Do you love Jeff Dubay more than he hates you?

When I started this blog a little over two years ago, I needed some random, slightly clever title for it, emphasis on slightly.

Jeff Dubay seemed like the perfect minor broadcasting "celebrity" worthy of immortalizing with this blog. Little did I know his life would implode, again, soon after I launched the blog. I'm not a fan of his schtick, but I do root for him, despite his appetite for self-destruction.

My goal was never to build a a vast online audience or a social media empire, I just wanted a place for opinions to be shared on people who think they're really, really special because they are seen or heard daily in the Twin Cities.

I have promoted the blog a bit, but I've mostly given that up. I tried promoting it via a couple of avenues, but I've since come to enjoy watching blog postings find their audience organically. I share each blog post via Google, and usually tweet a link to it once or twice, otherwise I'm rather low key when it comes to promotion.

I won't cite a lot of analytics, but I will share a few interesting tidbits when I look at how this modest collection of essays has reached the masses during the two years I've churned out content.

I'm averaging about 12 posts a year, and I never intended for this blog to have weekly content.

I'm not delusional, page views are no promise that a viewer has read a word I wrote. But that's one of the few measurements I have available in trying to decide if anyone notices the content I create.

I've tried a few experiments with Google and learned that my blog postings are near the top of Google searches for some of the broadcasters I've toasted.

Number one, easily, is Alix Kendall.

My April 2014 blog post about Kendall and her lawsuit against the cops has generated more than 13,000 page views in nearly two years.

I'm no analytical genius, but it doesn't take one to know that female TV broadcasters are frequently Googled.

Kendall must be quite popular with the Googlers of the Twin Cities. As a matter of fact, there's a blog site that features thousands of pictures of newswomen nationwide wearing boots. (Rena Sarigianopoulos, my new least favorite broadcaster, has been featured on the site.) That blog started as a site dedicated to the worship of Kendall.

So the fact that Kendall generates the most traffic to this blog is not a surprise. I should probably write about her more often just for the web traffic, but I'm not as fascinated by her, or her boots, as some people.

It's a close race for first runner up. The edge goes to a guy known on KFAN radio as Meatsauce.

His post grabbed a lot of attention in June 2014 because I tweeted the link to him, and he tweeted the link to his followers. As you'd expect, Paul Lambert wasn't enamored with my critique of his success in radio. I don't hate him, I don't love him and I didn't flatter him when I reviewed his charmed life, but he shared my writing, perhaps to rally those who love him to his defense. It worked, it appeared, as my blog post about him blew up quicker than any other I've written.

But ultimately Kendall proved to be more appealing to the Internet than Lambert, not to my surprise, so he's a distant second with barely half of Kendall's page views.

In third place, not far behind Lambert, is a post about Kelsey Soby. I've penned a couple of posts about Soby, but it was the first one that has her at more than 6,000 page views. Not to my surprise she generates a lot of Internet steam, although that has slowed down thanks to her retirement from being a morning traffic babe.

In fourth place is my post about Emily Engberg. The out-and-about imp for the channel 5 afternoon chat fest is easy on the eyes, and she has managed to generate nearly 5,000 page views.

From there things drop off dramatically. No other blog post has generated 2,000 page views. The closest would be a long dissection of Jason Matheson's career. That post is a steady performer, helped in part by the fact that a Google search of his name sometimes puts my posting at the bottom of page 1. He's no Engberg, clearly, but he's an established broadcaster that has a strong name in this market. So thanks, buddy, for the blog traffic. I'm not a loyal fan of his work, but I like his attitude, so it's hard to root against him.

Some of my older blog posts have low page views, often because I didn't drop a name into the title, I suspect. Name checking the primary subject, if there is one, helps generate traffic. Posts that don't have a name in them are the worst performers, according to page views.

Although I have several post titles that reference Dubay, none of them top 1,000 page views. And my very first post, about Dennis "Rusty" Gatenby, has more page views than any Dubay post, although it, too, has less than 1,000 page views.

Showing promise is a November 2015 post about Shayne Wells, the new traffic babe at FOX 9. It has nearly 1,400 page views, which is pretty good compared to everything I've written about Dubay.

Another measurement of interest in the comments I receive. None of my posts receive a truckload of comments, and the comment tally includes responses I make, and I respond in some capacity to most of the comments I receive.

Many posts have no comments, but the post with the most is my Lambert analysis. His total is due, in part, to the fact he tweeted it to his followers, and several of them read it, and responded. The post manages to generate an occasional comment nearly two years later.

Kendall gets the most page views, but her post is second when it comes to comments. She has never tweeted a link to my writing, to the best of my knowledge, so I'm guessing that has something to do with it.

My first post about Soby is the third most popular with those who comment. Beyond that my blog has a small, random handful of comments.

These numbers don't tell you a lot, and I don't care. I just wanted a snapshot for comparison purposes should I continue this blog in the years to come.

One last note, my post about Keith Leventhal is doing pretty well. It has nearly 1,000 page views, which is impressive given nobody in the Twin Cities knows who he is. I suspect half of that traffic is due to the fact he visits the post on a daily basis.

Rena Sarigianopoulos you've broken my heart

My goal isn't to tell the world how terrible the Twin Cities broadcasting scene is. I mean that.

But it's what we don't like that gets us fired up. We are less likely to tell somebody they did a good job than we are to tell somebody they suck.

So I tend not to kiss a lot of ass. If you work in broadcasting, you know you're going to have people who don't like what you do. It doesn't matter who you are.

And the reality is that it doesn't matter if they love you or hate you, all that matters is that they're watching or listening to you.

I have been an avid watcher of KARE11 over the years. I watch every station's newscasts now and then, but all things being equal, I gravitate to the local NBC affiliate.

So I've seen Rena Sarigianopoulos many times over the years. I don't know if I have a favorite local broadcaster, but there are a few that make me cringe. Sarigianopoulos was not one of them.

As I noted not so long ago, Sarigianopoulos and her sister are doing one of these interactive news shows where the viewer is so important to the product. The fine folks at KARE really want to know what we think.

It's not good.

I still don't know what the hell the name means. They call it "Breaking the News." They talk about serious news topics, produce complete fluff and offer mindless banter. And so far it has made me cringe.

They seem desperate to connect with viewers, and the show is far from polished. It has been painful to watch. They know this, too, as the first time I watched the show they shared Tweets criticizing the show. (Nice job ripping off Jimmy Kimmel.)

I'm a discerning viewer, however, so perhaps I'm the exception to the rule. Regardless, I've lost a lot of respect for Sarigianopoulos and her station after watching the March 22 edition of her news gabfest.

The show seems to be targeting the dolts who think hearing the opinions of our intellectually superior TV people are important, as well as the dolts who think having their comment shared on a local broadcast is some sort of validation.

I don't watch much TV in the early evening, so the time slot for this Mensa meeting disguised as a news magazine doesn't fit into my schedule. It took weeks for me to finally watch an episode, and I proclaimed that I wouldn't be tuning into it again any time time soon. That was a month ago.

For the record, my first comment about the show on Feb. 15 was simply a reaction to their discussion of one of the water cooler topics of the day. If I was a "hater," as Sarigianopoulos wants to proclaim, I'd have ripped the show right out of the gate. My hatred of the show was so evident, clearly, that the social media guru for the show shared my first reaction to the lead story with the dozens of people who follow the show via Twitter.

As a "hater," I didn't rip the episode nearly enough. I expressed displeasure with a segment, but didn't "hate" on it, and I did criticize the brutal segment of the show where the social media guru tried to favor us with his on-the-spot analysis of Twitter and Facebook reactions. It didn't come off as professional, and I'm not fond of the trend of "reporting" the social media feedback to news or fluff peddled by our TV elite.

Yes, I wrote a blog post outlining all the things I didn't like about the show, and how it let me down. Welcome to America, where the consumer is entitled to have an opinion.

Last week I found myself sampling the product again. And once again it didn't win me over.

I tweeted reactions to it, and responded to a few comments made by others who tweeted their reactions as the show unfolded.

That's partially true, as I stopped watching before the end of the program. Since the show is partially about discussing news topics,  they trotted out something called Peter Parker, a DJ on the new Hubbard hip hop station. People who watch Breaking the News want to know what a hip hop DJ thinks about pop culture fluff, it seems. It was at that point I couldn't stomach the show. I turned the channel to anything else available.

