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Kev- I read on the dying board your post on the local sports talk show.

Gotta say this about Bill Meade. The guy is a gentleman. That counts for a lot and is why he'd have longevity.

I don't agree on your "all he talks about is the Braves and NASCAR." That's what the station's affiliates are, but he talks a lot- A LOT- of Vols.

He also makes more excuses for them than you could possibly imagine.

Now, I've been on him because of the takes on ETSU sports. He always seems to have been more passionate about the high schools. That passion led to WJCW losing the Bucs for a year in the mid-90s and led to the shameless "George Pitts should be the ETSU coach" plugging- when Pitts wasn't even qualified for the job. Ed DeChellis never got his just due because of it.

Also- he refuses to take hard stances on local issues. He'll criticize Bud Selig or whoever- but has no influence over him. He does have influence over local sports- but refuses to criticize them.

Now, as far as not having any competition.

Part of that is Citadel owns the vast majority of stations you'd want a sports talk show on. They aren't going to put on any competition.

So that leaves these stations-

WKPT- I'm told the owner of Holston Valley loves the Big Band format. They have lots of sports programming but refuse to spend the money to have any additional talent. Sports Magazine- Monday's at 6 p.m. with Scott Gray- is laughingly bad. Gray has no personality and has no idea what is going on.

I remember telling him once that his own color commentator had just agreed to go call ETSU games. He had no idea. It had been decided for weeks.

Also- Gray used to do "Sports Magazine" and insist callers could call in- and the numbers would not work. This happened on ALL of his shows for literally months. He just never got it.

Super Talk WFHG- In the mid-90s Scott Robertson tried to do a show on this station in the 6-7 hour. Unfortunately Robertson tried to do what I do here and he didn't do it right. He would get one call from Brad Carter- refuse to hang up on him- and the rest of the show would be him talking for 40 minutes in a monolouge despite having The Pete Rose Show as a lead in.

Robertson deserved better- but the station management refused to help him grow. They now have a "NO SPORTS TALK" mantra at the station. I'm told the owner doesn't like sports- holds his nose and runs NASCAR races because they can't sell anything else on the weekends.

Jim Rome could offer to leave his show and work for a dollar a day there and he would not get a phone call returned.

Power Talk 870- This is the station that got Matt Hill elected to State House. But also- the talent are all the station owner's sons. SuperTalk 980 is extreme right- Power Talk 870 is John Birch.

They, too, are not sports fans. They don't know it exists and find it's cheaper to run syndicated programming than hire new talent.

Speaking of Rome- I once tried to pitch to station management the idea of a sports talk show to go up against Meade in the 3 p.m. hour. They had weak syndicated programming so why not?

The way I did it was to call up and ask- "Ever consider carrying Jim Rome?" My idea being since he was syndicated by Premier and WPWT had Premier Shows on- they must have at least considered it.

And if they at least CONSIDERED Rome, then I could perhaps land a show doing the sort of sports talk that I wanted.

The response I got was-

"Who is Jim Rome?"

WETB- Once the sports leader in Johnson City (circa 1959)- it has since fallen on tough times and is a religious station.

Interestingly enough- it was once going to be purchased and turned into an all-sports station. I broke the story on here and then the station manager CLAIMED that was why he wouldn't sell.

Preposterous arguement and the owner was sued. I even gave testimony.

I actually got an angry phone call from the GM of the Johnson City Cardinals about this. He's in jail now.

And you wonder where I get the ego. Dude- when I say I'm the most influential person in Tri-Cities sports, I do have a track record.

WEMB- You may not know this station exists. But it has 1000 watts broadcasting in the daytime out of Erwin and used to broadcast itself as "Tennalina Country!"

Memo to station- if you're choosing a catch phrase- try to make it catchy enough that if I hear it I'll understand what you're talking about.

This post is WAAAAY too long already. But I'm ranting and raving. I will continue in next post.
Ah, yes. WEMB.

