch that are required on oil rigs in Europe, England and the Norht Sea. This shows me that Dori just isn't very bright or aware.... i want a host for 12 to 3 who is aware of these things...not a chucklehead

[Tommy008]

Monson sometimes remonds me of Tony Soprano in his undershirt at the family table, bullying his much brighter than him teen daughter or son with some anti-intellectual jeering and derision over something they are studying or reading in school.

[joanie]

And the dispersant is illegal in Britain and Europe. Maybe that's where Cheney plans to finally retire . . . after he's finished profiteering off the USA.

He better hurry. Black hearts die young.

[Tommy008]

We can't continue to have a guy on KIRO in a key shift who shows this level of unawareness and lack of curiosity about things in general. Dori was fine for the late eighties, up to Bill Clinton's middle years perhaps, when he was still the good-natured sportscaster who took on other subjects. That was before he turned mean. THings move too fast and are too complex now for his really pedestrian intellect to keep up . Seattle deserves better.

[Tommy008]

one gets the impression that Monson feels he just owns this job at KIRO , it's his birthright as the born and bred city's native son, U.W. grad, etc blah blah blah .his deep narcissism and arrogance makes him feel this way.

[Tommy008]

thye had a show on Fugitive Chronicles last night that is the perfect example of the results of "Dorithink". The show recounts real life criminals who've gone on the run in America in the past couple of decades. Last night they feature an Arizona State baseball star who lost his way after school and strted robbing banks. He did a seven year stint in prison and during tha time he studied the Wall Stret Journal ond other financial reads with hopes of obtainign the big money he craved afte he got out of prison by playing th stock market. He was going to go straight not just scheming to do more crimes once he was out like most bigtime cons. He got a job at a car dealership once he got out. He was being paid 4,000 a month but due to all the fees the government was taking out , (restitution, back child cupport, etc) his take home was about 750$. he was lookimg at making joke money for years. Of course he went to back to robbing banks, after being given an unsurvivable situation by the powers that be. I actually felt sympathy for the guy, alhtough robbing banks was wrong, as a solution. The government agencies should have worked out a delayed payment arrangement so at least the guy could make enough money to survive. A Neanderthal thinker like Dori would show no mercy, laugh off his problems with a sneering "don't do the crime if you can't deal with it" response and move onto the next story without realizing that people with attitudes like his were really responsible for a whole bunch of bank robberies happening unnecessarily.

[Duffman]

For the life of me...I fail to see even the slightest connection between that comment and the topic at hand. Will you please try to stay on topic as much as possible and cease and desist throwing your obvious obsession at us constantly.
I think everyone would appreciate that. Thank you.

[Tommy008]

Chester Porterhouse Duhh- internet clown

[TomF]

Well, the slim connection is that Dori projects a smirking, callous disregard for people who've suffered setbacks in life. He affects an every-man-for-himself, personal-responsibility doctrine. Live within your means, keep what you earn, etc. Ironic for a guy who scores new gutters, invisible dog fences, mortgages, Jaguars, windows, etc., etc. through radio tradeout / endorsement deals.

I've always wondered how he squares his angry-working-man rap with those commercials where he urges the reeling, recession-wracking population to check out the new Jags and Range Rovers. Most of his listeners are having enough trouble checking out groceries.

[Obama is a black man]

It's Friday.

R&D Deathwatch continues.

[Tommy008]

THEY MAY WELL BE DUMPING THE DOPES THOUGH I DOUBT IT.... the two turds may be safe.......think about it- if you wanted to ry out teamns of jocks to replace Dori would you try them out in a. important morning news block b. dAVE ROSS C.DORIor D. r and d the answer is obviously d

[1090]

Dave, Dori, Frank, Gregg, etc. are all Radio-Pros and none should be fired. The perpetual problem with Bonneville, Entercom, CBS, and Fisher is firing people, and watching cumes fall to only a few hundred thousand. It's a chronic symptom found especially in this market. It began with the Firings of Bill Yeend and Larry Nelson years ago ...

Take a look at much more stable ratings and longetivity of the local hosts at the talkers under Kris Olinger in Denver (KOA, KHOW, KKZN) or under Ken Berry/Mickey Luckoff/Jack Swanson in San Francisco (KGO, KSFO).

Stations like KOA and KGO have had the same hosts for years if not several decades.

To my knowledge, the only hosts that have ever left KGO in recent years were due to very unusual legal circumstances (Bernie Ward and Karel). The other, Christine Craft, has family issues with her aging father, and was at one time also on a Sacramento station. There might be one or two more who left in my 20 years listening to KGO. As for their news hosts, I don't know. Overall, it's been the same KGO schedule 24/7 for decades.

[Tommy008]

Dori is not a radio pro- have you heard his voice?

[Tommy008]

Jean Burns and Ronn Owens are the only two current KGO newstalk hosts who have held down their positions on KGO for decades-- leftist loon Ray T. has never made it out of the 1-5 am graveyard, so he doesn't count. Monson is lucky to have gone to 15 year status with KIRO - he is not of the stature or talent of either of those hosts.

[Tommy008]

m-f kgo hosts that is....

[TomF]

Sadly, R&D are back on the air today.

[KS]

Sparky, is the whole rightwing in this country sociopathic? I'm beginning to think Malloy is right.

Greed.

Posted by: joanie

Point of clarification. Anything Malloy says is twisted and perverted in addition to being echoed by Ph(J)oanie - let that record speak for itself. The extremists on the left are mentally ill and psychotic - jeanine Garofalo and Bathtub Boy Olberfurher are two prime examples. No neener, neener necessary.

[1090]

kgo:

ronn owens mornings
dr. dean afternoons
gene burns
bernie ward
ray talliaferro

i don't know about dwayne garrett as he committed suicide

weekends

john hamilton, christine craft, bob brinker, and dr william barvey wattenburg phd

and john rothmann for about 10+ years

[1090]

KIRO would get 6 shares by returning much of the original lineup, most of which is liberal. It's a liberal market, this isn't Phoenix, Cincinnati, or Salt Lake:

M-F

Hersholt and Linda Thomas: 5A-9A
Dave Ross 9A-NOON
Noon News with Miner and Lisa Brooks
NOON-1p

Dr. Dean 1p-2p
Dori Monson 2p-4p

Afternoon news w/ Miner and Lisa Brooks 4p-7p
Carl Jeffers 7p-10p
Peter B. Collins 10p-1a
Bryan Styble 1a-4a
Dirk Van 4a-5a

SA

KIRO Weekend Morning News w/ Kirchner and Teresa Joy 6A-10A
Gardening w/ Cisco 10A-1P
Brinker 1P-4P
Tom Douglas 4P-7P
Fred Ebert political show 7P-10P
10P-1A Erin Hart or Turi Ryder
Lou Pate 1A-5A (Lou and Fred can't do full time since locked under contract at KOA)

SU
Temple Square (LDS) 6A-630A
Infomercial 630A-7A
KIRO Sunday Morning News w/ Kirchner and Teresa Joy 7A-
Stump the Professor Fred Ebert Science Show 10A-1P
Brinker 1P-4P
Bill Handel 4P-7P
Various Programming 7P-10P
Erin HArt or Turi Ryder 10P-1A

[GM]

What ever happened to the R & D death watch?