I continued to follow the Twitter conversations about the show, responding to a few things along the way, but watched something else. That's when a clown who claims to be a KARE11 photojournalist tried to bust me. I quote tweeted something about #BTN11 and he responded with, "Looks like you watched through the show by your comments."

I questioned if he had reached that conclusion based upon my responding on Twitter after changing the channel. Then I told him, "I'd look again."

The goofball responded with, "Cool story bro."

I have no idea what he was getting at, so I responded with "if you say so." And that was the end of my Twitter interactions for the March 18 edition of the show.

I don't know what this photojournalist was trying to accomplish with his initial comment, but he didn't convince me that KARE11 conducts drug testing as part of its hiring process.

So for the third time in its nearly three months on the air I watched Breaking the News on March 22. That's two weeks in a row. I must be really bored, or terminally ill.

I started off my evening with a couple of meaningless observations: I noted that I still have no idea what the hell the name of the show is supposed to mean, and I noted that the opening segment was awkward, given Sarigianopoulos was standing with all sorts of visible mic cords hanging off of her. Clearly I'm a "hater."

The show opened with talk about the news of the day, including a segment about how local Muslims feel about international terror. It was a pretty good segment. It's not going to win an award, and it's a rather predictable piece, but it was well done. I didn't slap the Breaking the News team on the back for it, but I did find the Twitter reaction of its viewers to be curious, and I noted that.

I didn't hide my disdain for a segment they teased. It appeared to be about how former Vikings punter Chris Kluwe, a media whore if ever there was one, is trying to parlay his expired NFL career into another moment in the spotlight. I don't necessarily disagree with Kluwe's opinions, I simply have little tolerance for his antics and choose not to read about them or watch them.

I'm also not a fan of watching stations shill for a network's entertainment division. Whether it's Jason DeRusha shilling for a show on CBS, Alix Kendall shilling for a show on FOX or Sarigianopoulos shilling for NBC's ninja warrior show. I turned the channel.

Once again I kept an eye on social media, and I did turn back to the channel several minutes later. I was interested to hear what they had to say about the Bent Paddle kerfuffle that broke last week. Unfortunately I failed to flip back to KARE11 in time to catch it, and I don't care enough to seek out the segment online.

So I watched the end of the show and tweeted a few other comments, most notably my unwillingness to feed Chris Kluwe's ego.

And that's when KARE11 and it's cutting edge news crew flushed all respect I had for the station right down the toilet.

I'm not sure if Sarigianopoulos was trying to be clever and funny, or demonstrate that she's a TV bimbo.

I had tweeted early in the show that the camera work appeared as if the camera guy was trying to get an upskirt shot of Sarigianopoulos as she was sitting at a desk. It was very awkward, and as I learned via Twitter during the show, it was the crew's first night with a fancy new camera.

I find it a bit sad that the FOX News Channel has a reputation for upskirt moments during its broadcasts. As I learned a couple of years ago, there are Youtube videos dissecting such moments in slow motion. Yes, that's the weird world we live in.

Two shots of Sarigianopoulos using that new camera were rather awkward, and obviously made me think of FOX news. I noted this via Twitter.

After I turned back to Breaking the News, I watched a couch shot of Sarigianopoulos and her fill-in sidekick talking, and it was hard not to notice that it looked like Sarigianopoulos could use a new pair of tights. The holes in her tights were large enough to be noticeable on a 50-inch TV. Not a crime, of course, just awkward, and being the funny tweeter that I am, I noted that it was time for Sarigianopoulos to buy new tights at Target.

After the show she replied via Twitter: "Thought you changed the channel? You can't fool us...you just love to hate. #hater #socialbully

Was she trying to be funny, or was she tweeting brainlessly? I changed the channel, and missed two segments in the middle of the show. Never did I say I wasn't turning the channel back after the Kluwe segment.

More important, how the hell am I a hater? I don't like Kluwe, at all, and won't hide the fact. While I didn't praise Sarigianopoulos for wearing tights without holes during a previous episode, am I really a "hater" for pointing out the awkwardness of her wardrobe, or the weird camera angles, on Tuesday evening?

I'd like to think she was simply having fun with my wardrobe criticism, but her #socialbully hashtag suggests otherwise. It suggests to me that she's arrogant and lacks critical thinking skills in canvassing Twitter feedback to her show.

I criticized her show for "shilling the network" and ripped the Kluwe segment (which I didn't watch,) but when did I tell people to go to hell for watching the garbage she's peddling? I have noted via Twitter that the program seems to be aimed at the lowest common denominator, but that's hardly bullying.

Sarigianopoulos has turned out to be a major disappointment. But I shouldn't be surprised, given everything I've had the misfortune of reading about her. And by that I mean crap that is spewed by Cheryl Johnson. (I can turn off Kluwe, but I can't help but peruse Johnson's "gossip.")

And if I had any doubt about whether or not Sarigianopoulos was trying to be flirty and fun, her response to my question about how I was guilty of bullying proved she's not the sharpest knife in the dishwasher. She responded, "um, no. You tweet hate about BTN daily and yet you continue to watch. Does it make you feel good to make others feel bad?"

Daily? I've watched the show three times, sweetheart, and I don't tweet about it when I don't watch it. Continue to watch? Yes, twice in two consecutive weeks.

Does it make me good to make others feel bad? Who feels bad? When was I telling people they were idiots who should be ashamed of themselves for their opinions?

Sarigianopoulos lacks critical thinking skills, and seems to be delusional.

As if this weren't enough, one of her behind-the-scenes cronies decided to lecture me, too, although she wised up and deleted her tweets to me.

A producer named Nikki lectured me in a series of tweets she doesn't stand behind, evidently. She threw out the "bullying" claim and suggested that I'm making personal attacks of some sort. Yes, I criticize opinions and I don't fawn over her lousy program, but her delusions were fantastic.

Part of her lecture said that while the show exists for the exchange of opinions, somehow there's an unwritten rule that I'm only allowed to offer constructive criticism. She didn't say it quite that way, but that's essentially what she said, although I can't prove it to you, because she's embarrassed by her opinions, it seems.

So there you have it, a weak show staffed by people with lackluster critical thinking skills, thin skin and not enough sense to ignore what they don't like on Twitter. (They ought to hire Dawn Mitchell to join their show.)

Dawn Mitchell is a third-string quarterback

I don't use my Twitter account on a regular basis, but I log in occasionally. And yes, I tweet links to my writing, sometimes, despite the fact I don't have many followers. My account isn't there for chatting with the unwashed masses, it's primarily for reading what others have to say, be it Rena Sarigianopoulos, Jason DeRusha, Keith Leventhal (who?) or "Boring" Joe Mauer.

Not so long ago Jared Allen retired from the NFL. (If this means nothing to you, it doesn't really matter.) There were a variety of posts that day, toasting the dopey goofball for his corny retirement announcement.

Dawn Mitchell, the secondary sports anchor for the local Fox affiliate, tweeted an "outtake" of some sort from an interview she did, evidently. (I didn't watch the clip, I didn't care enough to know.)

Her tweet was the first once I ran across, so I quote tweeted it, which is very different than replying to it, noting Allen was washed up, so what took so long?

Calling him washed up is harsh. He is past his prime, nobody would argue that. His playing time was reduced the past year or more, not because he couldn't do his job on defense, I suspect. My guess is that after years of pounding on the NFL gridiron he wasn't as spry as he was a decade earlier. Like most players, injuries limit minutes on the field, especially after a decade in the league.

He retired at 33, it's not as if he's about to enter a nursing home, but plenty of people don't survive 10 years in the NFL, and he played 12 seasons. I'm guessing wear and tear was taking its toll, and you can't blame a well compensated player for wanting to get out while he can still walk away on his own, especially in this day and age.

So yes, I was harsh in my criticism of his retirement. He's not really washed up. I quote tweeted Mitchell's clip, sharing it with the dozens of people who follow my account. She should appreciate that.

And what if she doesn't appreciate it? What should she do then? Ignore it. Yes, I drew her attention to my comment by quoting her tweet, but that doesn't require a response. Nowhere did I ask Mitchell to comment or respond. I made a statement. Don't like that I called Allen washed up? Ignore it and move on with your life.

But not Mitchell. She found it necessary to respond, saying that "I don't find your negativity appealing." She's well within her right to do that, but she looks foolish for doing so. Not because she gave me her opinion via a reply, but because of what she tweeted afterward.

