Ray Woodson, the sports-talk radio veteran who spent the bulk of his Bay Area career at KNBR and most recently, 95. 7 FM "The Game" decided to bail out, suddenly and swiftly --with little notice."This time its my decision."
Just like that.
Those of you that have lived a little know that radio has changed and that what little creative energy is left is expensive ...and many broadcast companies are either unable, or more likely, unwilling to pay the freight.
Therefore, you then have stagnant radio and talent-impaired talent.
I asked Woodson directly why he decided to leave the radio biz and his response was both expansive and telling:
Via text:
"It was a combination of factors, Rich. Family and professional. As you know the business has changed quite a bit. To me sports talk radio is an art, not a science but that’s not how this business is “trending.” Also, after what happened this year, I decided I want to be my own boss from now on. I figured after 40 years in broadcasting I’ve earned that. I will do podcasts, for one thing. Pretty soon I’ll write a book—maybe it won’t be of interest to the general public, but for my kids and grand kids. Everyone at The Game was great, by the way. This was just a personal and family decision about how I need to focus my energy at this point in my life, plus I am going to need recovery time from an upcoming surgery. Just as a postscript — I got REALLY tired of commuting into SF. One year, when I was working in Monterey and SF, I put 55K
miles on my truck. Between driving and BART, and the overcrowded conditions — as Sinatra once said — “that’s enough.”
Which is a crying shame. Woodson was one of the few original sports-talk radio hosts who could spin a good tale or two and he was both informative, funny, and easy to listen to.
He didn't have to resort to cheap and disingenuous sound drops and bits that is a common nuisance in today's mostly banal, innocuous, talk-show code where there exists a whole lot of noise and very little substance not to mention extremely boring sports radio that neither enlightens nor entertains.
Woodson was one of the few KNBR hosts that I looked forward to listening to and was bummed when Cumulus gave him the boot. Why?
Because he was deemed too expensive by today's radio morsels and excavated out to pasture. He soon landed at "The Game" but was mostly doing fill-in. It's a shame someone of Woodson's talent won't be a part of the Bay Area radio landscape, but as he quoted Sinatra, "that's enough."
On his terms, that's good enough for Ray Woodson, which is good enough for me.
