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Roquefort Robert wrote:

frank - up in grand blanc wrote: Anyway, the producer is bleeping out the bad language when a "tits" slipped through. Drew was all "ooh! Ooh!" but I thought that all radio is on a seven-second so how can there ever be a mistake?

I didn't realize "tits" was a bad word.

It's probably a matter of perspective. Pretty sure that the copywriters in my shop have it listed under "verboten," then again they're not writing for radio.

frank - up in grand blanc wrote:

Roquefort Robert wrote:

frank - up in grand blanc wrote: Anyway, the producer is bleeping out the bad language when a "tits" slipped through. Drew was all "ooh! Ooh!" but I thought that all radio is on a seven-second so how can there ever be a mistake?

I didn't realize "tits" was a bad word.

It's probably a matter of perspective. Pretty sure that the copywriters in my shop have it listed under "verboten," then again they're not writing for radio.

In George Carlin's immortal words:

You know the 7, don't you, that you can't say on television?
"Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, CockSucker, MotherFucker, and Tits"
Those are the heavy seven. Those are the ones that'll infect your soul,
curve your spine, and keep the country from winning the war.
"Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, CockSucker, MotherFucker, and Tits"
Wow! ...and Tits doesn't even belong on the list. That is such a friendly
sounding word. It sounds like a nickname, right? "Hey, Tits, come here,
man. Hey Tits, meet Toots. Toots, Tits. Tits, Toots." It sounds like a
snack, doesn't it? Yes, I know, it is a snack. I don't mean your sexist
snack. I mean New Nabisco Tits!, and new Cheese Tits, Corn Tits,
Pizza Tits, Sesame Tits, Onion Tits, Tater Tits. "Betcha Can't Eat Just
One.

The Drew Lane show is still on Sports 105. Evidently the station suits or the FCC didn't hear about the foul language.

Worse than the bad words though is his sports analysis. Egads. If I want lots of meaningless stats and no depth I'll just read the box scores.

Worse than that is his patter with his sycophant sidekick. There's no duo with less radio chemistry in the history of Detroit radio.

Tea Bag wrote:The Drew Lane show is still on Sports 105. Evidently the station suits or the FCC didn't hear about the foul language.

Worse than the bad words though is his sports analysis. Egads. If I want lots of meaningless stats and no depth I'll just read the box scores.

Worse than that is his patter with his sycophant sidekick. There's no duo with less radio chemistry in the history of Detroit radio.

It's really awful. I never listened to Drew and Mike ... was Mike the guy that kept the show together?

The Suburban Avenger wrote:

Tea Bag wrote:The Drew Lane show is still on Sports 105. Evidently the station suits or the FCC didn't hear about the foul language.

Worse than the bad words though is his sports analysis. Egads. If I want lots of meaningless stats and no depth I'll just read the box scores.

Worse than that is his patter with his sycophant sidekick. There's no duo with less radio chemistry in the history of Detroit radio.

It's really awful. I never listened to Drew and Mike ... was Mike the guy that kept the show together?

Mike was basically Kramer -- the doofus sidekick best appreciated in small doses.

Howard Stern is off this week so SiriusXM is doing a career retrospective going back 40 years. I wasn't a Stern listener until the Drew and Mike Show shit the bed so much of his history is lost on me, such as his stint in Detroit in 1980. While I knew that Detroit was one of many stops of his career arc, I didn't know any details.

They dug up some old clips from his days at W4 and interspersed his recounting with commentary from people he worked with. Some takeaways:

-Stern was offered $28,000 for the morning drive gig, which was a huge step up from his $250/week radio job he in Hartford, CT. Stern was able to get the salary bumped to $30,000, which he considered a boatload of money, and after a few months of saving, was able to pay $8,000 cash for a brand new Chrysler K car, which he said was a piece of shit that almost killed his wife once when the brakes seized up.

-W4 management promised him the station would be located in the RenCen but when he arrived, he discovered the station was in an old funeral home in the 'hood surrounded by burned homes. "When you build an audience, that's when we'll build you a studio in the RenCen", they said. Stern realized then that he'd been sold a bill of goods by coming to Detroit.

-Doug Podell, the "Doc of Rock" and afternoon/evening shift DJ, hated Stern from day one because Stern made more money despite Podell being there longer. Howard thought Podell was threatened by him and said this is why he hated working in radio, the inference being that radio people could be shitty to work with because of egos.

