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Showing posts sorted by relevance for query mark brian. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query mark brian. Sort by date Show all posts

Monday, August 10, 2009

Outrage! Mark & Brian suck it at Disneyland


The historic, beloved Disneyland allowed the Los Angeles morning radio team Mark & Brian to host a first-ever sleepover in the Haunted Mansion and broadcast from the balcony of its Dream Suite in New Orleans Square today. Each is quite an honor and as we don't see a clear connection between the jocks' radio station and Disneylnnd's owners, we'd expect the morning deejays would take pains to give the place the respect and dignity it so deserves.

So we were taken aback, surprised and insulted when, during their daily time-killing segment in which they and their crew play a game of Trivial Pursuit, that one of the pair-- we believe it was Mark-- yelled out "Suck it!" every time he got a correct answer.

"Suck it."

The meaning of his taunting phrase was made clear last week when he urged his fellow quiz players to get on their knees in the studio, apply Chapstik and "suck it."

Disneyland is not the place for that kind of puerile, obscene behaviour. We did not hear the rest of the show, so we do not knmow what other disrespectful acts took place on the public airwaves, yet based on that segment alone, the park and the memory of its creator, Walt Disney, deserve an apology from Mark Thompson & Brian Phelps.

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Mark Hudson wrestles The Seventh Python


Tabloid Baby was there at the legendary Whatinthewhatthe studios in Los Angeles as writer-producer Mark Hudson worked on the musical soundtrack for the Neil Innes biopic that our pals at Frozen Pictures are getting ready for the movie circuit.

Along with ace engineer Sami Diament, Mark produced, tweaked, mixed and added some of his trademark background vocals to the landmark concert material featured in The Seventh Python.



Best known as writer and producer for Ringo Starr Aerosmith and Ozzy Osbourne (he wrote 'Smith's "Living On The Edge"), Mark's laid down tracks in the tiny studio with musicians and legends like Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Brian Wilson, Tom Petty, Sarah Hudson and many others.


The colorful Mark (see photos) first had legions of fans as a member of The Hudson Brothers and is now a favorite in homes across the UK for his rolw on the popular X Factor TV series. He and Neil Innes go "way back," both being intimates of various Beatles, and having performed together at various Beatlefests. "I love Neil. He's a great parodist. You can name any band, any style of music and Neil will come up with a song that's as good as any of them. And funny, too! He's also simply a great songwriter and performer. Neil is the best."


Python's director Burt Kearns had similar words for Mark Hudson's work. "Mark gave us all a lesson in the inner sanctum of rock 'n'roll. He listened to these raw tracks with a smile on his face then jumped right in and spun the raw material into gold-- and all the while, he was spinning stories, taking calls and playing host. He's a wizard, like a Todd Rundgren with a great personality. And hey, he had some great Neil stories. Now we want him in the picture, too!"


(See more photos here...)

Friday, June 22, 2007

Why are Mark & Brian still on the radio?

Adam Carolla isn't doing himself any favors by running a week's worth of weak repeat segments and labelling it The Best of The Adam Carolla Show. Stripped of the extraneous chatter of morning radio and laid bare in all their thinness, his monotonal improvised "rants" and sophomoric "bits" don't play out well at all, and he's especially exposed when he tries to parody a professional AM deejay (a switch that Howard Stern would do with frightening skill when he was still on the radio) or strip club announcer (in a recurring segment), showing that despite his years as second banana on the "Loveline" program, Carolla's never mastered the vocal techniques or quick-witted improvisational skills that a radio pro relies on. We await the elevation of "sidekick" Danny Bonaduce.

But forget Carolla. Here's the question: What are Mark & Brian still doing on morning drive radio in Los Angeles?

The pair have obviously thrown in the towel. For more than a year now, they've wasted hours of valuable airtime, killing time by playing question-and-answer games with people on the phone and the studio crew. Hours.

Question: What links Lake Erie and The Hudson River?
Answer: The Erie Canal.