I replied by telling her that I didn't realize I was seeking her validation. We then exchanged several comments, hers defending the honor of poor Jared Allen. I agreed with her on one point, but noted that it didn't change the fact he was not going out on top.

At that point she should not have responded and moved on with her life. Not being social media savvy, Mitchell chose otherwise.

Her next comment to me; "So?"

So I responded, by telling her that I called it like I saw it, and she drew attention to it. She noted, again, that she finds negativity unappealing.

At this point I'm confused by the lack of critical thinking on the part of Mitchell, so I replied by telling her I find music festivals unappealing. I don't care if she finds my negativity unappealing, therefore I shared with her something I find unappealing, which happened to be unrelated to our entire exchange.

Now you've gotta think that Mitchell is going to stop responding, as the exchange is clearly going nowhere, and I've made a mockery of it.

Nope, not Mitchell. She's not that savvy. Confused, she replies, "huh".

I assume her response was meant to be in the form of a question, wondering what I meant. I don't know, and it doesn't matter, as she quickly tweeted again, noting "answering a tweet sent at you is not drawing attention. Don't tweet into begin w duh."

Of course the flaw with her logic is the fact that I didn't send a tweet at her, I quote tweeted her, and never asked for a response. She gave it freely, and it did draw attention to my opinion, even if it was only my attention. Had she ignored my quote tweet I'd have forgotten I tweeted it, and today I'd still think Mitchell is smarter than she now appears, at least to me.

By the way, my final response was "tweet was not sent at you. Duh".

Splitting hairs, perhaps, but I clearly didn't ask her for a response, she unintelligently chose to do so.

You'd think a media darling who is trying to establish herself as a household name in the market, a la Mark Rosen, would be thankful her content is being retweeted in any form. I'll guarantee you most media jackals foam at the mouth when their tweets go viral.

A smart, savvy sports anchor-reporter takes every follower and retweet she can get and ignores the crap she disagrees with, especially when she's using her official station account. Trying to put people in their place, and attempting to insult them in doing so, makes you look like an amateur.

Word to the wise: Don't be a Mitchell.

Rena Sarigianopoulos you're breaking my heart

I've noted in the past that I'm not a big fan of talking heads telling us what they think about the current events of the day, and Rena Sarigianopoulos hasn't changed my opinion of that.

Sarigianopoulos and her sister from another mister, Jana Shortal, really want us to know what they think about some of the topics of the day. And it's a painful exercise.

After months of planning the dynamic duo debuted "Breaking the News" early this year. I have no idea what it is they're breaking. They're not breaking news, and they don't seem to be breaking down the news. Perhaps they're trying to tell us they're breaking the mold of what a news show is, and should be.

Horrible name aside, the wonder twins are doing everything in their power to get us to tune in and hear them babble about news topics and fluff that wouldn't see the airwaves under discerning circumstances.

I watched their recent President's Day edition, or whatever the pointless holiday is, and I was not impressed.

They opened by talking about the political hot potato: a vacant Supreme Court seat. Shortal made a very keen observation about how it is going to be an interesting topic to watch.

Shortal also did one of those cutesy bits where she interviewed kids at a museum, asking them questions related to the legal holiday...the reason the kids weren't in school. I'm not sure how that was "breaking the news," but it was uninspiring.

It has been two days now, so I don't quite recall every element of this painful show. I wasn't taking notes. But I seem to recall some sort of cute, viral video, or something akin to it, because we don't get enough of that from every other news talker on TV. Great job breaking the news, ladies.

Naturally this show has an interactive element. Oh boy, what a thrill, having a tweet read during the broadcast. And sharing opinions with other simple-minded dolts on Facebook. Dream come true.

If that's not bad enough, the social media conversations are handicapped on camera by a guy with a little too much starch in his underpants. I'm guessing he forgets to wear deodorant, too. He was less than comfortable sitting in that Office Max desk chair, leading the social media parade.

But that kind of crap appeals to an element of society, and that's what the brass at KARE-11 is seeking, I guess.

As if this show wasn't painful enough, it's a visual disaster. The news chicas are sitting on a couch, of course, and it's hideous looking. I guess the new set recently built for Randy and Julie was guilty of breaking the bank. (#rimshot)

While I don't expect Sarigianopoulos and Shortal to look like the Bobbsey Twins, they should at least look as compatible as Frank and Amelia. But that's not the case.

Sarigianopoulos looked like a trophy wife socialite at a stuffy country club while Shortal looked like her wardrobe came from Ellen DeGeneres' clothing line, if she sold it at Walmart. I'm not a big fan of fashion critique, but the Odd Couple schtick isn't helping an already painful show. Somebody call the fashion police, Shortal is breaking the law. (#rimshot)

Most television is little more than mindless distraction, and if viewers want to hear two people painfully stumble through 30 minutes of banter, that's no more a crime than watching a high stakes game of hangman or a bunch of California hipster wannabes sitting around talking about the camera people who chase celebrities. But that doesn't make Breaking the News worth applauding.

The "On the Fly" guy is now in the unemployment line

Not a shock that longtime Twin Cities radio "personality" Tony Fly is done entertaining us on television, at least in his current incarnation.

I've never been a big fan of Tony Fly. It's not that I don't like him, it's just that he doesn't sell anything I buy. He was a fixture at KDWB-FM for many years, probably more than I can remember, but I had little interest in the hot hits of the day. I'm far from an authority on his career, but his online resume says his career dates back to 1988, when he worked at Z100 in New York as a weekend guy. He bounced around a bit before winding up doing more than 10 years at KDWB, which ended in 2003. He's not afraid to let you know that he was "NUMBER ONE IN-DEMO LITERALLY EVERY RATINGS MEASUREMENT PERIOD."

He did double duty at the end of his KDWB days, evidently, as he did mornings in Austin. I presume that's Texas. I'm too lazy to look it up if he's too lazy to spell it out on his resume.

His poorly crafted resume gets a bit confusing, as it appears that he went to work for what would be his post-KDWB employer prior to departing the Clear Channel family in 2003. Whatever he was doing during that time, I remember him best as the longtime morning show host of what was B96, the urban hip-hop radio station that was abandoned for reasons I'll never understand. As the format changed, Tony remained with the frequency until 2012, when they, presumably, had to dump his salary.

I had forgotten that during his B96 years there was also a local television program showing snippets of his wacky morning zoo, a la Howard Stern in his prime. So I guess it wasn't a stretch for the Fox-owned My29, or whatever they call it these days, to hire Tony in 2013 to host an hour of television that essentially resembled a morning radio show.

For more than two-and-a-half years Fly has been gabbing on the late night airwaves. I can't believe it has been that long already. Where does the time go?

The program started out with your typical morning zoo formula. Tony was the driver and perky Fox9 traffic babe Kelsey Soby was the sidekick. Dan Edwards, who I knew nothing about, other than that he somehow worked with Tony previously, served as the producer/second sidekick who they turned to when they needed a third wheel.

It was a lame show that seemed to cater to the kind of people who don't know what a Mensa meeting is. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't for me, shockingly.

It was a video version of a morning zoo, taped seemingly 12 hours ahead of its late night time slot. Thanks to technology the show was not limited to folks calling the host via telephone. Viewers could respond to the weeknight broadcasts by sharing videos of themselves, and those videos were periodically broadcast as part of the show. And of course viral videos and other visual stimuli were a necessary part of the formula. Since I didn't watch the show regularly, or for long periods of time when I'd stop and gawk, I can't say how often they'd have a guest on the show, but it happened now and then.

Again, the show wasn't for me, but it wasn't a bad idea. We have plenty of hours of TV based upon people telling us their opinions, and disagreeing with each other in response to those opinions. That now passes for entertainment. I get it when you're listening to such banter in your car, or while hand washing your delicates, but I don't get the appeal of watching people sit around and talk.

"On the Fly" did a good job of keeping the show interactive. Besides injecting its viewers into the broadcast it offered interactivity via social media channels, pretty much like every morning zoo these days.

The show plugged along for about a year, give or take, and seemed to gain some steam when Edwards departed. He left for a purely off-camera job with the KARE-TV sports department, and has since moved on from that. When he departed as the show's second sidekick, that left a void, although it appeared that the show made an effort to bring in more local "celebrities" to fill that void. Tony seemed to take a liking to a guy who calls himself "L.A. Nik," who is either a brilliant entrepreneur and self-promoter or a complete ass clown.

Aside: Edwards strikes me as a more interesting person than Fly or Soby.