-Detroit radio, especially morning radio, was extremely competitive and Stern was a new and unknown guy going up against two established juggernauts: Dick Purtan at CKLW and "JJ and Bruiser" at WRIF.

-About nine months into his tenure, the station abruptly flipped formats, and one night while Podell was on the air a moving truck pulled up and began unloading country albums. Podell, "being a two steps back kind of a guy" (I don't know what this mean exactly but it didn't sound like a compliment), had to be pulled away the microphone while the rock albums were replaced with country ones. There was no way W4 was going to allow anyone with the radio moniker "Doc of Rock" to work at a country station, so Podell was immediately out. Stern stuck around for two weeks (as "Hopalong Howie") before bailing for DC (listening to Stern announce a Merle Haggard song on "New Country W4" was worth the cost of satellite radio for the month, btw).

-It was after Detroit when Stern's career took off, and he reflected on whether he would've had success had been given the proper support and promotion. External commentary mused this would've been unlikely, given his background. One person quipped that Detroit is a backward town, and going to DC was the right move as staying in the Midwest would have been a mistake.

-Leaving Detroit was somewhat difficult, as he and his wife were beginning to get settled in and make friends.


It was a fascinating trip down memory lane, especially for anyone with an awareness of Detroit radio history.

Tea Bag wrote:Howard Stern is off this week so SiriusXM is doing a career retrospective going back 40 years. I wasn't a Stern listener until the Drew and Mike Show shit the bed so much of his history is lost on me, such as his stint in Detroit in 1980. While I knew that Detroit was one of many stops of his career arc, I didn't know any details.

They dug up some old clips from his days at W4 and interspersed his recounting with commentary from people he worked with. Some takeaways:

-Stern was offered $28,000 for the morning drive gig, which was a huge step up from his $250/week radio job he in Hartford, CT. Stern was able to get the salary bumped to $30,000, which he considered a boatload of money, and after a few months of saving, was able to pay $8,000 cash for a brand new Chrysler K car, which he said was a piece of shit that almost killed his wife once when the brakes seized up.

-W4 management promised him the station would be located in the RenCen but when he arrived, he discovered the station was in an old funeral home in the 'hood surrounded by burned homes. "When you build an audience, that's when we'll build you a studio in the RenCen", they said. Stern realized then that he'd been sold a bill of goods by coming to Detroit.

-Doug Podell, the "Doc of Rock" and afternoon/evening shift DJ, hated Stern from day one because Stern made more money despite Podell being there longer. Howard thought Podell was threatened by him and said this is why he hated working in radio, the inference being that radio people could be shitty to work with because of egos.

-Detroit radio, especially morning radio, was extremely competitive and Stern was a new and unknown guy going up against two established juggernauts: Dick Purtan at CKLW and "JJ and Bruiser" at WRIF.

-About nine months into his tenure, the station abruptly flipped formats, and one night while Podell was on the air a moving truck pulled up and began unloading country albums. Podell, "being a two steps back kind of a guy" (I don't know what this mean exactly but it didn't sound like a compliment), had to be pulled away the microphone while the rock albums were replaced with country ones. There was no way W4 was going to allow anyone with the radio moniker "Doc of Rock" to work at a country station, so Podell was immediately out. Stern stuck around for two weeks (as "Hopalong Howie") before bailing for DC (listening to Stern announce a Merle Haggard song on "New Country W4" was worth the cost of satellite radio for the month, btw).

-It was after Detroit when Stern's career took off, and he reflected on whether he would've had success had been given the proper support and promotion. External commentary mused this would've been unlikely, given his background. One person quipped that Detroit is a backward town, and going to DC was the right move as staying in the Midwest would have been a mistake.

-Leaving Detroit was somewhat difficult, as he and his wife were beginning to get settled in and make friends.


It was a fascinating trip down memory lane, especially for anyone with an awareness of Detroit radio history.

I wonder what part of town they lived in?

Sounds like everything I have heard about Podell.

Morty wrote:

Tea Bag wrote:Howard Stern is off this week so SiriusXM is doing a career retrospective going back 40 years. I wasn't a Stern listener until the Drew and Mike Show shit the bed so much of his history is lost on me, such as his stint in Detroit in 1980. While I knew that Detroit was one of many stops of his career arc, I didn't know any details.

