Lots to pontificate upon. I'm sure I'll forget something/somebody.
OH THAT COVID!
A lot of what we've seen happen this year is a result of our exciting COVID economy. Not all of it, of course. People don't hate Liz Collin because of COVID. But there's no doubt COVID has hurt broadcasting and print media.
But how much?
It's not as if 93X was running commercial free from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. each weekday. It's not as if Paul Allen went commercial free for the final hour of his chat fest. There were still commercials.
Other than a slight increase in self-promotion, it seemed that there were plenty of commercials when Frank and Amelia read us the news. I can only assume that broadcasters had to cut deals and sell ads on the cheap to keep the revenue flowing.
So, it was the drop in revenue that ended the broadcasting careers of Dana Wessel and Ben Holsen, the former morning show dudes at Go 96.3? Maybe.
But it's not as if the geniuses programming 96.3 have ever gotten it right. I have no idea what kind of ratings that Wessel and Holsen pulled during morning drive, but I'd wager the return on the investment wasn't that great to begin with, and the COVID economy was the excuse Go 96.3 needed to cut expenses on a station that can't win, much like the Twins during the postseason. (Yes, by the time you read this, the Twins will likely have gotten that monkey off their backs.)
I don't listen to Go 96.3, and I'm not going to start. I have no idea if those guys were the least bit entertaining. But from what I've seen of Wessel online, he seems to be a down-to-earth guy who isn't pompous and pretentious. But I know nothing, other than the dude seems to like Donkey Kong.
YOUR CAREER IS DEAD, ERIC
The most recent tidbit to captivate the local broadcasting audience is that a dude who worked at public radio darling The Current is out of a job because he is creepy.
It's the story of Eric Malmberg, and it is fascinating. Dude works for many years on local rock radio, establishing a rather unspectacular career. He was never on a morning show that I know of. He was never an afternoon drive guy. As far as I can tell, "Dead Eric" has a long career of being a throw away guy on local radio. So he gets hired by The Current to spin that hip, eccentric local and independent music that nobody can sell commercially (I jest, slightly) overnight and/or on weekends. This after nearly two decades of commercial radio success, or so I read.
Who is this guy's sugar daddy? And how did The Current look at a dude who worked forever at KQ and 93X and decide that's what their on-air lineup is lacking?
Somebody claimed via Twitter once upon a time that Dead Eric is the nephew of longtime talker Al Malmberg. Not sure if that's true, but I've seen references somewhere to Dead Eric being the son of somebody in the biz, or something along that line.
Dead Eric has also made a buck or two, allegedly, performing music in a bar band. And most notably, he was a staff member of some degree for an organization I know nothing about, Youth Frontiers. He's cited as an employee in this blog post.
So what does it all mean? Who knows, but here's what I have learned.
Dead Eric is out of a job because he may have been inappropriate toward women he worked with during his past radio gigs. We still don't know exactly what he was or wasn't doing that was troublesome to at least 8 women, but it doesn't matter. When you're selling your persona as you babble into a hot mic, you'd better be squeaky clean, or have a tolerant employer.
The Current wanted to be very tolerant when a reporter on the news side of the MPR corporation, who happened to be working on a story about Dead Eric's creepy past, quit in disgust because the story wasn't being aired. But the vitriol from the reporter's supporters forced MPR to give Malmberg a Timberland boot right out the door a day later.
Being characterized as creepy by a respected journalist usually spells the end of your career, in at least your current market.
I'm not going to defend the guy, but I am left wondering who is right and wrong.
The journalist, whose name I didn't know, is highly decorated. It's unlikely she was chasing after Dead Eric on a whim, and I doubt she has a personal vendetta against him. Somebody came to her with information she thought was more damning than "he's a bit creepy around women."
Where there's smoke, there's often fire.
It's a big move when a journalist quits over an employer's refusal to run with a story. Tells me the story is damning, even if the guy has never been charged with a crime. People guilty of crimes may be subjected to scrutiny of their actions, public or otherwise, before they're ever charged with their first felony. And if there's evidence that something serious has happened, but no criminal charges were ever filed, that doesn't excuse the behavior.
I think the story is more than worthy of investigation by a reporter if there's evidence at least one person has been harmed in some way. How much harm does it take to make it a story? Does it need to be a criminal level of harm? Tough call.
