From the vault of really strange moments in radio – if a show has no affiliates, is it possible to have dead air?
TRN announced that it ended its arrangement to distribute Mancow using Dial Global. Mancow has announced vague big plans for the future.
The show has only four outlets that I can confirm:
– his web site
– GCN channel 3
– CRN (formerly known as Cable Radio Network)
– overnight on KPRC in Texas
So I checked in about 8:45 this morning – and was hearing filler music typically dropped in when automation has detected dead air. After a couple minutes of that, Mancow came on the air berating people for not calling in and telling him the show had been transmitting dead air (unknown for how long). They then put on an incoming call that turned out to be a wrong number and they made fun of the stupid caller.
My conclusion is Mancow hasn’t told his staff yet the bad news. Every affiliate (other than KPRC) that I checked out long ago changed formats or no longer exists.
He is listed on the schedule for KIKI in Honolulu: http://www.kikiradio.com/pages/onair.html
Thanks – I’ve added to the list, even though it is problematic because of Hawaii not doing daylight saving time. His show appears to be carried live from 1-3 AM local time.
Radio station schedules are rarely updated quickly when changes happen. I suspect I’m going to find America’s radio news playing – sometimes radio stations don’t even know about satellite changes when the Program Director is asleep and the computers are on autopilot.
There was one other affiliate that I found that still had him on the schedule, but the station doesn’t stream.
One station I checked in the past week still listed the long form Bill O’Reilly show along with carrying G Gordon Liddy. It’s amazing how inattentive some “communications” businesses can be.
Any still carrying Matt Drudge on Sunday nights?
Where have you been? Matt has been gone from the radio world for five years. Bill Cunningham is in his time slot.
The other day I saw a station still carrying Derry Brownfield, who died in 2011, shortly after his run in with Monsanto
http://thebovine.wordpress.com/2011/03/15/farm-radio-broadcaster-who-was-removed-for-exposing-monsantos-methods-has-died-march-12th-2011/
Web sites with Paul Harvey listed are getting pretty rare.
I was surprised to have read this article and found that Mancow Muller’s show is almost extinct. I thought he was one of the most popular guys in Chicago and even has a TV show “God, Guns and Automobiles” on the History channel. I guess for a shock jock your not really that far from the bottom and the radio graveyard are full of these guys.
To fill in more of the details – Mancow was caught in a crossfire probably not of his making.
I want to say it was about two years ago that Talk Radio Network and Dial Global announced a joint syndication deal. What I didn’t know at the time was Dial global operates the satellite distribution for TRN and also “reps” the TRN programming to radio stations. TRN’s role is to create the programming and sell the national advertising, Dial Global handles the distribution and affiliate relations. I think that’s close to accurate – I have never worked in radio and some of this seems opaque by design.
Then TRN dropped the bombshell that TRN was suing Dial Global (which was merging with Westwood One) asserting that they were pushing their programs (like Dennis Miller) and bad mouthing TRN to stations.
About that time it was getting clear that Dial Global / Westwood One was about to fail financially and had a quicky shotgun wedding with Cumulus Media a few months ago.
Needless to say, the TRN lawsuit squashed any enthusiasm to help TRN survive, and with Cumulus inheriting what’s left of WOne/DG – TRN pushing forward on the lawsuit just has to piss off Cumulus, which was already pulling the plug on every TRN show its stations carried.
TRN imploded about the same time – laying off most of its production staff and filing yet another lawsuit against Jerry Doyle. Andrea Tantaros immediately quit and filed her own lawsuit against TRN. Rusty Humphries hasn’t been on the air since. John McCaslin walked out in the middle of his news show, the America’s Radio News shows were all immediately ended.
So where does that leave Mancow? TRN put out an official press release a couple days ago that because of their problems with Dial Global, they ended their relationship with Mancow.
In November, Mancow made the news in Chicago, selling his home in Chicago and moving to the suburbs. It was pretty clear money was a factor in his move.
In the past couple days, the TRN lawsuit is moving forward, but that will take years to play out.
Mancow is easily the worst show on radio. I can’t feel sorry for him.
I will tell two interesting things I’ve noticed in the past few months regarding dead radio personalities.
1) Neil Rogers, who Phil Hendrie was claiming ripped him off a decade ago, is suddenly one of his inspirations and a genius broadcaster.