This goes on every morning: hours spent playing Trivial Pursuit with outdated Who Wants To Be A Millionaire sound effects, as if they're in a prison cell or bus station-- anywhere but a radio studio connected to a powerful transmitter. And this morning, they upped the time-killing ante, announcing they'll soon waste even more airtime with a version of Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader!

This pair of insincere old-school jocks from the Deep South got a mention in Tabloid Baby as the type of soft maudlin morning radio that was swept aside by Stern's arrival in the LA market. But now, with Stern in obscurity, M&B, like a two-headed version of Inside Edition, linger on toward their 20 year anniversary on 95.5 KLOS Radio, obviously sitting out til the end of their contract.

We haven't even mentioned that the final hour of each morning's show is often taken up by a replay of an interview they did in the Nineties (including a recent talk with dead man Don Knotts)!

Who's allowing them to kill time like a couple of retirees on a park bench?

Give the slot to Johnny Wendell. Let him go up against Bonaduce. That would make LA a morning radio town again.

Thursday, February 07, 2008

Blogger reconsiders The Hudson Brothers


We’ve been writing for a while now about a revival of interest in the Hudson Brothers, the rock n roll trio turned pop culture legends thanks to their unexpected turn as Seventies variety television stars and friendships and collaborations with the likes of John Lennon, Harry Nilsson and M. Richard Monda. The combination of new fan-created MySpace pages, video clips on YouTube, attention on the Internet and their work together behind the scenes on The Seventh Python film was enough to win them our 2007 Comeback of The Year award.

And now we hear that LA’s Mark & Brian morning radio team took time out from their time-killing hours of playing Trivial Pursuit on the air (either the most passive-aggressive work action in the medium’s history or a brilliant Kaufmanesque take on Godot) for a riff that went from Britney Spears’ shaved head to Brett Hudson’s short haircut to the Grammy Awards and whether the show will include a Hudson Brothers tribute.

Though we suspect they were “making fun,” M&B must be aware of the grassroots movement to boycott The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and its czar Jann Wenner’s Rolling Stone magazine if they continue to refuse to seriously consider the very influential Hudsons in the Performer or Lifetime Achievement categories.

And the movement spreads, as reflected in "Maybe I had them pegged all wrong," a posting this week from journo Erik Hogstrom’s Route 1 blogsite. The Dubuque Telegraph Herald reporter, Heartland hipster and self-professed “music geek” writes about compiling an iPod playlist “full of songs my sister Inger and I would have heard on KFRC 610 -- a former Bay Area Top 40 station we enjoyed during the heyday of AM radio”:

“While compiling my playlist, I have discovered three categories of songs:

1) Songs I will always love ("Chevy Van" by Sammy Johns).

2)
Songs I will always hate ("Playground in my Mind" by Clint Holmes).

3)
Songs I once hated, but now I think I might like them -- but -- maybe --
OK, yeah I like them.


This latter category includes "So You Are a Star" by THE HUDSON BROTHERS.

I always thought there was something phony about The Hudson Brothers when I was a kid. I watched them on "The Hudson Brothers Razzle Dazzle Show," for one thing. The kids' show also featured Rod Hull and that Emu puppet of his. I hated them. Now, more than three decades later, I am starting to think I might have been wrong about Mark, Bill and Brett. "So You Are a Star" sounds a little like Wings, which is OK.

I also now know that Mark Hudson is a bit of a musical savant. He has co-written a dozen Aerosmith songs and produced Ringo Starr, among others. Bill Hudson holds the distinction of having married not one but *TWO* of my childhood dreamgirls -- Goldie Hawn and Cindy Williams. Brett Hudson became a television producer.

So, there was apparently some talent in those boys from Portland, Ore., even if I couldn't see it at the time.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Indie 103.1


So after two days of announcements interspersed with Offspring songs and Sid Vicious' version of My Way, Los Angeles' Indie 103.1 is officially gone this morning, off the air, exiled to the Internet and replaced by a Mexican music station-- some good rootsy Mexican music, but nevertheless-- let's take stock: Los Angeles radio still offers

John & Ken,
Mark & Brian,
Frosty, Heidi & Frank
and
Adam Carolla.