And you automatically get an extra ounce of scrutiny if you're a public figure.
The fact it's a 40-something dude with a bad haircut at The Current, when the reporter's paycheck comes from MPR, makes it all the more complex, and fascinating.
I don't think the wall between the MPR news crew and the rest of the company was a factor, but then again.... it's a station that has taken a PR beating in recent years for its recent firing of a classical music DJ, its dismissal of asshole Brian Oake and its affiliation with the great Garrison Keillor. Don't automatically assume the corporate fathers and mothers aren't actively looking to avoid another demerit on their permanent record.
The Current had no choice but to kill Dead Eric's career, at least in the local market. I don't expect to ever know the creepy details of the allegations, but I do wonder, what if Dead Eric isn't guilty of a crime, and simply is too dumb to understand personal boundaries and creepiness? We assume he's a fully functioning adult, despite his outdated teenage haircut, but what if he's not? What if MPR rejected the story because there's not enough damning evidence that he's more than slightly creepy? (I don't buy the argument that because the victims were anonymous, the story couldn't clear MPR's lofty standards.)
I doubt, highly, that Dead Eric is squeaky clean, based upon what little we know. But I do wonder what happened to the idea of innocent until proven guilty. His career in this market, and likely most everywhere else in the free world, is dead, and none of us have even had a chance to hear the evidence in the case against him. But as we're well aware, in the court of public opinion, you don't need a lot of facts to render a verdict.
I'm shocked, of course, that so many people were upset and threatening to cancel their ongoing financial commitment to all things MPR. I thought that MPR's base of support was down to a few dozen people following the Brian Oake outrage.
How soon does Malmberg launch his podcast? Maybe he can a part of the Brian Oake Network
WE'LL MISS YOU, ALI
I haven't been watching much early morning TV since the pandemic began. But I was disappointed to find out we were losing Ali Lucia. Not for any good reason, of course, but nonetheless I was disappointed.
I learned just enough to know that she's leaving for Chicago because of her husband's career. I wouldn't be surprised if that's the end of her TV career. She has a young child, after all.
As I've said before, there's a reason why so many known names leave the glamour of TV and radio for jobs as the face of a company or government agency.
I'd bet the husband's fancy new gig in the Windy City makes up for Ali's paychecks at WCCO.
This Twitter thread was quite impressive and candid. It's from former WCCO reporter Mary McGuire, who is yet another hometown girl made good. She left TV in January, evidently. It's not clear to me what she's doing now, but all indications were that she wasn't continuing her career in front of the camera.
There are far worse jobs than TV news reporter, but you'll never convince me it's a great job, unless you don't need the paycheck, or you're as indispensable as Jeff Passolt was.
As for Ali, it's funny that she left about a month after WCCO dumped Kim Johnson, for seemingly no meaningful reason. Would they have cut Kim if Ali had left first?
Neither Kim nor Ali left a legacy in Twin Cities broadcasting, but I'd take either of them in a heartbeat over Jason DeRusha. (He's a food genius! And has one hell of a forehead.)
LIZ COLLIN IS DESPICABLE
I have enjoyed watching the hatred lobbed at WCCO over their employment of Liz Collin. And, of course, I wrote extensively about the outrage a while ago.
There's a lot I could write about the morons who took their protest of Liz and her handsome hubby to their home in Hugo. I don't support it, and Mr. Liz Collin is an easy target that deserves criticism. But at the end of the day, I find both Liz and her employer to be despicable.
Her husband, Trump lover Bob Kroll, is well known locally for being the union mouthpiece of Minneapolis cops. That's enough to make you a public figure, arguably, but when you're the subject of media reporting, (being a racist homophobe, allegedly,) and getting up on stage at a Trump propaganda festival with a T-shirt proclaiming cops love Trump, you most definitely are a public figure in this town.
It really doesn't matter who you are married to when it comes to your job as the union honcho, but when you're married to a local TV babe, people are going to wonder how your relationship affects what your wife's TV station does or doesn't do regarding its reporting of your union leadership and issues involving your police department. There should be no effect, but some people will always assume there is.
