iHeartLayoffs

Kevin and Bean did their radio show in separate cites for like the last 10 years. A newsreader on WBZ got called out when he said something like "the weather outside is brutally cold" when he was doing the show from his winter home in Florida. Apparently it has become pretty simple to set up a studio in a home if the person has the money.

 

Geraldo Rivera does a morning show for the big iHeart AM station in Cleveland. He has a home studio setup. He lives in the Cleveland burbs.

 

One of the classic country stations here has a DJ who telecommutes a few days per week. You can tell when he's actually at the station because he'll mention "here at our studio located ... " and have other radio station folks drop-in for chit-chat. When he's at home, it's just info about the songs.

 

Steve Czaban does a morning show on 97.3 in Milwaukee (an iHeart station; the show started just last year) and an afternoon show in DC on a non-iHeart station. He lives in Northern Virginia. He's talked about his schedule and set up a lot on his podcast, which is separate from either show.
He goes to Milwaukee about one week a month for a blizzard of meetings with advertisers, appearances and face time at the station, then comes back to DC where he lives at the end of that week. I think he does a lot of day-to-day work on both shows out of his home in Northern Virginia. They've referenced the occasional technical difficulty on the afternoon show that forces his co-hosts to vamp for a couple of minutes until it's fixed.

 

Geraldo Riveria lives in the Cleveland area? I would have never thought that.

 

Al Capone in Ohio: legend or myth?
makes sense

 

Has for a couple years.

He married someone from here, and eventually they moved. She's like 35 years younger than him. Well done, Geraldo.

Broadcaster Geraldo Rivera says he'll live here the rest of his life: My Cleveland

 

Local full-service radio has been dead for a couple decades. I wouldn’t be surprised if Entercom soon puts together a network for its all-news stations: 20 minutes out of a half hour hour are national, 10 (including stop sets) are local.

 

Loved him. Was a huge Reds fan growing up in NW Ohio and listened to Reds games on WLW all the time. So naturally I tuned into Gary Burbank's show before the games quite often. Will never forget Earl Pitts, Uhmerican. And I don't know if they came up with it, but they called Reds pitcher Bob Owchinko the Human Batting Tee. What a nickname.

 

I know a lot of people don't like him, but I could listen to 4 straight hours of Bill Cunningham and Seg go back and forth.

 

Yeah, guy in our neighborhood who co-owns the AM in the next town (that doesn't have enough power to reach us) has a basement studio that would be the envy of any station in the country. It's amazing. And he sells insurance full-time to pay for his part-time hobby.

To the question of local radio rights fees, I've searched and can't find a decent answer. It's obviously less than back in the heyday of radio play-by-play. The Tigers and Red Wings have a multi-season contract with their flagship, then appear to work separate deals with any affiliates. I'm guessing the 6,000-watt FM in Alma pays a lot less than WXYT, but is required to carry the network ads.

How much? I can't even hazard a decent guess. 162 games, four hour time slot, 48 affiliates. Maybe $10,000 a season for the far-flung low-watters, $250,000-$500,000 to run the network? Seems low but radio is loose change compared to the MLBAM and FOX deals.