The show chugged along, sans Edwards, until last spring. As it neared the two-year mark Soby announced her departure from the show. Her excuse seems rather fraudulent in retrospect, and despite the fact I didn't think she brought anything special to the table, her departure signaled the beginning of the end.

That's because the brain trust at Fox didn't replace her. The show seemed to fill Edwards' void a bit by cutting to whomever the control room wizard of the show is, but there was no replacement for Soby. And the show started to take a rather awkward turn. Rather than try to replicate the chemistry with another version of Soby, Tony started sitting down with the local touring comedian of the week, as well as other local non-celebs who were often two-bit comedians. Sure, I saw Fancy Ray McCloney on the show once, and Tony's old B96 sidekick, whom I know nothing about, was a semi-regular, but none of these folks were a draw. And they sat around and chatted about God knows what, with little viewer interaction, although it seemed like they tried to bring a little of that back in the final weeks.

I didn't love the show, but the original formula seemed to work, and not sticking with it after Soby's departure seemed to hastily bring the show to its final resting place. Word on the Internet today was that the show will cease after this Friday. I'm not the least bit surprised.

Tony isn't completely unemployed, thanks to a small gig he picked up, as the Remy Maxwell of 105 the Vibe. Ironically B96 just relaunched, more or less, on the day Tony got his pink slip from Fox. Perhaps as that station slowly ramps up its on-air personalities there'll be another gig for Tony. I'm sure he'd be happy to trade his part-time gig at 105 for something more lucrative.

Otherwise he'll be busy hustling any voiceover work he can find. Like all great broadcasters he's looking for a slew of those gigs, particularly since he lost his last steady radio gig in 2012.

He doesn't do anything for me, but Tony seems like a personable broadcaster that people gravitate to. He seems to have adapted with the changing radio landscape and has a lot of name recognition in this market. There are fewer jobs in major market radio these days, but the cream always rises. He'll be back in a more prominent role in this market before too long, I'd bet. And if I'm right, here's hoping his job isn't torpedoed by poor format decisions that seem to have been responsible for his demise in recent years.

Patrick Hammer (Fay) needs to stop drinking

It turns out Dennis "Rusty" Gatenby isn't the only person who likes to hit the bottle.

Another alum of KSTP-TV has a bit of a problem keeping the cork in his bottle. The meteorologist we knew as Patrick Hammer finally landed a regular gig after a long layoff. He took his talents to Buffalo.

Hammer's story of perseverance is admirable. After many years at the Hubbard fiasco he was kicked to the curb, told he wasn't wanted. It took a long time for Hammer, known to the court system as Patrick Fay, to land another gig. God finally smiled upon him, sending him to Buffalo for a new gig earlier this year.

Hammer's story is rather interesting. It was told locally by our annoying gossip maven, and a similar story was chronicled not so long ago in Buffalo.

Essentially Hammer – his last name on TV, but somehow his middle name in real life – spent more than a year waiting for a TV camera to beckon him, so he took a job with Target, doing warehouse work. He was recognizable to most people he worked with, evidently, but that didn't change the fact he needed some sort of income to help feed family. At some point he also took a retail sales job, selling men's clothing, as I recall.

The local spin of his tale left out a few interesting details, such as the difficulty he had in obtaining part-time work with another Twin Cities station.

Last winter KARE-TV needed some help on a temporary basis, and they brought in Hammer for the gig. According to the Buffalo version of the story, even though the heartless Hubbards kicked Hammer to the curb, he was still bound by a non-compete clause in the local market. Hammer had to beg the Hubbards to let him take a temporary gig on KARE-TV during his local blacklisting. Eventually the heartless Hubbards consented, as long as it was limited to weekend broadcasts.

I get why non-compete clauses are part of the broadcasting business, but I'll never understand why the clauses are in effect after you are shown the door. If you're still being paid by your former employer, that's understandable. But it boggles my mind that employers are allowed to tell employees that if they cut off your income, you're not allowed to take a comparable job elsewhere in the market. A station that wants nothing to do with you is allowed to keep another station from employing you for a defined period of time. That's insanity.

Nonetheless Hammer had that added obstacle to overcome in his quest for further employment. Although KARE-TV didn't want him on a full-time basis, thanks to his temporary work at the NBC affiliate he was able to land a gig with another station under the same ownership as KARE-TV.

Hammer and his family were off to Buffalo, never to return again. (Neither Hammer nor his wife have Minnesota roots.)

Hammer made news in Buffalo recently, and it wasn't good news. After five months on the job in Buffalo he was busted for DWI. His rags-to-riches story had just been chronicled two weeks earlier in The Buffalo News when the newspaper had to tell the tale of how he drove his old Toyota into the ditch, and had a blood-alcohol concentration that was twice the legal limit.

Part of Hammer's rags-to-riches tale tells of how he bicycled to his gig at Target. You would assume that was simply for exercise and to save gas money. But perhaps not. (The family was down to one vehicle, he told Cheryl.) Relevant or not, Hammer turned to the bottle for comfort not long after he disappeared from the KSTP-TV airwaves in early 2014. He was arrested for DWI in Washington County, where he lived, around Memorial Day 2014.

The gossip maven missed all this in her rags-to-riches tale. Oops.

So Hammer has a drinking problem, or at minimum a driving problem, and it manifested itself at a low point in his professional career. That's gotta be a bitter pill to swallow.

Unlike his good buddy Dennis Gatenby – the former traffic dork and unnecessary seat warmer at KSTP-TV for far too many years – Hammer was able to escape the public shame of being a TV celebrity who couldn't keep his car on the road. Gatenby's inability to drink and drive was touted as the reason the Hubbards kicked him to the curb. (I contend it was just an excuse to do what they should have done years ago.) Hammer's inability to drive drunk escaped the notice of the intrepid Cheryl Johnson!

All that has changed, however, with Hammer's latest booking for DWI in Buffalo.

What does the future hold for Hammer and his employment in Buffalo? It's hard to say, but it doesn't look good when you're hired to replace a longtime, legendary meteorologist on a TV station's payroll and then you wind up facing a felony DWI charge five months into your gig.

In two chroniclings of his rags-to-riches story, Hammer comes off as humble and appreciative of overcoming a challenge in his professional career, a challenge that was seemingly thrust upon him without warrant. He seems like a likable guy.

I have never watched his station religiously, and he never rubbed me the wrong way. I was never enamored with his broadcasting prowess, but that's par for the Twin Cities.

The dude hit rock bottom at what would seem to be the lowest point of his professional career, and he recovered. He may not be the king of meteorology, but he seemed to do a nice job of rebounding from 2014. And yet he has derailed his career with his inability to drink and drive.

Many people fail repeatedly, yet are able to dust themselves off time and time again. The rules are a bit different when you're a pseudo-celebrity like Hammer.

Whether this is merely a bump in the road or a road block you may never overcome regarding your broadcasting career, you have two choices, Hammer. Continue to make the same mistakes, and further jeopardize your career, as well as the lives of your wife and family, or stop drinking.

You clearly have a problem. Solve it by becoming a cautionary tale, not a punchline in Twin Cities broadcasting history.

What does Shayne Wells know about Twin Cities traffic?

I haven't been paying much attention to the Fox 9 Morning Debacle in recent weeks, so it escaped my attention that the morning news talker has resurrected the role of a traffic reporter.

When Kelsey Soby quickly vanished earlier this year the station was equally as quick to replace her with something called Lacey Crisp. A very welcoming tweet suggested that Crisp was a permanent addition to the morning chat fest, but she lasted about a month before she was unceremoniously dispatched. I suspect I'm in the minority of viewers who remember she existed.

By the way, Crisp claims in her online resume that she was a freelance traffic reporter, or something to that effect, suggesting she was never supposed to be a permanent part of the Fox 9 team. That's quite contrary to how that tweet appeared, but future employers will never know the difference, so Crisp might as well sell it in the best possible light.

After months of having the anchors bumble through traffic reports, and having the weather kid handle the duties on one busy, ugly morning in the Twin Cities, Fox 9 appears to be taking another crack at having a woman tell me all about the local traffic conditions. The latest broadcasting prodigy is Shayne Wells, who seems to have held about 12 different jobs in the Twin Cities during her exile to the midwest. She has worked in local radio and TV, as on-air talent and in the background, it appears.

I have no idea how giddy the TV viewing fanboys will be for this fresh face during the Fox 9 Morning Zoo, or how long she'll try to explain what we're seeing on area traffic cameras, but if she's continuing to work behind the scenes for the station as well, perhaps she'll last longer than Crisp.