Which stood for "Wisely Employing Marky Billson."

And they did from 1996-97.

And I said that on the air once and instead of thinking it was original and catchy- they somehow criticized me for it.

I still say it sounded better than "Tennalina Country."

But what you're about to read is an inside look at the mindset of your local Tri-Cities media. And though this was an extreme case and I'm about to whine more than a California vineyard, it will explain a lot of questions as to why things go uncovered and why I have the attitude I do.

Now, when you're trying to compete with Bill Meade and your forum is WEMB, that's like trying to take on ETSU with Uncoi County's basketball team. WEMB's signal doesn't make it into Bristol or Kingsport. WEMB did not even have a phone line. I was to use the BUSINESS LINE to take phone calls- which led to things like when I did get a caller- the rings of the phone going out on the air.

Real cutting edge technology.

But the mindset of the station was absurd. We had no listenership. None. Their idea of promoting the talk show I had was not to buy some ads or even write a press release- or even in the programming notes in the Johnson City Press- but instead to write a promo where my short lived co-host (he insisted that Deion Sanders was a good tackler. He once said on the air in a commentary that he "would not be surprised to see Sanders play quarterback for the Cowboys in a wishbone formation"- WHAT?) would say my name and I would say his- confusing to say the least.

Then again- "Tennalina" made sense to these people.

I have to tell you it was horrible. Just horrible.

You know the kind of show I wanted to do. Instead, I got written up one day for saying "Gosh Darn" on the air.

I then had a DJ tell me "You can say 'Ding Dang' on the air but you can't say 'Gosh Darn.'"

MADNESS!

They had no idea how to promote the show. We were the lowest rated station in the market and after that horrible one promo they wrote- they wouldn't play any other ones.

They had no understanding of talk programming. In other words, they thought it was like a music station, so promos were irrelevant.

We had syndicated shows like Leonards Losers- and never said "Leonards Losers will be on at noon."

No- it was like you had a playlist and "just try to put the shows in- in any order you choose." So the person running the station before me might play Leonards Losers at 9 am one day. Then the next day he'd play it at noon. The next week it would be at 1 p.m.

This was not changing around the schedule. This was a taped, recorded shows that should have had a time slot and instead they got on the air- unannounced- at any time the board operator chose.

I finally got hold of the sports related shows- like Leonard's and Southern Pikwit- and just announced I'd play them on Saturday when I was on the air at 4 and to listen up so they could have SOME sort of following- even if they were being re-run.

We were told instead of running promos that would tell people we were on the air to instead give our sponsors free ads and re-run commercials. If you bought 10 ads on WEMB- you might as well expect to have on 25.

That was great for the sponsor but lousy for us. How could we ever get you to buy more ads if we were just going to give them to you?

We refused to air advertising for Mouse's Ear. We were going to get $5000 a week for it. I was making $10 a show and they did that.

And I'm sorry- a lady taking off her clothes was far more moral than paying me what they did.

What was worse was the salesman never thought about trying to pitch the sports show to the Mouse's Ear. He never, ever, ever attempted to sell my show- except to one NASCAR store that wanted to dictate the programming. But he couldn't even get a commitment to that. He didn't know who Johnny Majors or Heath Shuler were- this was in 1996 mind you- and was trying to sell my show?

I actually got him potential sponsors to call and he wouldn't do it.

I would try to cater the show to a more intellectual audience. Then they'd give me wrestling tickets to give away.

One day I had on Phil Garner on my show. Jim Crawford- the station manager- responded to this by saying "Make sure you talk about girls basketball" because the grandmother of the center on Unicoi County's team wanted to hear her daughter's name on the radio.

So I made one mention of it, got off it, and then went right to Garner.

I always, ALWAYS tried to get big name guests and contacts. I had on Heath Shuler twice through the help of a stringer- who is now Pitt's beat writer at the Post-Gazette.