I don't know how long Liz and Bobby have been lost in each other's eyes, but Bobby sure didn't want anyone to know he landed himself a trophy wife. Irony at its finest. The marriage couldn't have been a secret, but they certainly wanted it to be, as Bobby threatened to boycott Star Tribune reporters if they referenced the fact that he is married to his trophy. It was a story about him and his actions, and a story he granted an interview for, that raised his dander. The story notes his threat to boycott the Strib if they mention he's married, out of concern that it would hurt her career.
He's right. It does. But that doesn't mean he gets to hide the fact from viewers of WCCO or any other media outlet. And he has carried out his threat, because he's as petty and misguided as those who showed up at his home to protest the fact both he and his trophy are still employed.
So why does that make Liz despicable?
Liz doesn't control her husband. She doesn't dictate what he does and doesn't do. But she's a part of the local media. And she has to know that her marriage won't remain a secret forever, no matter how embarrassed she is by it. More important, she has to know that her marriage, and her employment, will be scrutinized whenever the public finds out. And the longer it's kept hush-hush, the worse it looks.
I have no idea what goes on behind their closed doors in Hugo, but given the fact that Liz can't convince her buffoon of a husband that it's grossly unprofessional to blacklist a media organization for daring to ask about his cozy relationship with a member of a prominent local news outlet, that makes her despicable. She is a party to her husband's malfeasance. Highly despicable.
By the way, WCCO-TV isn't off the hook. The geniuses running the station had to know all about this, of course, and basically admit as much. Since the death of George Floyd, the station has made its anchors read a disclaimer occasionally, noting Liz is married to the buffoon and hasn't reported on police matters in more than two years.
WCCO only started doing this after the public starting claiming that she shouldn't be employed because she is married to a racist. So the disclaimer is only important now, and not months earlier, when the Star Tribune spilled the beans in a story I believe ran in their once bulky Sunday edition?
The disclaimer should have been made by WCCO before the Strib ever outed the buffoon as being married to a TV babe. That makes WCCO-TV despicable, too.
Liz is accused of being racist by association with Bob, but the only thing she's really guilty of is questionable taste in men. So WCCO has meekly stuck with her. She was nowhere to be found for at least a month after Floyd's death, and the couple of times I've seen her report since she quietly returned, she was never on camera. No live shots from the field, and no weekend anchoring that I've seen, although I haven't seen a weekender in a while. My theory is that at this point, WCCO is running out her contract and is going to let her quietly disappear. If not, why are they willing to weather the storm for her when they were willing to kick Kim Johnson to the curb during her vacation for seemingly no meaningful reason?
It's not apples to apples, but MPR canned Malmberg within a day of the angry masses rioting in cyberspace. Part of MPR's statement dismissing Malmberg read, "Our hosts have to be able to attract an audience that wants to listen to them and trusts them and over the last 36 hours those conditions have changed for Malmberg."
Couldn't the same be said for weekend anchor Liz Collin?
IS SHE NUTS?
There was a funny moment in that aforementioned Twitter thread by Mary McGuire.
As people discussed how little they earned when they started their career, or how little they were earning after many years of experience, there was some discussion about risk, or reward, and/or the safety net people (white people, I think) have when they choose to pursue a career in journalism.
It seemed out of place, and it came from a long lost member of the Twin Cities media, Mary Alice Rosko. Known for her goofy way of gallivanting about the metro for Fox 9 bright and early, she gave it all up to explore Minnesota, and occasionally write about it on a blog, or something.
M.A., as she liked to be called, is older than you would likely guess, and must have a sugar mama out there. That, or she inherited a fortune. There's no way her career paid such dividends that she is free to roam as she wishes, without a financial care in the world. She was at Fox 9 in some capacity for nearly two decades, and I'm guessing it wasn't her first gig on TV. But there's no way she was highly valued at Fox 9.
Her financial means aren't really important. What we do know is that she gave up the glamour of TV to wander aimlessly, and in finding herself on the lonesome highway, she's losing touch with the world around her.
Rosko deleted the tweet, as best I can tell, but it was made about Aug. 1, when every discussion and issue had to be about race. And I feel like M.A. interjected race into the discussion by making some claim about white people having a safety net of some kind and being able to afford to take a risk in pursuing a media career. I guess that means non-whites in broadcasting couldn't possibly have such a safety net.