But no Jonesy's Jukebox.

Okay.

Sunday, December 30, 2007

The 2007 Tabloid Baby Awards

The Tabloid Baby Person of The Year award has been about as anticipated as Time magazine's copycat honors, but we make it a habit to not necessarily bestow it every twelve months. For us, it all began in 1999, when Steve Dunleavy and Dr. Franklin Ruehl, Ph.D. were given the first special Tabloid Baby public service awards, and debate and controversy would follow as honors were handed out in the years to follow. Who could forget the uproar among "serious" journalists when Tabloid Baby alone cited NYPD Blue actress-turned-CNN anchorette Andrea Thompson for her courage and style in the transition from sexy scriptreader to sexy TelePrompter reader and named her Person of The Year in 2001?

And debate still rages after the controversy that erupted when CNN's "anchorman" Anderson Cooper won the honor in 2005 for representing the end of the Hestonian "anchorman" era with his groundbreaking "Brokeback Anchor" style. We saw him as the herald of more than the gay sensibilities of the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com, but the new brand of ironic, unauthoritative newsreaders like Katie Couric and silly, posturing Brian Williams. But neither Katie nor Bri-Bri won the honor for 2007-- not as Tabloid Baby's Person of The Year, nor even its Journalist of The Year for 2007. There are two separate honors this time around. We'll get to them soon enough.

But first... the Tabloid Baby team has come up with others who stood out in the Tabloid Baby universe in 2007 (and notice how we don't make the decisions in November like some people):


ARTIST OF THE YEAR
Neil Innes


Neil Innes is the greatest musical satirist of the past fifty years. For most of that half century, he's made a monumental, if deliberately subtle, impact on popular culture, music and comedy. Having made his mark on rock 'n' roll, television, art, publishing, children's programming and philosophy, Innes was hard at work this year, overseeing pristine reissues of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and Rutles catalogue, recording and releasing the first new Bonzos album in 35 years (earning four stars in MOJO), and completing filming of the musical documentary about his life and work. Innes set the stage this year for what will surely be a time of recognition and appreciation as Frozen Pictures’ film, The Seventh Python, brings the world up to date on this brilliant artist.


TELEVISION & FILM PERSONALITY
OF THE YEAR

Dr. Franklin Ruehl, Ph.D.


After decades as a cult figure thanks to his fascinating pubic access show Mysteries from Beyond The Other Dominion, Dr. Franklin Ruehl, Ph.D. finally fulfilled his lifelong dream of Hollywood stardom in a year of mainstream breakout performances on network television, on film, and on the Internet He’s been a regular on The Tom Green Show web phenomenon, done featured acting roles on television series like The Ghost Whisperer, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Sunset Tan and Mad Men, appeared in films including Nothing But The Truth and even inspired a character in The Bigfoot Gang, the followup from the creators of Napoleon Dynamite.


COMEBACK OF THE YEAR
The Hudson Brothers


Twenty five years after they went their separate ways, the Hudson Brothers reunited for their first group photos in twenty years and their first group project, albeit behind the scenes, in producing and supervising the music for The Seventh Python. The Hudsons, an influential rock ‘n’ roll group whose career was elevated yet stymied by success as a network television musical comedy team in the Seventies, is the rare act from that decade that has not cashed in on the VH1-TVLand nostalgia market, but individually blazed new trails in music, television and film. With their classic television series about to be released on DVD and talk of an onstage reunion, we look forward to more Hudson Brothers activities in 2008—as well as a potential boycott of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and its parent, Rolling Stone magazine, if the contribution continues to be ignored.


