His tenacious work on the Penn State scandal was a major contributor to him being offered to try out the newstalk gig, (granted, a death valley of time slot at 1PM when most people will be watching college football, but it's a start.)
KGO is now owned by Cumulus which also owns KNBR, so it's a logical move. And it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if Bruce were to eventually tonsil full-time at the news talkie. For one, KGO, whose core demo are people who make up the AARP crowd could use a strong, young, energetic voice like Bruce who has a following and could conceivably bring much-needed energy to the station.
Bruce has shown he can talk about virtually anything, sports talk, sure, but his grasp on the other elements in life, the news of the day, and his edge makes for an enticing prospect for him to excel at KGO.
Another point: KGO's rather obscure presence in the sports world, (minus Cal football and updates) mandates a Bruce move. He's not nirvana, but it can't hurt the hemorrhaging at 900 Front.
This is a good move for Bruce, and most especially, KGO.
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Bruce should get on his knees and thank 95.7 for making his resurrection possible-he's now able to speak freely..unlike 2010-2011 where he went to a "Happy Damon"..and his show sucked. A lesson for Damon that being a company stooge hold you back more then it gets you places..look at Fitz,stuck going nowhere but down.
ReplyDeleteBut Bruce has his drawbacks-he doesnt have any cross over beyond the frat boy,Abercrombie and Fitch (hilarious I saw Rod Brooks wearing a A&F t shirt)crowd. His favorite comic is Jay Mohr-part of the Leno rightwing rat pack. Such is KNBR that still makes Bruce a centrast.
Well Rich-you cant say 95.7 hasnt moved the needle..for the better and how much isnt certain yet.
S
If Bruce becomes full-time at KGO, what would happen to the Damon Bruce Show? I can't stand another afternoon without it...
ReplyDeleteEgo aside, Bruce is a darn good broadcast journalist which is more than I can say for a lot of his cohorts. Hope they do something also with Stacy/Stacye ? Taylor...KGO has a real chance to get young and shuffle the deck for the first time in a long time.
ReplyDeleteumm...you might want to mention whether or not he'll continue on with his current 1050 timeslot, but I suppose that would involve thorough journalism, so never mind. You're article makes no mention of DBruce "moving" to KGO or "in addition" to his current duties, which would seem the logical first thing you'd want to mentiom.
ReplyDeleteI hear Round Table is coming out with a new pizza sometime soon...
As an AARP'er, will see...but wish they would put him in a different time slot. I was really enjoying Stacy Taylor. I can think of other hosts they could ditch to make room for Damon Bruce...several of them.
ReplyDeleteAnd, thought KGO has already tried courting the younger demo with the energetic morning duo....Jenn and John.
If the station keeps trying to force tweets and facebook, and inane contests, they may turn out the only demo they have...us old farts...try as they might to attract the younger demo, I don't think it will work....for the most part they aren't interested. I don't think it is entirely the hosts, I just don't think that "talk radio" is something that most of that demo wants to listen to. I'm not saying the younger demo isn't interested in topics of the day, just not a radio format.
What's wrong with having a radio station that completely caters to the AARP crowd? It seems that KGO radio was in the top of the market for years and years....many of us got to be the older demographic while listening to KGO. Yes, I know the days of the "great hosts" are gone, but it is more than that. How many of the AARP crowd has the station lost in their insistence to cater to younger audience? Some of those "great hosts" have been gone for years, but the numbers still stayed high.
Lately, no matter their enticements, the numbers are going down. I'm thinking in addition to not attracting younger demo,they're losing the older demo. We haven't all died off....cater to us....get sponsors that other stations wouldn't try for....one for walkers, and mobile scooters....Neptune Society....Shady lawn cemetery ... Nursing homes....(ones with great looking aides...sexy females and studly males...and everyone can take their pick) We spend money, we buy cars, go on cruises, take vacations, go out to restaurants, the theater, concerts. We hire people to mow our lawns, clean our homes (that many of us own free and clear)...what is so wrong with us? We spend money. We've worked, we've raised families, we've lived through wars, protests, recessions, inflation, good times and bad times. What is wrong with us?
