Talk Radio on WABC Shifts Focus to the Local (Curtis & Kuby take Rush slot)

NY Times ^ | 1/2/14 | Ben Sisario

[raccoonradio]

Weekday programming at WABC will include the return of Curtis Sliwa’s and Ron Kuby’s show, “Curtis and Kuby,” from noon to 3 p.m., after an absence of more than six years, and, starting Monday, a one-hour program at 5 p.m. with Pat Kiernan, the NY1 television anchor.

Geraldo Rivera, who joined WABC in early 2012, will turn his focus to New York news in a two-hour live show at 10 a.m., as Cumulus announced in November. Michael Savage’s syndicated program, which has been heard in the evenings, will now run from 3 to 5 p.m. “Imus in the Morning,” with Don Imus, will continue from 6 to 10 a.m.

[raccoonradio]

Thanks; I do know Savage fought to get out of his TalkRadioNetwork contract. Ingraham did, too (now on Courtside Entertainment)

Local, the new “fairness” doctrine.
In Boston the only fulltime talker is WRKO (Entercom) with 2 local hosts, Jeff Kuhner and Howie Carr; a brokered business news block, and Rush, Levin, Savage etc. WBZ (CBS) has local talk with Dan Rea and Bradley Jay etc. There used to be another talker on FM, WTKK with many local hosts including Michael Graham (now on several small stations) and Jay Severin (now on The Blaze Radio) but they switched to R&B.
Commercial prog talk didn’t take off here but there is NPR,
and former WTKK hosts Eagan and Braude wound up on WGBH.

Also we had a talker on AM 1200 that had Jeff Katz, Jay Severin, Rush, Hannity, etc but that’s now brokered business news from Bloomberg Radio.

More than a few talk stations have switched formats incl. quite a few prog. ones. Quite a few went to sports talk
incl the prog talk stations in Seattle and Portland, OR.
The thinking is they can get a bigger, better “demo” for advertisers with sports. The prog talker in Buffalo NY?
Now ESPN.
So CC in LA goes “local” with KFI and syndie conserv hosts go to KEIB (new call letters) 1150, bumping prog talk off.

Didn’t know Imus made that remark!

[Alberta's Child]

You're taking it too seriously. Of all the people you hear on the radio, there probably isn't anyone who understands better than Curtis Sliwa that his one and only objective on the air is to keep his listeners interested and entertained.

When you listen to talk radio, there's one particular attribute of a host that really sets him apart from the others and makes him exceptionally good. Don Imus, for all his faults, took this skill and used it to make his show one of the most profitable in the history of talk radio. The on-air advertisements he reads are just as entertaining as the content of his show. Listen to Curtis Sliwa do a show from start to finish, and one of the things he does best is turn his advertisements into a storyline unto themselves. I haven't heard Curtis and Kuby's radio show in years, but I can still remember the names of some of their advertisers because of Curtis' comical portrayals of their products on the air ... "Kuby could use some o' 'dat Esotique by Chamonix ... he's got all 'doze wrinkles on his face from bein' angry wit' me for so many years."

There was a big ambulance-chasing law firm, Weitz & Luxenberg, that would advertise on their show. Curtis would read off their ad, which included a list of the types of cases they took, and he would add his own "editorial content" to the script: "The law firm specializes in recovering settlements from workplace injuries for their clients. So maybe you've had a fall at work, or injured your back ... or maybe you were minding your own business on the job and got tuned up by some hammerhead from Canarsie in a case of mistaken identity. Call Weitz & Luzenberg today ... they won't take a penny in fees unless they win a settlement for you!" Flipping to another radio station was never an option while you're listening to this kind of nonsense. LOL.

[Tanniker Smith]

Too funny that they're bringing them back and giving them such an important time period. Well, for local news, I guess it isn't so important.

I guess this explains why Bill Bennett was on 910 AM (whatever the call letters are) this morning during drive-time instead of Curtis.

The interesting thing here is that Curtis and Kuby have been working at different stations for the past 6 years or so, and that Kuby was fired from the show quite a while before Curtis was replaced.

I'm also still wondering who WOR will have take over for John Gambling in the morning. The past couple of days, there were liberals running the place, but one of them, I think, was the news guy who was always more liberal than Gambling.

[jersey117]

If they want to bring back someone useful, they ought to give Steve Maltzberg his slot back.

[raccoonradio]

It will be “Elliot in the Morning” which had emanated from DC but now will be based in NY I think

WOR:’Elliot In The Morning’ Coming January 13th!

Starting January 13th, the highly successful morning show “Elliot in the Morning” will be heard on the new 710, WOR! Elliot Segal and his team, currently heard on Washington DC’s WWDC – DC101 – and Richmond’s WRXL, will bring their entertaining morning show to WOR in the new year, discussing sports, music, culture, news and entertainment topics weekdays from 5:45 a.m. to 10 a.m.

“I’m excited to be coming back to New York, to a station with such a legendary history,” said Segal. “We have built something very special in Washington, DC and Richmond and I’m beyond thrilled that the show will continue airing on DC/101 and XL-102. Now, WOR will be home to Elliot In The Morning and I couldn’t be more anxious to get going.”

Read more: http://www.wor710.com/pages/onair/elliot-in-morning.html#ixzz2pFSge8xL

[Tanniker Smith]

He used to use it every day. Kuby didn't consider it an insult, I'm sure.