RADIO PERSONALITY OF THE YEAR
Danny Bonaduce


Danny Bonaduce may be best known on the national stage as a tabloid trainwreck, a steroid-fueled angerball whose lack of self-control and past addictions to drugs and alcohol had the former childstar on a balls-out death ride on the Highway to Hell. But radio aficionados others know Bonaduce as an experienced, hard-working professional personality whose career reached a welcome pinnacle after he as hired a year ago as co-host of the failing, flailing Adam Carolla Radio Show that was filling Howard Stern’s timeslot. Bonaduce’s forced entrance into the mix of fawning worship of the dullard Carolla injected an adrenalyn shot of relevance and raw-nerved reality that peaked when his wife, known to millions from their reality TV show, announced her intention to divorce. While Bonaduce reached Sternsian levels of greatness, he was quickly muzzled by a jealous Carolla, and recently cut from the show after a six-month on-air backstabbing campaign by Carolla and his acolytes. KLSX, which treasures Bonaduce, has given him an afternoon slot. Watch that show expand in 2008 as Carolla fades from the dial.


OVERLOOKED
INTERNATIONAL NEWS STORY
OF THE YEAR

The Israel Baseball League


The story of the first season of the Israel Baseball League may have been a pleasant footnote in sports history if not for what transpired after the final pitch of the season, when Our Man Elli in Israel (Elli Wohlgelernter to those in the journalism world) wrote an article about what really when on during that season in the sun, uncorking a flood of allegations, outrage, whiles setting off a chain events that included a federal fraud lawsuit against the league’s founder, the resignation of the league’s commissioner and much of its advisory board, the creation of a rival league, and announced plans for a second season in 2008. Remarkably, nearly every step in this incredible international saga of mismanagement, betrayal, intrigue and broken dreams was broken exclusively here, on Tabloidbaby.com, while the mainstream media either followed our lead or ignored the story altogether. While the official spin continues this month with the brief arrival of a IBL booster blog, and a naïve, inaccurate Bleacher Report story naming the IBL’s feelgood PR report of the first season as “The Best Sports Story in 2007,” the behind-the-scenes soap opera is far from over.

His work on the story made Elli Wohlgelernter a candidate for Tabloid Baby’s Journalist of the Year. But was it enough to grab the honor?

Tabloid Baby's Journalist of the Year and Person of the Year for 2007... are ahead...

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Exclusive! Is Adam Carolla ready to quit radio?

In its recent sloppy servicing of putative radio personality Adam Carolla ("L.A.'s most provocative radio host?" Calling Phil Hendrie and Johnny Wendell...), Los Angeles magazine notes that the ratings for the execrable Adam Carolla Radio Show's "are below those earned by KROQ’s Kevin and Bean, KIIS-FM’s Ryan Seacrest, and KLOS’s Mark and Brian. This summer Carolla lost stations in Phoenix and San Diego. Nevertheless, KLSX vice president of programming Jack Silver remains a believer. 'Los Angeles is all that matters” he says, 'and Adam is making strides here. It takes time to build an audience. Adam is running a marathon, and we’re there with him.' In the fall the station plans to extend Carolla’s contract at $2 million a year..."

But is Carolla ready to drop out of the marathon? At a time when the undereducated blowhard and and his battered female sidekick Teresa Strasser are mounting a too-obvious push to dump second banana Danny Bonaduce-- a juiced Stanley Siegel-Howard Stern-Tom Leykis combination whose raw-nerve honesty and broadcast smarts have him perched on the ledge of radio greatness-- we hear on great authority from a Carolla colleague that he may soon walk away from the embarrassing foray into morning radio.

This source is not connected with the radio show, but with other projects Carolla is very keen on. Carolla is said to be less than enthused about the radio gig and considering the option of moving on. With a movie in the can and partner Jimmy Kimmel offering new lucrative TV projects that don't require getting up in the middle of the night for what must be an unsatisfying gig boring thousands from a dingy studio, Carolla could do us all a favor by taking his leave and handing the show over to Danny.

Our bet is that the two million dollars-- two million dollars? Can you believe that?-- will convince him to stay put with his second-rate Gene Scott act.

But no bullshit, Carollaheads, the story is true!

