Dave Morey wrote a letter here in the comments section about his take on the KFOG Morning Show ouster.
Here's his letter:
KFOG was ALWAYS consulted. First - by Lee Abrams...the A-Hole who concocted the
Superstars format. An interesting idea that kinda worked - but when we in SF
started tinkering with his master plan - to humanize and localize it - he turned
into a total turd.
Salvadore (sales) DESTROYED the original concept-
took it to "Classic Rock." Blecch. We bottomed out.
Then - Pat Evans as PD -
Heavy Metal Ballads. KFOG almost died.
Enter Dwight Walker as new GM - and
the Rebirth of KFOG as a hybrid Triple A station - consulted by John Bradley
(SBR) where we earned and enjoyed our greatest success as an intelligent,
full-service radio station. Under Program Directors Greg Solk, later Paul
Marszelek and then Dave Bensen, KFOG became part of the community. A rare
privilege that every radio station dreams of. All of us working overtime to
provide an alternative to sophomoric low-brow predictable typical CRAP
radio.
Our dream was to become a station that all of San Francisco could turn
to as a voice that truly reflected the Bay Area. We were that...for a while. We
were proud of the product and our parent company, Susquehanna, appreciated our
work.
Dwight Walker, Jude Heller, Bill Ruck, and the people whose names
you know - Rosalie, Annalisa, Renee, Peter, Big Rick and lots more I wish I
could rattle off now ----
Hey - Greg - Webster. Sorry you guys couldn't
get out earlier so you wouldn't be forever connected with KFOG-past.
BUT -
Know that is good - to have KFOG (a GREAT radio station) on your resume. And -
if you wanna do a show on WTF...lemme know.
-Dave Morey
PS - With
very few exceptions, terrestrial radio is dead and rightfully so. Somewhere
along the way it turned into real estate.
BUT - if-I-may...speaking on
behalf of those who were lucky enough to be there while it still welcomed and
appreciated creativity,
GOOD JOB!!!
**Follow me on Twitter
Thanks Dave for the comments. Know that you are missed here, I remember hearing back when KFOG switched to rock that it was being consulted. Not surprised to hear Abrams was a butthead, I got that impression about him. He ensured stations he consulted ran a very tight format back in the 70s. I'm one of those who has listened to KFOG almost from the start of the rock format and endured all the changes. It's been laughable to read all the comments on the KFOG Facebook page and those who say they'll write to Cumulus and complain about the changes. Yeah, lots of good that will do. Cumulus will take all the letters and use them for a mini-bonfire.
ReplyDeleteI got used to listening to KFOG because it was different from the crap that fills most of the airwaves. But as I keep reminding myself nothing (especially once-great radio stations) lasts forever. Terrestrial radio turned into real estate because of the Communications Act. Too bad we can't work to repeal it or change it so that 3 or 4 corporations don't own 95% of the on-air stations in the US.
Dave was one of the best and KFOG was unique back then. I have no idea why the suits always have to break something that is working. Only airlines work as hard as Cumulus to drive customers away.
ReplyDeleteAmen to that! Nice comments Dave and Thanks!
DeleteRadnich speaks with reverance for Salvadore. Almost gets tears-and that's not a joke.
ReplyDeleteImagine being him and convincing yourself those greedy bastards are good people. I guess Radnich has to shower less to get the slime off him.
Even with the three aforementioned ladies Dave Morey mentioned, I'm still starting to find myself bringing a CD or two to my Durango more often. The morning is starting to become insufferable.
ReplyDeleteHey Rich, next time you talk with Morey, just say two words and I guarantee you Dave will be very enlightened - "JJ Rules!". Because being Bay Radio's biggest Judge Judy fan clearly helped him get through the last years of his KFOG reign, when the station and many others got 'cumul-ated', and misery became most common company.
What's saddest about all of this ruination of our beloved radio industry by a few imbecilic and unimaginative mega-companies is this:
ReplyDeleteThe majority of Americans, and particularly the generation that was born after 1980, for the most part, don't really care. They've got more pressing concerns...hanging on to their jobs (if they have them), and keeping their families happy and healthy (a difficult task at most times, extremely hard for many during this current economic malaise that has sickened the whole world.)