I'd pay money to know what's going on behind the scenes at that fiasco known as Fox 9. I sense the left hand has no idea what the right hand is doing most of the time.

Rena Sarigianopoulos doesn't need a part-time job

It's not exactly breaking news: Plenty of our local celebrities aren't living on easy street.

By local celebrity I refer to those who speak on TV or the radio. They're not celebrities, but we like to think of them as special, and act accordingly.

It has long been known that those who have "cool" jobs in major market radio don't necessarily cash fat paychecks. Sure, there are heavy hitters whose presence are a major draw, and their salary will reflect that. But even those folks aren't on the fast track to living next door to a lion hunting dentist, either in Eden Prairie or Marco Island, Fla.

Our local jocks are often shilling for products when they're not dazzling us with their dulcet tones. I'll never forget listening to Jeff Dubay shill for Body Solutions, along with many other local jocks, many moons ago. They were essentially shilling for snake oil, but as long as the checks were being cashed.

When Dan Barreiro was splitting time between sports radio and writing columns for the Star Tribune, he didn't do commercials. Not so long ago we liked to hold our "journalists" to a higher standard. Barreiro wasn't a journalist, but nonetheless.

Wait a minute. Why was Barreiro holding two jobs simultaneously for several years? Like radio, the newspaper game isn't exactly a license to print money. Sports guys working in television or newspapers by virtue of their jobs were a wealth of information, and ultimately opinions, therefore they were good candidates for the low-paying world of talk radio.

Barreiro obviously built a reputation and following that afforded him the luxury of not answering to bosses at the Strib, and therefore bailed out on the newspaper biz, which has taken it in the shorts since the Internet era began. (The rapid decline in the broadcast and print industries both have the Internet to thank for the deterioration of their business model, and the low quality product you're commonly served in 2015.)

Soon after Barreiro sold his soul to radio, he started endorsing products. You'd think that a successful, heralded personality like Barreiro would forgo attaching his name to whatever bidder came along with the fattest check, but obviously the money's good enough for him to grab. Whether his salary is hefty or modest, none of us tires of banking easy money.

Commercial reads and promotional appearances at bars, restaurants and Best Buy have long been a staple of the radio jock. I've heard it said that jocks can double their salary with work outside of, or in conjunction with, their on-air shifts. It's no surprise the time-honored tradition continues, even with the heavy hitters in the industry. Tom Barnard has made obscene amounts of money in his career, both at KQRS and in the commercial voice over biz, and yet he's still hustling gigs.

In recent years we've seen plenty of TV people wading into pools they wouldn't have dipped a toe into years ago. Just as newspaper folk have found income opportunities in radio, sports anchors and reporters from TV land have been offering their talents to the AM and FM dial. Mark Rosen has been the leader in this, dating back to the 1980s.

Randy Shaver has also had a long association with the local radio airwaves, albeit to a far lesser extent, as he mysteriously chats with the metalheads of the 93X morning show. And more recently Joe Schmit has made his presence felt on a recurring basis, thanks largely to his TV station also owning the local ESPN affiliate. (Perhaps he has long had a presence on the airwaves, predating the flip to sports talk, and I just never knew it.)

Although Schmit's arrangement is all about corporate synergy, he's no stranger to shilling for extra cash. Thanks to the loosening of our journalistic standards, the sports guys can hawk all sorts of non-sports products on the airwaves. Schmit has long shilled for local pizza, and was "Vacation Joe" under a previous ownership of Sun Country airlines, an arrangement that Schmit tried to capitalize upon once upon a time, going so far as to leave KSTP-TV for a while. That didn't work out so well. It turned out worse for his buddy, the former owner of the airline.

Schmit may not be hawking vacations this year, but he figured there's a buck or two to be made in the world of print, so he has his own vanity publication to capture them.

It's easy to blur the lines between sports broadcasters and corporate pitchman. These guys may be journalists, technically, but so are the anchors and reporters bringing us important stories via Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood. Rosen, Schmit and the rest are merely entertainment reporters.

Where it gets interesting is watching our local journalists find ways to double dip. Examples of this are fewer, but we've seen some entertaining double dipping in recent years. And I'm not talking about Elizabeth Ries or Jason Matheson, mostly because they're not journalists any more, although Matheson went through the motions not so long ago at WCCO-TV.

I'm not familiar with Ries' resume, so I don't know how much news reporting she did or was doing prior to whenever she arrived at KSTP-TV, but when the door opened to become a shill for local products under the guise of co-hosting a local "talk show," she gave up all pretense of being a journalist. She's now determined to milk it for everything she can.

She became a co-host on the company-owned chick talk station in addition to her hourly TV show responsibilities, at least until she gave birth to a child. She continues to smile for the TV camera on weekday afternoons, but ceased gabbing about celebrities all morning on the radio. She was reported to remain a part of the chick talk radio station as a contributor in some capacity, but I can't vouch for that actually happening.

Matheson has dabbled in news reporting, as I noted, but he's carved out his niche in celebrity talk, as evidenced by his tenure in morning drive at the same chick talk station. One morning radio job isn't enough to pay the bills, evidently, as he has been pulling double duty for a while now. He returned to his mistress, Fox 9, earlier this year after about two years apart, and there's no pretense that his job is to report news of any kind.

I get it, maximize your earnings while you can. That second job may not be necessary, but if it keeps you in the public eye and helps solidify your brand, (I detest that term,) rake in that extra cash.

Anchors can make good money reading a teleprompter and smiling for the camera, as if they're some sort of geniuses. Occasionally an anchor steps out from behind the desk, but often they have it easy. I often wonder how well Leah McLean would do if she had to actually report a story.

Reporters who are well established and specialized probably do OK, but reporting isn't a great gig.

A guy who went by the stage name "Bryce Williams" is well known now that he shot and killed a reporter and camera man during a live news segment this past summer. Williams was a former employee of the Virginia TV station the reporter and camera man worked for. He was reported to have earned $36,000 annually while employed by the station. Major market station? No. But Williams wasn't fresh out of college. Perhaps his odd behavior and issues during his previous employment resulted in his being mired in small market TV. Even had his career progressed to Minneapolis, I doubt his salary would have increased exponentially.

How great is the pay in reporting? You can find several examples of former reporters who have given up their career for something that has nothing to do with TV. As pointed out not so long ago, KMSP-TV's Kelsey Soby bailed out of television for a job she hardly seems qualified for. I can name a few people off the top of my head who bailed out in recent years for jobs in public relations, sometimes as spokespeople for governmental agencies. Somehow being a TV reporter makes you good at communicating the business of the county attorney, county sheriff or a police department.

Tim McNiff, a former sports guy who spent many years anchoring the morning newscasts at KARE-TV, bailed out last year to become the executive director of media relations for some Minnetonka p.r. firm. Really, he was the most qualified person for the job? A guy who had spent the previous decade reading news nuggets that others wrote is the best guy to relate to the media? Perhaps, but doubtful.

And why did McNiff give up a life in the spotlight? He was probably bored with it, a little bit anyway. And he might not have been in line for a better gig at Ch. 11, so that might have been a factor. You think he traded in a hefty paycheck and a few hours of on-air time every morning for a 9-to-5 job and a pay cut? Don't bet on it.

The bottom line: TV isn't all that glamorous, and even if it's not construction work, it's not a ticket to easy street. You'd better be lucky like McLean or able to parlay your pseudo-fame like sports anchors or Matheson if you want a nice house in Eden Prairie. And no, I'm not forgetting another option: Marrying a six-figure salary. What car salesman doesn't want pseudo-celebrity arm candy?

Which brings us to Rena Sarigianopoulos. For a while she walked the fine line few reporters do. She double dipped.

Yeah, Jason DeRusha must bank a few bucks for penning his brilliant observations about the restaurant industry. But other than weather people flashing their smiling mugs on the weather page of a local daily newspaper, few non-sports folks seem to make a habit of parlaying their brilliance into meaningful second incomes.

But Sarigianopoulos pulled it off for a while. She inexplicably was chosen as part of a trifecta that helmed a morning show on 96.3 FM. Alongside her colleague Eric Perkins, who also had no business being on local radio, Sarigianopoulos had an early morning gig on FM radio to go along with the many hats she wears at Ch. 11. I'm not sure how often she was absent from her radio gig, but if she worked every weekday morning, then she didn't have a day off, as she is a busy beaver during the weekends at Ch. 11.