Sunday, September 17, 2006

Beer League: A sad indicator of Stern's demise

"I don't know how accurate this is but Box Office Mojo is reporting Beer League's weekend at $320,000. As you probably know, Artie needs to make a million to bring the movie to a national release in October. If you were planning on seeing it and haven't gone out yet, do it today. We've heard reports of Artie fans from across the country simply buying a ticket through Fandango even though they can't see it. If you are one of them, let us know about it..."

The above email from "Mutt" that arrived in the Tabloid Baby offices this afternoon is the latest reason why Howard Stern will begin syndicating parts of his show on “free” radio sometime soon. Because there was a time when a Howard Stern Radio Show connection could add a little push to the box office-- at least get it to more than 164 theatres and rake in a measly million dollars.

But that was a time when Howard Stern mattered, when his new radio sidekick Artie Lange and his sad march to a blubbery booze and drug-soaked Farleyesque death was, if not a national obsession, at least common knowledge, heard on the radio in various cities around the country-- and generating enough publicity to sell out the stand-up gigs he wobbled to in joints around the country.

But now of course, Howard Stern is playing to a paid crowd, and has no cultural influence or juice at all because the millions who used to listen to him forgot about him soon after he took his ball and went home last December. We realized it the other morning, when we were stuck in rush hour traffic on the freeway, punching the radio buttons between Stephanie Miller and Mark & Brian and Kevin & Bean (pausing to smack it because Stern's nimrod successor Adam Carolla was wasting airtime with his deadly unfunny “Deaf Frat Guy” character) and we realized, amid all these cars, stopped for miles on the freeway— probably no one is listening to Howard Stern.

Because we’re not going to pay for car radio. Sorry.

Beer League seals Stern's Rupert Pupkin basement door.

Artie Lange got star billing and his name in the movie's title because of his Stern connection. We’re surprised Howard didn’t ante up a quarter million bucks to boost the box office and save face. But he’s probably in the Hamptons, enjoying his hundreds of millions of dollars and his new anonymity.

In any case, this is why Howard will soon syndicate his show on what’s become known as free, “terrestrial” radio.

Because when the New York Times takes the time to label a gross-out sports comedy as “close to being that rare film that is perfectly bad-- i.e., that has not a shred of social, entertainment or even curiosity value,” a Howard Stern push should be able to avoid embarrassment.

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Stern Return? Howard confirms our prediction!

We predicted it last month. Now Howard Stern has confirmed it.

Stern told his listeners on Sirius satellite radio that he's been offered a "major deal" to come back to regular radio-- just like his longtime enemies Opie & Anthony.

"The joke could be on them if I get good and worked up [because] I got offered a major deal to go back to terrestrial and stay on satellite at the same time," Stern said. “Can you imagine if I go across town against them in all those markets and just kick some ass? That would really be cool."

Stern now plays to about a tenth of his former audience. As we wrote in April: "...Stern has become instantly irrelevant... as far as American culture and the everyday agenda is concerned, he’s dead. Gone... As his girlfriend’s fame begins to eclipse his own hard-fought glory... Howard has become Rupert Pupkin, doing a show in his basement."

The New York Post reports that if an offer was actually made to Stern, it most likely came from Citadel Broadcasting, which is in the process of acquiring Disney/ABC's radio division.

As we complained yesterday, morning radio in America, and especially Los Angeles, has been dreary since Stern took the money and ran. Stern’s replacement Adam Carolla is flopping wildly, taking the “ego” from the Stern book, but not the insight, wit, humour or honesty. Most bizarre are longtime morning hosts Mark & Brian (see Tabloid Baby, Chapter 16), who actually spend hours playing a pop quiz game like two lonely men in a waiting room.

It’s astounding to realize just how entertaining, compelling and so far beyond the competition The Howard Stern Show managed to be. Stern was delivering something better than radio.

Even more astounding? Tabloid Baby’s ability to stay on top of the trends and predict the future! We’ll keep you posted.