The downfall of radio is just one of the many lesser stories
(certainly important to those who are employed or were employed by the industry) of import that will not get more than just a cursory mention, except in blogs such as Rich's 415 media.
Perhaps through his efforts, Rich L. will be able to 'educate' some of our bay area residents who might be interested enough
to know that local radio (with the exception of a few stations)
is essentially in the toilet...now and probably forever.
Wish we could go back to 'the good old days of radio' (pre 1995), but that ain't going to happen. As brittle president
Calvin Coolidge once stated so plainly: "My fellow countrymen, the business of America, is business!"
but Dave, didn't you pick all the 10@10 music yourself? Please tell me that wasn't "consulted" as well.
ReplyDeleteOnly in the Bay Area would Dave Morey be considered "great", very average actually, the difference is he stayed there for many years. Funny, Morey forgets that is was Lee Abrams who came up with the "10 at Ten" concept which kept him employed so long. KFOG was safe, lots of Beatles, Bonnie Raitt, Grateful Dead. Average AAA station,organic & so Marin. Not terrible, but not great. Very predictable. Good marketing and promotion, decent jocks. etc. Let's don't go over board. The truth is that San Francisco is truly (at least in the last 25-30 years) strictly a backwater music town. LA,Chicago, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Seattle, Austin, NYC, etc. are all much more important and innovative music cities. Cumulus sucks, but KFOG has always been overrated.
ReplyDeleteyou are an idiot
DeleteI am from Ky. and hadn't ever heard of KFOG till I met the love of my life and he lived in the Bay area. He introduced me to KFOG and even after he moved to Ky. to be with me we continued listening to the station by way of our computers. We continued do that till the last year. It just kept getting worse and truthfully after Dave Morey left I lost any interest in listening when he stopped doing 10 @ 10. He was the first openly gay person I ever had the chance to "know" only from the little I heard there but it was something I was never able to hear before and he impressed me. No I am not gay but I am smart enough to recognize talent and honesty, and compassion something you obviously lack. I feel I need to add Dave Morey is still great in my opinion and I would listen to him now if I knew he was on any radio station.
DeleteI don't know who you are but I think YOU suck. I would try to explain it but I don't think you'd get it. You have no real concept of why radio is so great, why Dave Morey ruled the radio while he was here, why all of us HAD to hear 10 at 10 every single day. Please go back to the hole you came out of.
DeleteInsiders know that KFOG was done in by one thing, PPM.
ReplyDeleteAfter over decade of enjoying Top 5 25-54 ratings rank under the old Diary method, KFOG dropped to 14th within months of the debut of the Portable People Meter system. Which is about where they've been since then.
The same fate has visited most Adult Alternative radio stations under PPM. Including Portland's KINK-FM, where current KFOG PD Dennis Constantine used to be PD. Before he was released due to poor ratings performance under PPM.
If Cumulus is smart, this station will eventually become KGO-FM or KNBR-FM.
Like anything, KFOG was an acquired taste, but to say that Dave Morey was very average is really not true. Dave was around a long time for a reason. There are very few people who spend that many years in a prominent on-air position without being, or growing into a pretty solid talent.
ReplyDeleteIf they are, as you say, "average," they usually have average ratings and that also means an average career, which means changing radio jobs every five or six years and moving onto another station and becoming just another radio journeyman. Dave was not another radio journeyman.
I'd like to see you get up in front of a mike and do what Dave Morey did for that many years. It's easy for people to criticize someone who is in a high-profile position when they have probably never even had any of the abilities or courage, for that matter, to pursue a career in an unstable profession such as radio.
And as far as San Francisco being a backwater town for music, you're way off base there too. Many bands and prominent artists are either from here or got their start here. You obviously haven't studied much music over the last 30 years, and paid much attention to history, or else you wouldn't have made such an ill informed comment.