We listen to talk radio, read newspapers (isn't that novel?), read books (both hand held paper variety and electronic) ...we do know how to use cell phones (maybe our texting isn't the greatest)...we use computers, but can also sit down with a yellow pad and a number 2 pencil and write down our thoughts. We may pay our bills online, but are also able to write a check, go into a bank, go to a post office, maybe even write a letter or send a thank you note. What's wrong with us?
We have eclectic taste in many things....music..ah, yes, Tony Bennett may be a favorite, but we watch American Idol, X Factor, Glee. We download music from our favorite artists, but many of us may have a few 78's, 33 1/3rds, and 45's stashed away. What's wrong with us? We can play video games, but also appreciate a game of dominoes or scrabble. We go to movies, maybe with the Senior discount, but we buy from the concession stands. We watch tv from one of several in our homes. We watch talk shows, game shows, dramas, sporting events, comedies, and argue who is the best late night talk show host. We watch movies on tv and sometimes we watch the Old movies and remember when some of the old classics were "new". What's wrong with us?
I just don't get it...why would any media not want to court us? What's wrong with us?
Will Hammer invite Damon to Giant Fan Fest 2012?????
ReplyDeleteHow is this good, it just proves how CHEAP Cumulus is!
ReplyDeleteThis should be treated like one of those old Soviet/American prisoner/spy exchanges. They should now give Karel a sports show on KNBR if nothing than to get a good laugh and mess with people for a week.
ReplyDeleteThis could be the shot in the arm that KGO sorely needs.
ReplyDeleteDamon Bruce has a sandwich named after him at Ike's Place.
ReplyDeleteIf Ike's named a sandwich after Rich Lieberman, no doubt it would be full of BALONEY!! Hahahahahaha.
#fail
ReplyDeleteWhat will happen with Stacie Taylor? I enjoyed him on Saturdays on the 1-4pm slot. I suggest they put him on the 4-7pm slot on Sundays and kick the Len Tillem re-runs off the air. Did you hear the whiney lawyer today? He confirmed on air that he is not doing live Sunday shows as long as he has his daily gig. Period end of story. He said he got a lot of email recently including one who called him a lazy bum!
ReplyDeleteSeriously, there is no place for re-runs. KGO, give us a live show on Sundays and please, don't bring back Marty Nemko EVER!
Can't wait to hear the brain dead musings of the butcher boy when he calls Damon with his solutions on the Middle East. Karel to KNBR would be brilliant... team him up with the 7-10 guy.Finally Ralph takes over Talieferro's time slot.,.. you get younger a 60 something for a 73 year old.
ReplyDeleteYou people have no concept of how the real world works. Nobody gives a shit about Damnon Bruce at Cumulus, but he is free, versus Taylor who is paid a fee for each show he does at KGO. All the bitching and whining, who in their right mind would make a log of when Len is recorded? Get a life. All these half baked, totally wrong theories and lecture/rants shows how mushy your regular posters are, wash that THC out of your system, wait for the second phase at slaughterhouse 810. Then you'll be pissing and moaning how you miss all the on air staff that disappears.
ReplyDeleteRalph at 1am
ReplyDeleteHaHa Ralph has about 6 hours of sleep by 1am
In the biz, older listeners are called "tonnage," because you carry them but they're like ballast. If you appeal to them, you lose the younger demo which has a lot of disposable income that advertisers crave.
ReplyDeleteLots of interesting thoughts here on this blog about what Cumulus will do with KGO and why KGO is failing..but the bottom line is this:
ReplyDeleteCORPORATE RADIO IS RUNNING THE SHOW NOW. There are approximately 7 companies in this still great country of ours that own over 90 percent of the radio stations out there.
Unfortunately that's in keeping with the trend of what is happening in other businesses in America. We're rapidly becoming a 'Third World Country.
Many people are rapidly becoming sick and tired of it, but our culture is so embedded in greed and de-regulation that most overworked, stressed out Americans prefer to be entertained by banal 'NOISE AND NONSENSE," than try to learn why this has happened and how they might start trying to change it.
Team Ralph with Brandon Tierney...