Besides anchoring weekend newscasts, Sarigianopoulos would be on the air bright and early on Saturday mornings to do two hours of local chat, which often blurs the line between human interest and paid advertising. And she'd be on the air a few weeknights filing a report from the asphalt jungle. The woman had a crappy Ch. 11 schedule and yet she added weekday mornings to it? Why would she do something so ridiculous? I'm going to guess her mortgage payments were a little hefty for her KARE-TV paycheck.

But she's married now, and her trophy husband is a car salesman. He sells nice cars, too, it sounds. The commission ought to be good. And if so, Sarigianopoulos – who no longer cashes paychecks from 96.3 FM – won't have to find a second job to pay the mortgage.

For every overpaid face on local TV, there are plenty of others who aren't being compensated as if they're anything special. But the public likes to adore these fine folks as if they're royalty. If only they knew.

Let's not shatter the illusion.

Kelsey Soby proved that it sucks working at Fox 9

Not everybody works for peanuts, but as we've learned time and time again, being a local TV broadcaster ain't all it's cracked up to be.

Minneapolis is a major market, and it employs a lot of people. Some of those people are paid obscene amounts of money. Some aren't paid nearly as handsomely as you might think. (More on that soon.)

Without fact checking the story: Kelsey Soby came to KMSP-TV years ago. She babbled about the morning traffic. It's not a prestigious gig. She had worked at smaller stations, and moving to Minneapolis, even in a menial capacity, was a foot in the door.

During her years at Ch. 9 she did fluffy news features occasionally, pinch hit whenever she was needed throughout the morning and co-anchored a nightly radio show disguised as a TV show. When Soby was anointed co-host of "On the Fly," it seemed like her ticket had finally been punched.

After approximately 18 months of co-hosting she left the show. That was this spring. It was claimed that her departure from the weeknight fluff was so that she could focus upon her news duties. Presumably she was going to have an increased role during the morning newscasts.

And within a few months she hastily announced her departure from Ch. 9.

After a great cloak of secrecy, we learned recently that she has a new gig. She is the director of marketing and business development at Periscope. Periscope is "a fiercely independent impact agency." Seriously, that's what they call themselves. Feel free to stop reading for a minute and grab a barf bag.

The Periscope website cites all of Soby's professional experiences as the reason why she's a director of marketing and business development. Yeah, reading traffic tweets on morning television is an essential qualification for a marketing gig.

There's little doubt that after all her time at Ch. 9 Soby was still earning relative peanuts. She traded in her fun, early morning TV persona for a desk job in marketing and business development with some pompous p.r. firm. Yeah, that's why she took a job at Ch. 9, to parlay it into a marketing and business development gig.

Did she need the presumably fatter paychecks her new gig offered? She's married, evidently, so perhaps not. But perhaps being a pretty face on morning TV wasn't fulfilling enough. Maybe she was tired of the weekly circus peanuts Ch. 9 filled her purse with.

You don't hop from one TV gig to the next in order to land a marketing and business development job in Minneapolis.

As prestigious as it is to be a local TV broadcaster, it's not a get-rich-quick profession, as has been proven many times. (Again, more on that soon.)

There's no chance Soby is the most qualified person for the job. Somebody at Periscope either took pity on her and gave her the gig or somebody at Periscope wanted a TV babe on the payroll.

Nobody said life was fair, we all know that. If you can parlay a modest career in local broadcasting into a gig like Soby did, shake what God gave you and cash those checks!

Does Carla Beaurline need plastic surgery for that thin skin?

My goal isn't to bash the would-be celebrities of the Twin Cities, but I'm not going to kiss their ass, either.

If I think somebody is deserving of praise, I'll give it to him or her. If I can't stand somebody who is trying to be a celebrity, and causes me nausea in the process, I'm less apt to spend time writing about how horrible of a human being he or she must be. (I know, I know. I couldn't resist ripping on the Pohlad geniuses for their painful attempt to run a radio station.)

Just because I don't worship the ground Alix Kendall or Paul Lambert walk on doesn't mean I find them loathsome.

I wrote about prissy little Carla Beaurline not so long ago. I wrote about her because I'm amazed, simply amazed, that Beaurline and her band of misfits are running commercials month after month on a glorified cable access channel. (I haven't stumbled across Mike Woodley lately. Should I be searching for an obit?)

I didn't kiss Beaurline's skinny little ass, but I called it like I see it. I'm not impressed by her broadcasting skills. From her crappy banter with the late Mark DeJoy to her school girl voice, I find her to be somewhere outside my list of favorite broadcasters, local or otherwise. I don't hate her, I don't find her painful to listen to, and I don't have perverted thoughts when I see her on the TV screen. (As one of my readers noted in his comment, he gets tingly in the pants when viewing her picture. More power to ya, buddy.)

I noted in a follow up that there was a funny item in the local gossip maven's article about some sort of pettiness between Beaurline and one of her former cohorts at the local shopping channel. You'd think you had been reading a storyline out of "Beverly Hills 90210."

So I posted two columns mentioning the seemingly hard working Beaurline, who loves to glorify vacuum salesmen, and decided to follow her Twitter feed, just to see what kinds of things she writes about now and again. (I use Twitter primarily for access to the brilliance of the local scene, not because I expect to build up a huge Twitter following. But I do tweet links to my blog when I pen something new via @jeffdubayhatesu.)

Beaurline's Twitter feed is so precious that she has it protected. She has to bless you with access to her brilliance. And she did just that for me, for a short time. But she must have read this blog, decided that if somebody isn't going to kiss her ass, she's going to block that person from following her. Yep, she's that vapid.

Not a big deal. Access to her mindless promotion of the suckers who line up to be profiled on her crappy 30-minute commercial isn't high on my wish list. It's kind of funny, really. She wants so desperately to be treated like she's something special, but the suggestion that she's not God's gift to broadcasting is all it takes to set her pouty ass off.

This woman is a joke. Google her for five minutes.

I'm not going to suggest that anyone who competes in any sort of "beauty pageant" is worthless, but Beaurline's early claims to fame include an effort to be pedestalized as some sort of sacred bimbo. She was a north metro beauty queen about 100 years ago. And clearly she'd rather play Barbie Doll and smile for the camera, telling you how wonderful a car dealership is, than do something that has any real value in this world. She flamed out as a celebrity huckster on the local shopping channel and now she's trying to pretend she's still important to the world by boring us to tears with 30-minute commercials for local businesses.

You gotta have thicker skin if you want to make it in this world, honey.

There's a reason your career has been relegated to Ch. 6 for the past 13-14 years.

Carla Beaurline must be a handful

I don't write enough short blog entries about the wonderful world of Twin Cities broadcasters. I need to rectify that.

I wrote about some of our cable access TV stars not so long ago. One of them was the lovely Carla Beaurline. After I wrote about her I did a big of Googling, and I found out that she was once a national television pitch woman. She once worked for the Eden Prairie-based shopping channel that has had several names and incarnations over the years, and did so for more than a decade. While our local shopping channel appears to be the low-rent version of cable shopping channels, it does have a national platform, and those hosts become national personalities for the millions who haven't discovered eBay or Amazon.

Turns out that Beaurline and current Eden Prairie pitch woman Wendi Russo, who seems to have a QVC-sized ego, don't like each other. Now that's hilarious.

I also noted in my cable access TV stars piece that Mike Woodley was allegedly a legitimate broadcasting talent at one point. Not so long ago the "Common Man" Dan Cole was spinning a yarn about the infancy of KFAN radio and nearly started telling a Woodley story. Woodley was part of the on-air talent in those early days, an era where I wasn't tuned into the station. (Not living in the Twin Cities had a lot to do with that.)

I suspect the Woodley tidbit is common knowledge to longtime rubes, but I don't think I had ever heard this.

But it's good to see Woodley has solidly built upon his broadcasting career since hosting a program on the fledging Twin Cities sports talk radio station.

Lacey Crisp, you're no Kelsey Soby

While all the world has decided that an Eden Prairie lion hunter is more despicable than Jeffrey Dahmer, I confirmed something much more important in the local news business.

Lacey Crisp is no Kelsey Soby.

Soby was the KMSP-TV (Fox 9) morning traffic reporter for about four years. She inherited the job when her predecessor had difficulty keeping her own vehicle on the road, apparently as a result of uncorking her bottle.