NY, Seattle, Atlanta, New Orleans, Kansas City, and Chicago, along with other great cities of America, do indeed have great music scenes, but San Francisco's in unique. I remember going to a show back in 1969 at the Avalon Ballroom in SF that had both Carlos Santana and the Grateful Dead (both got their starts locally) as the featured acts, with the Big Brother and the Holding Company (remember Janis Joplin?) as the warm up act!
Thank you for your counter to the previous poster! Dave was ubur-knowledgeable regarding music and the history. He was truly a student and then a teacher to us all. His delivery on air was great. Not too many on-air personalities seemed to be able to compete with Dave during his time here. He IS truly missed. I feel badly for Webster having to try and step in and fill his shoes but he did an admirable job and sorry to see him go. Greg will also be missed. I for one do love his accent! :O) And his musings.... I guess that all good things must come to an end. Life is funny at times and that's just the way things seem to happen these days........
Delete5:39 was probably some Cumulus stooge (hey how many SweetJack coupons did they give you for that cheap shot anyway?) who moved here a few months ago and doesn't realize the information fed them may have been biased.
ReplyDeleteDidn't realize Dennis did not leave KINK voluntarily. I suspect that after the PPM keeps falling, he won't be leaving KFOG that way either.
PPM was part of the downfall of KFOG, but Cumulus going cheap & leaving the station PD-less & run outta Atlanta for almost a year didn't help the cause. And yes, D.C. did not leave KINK on his own terms. KINK didn't adapt well to a PPM world under his rule, but the station has now made a nice rebound due to new leadership.
ReplyDelete5:39..just because YOU don't get it, there's no need to crap all over a local legend and insult the geographical area that loved him. (so, we're "backwater" and Atlanta, Seattle and KANSAS CITY are what, hubs of sophistication?) 10@10 may have been Morey's crowning glory but what kept him employed was the perfect connection between personality and place. He "got it". While he wasn't a flashy personality, he seemed very genuine. He also had the best voice to wake up to. Sorry you didn't appreciate him but many of us knew better.
ReplyDeleteBlah,blah, blah! The morons who write these comments know NOTHING about the real story behind the success of KFOG. God bless Dave, a truly talented guy, but to knock Abrams and Salvadore is just plain ignorant. Abrams invented the idea that was KFOG and Salvadore was it's champion during the early no ratings/no revenue years.
ReplyDeleteThe ultimate demise of KFOG can be traced directly to the take over by Cumulus starting in 2006. Benson is released in 2009 and the station is programmed, remote control, out of Atlanta for 2 years by people who didn't have a clue what the station was all about.
No, 5:39 was most likely a fellow dj back in the day who observed just what went down on a daily basis. 10 at 10 WAS a 'consultant concept',not an original KFOG programming idea. KFOG was--and remains--safe & predictable. Just compare one night of Richard Gossett on KQAK-FM, "the Quake", with any typical KFOG evening, and you clearly hear the difference--not only in the music but in the MANNER of presentation. Reality is that KFOG jocks were "decent" but, unfortunately, restrained... And "good marketing and promotions" capitalized on the unique "foghead" moniker, as well they should have. Dave Morey clearly had a recognizable advantage with his deep confident delivery--"pipes" that may even have been able to smooth over/mellow out testy dealings with a control freak like Tony Salvadore. It wasn't easy coping with management dictums at KFOG, and there were many dj casualties along the way (Lee Sims, Scoop Nisker, Sky Daniels & the Psyhchedelic Supper, M. Dung, John Grappone, David Gans, Mark Naftalin, Bonnie Simmons, Richard Gossett). For a taste of what KFOG once almost was, go to www.kvmr.org KVMR-FM remains to this day a credible definitive FM programming source that broadcasts "Music of the World" as the "Voice of the Community". What a concept!