2) (And this is more of an observation) PSAs apparently never expire, ever. I catch Phil Hendrie’s show on WXCO out of Wausau, WI because they play the show twice and it fits with my work schedule. But they have zero advertisers and only play PSAs. So, there’s one they play every night about identity theft with Jerry Orbach (star of Law and Order and Dirty Dancing), and I’m like “Is that guy even still alive?”
RIP Jerry Orbach, 1935-20004.
That advertisement from the woman who had her son say “I hate you” – her husband who developed the “program” died several years ago, and that son is probably in his 40s. It’s mom who has the problem.
Online stream PSAs are often not what is running “over the air”. AFTRA wants royalties for the VoiceOver work of the regular ads and some stations don’t want to pay.
Speaking of PSA’s what’s up with teaching Stacy, the hairdresser, to pay her bills on-line using a public computer in the library? No chance that anyone will steal Stacy’s identity that way. (Message to Art – that is a TV-only PSA… but in extreme high rotation that if Stacy had a dollar for ever time it aired, she would never have to cut hair again)
I hate stations that play PSA’s on the stream, while playing local real commercialson the broadcast. I hate the PSA. Yes I ‘Hate’ the PSA Art, and especially the idea I paid for them really burns my arse!
I quit listening to KNZZ since they did that and messed up their Liquid Compass. Idiots
I don’t give a cheit that Timmy is gay and out of a job after falling in a well, then applying for disability because the factory closed after the EPA shut them down because the river was ‘allegedly’ polluted and the welfare office was overloaded because no one worked anymore,but lived in their section 8 housing with free cable, cell phone and 8 track tape player.
Can these commercials get anymore stupid?
“Fix your student loan problem” ! Call Boris at 800-xxx-xxxx.
parrott
I keep hearing the Dino-Vite ads from dog owners whose pets were near death until they gave them doggie vitamins. I heard those same spots in 2006. Your dog may have been healthy then, but he’s not immortal.
Could a snowboard accident could put doggie into suspended animation? …clicked on your link. The book sounds really good but I did not read it… don’t seem to have much time to read no-a-days.
http://www.amazon.com/Randy-X.-Porter/e/B00GN9QRXG/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1387485408&sr=8-1
No prob. We’re all busy as hell these days, what with the end of the world coming up and all. The reason I mentioned that before was that I had a story in the book where the homeless people on Fremont Street are vampires who turn into pigeons. I knew it was a long shot, but I had to ask.
I saw that. it is mentioned on the Amazon page above.
They seem to be getting more and more graphic – how the dog had green oozing puss streaming out of his brain. Good to hear while eating lunch
The window glass repair services seem to have gotten scarcer
I love the ad for “Stress Block” (offering the usual we need to send a 30 day sample of this pill free to a limited number of callers, etc). The announcer says “If you are suffering from anxiety… we are looking for YOU!”
The ad makes me laugh everytime because I picture this neurotic Woody Allen sort of character who hears the ad and immediately assumes he is being spoken to directly and thus has an anxiety attack.
The ones that just make me lose faith in humanity are… “We’re conducting a special trial in your city” and the ad is a national ad – I don’t know if it is worse that advertisers do that or people apparently respond to it.
…and add to that “hurry, call in the next 30 minutes for this very limited time offer…” on commercials that I have heard for 5 years or more.
The most annoying ones to me are the ones that use the third person to imply authority to that third person. So, rather than saying “We’re conducting a special trial in your city”, the announcer says “They are conducting a special trial in your city”
I became a talk show listener in the mid 90’s. A gent named Ken Hamblin aka The Black Avenger. A Black, Harley riding, gun totn’ Conservative. Lived in suburban Denver CO. Any hits to his whereabouts? Just up and disappeared one day. Good man, good sense re race relations, etc.
Retired
via google:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_ever_happened_to_Ken_Hamblin_the_Black_Avenger_loved_his_radio_talk_show
His wikipedia page says he is 73 years old now.
I had asked that here a couple times. Nobody seems to know the reason it was so abrupt and zero explanation. My guesses were: Sudden health problem, a threat on his safety, black!mail, fight with his syndicator
I’ll bet Art Bell could think of more reasons. 😉