Funny thing about Kuby is that when he takes the advocate hat off, he can actually give decent explanations of matters in simpler terms. This usually happens when Curtis admits that he's out of his league on the technicalities and Kuby has to explain both sides of the argument (before going off on *his* side of it). They can be interesting to listen to as well as infuriating.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

RE: Didn’t know Imus made that remark!

Yes and it was not "Imus being Imus." I heard it. I've listened to Imus regularly at times over the years.

If it was Imus being Imus the staff would have responded with comments like "Put the scientists to sleep who made you, Iman" or at least erupted into laughter. There was silence as I recall. The news reader reported on Palin's visit to Graham and started a recording of her speaking. Imus instantly hit the scream button and erupted with those threats. The newsman immediately moved on to another item.

As a radio fan since the 1940s and a survivor of the decades of the "Fairness Doctrine" I say that "localization" is a means of expunging conservative opinion from the airwaves. Part of local talk is that it is easier to open it to all local folks' participation either regularly on air or through demands for equal time.

[ETL]

Re: Steve Malzberg

My brother was a regular caller on his show, as well as Bob Grant’s and others.

[ETL]

Imus is about the worst one on radio today. He knows nothing. Isn’t funny. Constantly makes over-the-top hateful and stupid comments about Rush, Palin, and others on the right. I can’t switch him off fast enough when his show comes on.

[duckman]

Thanx for a great morning laugh.

[raccoonradio]

As I’ve pointed out to libs if Fairness Doctrine means equal time etc expect to have a lot of conservative hosts, etc...on _NPR_...”Fair is Fair”. Do we have government agencies screening the political opinions of newspapers and magazines? No, and they shouldn’t be doing the same for radio/TV.

Pro abortion groups on a Catholic station.
A KKK show on a black one.
And why stop there, why not have the fed govt step in regarding formats? I believe they do up in Canada. Of course every time a libtalk station changes to something else—for monetary reasons, they say complain to the FCC about it
and I tell them don’t bother. The FCC does not step in regarding format, so any attempt to get them to step in
to bring back prog talk to LA, San Fran, NY, etc., is futile.

If a prog talk station in Buffalo decides running ESPN is
more profitable, they do so. If Clear Channel decides to get rid of prog talk, they can do so. And hey lefties, there IS always NPR, complete with government subsidies and the likes of Soros hiring reporters...

[Vaquero]

the guy who does the jolly rancher commercial sound like his Brooklyn/Italian/Pollack persona.

[Vaquero]

I’m in the distant range....but like WABC while at home I download the app/link and listen clear over the inter-web

[ETL]

You can be effective, informative, and entertaining all at the same time. And I agree, you have-to be at least in part entertaining for your show to work, especially in this ADD (attention deficit disorder) world in which we live today. It’s the primary reason Glenn Beck carried on like he did on his Fox show. His antics helped keep people tuned in. In fact, Beck is an absolute perfect example.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

"The mission of the Advisory Committee on Diversity for Communications in the Digital Age is to make recommendations to the FCC regarding policies and practices that will further enhance the ability of minorities and women to participate in telecommunications and related industries."

Created by Obama I believe this Advisory Committee, et al have even suggested that local stations fund competing radio stations to present local issues with maximum "local participation."

I wonder if the stations suggested that they prefer switching to local issues themselves?

BTW I was an avid radio listener to what passed for talk -- records mixed with comments by the DJ/host -- the issues (if any) were mostly local.

Nothing to counter the dominant MSM "news" on TV but in those days Time and U.S. News and World Report were pretty decent; and there were still conservative newspapers in town. Not so today. But we have the Internet and modern talk radio today.. so far.

How soon will the locals be demanding equal time with Levin and Savage? Then what?

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Yes we can protest and demand too; but we don't. We have to work while JFK, LBJ, Carter, BJ, and Obama hire shills like Acorn, et al. to do the deeds.

"You might also think that they would recall the notorious Fairness Doctrine, which was used to 'harass and intimidate' right-wing radio broadcasts, in the words of one unabashed Kennedy-Johnson operative. When that censorious policy was ended in 1987 by former broadcaster Ronald Reagan, there was an explosion of talk formats that gave voice to popular concerns (for a while, Rush Limbaugh even billed himself as equal time)."

As reported by Fred Friendly in his book appropriately entitled The Good Guys, the Bad Guys, and the First Amendment, this was part of a "massive strategy . . . to challenge and harass the right-wing broadcasters and hope that the challenges would be so costly to them that they would be inhibited, and decide it was too expensive to continue." This strategy was said to have been successful in almost all respects.

[Buckeye McFrog]

The coverage patterns of WABC and WOR are actually very, very similar.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

RE: "Fairness Doctrine" disguised as localization as a way to make it easier to harass, intimidate and silence conservative talk -- and make it appear to be "the will of the people."

It ain't just Rush they're after. I'd be remiss if I didn't include this aimed at us:

Here's how President Obama's former head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs and author of "Republic.com", Cass Sunstein, describes FreeRepublic.com as "group polarization," where people segregate themselves so effectively online with other like-minded thinkers that they create an echo chamber where the group's worst and most malevolent opinions get reinforced and strengthened. "We might want to consider," Sunstein startlingly told the Times recently, "the possibility of ways of requiring or encouraging sites to link to opposing viewpoints."

[JimRed]

My car radio presets have already been changed.

[JimRed]

Like him or not, Rivera’s in great shape for a seventy-something.