I wish I had a screen shot of the tweet, because it was out of place, and wacky, to say the least. Current Fox 9 weather gal Jennifer McDermed took exception to M.A.'s claim, which suggested all white people had some sort of privilege that mitigated any risks they took in pursuing their career. McDermed disagreed with M.A.'s wackiness, and tweeted "I wouldn’t say ALL. Many took a gamble when jumping into this field."
And then McDermed responded in follow up at some point, noting M.A. had blocked her.
For that? M.A. was triggered by that?
I'm not sure when or why M.A. became so unhinged, but perhaps it's best for Fox 9 and all its viewers that she wasn't still part of the morning program this past summer.
As for McDermed, I use to like her. But when I made a suggestion, a simple silly suggestion, that she might have been cut loose by Fox 9 over the holidays last year because the station was renting a meteorologist for a few newscasts, she replied about being on vacation. I would have been happy to hear that, but her condescending response to some anonymous account proved that she's still a kid, despite the fact she should be tweeting like a working professional at this point in her life.
"Nope, I’m back tomorrow! You see.... I also get vacation days at work. It’s nice. I get to spend time with my family. #vacationearned #dontvacationshame"
I don't know how "vacation shaming" had anything to do with my comment, whatever vacation shaming is.
In her defense, I was sarcastic about her absence, making fun of the "self-important promos for how vital the weather 'team' is" in my comment.
Yeah, I could have been less sarcastic, but I'm not employed by a local TV station. It's a bad look when you are, and that's how you respond. But hey, all kids make mistakes in the early years of their career.
And at the end of the day, stations don't care about how you conduct yourself via social media.
OR DO THEY?
That brings us to the story of "Nature Boy" Sven Sundgaard.
I'm a bit stunned that KARE-TV went so far as to announce that he was kicked to the curb in May due to "continued violations of KARE11’s news ethics and other policies."
Tantalizing, isn't it? KARE didn't say much, but they said a lot more than a lot of stations say when they give a prominent face a one-way ticket on the express bus to Unemploymentville.
We don't know what KARE'S statement actually means, but we know Sven couldn't stop himself, or his boyfriend, from pleasuring his many fans with online discussions about news, politics and anything else that tickled their fancy. Or so I have read. (In a shocking revelation, I know nothing about Sven's life as a social media butterfly.)
Outrage ensued when Sven was dismissed, allegedly, much like the outrage over that asshole Brian Oake.
I was not outraged. As the kids liked to say a few years ago, "Stay in your lane, bro!"
You're the second-string meteorologist on a top 15 market's roster. If you want be Lavender's poster child for the gay community, go for it. But don't assume that your station wants you to be the moral compass for liberal/conservative/progressive America, unless you're prepared to live off the crumbs Bring Me the News is willing to throw your way.
It's funny, once upon a time KARE wanted its "personalities" to shine via station blogs. (Perhaps there's still a space on the KARE website for such nonsense. I can't kare enough to look.) They had a lame ditty and commercial telling you to race to the KARE blogs, featuring "Lady Di," the dork at play and the long-gone "curmudgeon" Allen Costantini.
KARE loves when viewers engage with their ridiculous Breaking the News crapfest through social media channels.
And KARE has no problem promoting the personal life of Rena Sarigianopoulos.
But when you start shooting your mouth off and telling people how you think, sashay out the door, girlfriend!
The irony, of course, is that KARE soon found itself without its third-stringer, the dude with the creepy beard. And it lost Pat Evans shortly thereafter, a guy who would at least read a forecast occasionally, but managed to find a way to do almost anything else during a forgettable 25-year tenure at the station.
I'm not sure how Sven will satisfy his lust for a captive audience, but I am confident Bring Me the News won't be his final act in this market. He does nothing for me, but he seemed to excite a lot of female viewers in this town.
I don't feel the least bit sorry for gay icon Sven Sundgaard. As the kids liked to say, "Know your role, bro!"
KARE is a disaster these days. Terrible, terrible station. In the long run, Sven might be better off for KARE jerking him off.
The air.
Jerking him off the air.
PAPER, OR PLASTIC?
In what seems like a lifetime ago, Jeff Dubay was bounced from 1500 AM simply because they weren't making money.