ReplyDeleteBeing a foghead from the beginning, there were traditions that came with tuning inevery morning as well as showing up for the holiday charity shows and an all time favorite, Kboom. Classic KFOG was, like Don Sherwood or Jazzbeaux Collins, a priviledge to listen to. Dave's 10@10's were always unique, no repeats. He even slipped one time and did a 9@10, and busted himself on air. He also put together most of the bumpers, commercials and PSA's on his own time. My fondest memory is after a Friday 10@10 ( always the best of the week), he played a song I'd been looking for since the 1st time I'd heard it in 1970, the Jonathan Abner Tobias Pissoff credo ( not the correct title but, hey, shits starting to roll south). I called Dave ( he still answered the phones) and asked where I could get a copy, been looking for it forever, etc. He says, ' Whats yer address, Bub?' Later that week I get a disc he made with that tune and other stuff. He'd actually filled the entire cd with Firesign, broadcast of a drunken KYA news report and other gems. It was like I was the tenth caller to the tenth power! So don't tell me that Dave was 'average, that SF is a radio backwater or any of yer other bullshit, carpetbagger. I know better.
ReplyDeleteThat's so cool!
DeleteI am business manager for Ron Thompson, and Ron was a guest on the Morning Show several times. The amazing thing was that Dave was KNEW ALL ABOUT RON. Dave was a local guy who was in touch with the local music scene.
It was great that Ron at least got to be interviewed on the show and play some music. But Dave and the rest of the gang were stifled--no way in HELL could they actually play Ron's music by that time.
Back in the, I don't know, mid-80's or so, KFOG used to have a wealth of incredibly funny and creative breakers and mini-promos. Movie bits, all kinds of fun stuff in there. I wonder if that was Dave's work, I have no idea. There came a time when they all abruptly disappeared, and I was years later told that the carts had all been gathered up and put away, later to be bulk-erased. Pity.
ReplyDeleteTo my knowledge that was all Dave's work, and it remains the best production I've ever heard because it was so brilliantly low-key and unlike the hopped-up bumpers everyone else used. My favorite was the stagecoach that faded up, then back out, with just "K-FOG" in the middle.
DeleteTo this day I miss Brother Blue's inimitable voice on those spots....
No more KFOG - I guess I might was well spark up the crack pipe again and pretend that real music exists on the radio.
ReplyDeleteAnd, you want contributions for this S?...
ReplyDeleteI'm not as tuned in as many of you about the ins and outs of the people behind the scenes at KFOG and KGO....but I was mighty disappointed with the purging at KGO....If I wanted all news all the time there's KCBS....so I listen a lot less there and never at night anymore.
DeleteNow KFOG, slowly and painfully being taken apart. Cumulus must hate personalities, humanism, loyalty. (and love the bottom line) KFOG programming has gotten blander all year and reading this blog, I am beginning to see why.
As a music fan for five decades, I can find the music I want on iTunes, Spotify, NPR music sites, music mags like MOJO, Rolling Stooge and UNCUT but I liked the talk aspect of KGO and I liked the morning show banter and afternoon drive time of KFOG over the last 20 years. I tuned in for the talk and local flavor on both stations.... and that British Casey Kasim on Sunday nights yechhhhhh
My advice for what it's worth:
ReplyDeleteBecome a 21st century person and don't depend on the traditional media for anything anymore, other than headlines, a little music,
and of course, baseball.
Find the good websites, bookmark them among your favorites list,
and get as much news as you can from the few reputable print outlets that haven't been torched yet.
The sad thing is, many of the popular web sites seem to all get their news from one source: the Associated Press. Nothing wrong
with AP, but they give a very colorless, straight forward view that doesn't allow for much journalistic variety.
It also shows how lazy and cheap most of American's newspapers have become, and as a result, fewer and fewer people want to pay more and more money for an interior product.
When Warren Bushee of the Chronicle made his infamous statement a while back (right after the Chron cut a bunch of people to save money), he cheerfully wrote in an editorial that "we're putting together a better newspaper for you with a fresh coat of paint."
What a load of crap. Outside of some excellent newswriters such as Peter Fimrite, Carla Mateucci, Carl Nolte and specialists such as Tom Stinestra, John King and David Perlman, the Chron has cut it's news staff to the bone. And they're charging subscribers double what they charged 10 years ago for a much more inferior product.
The sad thing is that the Chronicle is now the best newspaper in the area by far as Dean Singleton has almost singlehandedly ruined
four of the other once-prominent area papers...the CC Times, the SJ Merc, the Marin IJ, and Oakland Trib.