I had on Michael Holley YEARS before I, Max. YEARS!

Peyton Manning. Had him on. Chuck Tanner- enjoyed that one. Scott Ferrall- he took over the show.

I covered ETSU like a hawk- for free. That's how I got good contacts with Ed DeChellis and such. I was the first guy in the area to say he was on the ball.

I had people call up my show. Let's see- I had people want to know how Bob Dole would get elected President. I had NUMEROUS people call up in the middle of the show and ask what time it was or if school was closed.

You consider that. "I think ETSU needs to play Gabe Lisicky more because- wait a minute! Got a call! You're on the air!

Caller- "What time is it?"

I finally had to pretty much forget about taking calls. And if I told the guy too cheap to buy a watch to just stay tuned and we'd get to it in a second- in the hope that I might convince them that they were calling up a sports talk show instead of the time service- I would be told that I was being rude to them by the idiots who ran the damn station.

One lady- I remember- had no idea she was calling a radio station. She had literally just gotten this number on the understanding the other party would tell her what time it was.

It was total madness. They wanted me to do commentaries in the morning- didn't pay me any more for them- then got on me for being too controversial.

I got press credentials for some events and then they wanted me to get them drag racing tickets for free- thinking there was some sort of correllation.

The thing that did me in was one day a syndicator called while I was on the air. And for three minutes I tried to explain to her she had called up a sports talk show and she just didn't get it. Finally I asked her to call back at 5 p.m. when I could talk to her- but at that time I couldn't.

She called back the next day and said I was rude to her.

I probably was, but the factors were out of my control. And you know what- so what if I was rude to her?

They brought in Marty Ricker- he couldn't make sports talk work- and now he plays records there.

I will say this, though. From that show and UCHS play-by-play I got the Johnson City Cardinals gig- and from that the next year I moved up to Pittsburgh figuring that was where I wanted to make it. In 1998 I got work on the Pitt network as the Panthers' sideline reporter, as a sports talk show host on the Steelers flagship, and as a high school play-by-play guy. From that the Post-Gazette. From that national pieces. And from there a higher paying position at the Intelligencer.

The same hard-hitting stuff I gave you in Sports Talk and here I did back then at WEMB. Got no support for it from WEMB- but if you listened, you knew, and I can say I got lots of respect for the little listenership I had because that show was like NOTHING they'd heard before in the market.

The reason I blog on here so much in many ways THIS is the second life of my old WEMB show. That's why my presense on these boards has been legendary in influence. The next step is to bring back ETSU football.

And you know, I'm really not paid any less than I was at WEMB . . .

But Kev, you ask why there is no competition for Bill Meade.

And now you know- the rrrrrrrrrest of the story!
WFHG - I'm told the owner doesn't like sports- holds his nose and runs NASCAR races because they can't sell anything else on the weekends.

I guess thats why the just flipped their simulcast AM 980 to fox sports radio.
Fan- My source was program director Scott Yates.

And remember, they had guys like Steve Blevins and myself there and would not even consider a show.

Yates used to tell me the churches got higher priority than sports.

This marks a MAJOR switch in philosophy.

I'm glad to see it, though.
PittsburghBucs Wrote:WKPT- I'm told the owner of Holston Valley loves the Big Band format.

Hasn't been big band format for years.
Man, Pitt!!! Do I have to take a final. If so, which part of the info will be included?

Seriously, I'm sure Bill is a fine guy. Never met him. But we didn't make that Nascar and Braves stuff up. Seems like whenever I drive through the area (I end up teaching at ETSU a few times each year) & turn on his show, he's either talking about Nascar or the Braves. I've got a buddy that's in JC about once every week or so and he's the one that first mentioned that to me. He may talk about the vols a lot. You hear him a lot more than me. But I've never heard it. I was in JC one time in December, turned on the show, and it was all about Nascar and the Braves. In December! It's funny. But it doesn't give us travelers anything to listen to.