Soby had that certain greenness about her when she started. Sure, she worked in small town television somewhere, but her on-air presence didn't command the airwaves like the best of the best do here in the Twin Cities.

Occasionally Soby did some sort of fluff piece for the morning news show, or she'd pinch hit in some small capacity. If they needed somebody to sit on the couch and chat about infotainment at 9 a.m., she'd be there.

Her big score was when she was hired as the sidekick for the one-hour "On the Fly" gab fest that started about two years ago on KMSP's sister station. After about 18 months of that gig Soby left the show, citing an increased focus upon her duties to the intrepid news team at the Fox 9 morning show. A few months later she hastily announced her exit from the airwaves, with no word on where she was going.

Within days the brain trust at Fox 9 had a new traffic reporter to read the morning maps for us. Her name was Lacey Crisp. She had done the small town news bit, and had reported in Milwaukee, evidently. The job seemed like a step down for somebody who had been a news reporter in a major market, but que sera sera.

I swear it wasn't more than two weeks when Crisp disappeared. A random day off didn't seem like a big deal, but that random day off didn't feature a replacement traffic reporter. Perhaps Crisp's absence was due to emergency circumstances and prevented the station from wrangling its usual pinch hitter, Meisha Johnson.

But then another day went by without Crisp. And another. And another. And with each passing day, the traffic reports were left to Alix Kendall and Tom Butler, both of whom stumble through a brief rundown of traffic conditions. It's painful, yet amusing, to watch.

After bugging the fine folks at Fox 9 via Twitter for a few days, with no response, the mystery is partially solved. Morning reporter Dawn Stevens was eager to welcome Crisp, via Twitter, to the Fox 9 family a month ago, and when questioned recently about Crisp's absence from the airwaves, Stevens did confirm that Crisp is toast. Stevens tweeted in reply to the inquiry that management decided to move in a different direction.

So let me get this straight. Soby quickly disappears from a job that she was going to be more focused upon after her departure from "On the Fly," within a few days a new traffic reporter is welcomed into the Fox 9 morning show family, two weeks later that new family member is given the boot, and two weeks later the anchors are left to flail in the wind every time there's a traffic map to post.

Coincidence? Perhaps, but something smells rotten in Eden Prairie.

Morning traffic reporters are overrated, as far as I'm concerned, especially in this day and age. But it seems that the devaluing of Fox 9 traffic reports is less about my belief and more the result of a three-ring circus they're hosting at the KMSP-TV studios.

Exactly how dysfunctional the Fox 9 morning program is these day, we'll probably never know.

I want to be a TV personality!

There is a group of people in the Twin Cities that I find fascinating, and that's because the fact I know who they are defies all logic.

In the Twin Cities we have this odd channel called Metro Cable Network Channel 6, or something like that. They like MCN6, so I'll go with that.

I'm far from an expert on the channel, and its history, but why let that stop me from telling a good story. The station is part of cable networks across the Twin Cities, allegedly in seven counties, and conveniently it shows up on channel 6 in each cable system. Unlike the public access channels on your local cable system, this is not public access, exactly. Perhaps they do provide free access to groups and organizations, but as I understood it many years ago, the producers of the show pay to have it broadcast on Ch. 6.

Some of the stuff they air doesn't seem to be the type of programming that anybody would pay to have televised, (I'm thinking of certain religious programs I have run across), but some of it is clearly commercial.

And that's where three Twin Cities media darlings have found their niche, and managed to capture my attention.

Capture is a bit strong, but let's meet them.

Mike Woodley is a longtime lurker on the Ch. 6 airwaves. He has hosted a variety of shows. The one I remember most distinctly dates back more than 10 years. Along with a guy whose claim to fame was being a scab member of Toto (his career with Toto lasted about a year, and it was after Toto had its big hits in the 1980s) and a guy whose goofiness deserves an entire novel, Woodley and company tried to produce a monthly show about the local music scene. The scab from Toto, who died a few years ago, lived in the west metro, evidently, along with the goofball who has long wanted to make a living as a singer-songwriter. The three of them produced segments about the area's music scene, and did it for at least a few months. I remember the goofball stopped appearing in the show not long after the premiere episode. Whether this ran three months or 33, I can't tell you.

Woodley has been a regular on Ch. 6 seemingly ever since, although there was about a five-year period where I wasn't connected to a cable system, so I can't vouch for his entire career.

I haven't seen much of him in recent months, but in the past few years he's been as busy as ever, hosting some lame show about local businesses and organizations, and calling his show something like the "Here and There Show." It seems like every time I run across him on Ch. 6 he's interviewing the folks at Chanhassen Dinner Theatres, talking about how incredible their productions are. I'm pretty sure the folks at CDT actually invented the concepts of both the restaurant and live theater. How they had the foresight to put them together into one business is mind boggling.

Woodley use to work in legitimate broadcasting, allegedly, and may still, primarily in the sports arena. I've never heard or seen him on a commercial network, but perhaps it's true.

Another staple of Ch. 6 is the lovely Carla Beaurline.

Every month Beaurline produces a 30-minute program about businesses in the Twin Cities. No car dealership or vacuum cleaner retailer is too petty for Beaurline to glorify during "Around Town." Her intro segments are often at the site of some local event or fabulous vacation destination. And sometimes she has a co-host to banter with during these segments. She seems particularly fond of pandering to the Minnesota State Fair.

While she doesn't have a regular co-host, she use to. A dude named Mark DeJoy use to host the show with her. When I first noticed this sexy Ch. 6 minx many years ago she had DeJoy as her sidekick. The banter between these two was horrendous. The transitions were forced and the topics were often idiotic. It was brutal. Years later I rediscovered Beaurline and she was flying solo. I have no idea why.

I did learn, thanks to Google, that DeJoy died at the ripe young age of 49 last year. He was working in some other form of local broadcasting, it appears, and according to the obituary he managed to work in community broadcasting (I presume) for three decades.

Beaurline has never impressed me with her broadcasting skills, but month after month she seems to have a handful of businesses who want her to talk about them. Her charm must be irresistible. I'm sure she could charm the pants off of me.

I'm pretty sure I passed her on the freeway once. I passed something that looked like a mini van, with a license plate that said something like "ARNDTWN." And a blonde angel was driving it.

If you've ever seen her show more than once, you'll remember the painful theme song "Everybody Goes There" by local act Dazy Head Mazy. It's bad.

As smitten as I am with Carla Jean, (which DeJoy liked to call her on the show), you can't help but be seduced by the queen of Twin Cities shilling: Tawnja.

Formerly known as Tawnja Zahradka, Tawnja Peterson has been hawking local businesses for two decades. She's been busy celebrating her anniversary as of late on Ch. 6.

Tawnja, (pronouced Tanya, because she's just that precocious,) is one hell of a success story. She has been telling us about great places to shop, eat, fix our teeth and receive financial advice since 1995. Sometimes using recycled bits from many years ago, Tawnja slaps together 30 minutes of commercials and presents it as some sort of TV show. I think she use to have a name for her show, but now she simply wants her air time to be known as Tawnja TV, more or less.

Not only has she been a fixture on Ch. 6 for two decades, she has managed to weasel her show onto the broadcast airwaves in the past. I know she's had her show broadcast on at least one independent station, and I think she's managed to accomplish that feat on more than one frequency.

Unlike Beaurline, whose voice can be a bit grating, Tawnja has a sultry delivery, and she's not afraid to sex it up. The still image of her, knees slightly bent and hemline pulled up above those knees, never fails to amuse me.

I saw her live, in the flesh, a few years ago. Somehow she was recruited to help emcee a community event. I guess Jason DeRusha wasn't available that night. Lord knows he wouldn't turn down an invitation. I just hope they bought Tawnja a glass of wine, and pronounced her name correctly.

So what does this fascinating trio have in common? They all produce TV shows that exist purely for promoting local businesses. They produce 30-minutes programs that are nothing more than a bunch of commercials.

Each huckster has a different way of presenting it, but at the end of the day it's nothing more than programs comprised of long commercials. These shows aren't news magazines. The programs aren't in search of unique businesses that are quirky or interesting. There's nothing fascinating about a 40-year-old vacuum retailer, and if you held a fire up to her skinny little ass I'm sure Beaurline would admit that.

There's no doubt these shows exist because the advertisers pay for Woodley, Beaurline and Zahradka/Peterson to gab about them, and the shills must make a buck or two, otherwise they wouldn't be tirelessly hawking them year after year.