Local radio and TV stations once depended heavily on the local newspapers to help give them some direction and good ideas to pursue, but there's very good left to recommend among our local newspapers. One of the many other reasons why local broadcast journalism has also gone into the toilet over the last seven years.
Dave, thanks for playing Zappa and Firesign Theatre on the radio. Thanks for taking my calls. Thanks for the birthday calls. Thanks for making Bay Area radio legendary. I wish you nothing but the best. may Cumulus rot in Hell.
ReplyDeleteDave;
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments and insight. As you're the only On-Air Talent I've ever heard of actually *retiring* from the job, the weight your thoughts carry is both respected and meaningful... and I daresay that insight you offer might even be considered *definitive*.
Carry on, Good Man. Be well.
Great to hear from Dave, he and the real KFOG are missed!
ReplyDeletehey Dave,
ReplyDeleteyour 10at10s turned me onto a lot of great songs, and I have to thank you especially for playing "Don't Leave Me This Way" by Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes. Also, I miss hearing Flash Bazbo on 10at10.
Glad someone is speaking what I'm thinking. Too bad. There were good old days at KFOG 'cause I remember them.
ReplyDeleteMiss ya Dave... the local radio scene (especially KFOG) totally sucks right now.
ReplyDeleteAny chance you can start broadcasting from your fancy new basement studio??
Cheers~
Dave - I had the pleasure of being on the morning show with some shelter dogs a few years ago - two big senior yellow labs. It was such a thrill to be a part of the show that I had listened to for so many years. Everyone was so gracious, friendly and kind. I have missed you, but liked Webster instantly and have continued to listen to the station. I am saddened about what has happened, but I guess it is the demise of radio as we knew it. I remember when FM radio first took hold in the late 60's when I listened to the great station in Boston, WBCN. Perhpas radio as we know it is dying and we all have to find a new venue. I am listening to a lot of public radio. I love "America's Back 40" and the Latin Jazz show, as well as Fresh Air and Radio Lab. Those were the days, my friend - they are lost and it is sad.
ReplyDeleteI miss you so much, Dave! Your morning show friends too, but especially you. I hardly listen to KFOG anymore, especially not the mornings. And I cringe when I hear the trying-to-be-hip canned woman's voice calling it "World Class Rock", knowing that it's no longer part of our community or the special station it once was (except for Rosalie's show). When I do listen, I always light up when I hear your voice say "KFOG" (they still use that, you know). I feel sorry for Rosalie and Renee, the remaining hold outs. Best wishes to you and I hope we get to hear from you somehow in the future! xoxo
ReplyDeleteDoes anybody have an email address for Dave Morey? I knew him back when he was in Grand Rapids, MI. back in the mid-70's and I wanted to send him a message.
ReplyDeleteTry reaching him at alconamusicproject@gmail.com. He is about to go "legit" with his FM station on the shores of Lake Huron.
DeleteYou can find Dave Morey at http://www.879harrisville.com/
ReplyDeleteCheck it out. there is an email there to contact him. I work with him every week now. Good good man.
Catch Dave @979harrisville.org You Californians are going to have to get up early to hear him - he opens the day at 8:00 AM (eastern time)...broadcasting from his new studio here on the Huron shore. WxTF-LP 97.9FM (or as we say... WTF!) Or tune in Sundays at noon (9 AM to you) when I do my "news" bit with Dave - I also do a weekly free-form music show weekly. We've become good friends, and he is a great talent totally dedicated to doing great, unique radio, and that's what we're doing here... ("Eddie Ducatti" , 5-22-14)
ReplyDeleteI was a foghead, listened to KFOG perhaps 3 hours a day on average. One day I won the right to request the next song - something like, be the 5th caller.
ReplyDeleteI asked for Bouree by Jethro Tull.I pronounced it "boo-ray'" as is appropriate: it's a modern interpretation of the bourree in JS Bach's Suite in E, BWV 996. Morey not only declined to play my selection, he abused me for not adopting his own barbaric pronunciation, "bough-ree".
I stopped listening to that AHole, and to KFOG.