When ETSU was good in basketball (I know. You guys keep reminding me that anything over 4 years ago is ancient history), they used to be talked about quite a bit on the Knoxville sports talk shows. Other than hearing about the demise of ETSU football, I can't remember the last time I heard ETSU mentioned on a show down here.

It all matters, friends. When I moved to Ktown 15 years ago, ETSU was pretty much the NEXT university of interest next to UT. I used to have friends, not from the tri-cities area, call me up and say, "let's go up to JC and catch a bucs game." That doesn't happen any more. Now, Chattanooga & MTSU get talked about a lot more. You even hear more about TTech than ETSU these days.

I know. I'm doing my own ranting and raving. But wasn't that the title of the original post?
http://www.supertalkwfhg.com/

Let the barrage of insults begin. BTW, Jennifer Worley runs the Talk stations for Pete, who is just fine with sports, he's just cheap.
This could be a good thing, if he'll do just a little bit of local stuff with it.
Lover- I am telling you the line I got, and many other broadcasters in the market got (including the award winning radio journalist who had a national presence while he worked there), for approximately 10 years from the program director of the station there.

I can tell you that Quaintance and Berninger knew nothing about sports and they made a concerted effort to go away from the format.

At one time, that station was an ESPN affiliate that also ran the Pete Rose Show and had Robertson do a talk show. They made a concerted effort to base their programming more politically- and the station's other holdings in Charleston similarly went that way as well.

To say otherwise is an out and out falsehood.

You didn't work there and engage in daily conversations about this. I did.
You're right, I didn't work there, I just see what they have now for the A.M. station. I think it'll work well if they added a local flavor to it, especially during football season. Hopefully the powers that be see the writing on the wall, put Va. High on the FM, and have multiple games on the A.M. station in Virginia the saw WJCW does for the Tennessee schools. We'll see.
Amazing how you worked all these places, yet you couldn't get a job here anymore... Hmmm.
Lover,

That is just plain RUDE. Take it back. Go ahead, take it back. Let's play nice. Someone as talented as Pitt can obviously hold down several positions at one time. Something you and I could never pull off.

Go ahead, apologize. You know you were wrong.
Uh, why would you think that moving to a bigger market was a step DOWN?

Erwin or Pittsburgh? Uncoi County or Super Bowl champs?

Yeah, I can't figure out which one is better, either.

Funny how you'll never get out of your pollen-happy hell hole.
PittsburghBucs Wrote:Uh, why would you think that moving to a bigger market was a step DOWN?

Erwin or Pittsburgh? Uncoi County or Super Bowl champs?

Yeah, I can't figure out which one is better, either.

Funny how you'll never get out of your pollen-happy hell hole.

But you don't work in Pittsburgh anymore now do you Mr. Dean? You work for a paper in Wheeling WVA a town about half the size of Johnson City.
Yeah, and it pays more too.
Sidestepping Rod's obsession with me, I must say I am overjoyed that they have chosen to go with an all sports format there.

I will be interested to see if they play it cheap and just go all local there or try to hire some local talent.
Don't you have a youth baseball tournament you need to be covering? Or maybe a youth tennis tournment. Or Hockey or girls volleyball. lmfao lmfao
Hey- Rod- dont you have a failed business venture you're still looking back on?

I guess rubes who don't like hockey never learn . . .
[quote="PittsburghBucs"]Hey- Rod- dont you have a failed business venture you're still looking back on?

[quote]

No... I don't.
I see.

So it's "Head all empty and I don't care!"- Huh, Rod?

What's it like selling salami for minimum wage?
WHO GIVES A ****. You all are falling for the same stuff you did when he ruined the SoConHoops board. He always has something stupid to say, and every topic turns into an off-topic argument with Pitt. Please, will you all drop it before this board gets ruined.

Anonymous

I'll admit that I was a fan of Marky's show. Especially the confrontations with Fritz haha.
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