Monday, May 01, 2006

John & Ken: Dangerous douchebags

LOS ANGELES (TB) We don’t sign petitions. We don’t jump on bandwagons. Let’s start a petition and start the bandwagon rolling to remove those racist buffoons “John & Ken” from Los Angeles radio.

The afternoon drive team on KFI 640 AM are dangerously out of touch. They’re dangerous. They actively spread hate toward the majority of our Los Angeles-area neighbors.

And they suck!

Back in November, we referred to them as "a couple of assholes, boobs who like to pick on poor people: Chardonnay racists, cappuccino bigots, cynical blue collar blockheads who cater to the misplaced anger of middle-class male commuters in Mercedes, while kissing Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ass because he’s in power."

Not bad. And though profanity appeared in the book, Tabloid Baby, we can only be provoked to use it in this public forum. However, "John & Ken," radio performers on reactionary KFI radio, continue to stir hate, and deserve the most basic description.

Their performance this evening, amid immigrant demonstrations in their city, took them over the top and down the drain. They've proven themselves to be shameful, hateful douchebags.

What's worse? They're phonies.

As we know by now, the demonstrations went off with almost nary a hitch. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants, undocumented immigrants, illegal aliens-- whatever you want to call them -- people who help raise our kids, wash our dishes, blow our leaves, pick our fruit, people who are a vital part of the reality economy of Southern California-- took to the street in an All-American rally to protest the prospect of being treated as felons. We raise our glass.

Like many Angelenos, we'd approached the day with caution, expecting traffic jams and riots in the streets on the drive to the office. We’ve lived through riots and traffic jams, quakes and thunder showers. In what turned out to be the best case scenario, we found the 10 freeway from the beach into Hollywood was a clean shot this morning, because many of our neighbors took the day off, in solidarity or because they were afraid of what they might confront in “town.”

Mornings, we live on car radio. This morning, Mexican immigrant and hero (and Cloud 9 star) Paul Rodriguez tried to get a word in edgewise with Adam Carolla. Mark & Brian played their weird pop quiz, two guys waiting for a train.

At 8:59, Paul Harvey covered the protests in his final “For what it’s worth” item: angry, making it clear that non-citizens did not deserve his lead story while citizens die in Iraq. He’s old. He’s Paul Harvey. He was drummed out of the Army on a Section 8. Something's happening here and we can't expect him to know what it is. We hit the Herb Alpert CD.

Yeah, the traffic was light. Because the rest of us altered our driving schedules and routes.

Heading home: AM radio. No excuse for scumbags “John & Ken,” who dedicated important airtime to ridiculing the protesters, Mexicans, Mexican culture, Mexican Americans, and our neighbors-- and encouraging KFI newspeople to do the same. Two rich white wimpy radio stars making fun of the families who took to the streets in defense of their livelihoods and worth, people who make John & Ken's upper class lives so comfortable (“John,” the straightman of the pair, once rode in our town’s July Fourth parade, so we know of his comfort and its support).

The “callers” they put on the air were despicable; especially the woman who identified herself as a school teacher, happy she could teach a class on a day the Spanish-speaking kids stayed home.

What’s most disgusting is that these two wimpy pot-bellied balding nerds don’t mean it.. They’re doing hate radio for ratings. Dividing the city and inflaming someone to possibly drive a pickup truck into a crowd of families for ratings Michael Savage is good radio because he’ s gloriously unhinged. Same with Janeane Garafalo. Phil Hendrie is a legitimate politically incorrect angry genius. These two guys are punks.

Proof? Tune in Fridays when Ken, or maybe John, reads his “movie review” of the week. He or someone who works for him writes a high-school-level movie review and he reads it like a kid trying not even to be Ebert but Roeper, all sincere and revealing his white middlebrow not-even-radical tastes and views. Mr. Big Hatemonger is simply a Hollywood wannabe nerd.

That about says it all.

Do we need this hate in Los Angeles today?

