An even BIGGER Philly radio shift

Infinity Broadcasting needed to do something to replace the outgoing Howard Stern. Apparently "something" meant tearing the guts out of many of their stations.

Goodbye, rock-and-roll WYSP-FM (94.1): hello, <a href="http://www.941freefm.com/home.php">"Free FM."</a>

What is "Free FM?" "An entertaining hybrid of provocative, political, pop culture, news, music and lifestyle formats," says Infinity's CEO. Translated: More talk, and throw everything else at the wall and see what sticks.

Out is Stern: in are David Lee Roth and Adam Carolla in morning drive, each being given a region of the US, along with some lesser-known broadcasters.

<a href="http://www.fmqb.com/Article.asp?id=137667">FMQB's take</a>.

Turning on my radio and hearing Paul Barsky was like something out of one of the Freddy movies.

Spike (Saturday late nights),

Good for Spike, I worked with him a little bit on WDRE's website back in the day.

I am a fan of Mr Carolla's style of comedy, although Jacquelita gives his latenight show a thumbs down. I see why they figured Philly is a David Lee Roth city. But really, screw them.

Don and Mike are discussing that right now. WJFK in DC is also changing names to Free FM.

vsp wrote:

Translated: More talk, and throw everything else at the wall and see what sticks.

The real translation is "You have to pay for Howard now, but we're still free!"

Happy Monkey wrote:

The real translation is "You have to pay for Howard now, but we're still free!"

The REAL translation is "Howard's done nothing the last few months but broadcast one long commercial for Sirius, so before he pulls some Sex-for-Sam-level stunt to go out with a bang from terrestrial radio, we're pulling the plug abruptly and putting in some stopgap filler."

I mean, really, does anyone see Adam Carolla or David Lee Roth as a long-term morning radio staple? Not hardly. They're being put into an impossible box where the ratings will drop substantially from Stern's, Stern's Legion of Loyal Mooks will harass them endlessly, and something else will take their places n months into the experiment. Locally, if you were to Google the phrase "We have no one better to put on," Paul Barsky's picture should be the first hit, and he knows it; I tuned into a few minutes of him this afternoon and the overriding theme was "Please don't hurt me, I didn't do it." He's being paid to take a bullet in the ass while Infinity tries to figure out what to do next.

I think the final Stern replacement will be the Junkies, currently doing middays on (formerly) WJFK. They'll start doing mornings in January.

You know...I never did like Howard Stern. I don't think that having him cost money on pay radio is going to make me like him any better.

vsp wrote:

I mean, really, does anyone see Adam Carolla or David Lee Roth as a long-term morning radio staple?

He did do the radio show version of Lovelines for years and years. However, he was the "wacky sidekick" in that gig, which is what he's good at. That's why his new late-night show sucks, he doesn't know how to lead. If he's the lead guy in his new morning show, then yeah, it'll be dead in 6 months, about 3 months longer than his television show is going to last.

Elspode wrote:

You know...I never did like Howard Stern. I don't think that having him cost money on pay radio is going to make me like him any better.

I like the idea that the scan/seek buttons won't make me accidentally listen to him when I'm travelling ever, ever again.

Clodfobble wrote:

He did do the radio show version of Lovelines for years and years. However, he was the "wacky sidekick" in that gig, which is what he's good at. That's why his new late-night show sucks, he doesn't know how to lead. If he's the lead guy in his new morning show, then yeah, it'll be dead in 6 months, about 3 months longer than his television show is going to last.

Exactly. Morning radio requires a certain kind of skillset. Right now Preston & Steve > anything else in Philly, which is why WMMR snapped them up so quickly after Y100 had its plug pulled.

Stern has his moments, but it seems like 95% of the times I've tuned in to him in the last couple of years have been:
a) Stern telling a semi-naked girl how much he wants to bang her with his mini-dick;
b) Stern ripping apart someone on his staff instead of letting internal show business remain behind-the-scenes;
c) Stern ripping apart his boss for dumping out of anything remotely raunchy.
Over the last year, add
d) Stern telling everyone that terrestrial radio is dead and Sirius will be awesome.

Not exactly the hookers-freaks-and-lesbians formula that propelled him to national stardom.

And you forgot the extremely high commercial-to-show ratio... though that's a problem with most any FM show.

Gah, Jay Severin is subbing for Bill O'Reilly. What an idiot.

I was sorry to hear about WYSP going to Free FM. I didn't like it when they had the daytime talk format for a while in 2002.

Here in St. Louis, Howard is on our modern rock station, which is owned by Ennis. They're doing some DJ switching in the late morning and afternoon, and will announce Howard's replacement this coming week.

Adam Carolla still does "Loveline," AFAIK...it's on the same station I just mentioned (105.7, the Point) S-Th from 10-midnight.

And I strongly agree with vsp on Preston and Steve...I was so glad they were back on the radio earlier than expected this spring. The only person I liked listening to as much as them in the morning was Smerconish.