I would have bet $100 three years ago that the station would abandon any pretense of being a sports station by now. Instead they scaled back the ESPN marketing, called the station SKOR North, capitalized SKOR for no reason and overhauled the weekday schedule. They dumped the old geezers and created all sorts of new niche programs during the afternoon in an attempt to breathe new life into the station.
Worked out well, didn't it?
As best I can tell, there's not much going on until mid-afternoon, when the last two shepherds of ESPN 1500 take to the airwaves and chat away. It beats unemployment, I suppose, but damn, things are grim at Hubbard's AM signal.
The brain trust at Hubbard axed just about everyone not named Judd or Phil. And that included Ramie Makhlouf.
What I never understood was why 1500 deemed it necessary to add a third banana to their most prominent on-air duo. A guy who talks sports, tells knock-knock jokes on the side and doesn't root for the local teams was an important addition to an established duo at your station? Seemed like a bizarre move.
As for Makhlouf, he left Milwaukee for a gig on the vastly inferior (so say the ratings) sports station in Minneapolis, as I recall. And less than 18 months later he began a long career sabbatical that is still going on as of late September.
Bad career moves for $1,000, Alex.
Best advice I can give Makhlouf: Don't call Jeff Dubay for career advice.
Phil Mackey, by the way, blamed the massive salary dump on the COVID. Like the aforementioned Wessel, COVID took the blame for the end of this broadcasting career, too. In Makhlouf's case, he and his "teammates" got the ax less than two months into the pandemic. That tells me that 1500 had one foot in the grave before the pandemic began.
The house of Hubbard also cut a couple of producers at the chick talk station it runs on the FM dial. One of them was a guy billing himself as "Donny Love."
If that's the name you're selling on chick talk radio, you deserve your fate.
Who knows what the future of broadcasting holds for those who have lost jobs this year, whatever the excuse for cutting the positions. But the industry wasn't exactly robust to begin with, and I'm guessing that when the COVID is all over, we won't see a lot of these jobs added back to the payroll. Companies will continue to get by with what they have left. After all, it's working right now, isn't it?
And there's always some young, optimistic, foolish youngster who thinks they'll persevere in an industry that can easily, and happily, live without Eric Malmberg on its payroll.
You're a valuable asset to the company, until somebody comes along who can do your job reasonably well, and for less money.
I have a feeling there are a lot of broadcasting professionals whose careers are ending thanks to the COVID.
For what it's worth, (probably nothing,) there was a guy who worked at KFAN for 11 years, disappeared, probably due to a bad economy circa 2008, and re-emerged a little over a year later at 1500. That tenure lasted five years or so. I seem to recall he was axed at 1500, as well, through no fault of his own.
Does the name Cory Roufs ring a bell?
He continued to work in radio, evidently, for a while after 1500, thanks to the world of satellite broadcasting. And what is he doing today after nearly two decades of radio experience? He's the front end manager for Kowalski's Markets, whatever that means. This after working for a year for a bus company.
My point is not to job shame the guy. He may have been planning a career change for the last five years of his sports radio career. He may have run out of local options and was not in a position to move to another major market. I have no idea, but anyone willing to work for a living, in a country where so many would rather look for a handout or meal ticket anywhere they can get one, deserves tons of respect.
I have a feeling a lot of broadcasting professionals will be hoping or praying a bus company or grocery store is willing to put food on their table in the months and years to come.
FUN FACTS
Time to wrap this up. I put a few hours into this, over several nights. I started it weeks ago, but didn't have the fire in the belly. Eric Malmberg changed that. Thanks dude!
I'm glad I put thoughts into words, but I remain committed to not doing so on a regular basis. Although all bets are off when Chris Hawkey's "damn festival" returns next summer. I was really looking forward to reading about how the morons who ran the inaugural #TCSummerJam screwed over a new set of suckers in 2020.
As for the fun facts, here's one: Jana Shorthair has thin skin. Don't joke, not in the slightest, about her killing network air time by interviewing Santa Claus during Breaking the News. She'll block you in less time than it takes to comb her hair. (What's less than zero seconds?)
Here's one more: Jeff Dubay has started a new podcast. Yes, again. For about the 50th time, it seems. I don't listen, but I say good luck to Jeff. May he find peace and satisfaction in his golden years.
Don't forget, Brian Oake is an asshole, and Keith Levanthal needs a job, again.