KFI AM 640
3400 W Olive Ave Ste 550
Burbank CA 91505
Business Office: (818) 559-2252

Saturday, April 22, 2006

Howard Stern will return to free radio

Prediction: Howard Stern will be back on terrestrial radio. And soon. He'll continue doing his pay-radio show, but simulcast the first three hours, with necessary bleeps, on free FM radio, and he'll make even more money doing so. Just wait. It was in the cards from the start.

Since he left the airwaves for pay-radio in January, radio hasn’t been the same and Stern has become instantly irrelevant. He'll pop up in a magazine to complain about lost listeners or in the papers to claim he’d fended off a deranged mugger, but as far as American culture and the everyday agenda is concerned, he’s dead. Gone.

But as his girlfriend's fame begins to eclipse his own hard-fought glory, Stern continues to do the same old radio show. Take a look at Stern’s website and see that with the exception of a smattering of f-words and heavier sexual and gross-out content, it’s basically the same show, without the listeners. Howard has become Rupert Pupkin, doing a show in his basement.

Meanwhile, his free-radio replacements have bombed, big time. Adam Carolla has the worst, most amateurish, self-indulgent, boring, dunderheaded morning radio show in Los Angeles (the way he talked over Dick Cavett with his motormouth, memorized observational bits Thursday morning was grounds for immediate dismissal), and finally lays bare the Kimmel-Carolla comic genius scam (the bosses should give talk radio hotshot Johnny Wendell a go. He has ideas for the morning). And in New York City, poor David Lee Roth was finally fired yesterday.

Roth’s spot in New York and several other major CBS stations will be filled by Opie and Anthony, who currently do a morning show on XM Satellite Radio— Stern’s rival. Starting as early as next week, they’ll reportedly do a 6-9 a.m. simulcast on XM and WFNY, then additional hours only for XM, where the lack of FCC content guidelines permits much more explicit language and graphic content.

That’s what Stern will be doing soon: simulcasting his Sirius show on free radio, then carrying on satellite the rest of the morning.

Stern once kvetched about radio restraints. Opie & Anthony were actually kicked off radio for a sex-in-St.Patrick’s-Cathedral stunt, and went to satellite long before Howard. They’ve experienced the frustration of being forgotten. Now they've set the stage for Stern's return.

By the way, the experts have said that Howard lost ten million listeners and no one can figure out where they went. After four months of surfing the AM and FM dials, through Stephanie Miller (good) and Mancow (very bad) and even Mark & Brian (weird—they spend hours in the morning simply playing Pop Quiz—like they’re killing time on a bus) while waiting for five minutes of Paul Harvey, this listener got an iPod.

(See Stern's gal Beth O here)

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Free advice for CBS News: Forget Katie

Here’s some free advice for Sean McManus and Les Moonves and CBS News.

Save the $20 million a year.

Katie Couric’s not worth it.


She’s a former cutie who’s been temporarily retooled into a glamour puss.

She’s pushing fifty.

She’s not going to age well, physically or emotionally.

And people don’t like to work with her.

Katie’s a morning show host. Reading the TelePrompter and gravitas ain’t her shtick. Give her a talk show and move on.

Besides, it’s a new century. The network news half hour is over. It doesn’t matter!

ABC admitted it when they settled on Elizabeth Vargas and “Bob” Woodruff to replace Jennings.

NBC has Brian Williams. Now there’s a guy who connects with that young demographic.

So CBS, here it is:

Think Charlie’s Angels.

Think Steve Edwards.

Keep old Bob Schieffer in the “anchor” chair. He’s like Steve. Glad to be anywhere. And fire all your reporters except the sexy news chicks, all those hot gals who camp it up in CBS drag; the only reason guys watch CBS News in the first place.

Make Schieffer the only male on the show. Surround him with the CBS Maxim girls. They’re already on the payroll. Lara Logan. Serena Altschul. Thalia Assuras. Susan McGinnis. Trish Reagan.



Let Bob play the exasperated male, putting up with all the young birds.

It’s like Harry Smith on that CBS Morning Show, the one nobody watches, only with testosterone and hot chicks in places like Iraq.

It’s almost as good as Moonves’ idea to clone Naked News.

Mark my words.