They dug up some old clips from his days at W4 and interspersed his recounting with commentary from people he worked with. Some takeaways:

-Stern was offered $28,000 for the morning drive gig, which was a huge step up from his $250/week radio job he in Hartford, CT. Stern was able to get the salary bumped to $30,000, which he considered a boatload of money, and after a few months of saving, was able to pay $8,000 cash for a brand new Chrysler K car, which he said was a piece of shit that almost killed his wife once when the brakes seized up.

-W4 management promised him the station would be located in the RenCen but when he arrived, he discovered the station was in an old funeral home in the 'hood surrounded by burned homes. "When you build an audience, that's when we'll build you a studio in the RenCen", they said. Stern realized then that he'd been sold a bill of goods by coming to Detroit.

-Doug Podell, the "Doc of Rock" and afternoon/evening shift DJ, hated Stern from day one because Stern made more money despite Podell being there longer. Howard thought Podell was threatened by him and said this is why he hated working in radio, the inference being that radio people could be shitty to work with because of egos.

-Detroit radio, especially morning radio, was extremely competitive and Stern was a new and unknown guy going up against two established juggernauts: Dick Purtan at CKLW and "JJ and Bruiser" at WRIF.

-About nine months into his tenure, the station abruptly flipped formats, and one night while Podell was on the air a moving truck pulled up and began unloading country albums. Podell, "being a two steps back kind of a guy" (I don't know what this mean exactly but it didn't sound like a compliment), had to be pulled away the microphone while the rock albums were replaced with country ones. There was no way W4 was going to allow anyone with the radio moniker "Doc of Rock" to work at a country station, so Podell was immediately out. Stern stuck around for two weeks (as "Hopalong Howie") before bailing for DC (listening to Stern announce a Merle Haggard song on "New Country W4" was worth the cost of satellite radio for the month, btw).

-It was after Detroit when Stern's career took off, and he reflected on whether he would've had success had been given the proper support and promotion. External commentary mused this would've been unlikely, given his background. One person quipped that Detroit is a backward town, and going to DC was the right move as staying in the Midwest would have been a mistake.

-Leaving Detroit was somewhat difficult, as he and his wife were beginning to get settled in and make friends.


It was a fascinating trip down memory lane, especially for anyone with an awareness of Detroit radio history.

I wonder what part of town they lived in?

Sounds like everything I have heard about Podell.

Makes me hate his daughter even more as she bumbles her way through the news on Channel 4. nepotism to me isn't that offensive when the person getting the job has the skill set to do the job....I mean we all look for strings to pull to get ahead. I don't know the real story behind her getting the traffic gig and moving up...but some folks in the know don't have real nice things to say about her "win" at the contest that got her on the traffic in the first place before she'd even graduated college. Really grinds them when the daddy who hooked her up is a well known asshole.

Tea Bag wrote:
-Detroit radio, especially morning radio, was extremely competitive and Stern was a new and unknown guy going up against two established juggernauts: Dick Purtan at CKLW and "JJ and Bruiser" at WRIF.

It's almost unimaginable now that JJ and the morning crew, aka JJ and Dick the Bruiser, along with CKLW dominated Detroit radio in the mornings. Such an innocent brand of humor, you know? In retrospect they were only a little more edgy than the 'music of your life' big band and early rock retrospective programs that my parents would tune in. Big Bopper and Andrews Sisters... In contrast this morning I was listening to Opie & Jim on XM while navigating Telegraph and felt compelled to spin away: they were joking about Grateful Dead followers and how wouldn't that be the life, getting high and screwing hippie chicks every day. It was all fun until the locker room banter took a turn into poor female hygiene and, well, I just don't want to hear revolting stuff kicked back and forth by stand-up comics trying to outdo one another at 7:30 AM. Contrast that imagery with George Baer pretending to call in to the station as Coleman Young and Popeye.

I have a vague recollection of Howard Stern on W4. He was small time in contrast to JJ, and then for a while there was Steve Dahl who was piped in from Chicago on WABX. That actually was fun stuff and completely unlike anything else at the time, and all was fun until some line was crossed and they pulled either him from the air or the show from WABX.