It's really quite impressive. Tawnja seems to think her show is a "television magazine," but a magazine has content that isn't paid for. But nice spin.

I'm dumbfounded by the fact these shows exist. Ch. 6 loves to promote how many homes it reaches across the metro, but the viewership can't be that high, although I'm guessing I'm not the only person who gawks at these shows periodically and scratches her/his head. Somehow Woodley, Beaurline and Zahradka/Peterson have convinced numerous businesses to buy what they're selling, and it has kept their smiling faces on the local airwaves for years. Color me impressed.

Please, tell us what you think (Jason DeRusha is so smart!)

I'm sure we owe it to the abundance of cable news channels.

When did we start caring what news broadcasters think?

As the years go on, we find networks and stations continuing to serve us opinion after opinion from their talking heads.

We've always looked to broadcasters for commentary and criticism, but when did we decide it's important to know what Alix Kendall and Jason DeRusha think?

I use to scoff at the idea, as if Kendall giving her opinion on today's social issues or political wrangling was some sort of breach of ethics. But let's be honest, Kendall isn't a reporter. She's not a journalist. She may know what's going on when she presents the news, but she's not out there gathering information and filing a report. She's paid to talk, and to look good when she does it. She may have once pounded the pavement, but those days are over. She gets to sit in the comfy chair all morning, and then on a comfy couch to share her keen insight on the day's news nuggets and celebrity non-news, which of course has become increasingly important in our day-to-day lives.

She's one of many at the local and national level. And we care. We care what Kendall and her sidekicks think. We really care. If we didn't, KMSP-TV wouldn't be airing an hour of Kendall and her sidekicks every weekday morning.

That's what local television is coming to, and why not? We've been subjected to a steady diet of this for years now. It wasn't enough to know what Barbara Walters and company think about "hot topics," we needed an afternoon clone on CBS. And now we have a minority women panel doing the same thing on a daily syndicated program. I guess we can't get enough of that sort of thing on cable television. Or maybe too many of us still can't afford it.

We haven't hit the local saturation point yet, evidently, because WCCO-TV opted to share with us an hour of their broadcasting brilliance rather than replace the latest celebrity talk show host failure with another syndicated program. We're calling it Mid-Morning, or MidMorning. I don't know which, as the WCCO Facebook page can't decide what we're calling it.

We now get DeRusha and his giddy sidekick sharing stories and insight into the world we live in every weekday morning at 9 a.m.

But damn, do we have to choose? Those 9 a.m. eyeballs are so valuable that WCCO is challenging KMSP directly. Look out world, it's Carson vs. Rivers all over again!

I had to sample a few minutes of the inaugural show, and it's pretty much as I expected. As the final minutes counted down to the start of the fresh, new and exciting show, the giddy sidekick could hardly contain herself. I didn't realize the start of an hour of fluff was so exciting. You'd think WCCO was about to invent a new format.

But alas, it was not to be. There are straightforward news and weather presentations packaged into the WCCO chat fest, something KMSP avoids doing at 9 a.m. since they're not beholden to a network morning show for the two hours prior to their couch chat.

The lowlight of the morning came when DeRusha and the sidekick actually moved away from the news desk to sit at the in-studio couch, joined by DeRusha's morning news babes, so that the foursome could privilege us with their opinions on the news of the day. Oh thank God!

I turned back at the end of the show to see the self-congratulatory finale of their first chat fest. You' would have thought they had just landed an unmanned spacecraft on Mars.

I had no idea how nervous KMSP was about competition for the thousands and thousands of people who crave couch chat every morning. When I flipped to KMSP I saw none other than the prodigal son, Jason Matheson, sitting on the couch. His TV wife and the jolly weatherman weren't there. It's spring break at many metro schools this week, I'm sure they're busy entertaining the kids in some far away land, as all grade school students are entitled to.

I'd actually pay to read the story of why Matheson – whom we love more than Wendy Williams, Whoopi Goldberg and Kelly Ripa combined – spent a year on the bench to earn his parole from KMSP, only to turn around and forsake his first love and return to KMSP less than a year later. (What the hell happened at WCCO in less than a year? Why does KMSP need him on their station so badly? Why the absence of a non-compete clause like the one that chained him to the FM dial for a year before he emerged at WCCO?)

It's unlikely Matheson is going to bail on his morning drive radio gig in order to make a triumphant return to the couch on a regular basis. Perhaps he has learned how to teleport between St. Paul and Eden Prairie. Barring that, KMSP clearly sweet talked him into blowing off at least a portion of today's morning drive in order to counter WCCO's heavy artillery. We've got a donnybrook in the making!

The television landscape has always been far more prestigious than its radio counterpart. But the value of broadcast real estate has eroded with the creation of cable television channels. And digital streaming is further eroding the already fragile ecosystem. We're seeing an increasing emphasis on talk programming on the local airwaves, including the once-coveted FM dial. So why shouldn't our local and national broadcasters and content providers emulate what works halfway decently on local radio? (The bean counters for KTMY-FM might beg to differ.)

We need entertainment in our lives. Not every program can emulate "The McLaughlin Group." But did we really need yet another hour of couch chat, even if it's buffered by news tidbits and slice-of-life profiles by the giddy sidekick?

Of course we did.

Where music is going?

It has been too long since I put thoughts into words, and I need to rectify that in the waning months of a Minnesota winter. So I'll start with a short and sweet submission.

The mighty Pohlad family has done it again. They own a radio station in the Twin Cities, 96.3 FM, and they use it to broadcast Minnesota Twins games, a team the family happens to own. The Pohlad geniuses have tried a few different formats while owning the frequency, and each time they change the format, they do worse. It doesn't help that they interrupt the music 160+ times per season for nine innings of baseball play-by-play, as well as pre- and post-game commentary.

In typical Pohlad fashion they botched the "flip" of their station to the new format at the beginning of the year. For about five days they broadcast an automated feed counting down the time until the station debuts. The automated feed also quoted memorable lines from movies, songs and commercials. There were other assorted comments in the mix as well.

I read that at one point the automated program started playing tunes late one evening. I can't vouch for that, but 24 hours before the promised debut of the new station the automated voice went into a prolonged loop of "welcome to the new format." Can the Pohlads do anything right?

The new station is called Go 96.3, or something like that. It's where modern music is going, allegedly. You can verify it for yourself on their slick website.

Radio is a fraudulent industry, that's not a secret. And 96.3 is proof of it, in case you doubt it.

The station was playing a lot of classic rock in 2014. They'd mix a few different decades of music together, but mostly it sounded like a classic rock station. It was dull and unimaginative.

Now this station, with many of the same clowns in place, is really really really excited about modern music, local music and where music is going. Weeks ago they didn't give a minute to such music, now they can't get enough of it.

It's not a crime to like more than one genre of music, and most of us do. Programmers and jocks need paychecks, so they'll play and promote whatever they're told, and they might not be fraudulent in doing so. But it rarely plays well when a station changes formats and the people in charge of the music are suddenly as excited about modern music as they were about classic rock. That's why you see air staffs dismissed when the format shifts dramatically.

This wasn't a dramatic enough shift at 96.3, evidently. Sure, they casually disassembled portions of their old staff prior to and after the flip to modern music, and they have brought in some new blood. They were fortunate enough to pick up a castoff from 89.3 The Current, the nauseating public radio station that 96.3 is now trying to emulate. But they kept key pieces of the on-air staff in place for whatever reason, which serves as a reminder that the new 96.3 isn't about where music is going, it's about chasing after the precious few dollars that are out there in commercial broadcasting.

Five years ago the Minnesota Twins moved into Target Field with a solid franchise that succeeded in spite of its pitiful stadium. They got their new ballpark, funded in large part by the taxpayers, and have quickly watched the wheels come off the franchise wagon. That boosted payroll the new stadium would permit the team to spend on players each season? Thanks for the laugh. The Twins are back to doing things on the cheap and finding out that there is a limit to how cheap you can be. Hard to catch a decade worth of lightning in a bottle twice in a row.

I have no idea if the Pohlads are as cheap when it comes to running a radio station. But they've proven one thing, they're equally inept.

When old man Pohlad died several years ago I joked that we'd finally learn whether or not you can take it with you. (Carl was notoriously cheap as the owner of an MLB franchise.) I think we learned that he couldn't take it with him, but apparently his sons have yet to figure that out. The irony is that they keep dumping good money after bad in an effort to become radio kingpins in this market.