ReplyDeleteNo sooner then I mention Jay Mohr on the Bruce show then he appears today. Jay asked "Who the old guy in the morning was?" And when told it was Radnich said that Radnich, "Is the 74 year old guy who thinks he has his finger on the pulse of the bay area?" "When your that old you have the pulse of the dead"..something like that last. And he then finished off Radnich as "The guy with really bad teeth".
ReplyDeleteJay trying to get on my good side.
'S'
off topic but-I cant post here at all on IE8 since downloading Adobe's newest 11.1 this morning..and even Mozilla freezes then says a script from buzz.com (?) is running slow. Eventually,it posts. FWIW
ReplyDeleteAs someone who actually works at KGO I thought I'd share my thoughts. It is true that news/talk radio is an older demographic. It always has been. NPR for example has few 20 somethings listening. Those numbers go up around age 30 when people are settled down with a family and focus on the life of the community instead of the life of the party.
ReplyDeleteMorale inside isn't as bad as Rich makes it out to be. Our top management was gutted, but the on-air and on-air support staff has actually added new reporters both on the younger side, both very talented and capable. Cumulus has designed a new space for us at Hawthorne which we will move to in a few months. The commitment to news is clearly still there.
It's likely that the talk show line-up will change, especially part-time as as needed as people get tried out to see what works. We may or may not lose some news people, but we run a very lean shop (I listen to the credits on KQED with 8 people putting together a one hour show and just shake my head.)
So Rich, who knows? Nothing in this business has ever been stable, but I think you are overstating the problem.
Let me be the first to predict: Damon Bruce is the heir apparent to Ronnnnnnn.
ReplyDelete-Klazzik
Hey 4:24
ReplyDeleteI worked at KGO during the hey-day. How's a 10.1 quarterly grab ya? I don't recognize this station anymore. It absolutely sucks. When NABET was in charge of production and news editing, the station was the most professional in the business. Once NABET was eviscerated, the downfall began.
The Noon News is moribund. Afternoon news to follow.
F*$K D-bruce. He's a bruce alright
ReplyDeleteThere will always be a place for good news talk, and good sportstalk radio, and Cumulus would be happy to have it...but it will be difficult to get at a cheap price they continue to offer. Cumulus is all about low overhead and cutting it's operations down to make their operations 'lean and mean.' (i.e. cheap and dumb).
ReplyDeleteI'm always incredulous about how management (in any business) likes to say: "This is a restructuring of our resources....we're just tweaking our 'product.' "
Well guess what guys....the people who are on the radio stations that you own ARE your 'product!' Listeners go to KGO and KNBR because over the years they've gotten used to hearing reliable, professional announcers, who are like their friends; they feel comfortable listening to them because there is a comfortable familiarity.
Listeners don't tune in because some company out of Atlanta that doesn't know squat about bay area radio is running the show!
And if Cumulus continues to go cheap and drive most of the experienced, credible talent off the air, they'll eventually become irrelevant. Maybe not tomorrow...maybe not next year, but in the not too distant future.
I guess Cumulus and other radio companies like it really doesn't care about the ratings though, because their sharp eyed, hungry young sales staff (most of whom know next to nothing about what it actually takes to be an on-air announcer), can spin the numbers and 'snow' potential clients into buying more air time. And hey, as along as Lou Dickey's ATM machine is humming, he's happy and the shareholders of Cumulus are happy. Isn't that the real truth?
The public that is supposed to be served by these stations and the air staff on those stations?
They're irrelevant! They're like burger-flippers at McDonalds.
"If you don't like it here, there's the door! There are plenty of young and hungry kids coming out of college that will take your job for peanuts, so get back to work and quit complaining!" (Lou Dickey...circa 2008)
to November 17, 2011 4:24 PM: Thanks Paul (brown-nose) Hogsley. You have your head so far up the managements rear-end that you can no longer see light. You, my friend, have no idea what's going on. You may have your finger on the pulse of MANAGEMENT, but you have no idea what the rest of us here are going through. Hopefully, you'll get yours soon enough.
ReplyDeleteHow strange to read this all in retrospect after the gutting of KGO radio on December 1.
ReplyDeleteYou get what you pay for, Cumulus (like a bankrupt Citadel). You will go down as dessimating a true San Francisco institution. Karma is a bitch.