And then how about the great switch from rock to country at W4? I learned about it when my high school carpool picked up the one kid who was cooler, tougher, and more in tune than the rest of us. He got into the car and offered up a handful of W4 bumper stickers to whomever wanted them. The rest of us should have suspected that something was wrong for this hood to suddenly become generous. Of course the stickers were worthless because overnight the format had changed to something that had all of the appeal of an Australian didgeridoo ensemble.

Sounds like everything I have heard about Podell.

higgs1634 wrote:Makes me hate his daughter even more as she bumbles her way through the news on Channel 4. nepotism to me isn't that offensive when the person getting the job has the skill set to do the job....I mean we all look for strings to pull to get ahead. I don't know the real story behind her getting the traffic gig and moving up...but some folks in the know don't have real nice things to say about her "win" at the contest that got her on the traffic in the first place before she'd even graduated college. Really grinds them when the daddy who hooked her up is a well known asshole.

One time years ago an older guy in my office came into my office, pushed a resume across the desk and in a conspiratorial tone said "this is <whoever the hell it was>. He's a great young man with a top-notch education and he comes from a very, very good family. It'd be a shame to let this slip by." Of course this was a network pulling strings and pushing hard for the runt son of some old-guard ad guy. Who knows if the kid had anything at all on the ball, but what was clear is that he had zero work experience as well as a father known to the older heads in my shop. Fortunately I had no open positions and so I was able doing something that I find distasteful. As a courtesy I'll give almost anyone some of my time and then advice if they want it. Doesn't hurt to be nice, but I don't like having people forced in and I don't like having to babysit and then cover for underachieving spawn.

I used to be able to get RIF in Saginaw some mornings and loved to listen to The Morning Crew. It was the funnest thing on the radio until I discovered Take No Prisoners with Ben Hamper on WFBE and Buffalo Dick's Radio Ranch on WWCK. (Both Flint stations).

I don't listen to the station, but apparently WDVD has dumped the female half of Blaine and Allyson this morning. Cat lovers everywhere are up in arms.

I don't much listen to it but I've had WDET/NPR on low as background noise and for at least the last two days they've been doing stories on nothing but Jon Stewart. I'm sorry, but did Kennedy get assassinated again? Another 9/11? Is he really that important?

guest wrote:I don't much listen to it but I've had WDET/NPR on low as background noise and for at least the last two days they've been doing stories on nothing but Jon Stewart. I'm sorry, but did Kennedy get assassinated again? Another 9/11? Is he really that important?

From what I know, no. Too much wise-ass stuff to wade through to make worthwhile what little insight there was. I say the same about Rush Limbaugh, if that matters.

frank - up in grand blanc wrote: Too much wise-ass stuff ...

Yeah, that sums it up. I watched him maybe once for a minute. He was interviewing somebody, don't recall if it was in fun or if he was working the guy over, but he was too smart, too well prepared/briefed to the point that he knew more about the topic than the expert, playing with him as a cat would a mouse, and was way too smug but what really does it for me is that he is too much loved by a certain demographic - young college educated white guys.

Another one is Stephen Colbert, Colbear or Colburt or however he wants to say it on any given day, who is something of a Stewart protege or successor. I remember him from Strangers With Candy, one of the funniest shows ever, so when I saw book by him at the library, in the sociology section of all places, I had to check it out. It's a rare thing when I don't finish a book no matter how bad it is but this was beyond bad. It had maybe three or four pages that were funny, the rest of it just a bunch of smarter-that-you bullshit and, if it wasn't bad enough, everything was heavily footnoted with smart-ass BS and he had other notes in the margins to slog through. In his defense, I'm sure that he had little to do with the production of that dreck. That's what the writing staff is for. He prob'ly didn't even read it before signing off on it, but if you go to Amazon and read the reviews it's the best fucking book ever. See "loved by a certain demographic" above.

You mention Limbaugh. I wouldn't put him in the same boat with JS but I remember when I first heard him, or least think I heard him. He was unknown to me when I was driving through the Arizona desert, a place where you're lucky to pull in one station, and this guy who I later assumed was Rush was just going on about all this outrageous stuff. When I finally reached home I tried to describe what I heard to my politicaly aware roommate but I really couldn't begin to articulate what I heard. I really don't care about him. Everybody was choking on the schadenfreude when he ended up hooked on Oxy's, but whatever.