F-that: Coupla sports talker jobs to open in Des Moines soon...

great work, guys!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/22/marty-tirrell-larry-cotla_n_177794.html

 

Two things:

1.) The fact that they were arguing over credentials to a HIGH SCHOOL basketball tournament means both guys are dorks and/or losers and should be fired for that and....

2.) The reality is, the producer and whoever else let this get on the air should be fired, not the two guys who thought their mics were off and they were off air.

 

Here's the story from the Register: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090321/SPORTS13/903210335

The audio link is near the top right, courtesy of WHO-TV.

A couple of clarifications: Cotlar happened to hear Marty bitch about the creds and politely stopped by the studio to clarify it for him. Marty was still adamant that the IAHSAA were being dicks for not handing out more credentials, and decided to rip Cotlar for, in no good way, siding with the Athletic Association.

Cotlar will accept any punishment that's handed down. This is the first time Cotlar has lost his temper like that. It has to take something dramatic for to piss him off, since he's so mild-mannered.

But for Marty, he's on thin ice now, IMHO. This is the second time in less than a year that he's gotten out of control with his ranting and bitching of people on-air. Last summer, he slandered a guy, who volunteered to be his on-site engineer at the U.S. Open. The guy took Marty's press pass and went to watch the playoff between Rocco and Tiger. The both of them were to be on a plane heading back to Des Moines that day.

Marty bad-mouthed the guy so poorly on-air, the brass forced him to record an apology, to be aired, and slapped him with a three-day suspension. Rather than do the show by himself, co-host Ken Miller, decided to take a 3-day vacation at the same time.

Marty is what drives the "Marty and Miller" show, with the Fatso/Fruit Loops schtick. Marty is Francesa and Russo, while Ken is usually there to be the punching bag.

The producer shouldn't be the total scapegoat. Tirrell, his drive-time sidekick Ken Miller, and mid-day host Jon Miller, were doing a local pre-NCAA tournament show Friday morning, because their show were being pre-empted due to the games all day loing.

How Kenny and Jon didn't stop it is beyond me. All of them had a button to turn off their mic. The flap took place during a commercial, from what was being reported. So, the producer thought all of them cut their mics off. Marty was too flippant and rolling like a snowball with his bitching to turn his off.

This is getting big play here in DSM, because there are so many listeners to KXNO and so many people hate Marty Tirrell with a passion. But, it's his pompous behavior, is what drives people to listen to him and spout off about him. Folks here like to listen to local sports-talk (which is something most of us on this site are not fans of), as long as it's about Iowa, Iowa State, Drake, and UNI.

zagoshe, JB will probably give more insight about the credentials to the Iowa state basketball tournament than I will, but I was a manager for my basketball team when we qualified for state. IIRC, from my HS days in the '90s, every team/school and media members have to fill out a form, listing who will be attending, and for media, who will be covering the tournament. Anyone not on it, they're not allowed. No exceptions are made, unless special circumstances come up.

Someone had the same experience I had in high school with his team and blogged this: http://tinyurl.com/co29bc

The rumors going around was that Marty was trying to score free credentials for a few of his posse, and the Association put their foot down, which they were correct in doing, if the allegations are true. Marty had a problem with it, and decided to rant about it, a week after the tournament.

He wasn't going to say it at Wells Fargo Arena during the tourney, because the Association would hear about it in a flash. To many, Marty is under the impression that the rules are not applicable to him, because he's the "big dog" at KXNO.

The IAHSAA has gotten a lot of criticism over the years for how they do business with respects to how they run the tournaments. I wouldn't call Cotlar and Tirrell jerks/losers over this, because the IAHSAA is always a hot-button topic with fans, media, and the teams in this state.

I'll say this, it would be interesting to see how Clear Channel Des Moines (KXNO, WHO, etc) will handle this one, because this further proves that just because you are a local sports-talk host, you don't bully your way to whatever you want, or expect to get whatever you want.

 

Was it Tirrell that screamed "you're fired!" at Cotlar toward the end of the exchange, or the other way around? Just curious as to whether either of them actually have that power over anyone at the station.

 

Or you mean actually think they do.

 

Yeah, whichever.

 

Sorry, this one's all on them.
THEY left their mics on.
Producer won't necessarily hear it because it wasn't at full volume and is probably screening calls, etc.

 

I'm guessing both of them are fucking fired.

 

Should be.

 

Guys like this are unfortunately a dime a dozen in the radio business. The line "credited with bringing sports talk to Des Moines" tells me a great deal about this dude I have never met.

By the way, you are mad because you didn't get credentials to a high school game. It's like he was left standing outside the Super Bowl. What rational person goes that nuts over a high school basketball credential?

 

And the station/Clear Channel will/should be fined from 7K per f-bomb on up.

We had a f-bomb incident at our station a year or so back;

Day after George Carlin dies, as he is closing his show, plays a clip from the "Hippy-Dippy Weatherman"

He previewed the first 1:30 of the clip, didn't hear anything too bad, so he decided to play it.....well, apparently didn't listen close enough because Carlin said something about "fuck this and fuck that"

I walked into the studio right as it was being said and he had this "I just shit my fucking pants" look on his face, and told me that if we get any calls, that he'll take care of it.

Luckily, no one called.

 

It's on them. Rule used to be that you didn't swear anywhere near a microphone, because you never could be sure it wouldn't get on the air.